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Eye
Care PC
by Carrie Soh
To delay the onset of myopia in children as well as to prevent and reduce myopia progression, the Health Promotion Board launched a National Myopia Prevention Programme (NMPP) in August 2001. The “Take Vision Break” programme which uses a pop-up message to prompt users to take a five-minute break after every 40 minutes on the computer, is one such initiative. “While the pop-up message is a good reminder, the child can still choose to ignore the reminder, especially when the parents are working and not around to monitor them,” said Madam Tan Lee Suang, Lecturer, Electronics Department, ITE College West (Dover Campus). A mother herself, Lee Suang is only too aware of what children can be up to, when left on their own. Proper
Computer Etiquette Helps Prevent and Reduce Myopia Progression Explained Lee Suang: “After 40 minutes of usage, the screen would enter secure mode and blank out for five minutes, thus forcing the child to rest his or her eyes during that time span. After more than an hour and a half of continuous usage, a message would pop-up on the screen to remind the child to save whatever work he or she may be doing on the computer. Following which, the computer would be logged off and an SMS message would be sent to alert the parent that the child has exceeded the recommended computer usage time. Similarly, a warning message would pop-up if a child sits too near the screen. If he or she ignores the warning message for three times, the computer would be logged off and a SMS message sent to alert the parent about the distance violation. In both cases, only the parents have the authority to reactivate the computer for the child’s usage by sending back the password via a SMS message.” Making
Waves Abroad Some 120 families who tried out the gadget expressed interest in purchasing the Eye-Care PC. Not only that, the paper written by the trio was also published in the Science Direct Journal, an international publication. “It feels good to see my students accomplishing their projects and I’m really happy that Paulin’s paper was published,” said an elated Lee Suang, who modestly downplayed her role in the collaboration. In actual fact, Lee Suang’s successful collaboration with Paulin and Dr Sadasivan had certainly elevated ITE to the global stage. Not only is her feat a testament to the level of professionalism and capabilities inherent in all our teaching staff, it also brings ITE closer to actualising its vision of becoming a Global Leader in Technical Education.
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WOULDN’T
it be wonderful to have the keen eyesight of an eagle? There would be
no need for spectacles and we would be able to detect objects as far as
two miles away. Sadly, about half of our children would have said goodbye
to perfect eyesight by the time they turn twelve. According to the statistics
provided by the Singapore Eye Research Institute, myopia afflicts 25%
of 7-year olds, 33% of 9-year olds, 50% of 12-year olds and more than
80% of 18-year old males in Singapore. 