Drill The Dental Myths!

We have come across many common dental myths and misconceptions and we thought it may be helpful to shine some light on these to reduce unnecessary anxiety towards your dental visit – your dentists are actually your friend in need J

MYTH: There is no need to clean/ brush milk teeth since they will fall out eventually

FACT: Although children’s milk teeth will eventually fall out, it is important that young children do not develop tooth decay as the milk teeth are placeholders for permanent teeth. Besides being important in the development of chewing and speech, they are also important for appearance and holding space in the jaw (space maintenance) for the eventual eruption of the permanent teeth.

MYTH : I’ll need false teeth when I’m older

FACT: It is possible for a person to still retain most of their teeth when they are older. Dentures or other teeth replacement are not an inevitable part of ageing, provided a person maintains good oral care habits and visits the dentist twice a year. Being older does not mean you will lose your teeth naturally.

We will drill away other dental myths in the coming issues of the Maple Leaf Times. Free to contact us with your questions. To find out more about other dental solutions or to make an appointment, visit www.specialistdentalgroup.com

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Specialist Dental Group is a corporate sponsor of the Canadian Association of Singapore (CAS). CAS members enjoy a special rate for dental services. For details, send an enquiry via www.specialistdentalgroup.com or call 6733 7883

Fish

By Herb Pilles

After wandering through Sentosa’s new aquarium I was flush with inspiration and rushed right over to my local fish market the next morning.  If your Singapore experience has not included an early morning visit to the wet market, and if you love fresh, local produce and food-less-travelled, you have missed something quintessentially Asian.  Sure you can buy fish at the supermarket, but you would miss out meeting some great characters (the fish sellers, not the fish), and you would miss an astonishing  variety of seafood that could not be any fresher unless you had caught it yourself.

Mr. Chua Han Kuan of Yuhua Market on Jurong East Ave 1 holds up my dinner, a gorgeous red snapper.  It was cooked whole, stuffed with lemon and fresh dill, both sides slashed, then rubbed with tahini sauce, sprinkled with crushed fennel and cumin seeds, and  baked in a hot oven for about 30 minutes.  Still hot from the oven, it was doused then basted with a cup of flaming Pernod.  It was superb!

HOW TO CLEAN A SQUID

“But what do I do with it?”  While most fish are pretty straight forward, some things can be intimidating, such as cleaning a squid, but if you can get over the squeemishness, the results are infinitely rewarding.

1:  Grasp the squid by the head and gently pull it out of the tube.  You may wish to keep the tentacles, but discard the head.   You can keep the tentacles together in the shape of a crown by carefully cutting around the top of the head, keeping a small band intact.

2: Poking out of the top of the sack you will find what looks like a clear piece of plastic.  Pull it out in one piece and discard.

 3:  Firmly grab one of the fins and pull it away from the body, taking the thin membrane of reddish skin with it.  The skin and the other fin should all come off nicely in one piece, but pull off any bits you might have missed.  Discard.

4:  Check the inside of the sack to see if you’ve missed anything, like some undigested little fish. 

5:  From here on, it’s easy.   Cut it into lovely rings, into squares, or leave it whole to be stuffed.  Whatever you decide, and depending on your recipe, cook squid for less than a minute, or for over an hour!

Defining Educational Technology

By Mike Pelletier,
Head of Head of Educational Technology

Canadian International School

The role of technology has dramatically changed in schools and will continue to change how schools operate. Terms such as gamification, online learning, blended learning, and digital storytelling, are changing the way we communicate and share information.

How did this happen? When I started teaching in 1996, technology used to involve setting up a computer and connecting to the Internet in a computer lab. Now we discuss technology under the lens of creating interactions through global collaborations with content created by both learners and teachers. In essence EdTech has everything to do with the K-12 curriculum. CIS is moving in a direction that is critical to the future of student learning.

What is most interesting is that my job did not exist 10 years ago and your children will more than likely be working at a job that doesn’t exist today.  This is one of the main reasons why CIS is moving from an IT based management style to an EdTech management focus. The focus is on adjusting how the network responds to classroom learning, how we support these tools, and how learners should use these tools.

As schools support technology through a strong and stable network, professional development, up to date teacher and student tools, movement from the level of Substitution to Augmentation, Modification to the ultimate goal of Redefinition begin to take place.

Please follow us on our twitter channel @cisedtech to see what changes will be coming and what celebrations we want to highlight at CIS in the world of EdTech.