Hello there, I’m Rahman.
I started out studying Applied Biology, but that journey eventually led me into education, and somehow I ended up teaching English.
I then went on to study TESL and then furthered my studies in Applied Linguistics. Eventually moving from the classroom to the district education office where I work with educational technology.
Not exactly a career plan.
However through all that Education has been the one constant. The subject changed, the job changed and the technology certainly changed, but I have always ended up somewhere around teachers, students, learning and figuring out how things can be done just a little bit better.
How did I get here
I spent many years teaching English in secondary schools. Teaching was how I learnt most of my belief about education: that good ideas still have to work in actual classroom, that technology is only useful when it makes something easier or better, and teacher usually have enough workload with out somebody coming up with another complicated solution (me!).
Eventually, my work moved beyond my own classroom.
These days, I work at the district education office in the Educational Resources and Technology Unit. Supporting schools and teachers.
The job may have changed, but I still enjoy the same parts, learning something, trying it myself, and then helping others make sense of it.
Along the way, several other things have somehow refused to disappear.
Applied Biology
Universiti Sains Malaysia
Substitute Teacher
Somehow, education begins.
Dip. Ed – English
Maktab Perguruan Ilmu Khas
English Teacher
16 years in secondary schools
Applied Linguistics
Universiti Utara Malaysia
Unit Sumber & Teknologi Pendidikan
Education + Technology
Education
I have changed direction quite a few times along the way.
I moved from the Art stream to the Science stream, studied Biology at university, and eventually found myself teaching English.
That slightly unusual route probably explains why I have never been particularly attached to one subject or one way of doing things.
What interests me more is how people learn, how teachers teach, and what actually works in practice.
Technology
I’ve always liked technology. I even started a small tech business during my uni days.
These days, though, most of my interest begins with a problem. Can this be automated? Is there an easier way to run this event? Can a teacher use this without spending half the lesson figuring it out?
That curiosity has led me through websites, educational technology, video production, automation, AI, 3D printing and plenty of experiments along the way.
Some become useful projects. Some last a weekend. Both are fine.
Co-Academics
I’ve dabbled in co-academics for quite a while, but Debate and Scrabble are the ones I keep coming back to.
I used to be closer to the classroom side of these activities. However, these days, I am more likely to be organising competitions, managing tournaments, preparing pupils, solving logistical problems or helping things happen quietly behind the scenes.
I still love it for the same reason I did when I first started. They give students room to think, speak, compete, make mistakes and sometimes surprise themselves with what they can do.
Writing and tinkering
I have always like projects, making things.
Sometimes that means a website. Sometimes it is a small tool, a spreadsheet, a workflow or an unnecessarily complicated solution to a very minor problem.
And sometimes it simply means writing something down.
Why Rahman’s Space exists
This site has been around in one form or another for a very long time.
Over the years, it has been a blog, a place to dump resources, somewhere to write tutorials, a home for little projects, and occasionally just a place to keep things that I know I will forget if I do not write them down.
So what kind of space is it now?
Honestly, probably all of those things.
It is not quite a portfolio.
It is not quite a blog either.
I have never been good at keeping it to one thing.
It is simply my little corner of the web. My space (eh?).
A place for work, ideas, useful things, half-finished experiments, things I am tinkering with, and whatever happens to be on my mind at the time.
I suppose that is why it is still around. After all these years, I still like having a small piece of the internet that is mine.
And knowing me, there will always be something new to learn, something to experiment with, or something worth teaching.
DISCO · EXPERIOR · DOCEO
I learn · I experiment · I teach.
The adventure continues.