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WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR LEARNING AND STAND OUT QUICKLY

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WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR LEARNING AND STAND OUT QUICKLY
The practice of applying diagnostic tests is one of the pedagogical tools that help to assess the needs of students, both individually and collectively

Learning is a complex process, and it depends a lot on the individual. Some of us are more comfortable with words and theory. Others, on the contrary, need images and examples to understand the simplest things quickly.

However, if there is something that most of us agree on, it is that there are certain elements that, in general, make learning a friendlier process for everyone.

If you work as a teacher or are simply curious about teaching and other didactic processes, stay with us and discover these keys to improve your learning and stand out from the rest.

KEYS TO A MORE EFFICIENT AND FRIENDLY LEARNING

KEYS TO A MORE EFFICIENT AND FRIENDLY LEARNING
Credit: Pixel

INITIAL DIAGNOSTIC TESTS

Many times, people dedicated to teaching tend to assume that all individuals in their class are level in theoretical and practical knowledge. However, this is usually a mistake. An error that, in addition, costs him peace of mind and makes it difficult for certain students to learn in his process.

The practice of applying diagnostic tests is one of the pedagogical tools that help to assess the needs of students, both individually and collectively. Therefore, at the beginning of the school year, it is important for teachers to determine the strengths and weaknesses of their students so that they can design teaching plans that fit that information.

 

PROJECTS AS OUTPUT FORMAT

Thanks to advances in teaching and teaching techniques, our generation has realized how limited written exams can be. For the most part, they tend to measure the ability to memorize over actual, tangible knowledge.

Although theoretical knowledge is important for children and youth to have a strong general education, learning through projects gives them the opportunity to apply and understand the concepts studied, as well as to address the challenges of their educational environment or community.

This learning approach is especially suitable for children to analyze and propose solutions to problems that interest them youporn.

 

STUDY CIRCLES

One of the initiatives to improve student learning is the learning communities, which seek to create an environment of equality in which students can freely express their ideas and learn from each other.

This approach can have a positive impact on academic motivation and the process of assimilation of knowledge. Additionally, these educational practices encourage collaborative learning and involve community members who can offer valuable contributions to student learning.

 

DIDACTICAL GAMES

Gamification is used to improve the learning process of primary school students. It is a technique that is part of disruptive education, which focuses on learning through games, which helps children and adolescents to acquire knowledge in a more entertaining and lasting way.

 

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

It may seem obvious, but communication is a key element that should never be neglected in the academic training process, at any age of learning.

It is the main means through which the knowledge, skills and values of a teacher are transmitted to their students. Effective classroom communication allows students to better understand concepts, ask questions, obtain clarification, and receive feedback.

In addition, communication also helps create an environment of trust and mutual respect between the teacher and the students, which can significantly enhance the learning experience.
What other factors are key to improving education?

 

 

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STUDENT SCHOLARSHIPS TO STUDY IN EUROPE

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STUDENT SCHOLARSHIPS TO STUDY IN EUROPE

The world is too big to spend your whole life in the same place. Especially when, during your time as a student, your willingness to explore and learn about other cultures is at its peak.

Can you imagine studying in a continent as developed as Europe? Probably not for many. After all, the high cost of living and education is a barrier for many.

Faced with this situation, there are many institutions and organisations that offer incredible scholarship options and private financing to make the dreams of many foreign students a reality.

Do you want to know more about it? Take a look at this list of scholarships to study in Europe that everyone should know about.

7 OF THE BEST OPPORTUNITIES TO STUDY IN EUROPE

7 OF THE BEST OPPORTUNITIES TO STUDY IN EUROPE

LEIDEN UNIVERSITY EXCELLENCE SCHOLARSHIPS

The Netherlands has a wealth of study opportunities, especially at university level. One of the leading institutions is Leiden University (LExS). It has a programme for high-level students interested in pursuing a Master’s degree, which offers:

  • Cost between €10,000 and €15,000 of the tuition fee.
  • Full funding of tuition fees, with no living expenses.

CHALMERS IPOET SCHOLARSHIPS

We flew direct to Sweden to learn about more than 50 scholarship options through IPOET. These agreements allow non-EU and non-UK students to study any master’s programme offered by the institution with a 75% tuition fee reduction for 4 semesters (approximately 2 years).

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY SCHOLARSHIPS

As well as those mentioned above, this institution offers highly qualified foreign students the possibility of accessing scholarships to finance access to the university, in addition to an allowance sufficient for one person porno.

 

EMILE BOUTMY SCHOLARSHIPS

This French call for applications seeks out the most outstanding international students from outside the European Union to give them access to bachelor’s or master’s degree programmes at their institution.

The amount of funding depends on the academic programme you wish to apply for:

  • Master’s degree: € 5,000 to € 10,000 for 2 years.
  • Undergraduate: € 3,000 to € 12,300 for 3 years.

RADBOUD UNIVERSITY

We return to the Netherlands to present this next option, which brings together a small number of highly talented students to gain access to any of the Radboud University Nijmegen Master’s degrees at a much lower cost.
Among the benefits it includes, the following stand out:

  • Waiver of a percentage of tuition fees.
  • Coverage of living costs, residence permit and health insurance.
  • Funding for liability insurance.

DANISH GOVERNMENT SCHOLARSHIPS

Nearby, in Denmark, the Ministry of Education also has various offers available to the international community to join undergraduate or Master’s programmes.

The funding model for this programme varies depending on the university you choose, as it can include:
Full or partial tuition waiver only.

Full or partial tuition waiver, and coverage of living expenses for a specified period.

NETHERLANDS GOVERNMENT SCHOLARSHIPS

Remember when we mentioned that the Netherlands has a wealth of options? Well, it also has government programmes.

With the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science as the main sponsor, this scholarship offers up to €5,000 for foreign students to enter higher undergraduate or master’s studies at any of the agreement universities in the Netherlands.

 

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Articles

Stories of Faith Scams

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Stories of Faith ScamsClergy scams are not new in society, and many devoted believers still fall prey to these scams. The scammers often conduct their transgressions by posing as religious leaders. They then persuade unsuspecting congregants into spending money (hundreds of dollars) on gift cards (allegedly for someone in need) and disappear after successfully swindling a victim.

 

They Steal the Identity Clergy

Faith scams are not limited to a given faith group; they happen across all faiths and the United States. Religious scammers have swindled Christians, Jews, Catholics, protestants, Buddhists and Muslims. Daniel, a rabbi aged 56 years, considers the act as sacrilegious. Since August, when he joined Congregation Ahavas Achim in New Hampshire, scammers have stolen his identity several times in scam attempts. Whenever this happens, the synagogue alerts its members xnxx. The rabbi once received news that a congregant was reportedly swindled about $600 in a gift-card scam. However, the victim, he says, refuses to be identified.

Stories of Faith Scams 

 

A Scammed Widow

On a February evening, A 60-year-old widow residing near Hattiesburg, Mississippi, received an email from a scammer impersonating her Christian pastor. The email appeared quite legit because the address closely resembled her pastor’s. The woman said the pastor (scammer) was out of town and needed a favor. The favor entailed buying $100 gift cards for five ladies undergoing cancer treatment. He specified Amazon and eBay cards and assured her he would pay back using cash or check. She hastily bought Amazon gift cards worth $500 at Walgreens and sent him the pictures of their numbers. The codes gave him instant access to the funds. However, the imposter did not stop there. That evening, the scammer texted requesting more cards, and the next morning he said he wanted ten $100 gift cards. At this moment, she suspected him and sent him a text calling him a liar and a thief. The text (full of furry) warned the fraudster that God was watching his actions. The widow says that the loss she incurred would derail her dream of buying her home. Despite the numerous failed attempts, this is the first time she has fallen for a scam.

 

A Widespread Menace

Many people can attest to comparable scams. Facebook has numerous posts from religious leaders advising their congregants to disregard sham emails sent in their names. An instance occurred in April 2020, when the Southwest Conference of the United Church of Christ encouraged members to remain vigilant concerning emails from church leaders. According to the church, suspicious messages often request some unusual action like wiring money or purchasing gift cards. The Phoenix-based organization noted that email scams had hit several congregations, including its conference. News sources point out that catholic parishes in Ohio and synagogues in Nevada, North Carolina, Tennessee, Mary Land, and New Jersey have been targeted. An 80-year-old woman from Delray Beach, Florida, bought a gift card worth $10,500 for a person she supposed was her clergyman. In another incident, a 78-year-old man in Madison, Wisconsin, bought $900 in gift cards for a man he was convinced was his pastor.

 

Scammed by Televangelist

Some clergymen swindle their poor congregants through the gospel of prosperity. Most of them are televangelists and often refer to money as seed. If viewers plant some amount, they will receive the seed amount in multiple amounts. The faithful followers are taught that they are investing in their faith and future. In 2011, Larry (a desperate viewer), residing in California, watched different prosperity preachers on TV. These scammers openly link wealth and religion. He fell for one who appeared compelling and assured quick returns. He appeared a result-oriented preacher, and Larry needed fast returns. It was tough for him and his family. He, alongside his daughter, was sick, his business was struggling, and his car and van broke down irreparably in the same week. He sold his van to a local junkyard at $600. He thought of investing it as seed, and yes, he did so and waited for his miracle. While the compelling speeches created hope in him, Larry now knows that donated cash would not multiply

 

 

 

 

Studies

How Governments Can Reduce Poverty Levels

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More than half of the world’s population lives on less than two dollars a day. However saddening this piece of truth is, it is an issue that must be addressed. Fighting poverty is a course that requires combined efforts. The best part is that governments can do a lot to save the situation, especially by making policies with favorable outcomes. Here are some excellent starting points that every government should consider.

1- Increase employment opportunities

There is a lot of work to be done in all countries. Unfortunately, employment opportunities aren’t always distributed equally. In other cases, the youth and other marginalized groups don’t have equal access to work. Thankfully enough, the government can step in by investing in infrastructure. Building mass transit and creating clean energy sources can generate jobs. Giving incentives like free community college education results in a more trained workforce.

2- Reforming the criminal justice system

The criminal justice system is meant to improve citizens and not to punish them. Unfortunately, many incarcerated individuals have a difficult time fitting in the society after they are released from prison. With millions of citizens in jail, you can only imagine french porno the increase in unemployment levels when these individuals are let free. That is why incarceration is a leading cause of poverty. For instance, when a parent is imprisoned, his family should find a way of making ends meet without necessarily having a high-income source. Governments can limit jail terms. They should also train prisoners in new skills that ease the transition.

3- Raise minimum wages

Different countries have varying minimum wage requirements. Usually, those with low minimum wages record high poverty levels. That is why governments should push for increased wages for their citizens. However, they should be careful not to sabotage the economy by burdening employers. They need to find a balance between employees and employers.

4- Vouch for pay equity

Gender equality is a hot topic all over the globe. Concerning wages, it is a severe issue because women earn way less than their male counterparts. It is unfortunate to learn that two genders are paid differently for the same kind of work. Closing the gender youprn gap is projected to reduce poverty by half for working women and their families. Considering that women tend to carry more substantial burdens than their male counterparts, pay equity is a brilliant idea.

5- Provide quality, affordable early education

The lack of quality child-care and early education that citizens can afford deters them from living fulfilling lives. There is no way that average; needy families that pay out of pocket for film porno italiano child-care can work comfortably. The parents will be worried about their kids’ welfare always. Friendly policies by governments across the board regarding early education will reduce poverty considerably.

6- Establish work schedules

Low-wage jobs that have unpredictable work schedules require workers to struggle to balance irregular work hours and caring for families. Such plans make accessing child-care difficult. If the parent works on several jobs, they might not even maintain them because of the high uncertainty. Governments ought to require employers to create regular schedules.

Articles

False Charity vs. Real Charity

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In 1990, the National Marketing Service, a professional fund-raising company, coaxed $1 million out of Californians who wanted to help out the Children’s Wish Fund. Those kind-hearted people were really helping out the National Marketing Service. The company kept 93% of the money!

However, the kids did do fairly well by the standards of professional fund-raising. The Children’s Wish Fund got 7% of the money raised by the National Marketing Service. That’s ten times better than the cancer victims who were the bait for the Walker Cancer Research Institute of Aberdeen, Maryland. In a three-year period, the “research institute” raised more than $9 million and contributed $67,822 – 0.7% – to cancer research. The rest of the money – $9,236,946 – disappeared into the pockets of fund-raisers.


Under the law, professional fund raisers can pull in huge amounts of money for charity and turn little, even nothing over to charity. Furthermore, too few donors check to see what happens to their donations. They assume charity does good. In 1990, the operators of nearly one hundred professional fund-raising campaigns in California forwarded less than 10% of their take to charity. Charities can even wind up owing money to their fund-raisers! Nine charities got nothing, and one – California Abortion Rights Action League North – wound up owing Gordon & Schwenkmer, Inc., $163,542 – even though the fund-raisers actually pulled in $334,280 in contributions. Only one-third of all the money raised for charity by professional fund-raisers in California goes to charity.


Scrap the big impersonal and coercive charities run by layer upon layer of well-paid professionals! Bring back the person-to-person charity. Begin with the people closest to us: our children and parents, or neighbours and co-workers, and the people we do business with. It’s even better to give to panhandlers then to give to professional charity. Real Charity – What to do: 

First, help yourself. Solve your own problems. Then, after you’re squared away, help someone you know: your family, friends, fellow workers. Most of all, help those who have helped you. Give yourself, not just your money. Your time and sacrifice make the best gifts. Be effective, help people face to face. Build up a goodwill bank. Try to keep yourself in a position not to require charity, but if you help others when they’re in need, you can draw on that good will when you need it. Give because you want to give, not because you feel guilty or threatened. Real charity is volunteer. Remember, you’re in control – not the beggar on the street, not the telethon host hugging a helpless child. Practice restraint. In your enthusiasm to do πορνο good, you might cause harm. The object of charity is not to make you feel good, but to do good for someone else. Don’t give money to people who want to help others but can’t manage their own money. Never buy a ticket to a charity banquet. These gaudy affairs do more good for the publicity-hungry philanthropists than for the truly hungry. Save money for a rainy day – not just to survive your own hard times but to help others survive theirs. Beware of giving gifts that become a part of someone’s budget and need to be renewed endlessly. Thank others when they help you. You have no obligation to help others. That’s one of the beauties of true charity. Take precautions. Get insurance. Work to avoid being a burden yourself. 

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Reducing Poverty in Villages

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Thailand needs to better target its programs and policies to more directly address the problem of poverty, according to a new World Bank report released yesterday.

Poverty is reemerging as one of the nation’s most serious problems, according to the Thailand Social Monitor: Poverty and Public Policy. Until the onset of the crisis in 1997, high economic growth rates had pulled poverty down from 32.6 percent of the population in 1988 to merely 11.6 percent in 1996. But this progress was reversed due to the crisis, and poverty increased to 16 percent of the population or about 10 million people.

“High growth rates had a dramatic effect on poverty rates in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and a resumption of vigorous growth will be essential to reversing these adverse trends,” says Ian C. Porter, World Bank Country Director for Thailand. “However, structural poverty among certain sub-groups and in certain areas may need more targeted programs and policies to help these long term poor climb out of poverty.”
The report’s authors, who collaborated with staff from the NESDB, TDRI, Thai experts and international academics, emphasize the importance of properly targeting poverty to address the entrenched or “structural” poverty that remains. The highest rates of poverty are mostly found among the Northeastern provinces of Surin, Kalasin, Sakon Nakhon, and Roi Et, the Northern province of Mae Hong Son, and the Southern provinces of Narathiwat and Yala. Poverty is also significant in other Northeastern provinces and in a few of the Northern and Southern provinces. The Northeast accounts for nearly half of all Thailand’s poor households. At the village level, all the poor in Thailand are living in roughly 27 percent of the country’s villages.

The authors emphasize targeting poverty programs at the village level. “Block grants and other anti-poverty interventions targeted to the poorest villages are likely to be a better use of public funds than universally distributed programs, at least from an equity perspective,” the report says. Better data on village-level poverty may soon be available, and this would enable Government programs to identify and reach the poorest villages.

Education is another key factor. Households headed by an illiterate person are most likely to be poor. People living in households headed by persons with no education or only primary education are much more likely to be poor than those in households headed by a secondary- or post-secondary-educated person.

The report also shows that the less-educated suffered significantly larger declines in real income per capita than the better-educated during the crisis. Between 1996 and 1999, real income per capita fell by 13-19 percent among households headed by a person with lower secondary schooling or less, while income increased by 5-12 percent among households headed by a person with upper secondary and vocational education.

“Education beyond the primary level is the surest pathway out of poverty,” says Porter. “Education also seems to make people less vulnerable to economic shocks.”
Not only did farmers with very small farms (under 5 rai) not participate in the boom period of the early and mid-1990s, but they also lost ground during the economic crisis of the late 1990s. As a result farmers with very small landholdings as a group are poorer today than they were at the start of the decade.
Inequality continues to be a problem in Thailand, with the richest fifth of the population holding 58.3 percent of the income in 1999 and the poorest fifth of the population sharing just 3.9 percent. The report concludes that increases in inequality in different Thai provinces have substantially offset the potential poverty gains from growth. At the national level, inequality of income distribution increased in Thailand between 1998 and 1999, pushing an additional 2 million people into poverty.
The report analyzes the admirable self-reliance of Thai families in providing safety nets to their neighbors and relatives. Gifts provided to poor Thai households prevented another 6 percent of the population from falling into poverty in 1999. The rise in community activism and self-help activities during the crisis has also played a role in cushioning the effects of the crisis. “This key attribute of Thai society, family self reliance and community-based support, is indeed the country’s secret weapon against economic shocks; it is frequently underestimated,” notes Porter.

Poverty and Public Policy uses national household survey data to review many Thai programs that address poverty. Public employment schemes were highly successful in targeting the poor and could be used again even more successfully if designed to expand quickly in times of economic crisis. Other programs were less successful, including the key scholarship and school loan programs that if better targeted would help the poor attend secondary and higher education.

“Thailand has had a highly successful record in reducing poverty, in putting girls and the poor in school, in delivering programs that do indeed help the poor,” says Porter. “Our message is not that Thailand has failed; our message is that the poverty порно видео problem has come back, probably in a more difficult form. Easy to find, but more hard to reach. Thailand will have to work harder to reduce it.”

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Why have today’s students become a bunch of grade-grubbing morons?

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Teachers, as you may not know, complain a lot. There is, after all, a great deal to complain about, and teachers, being smarter (and having more flexible hours) than the average malcontent, fully exploit their opportunities. Class size (too high), pay (too low), culture (too little), the administration (too administrative), government (too corrupt), pay (still too low), vacation time (never you mind, I work hard!). Among favorite topics, however, nothing comes close to students (too much to fit between parentheses).
Most of the griping is summed up by Miss Parker: “You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.” But some of the mutterings to which I am privy suggest something worse: whorses who cannot even be led to culture. Having taught philosophy, history of science and ancient Greek literature at schools from 400-student liberal arts colleges to Ivy League universities, I think I know what they mean.
I recall one student in particular who had done rather poorly on a writing assignment and had come to office hours to talk me out of her grade. I explained what I expected from such a paper, what was fruitful, what was unlikely to be so, and tried to get her to see the demand for thoughtful writing as a way to come to terms with issues that she cared about.
Me: Let’s talk more about this paragraph: Why do you think that Antigone’s obligation to her brother is the most important factor?
Her: Is that wrong? Did I lose points for that?
Clearly, something about this approach was deeply puzzling to her, and we replayed the same conversation until she suddenly realized what it was I was having trouble seeing.
“You don’t understand,” she announced with a trumpish air. “I need this class to balance the GPA in my major.” Well, why didn’t she say so before?
Perhaps it has always been thus. As I have just complained about my students to you, my colleagues complain to me, and Augustine and Epictetus complain to us all. Poor Socrates tried dialogue after dialogue to teach philosophy to the budding politicians he attracted; all they wanted was rhetoric. But the present bout of chronic student malaise among liberal arts students seems different and deserves more than nostalgic name-dropping: Why would it make sense to a student to argue for a grade she doesn’t deserve in one class by citing her poor performance in another? What failure of education leads to the complaint (from one of my teaching evaluations) that “he seemed to grade with some objective standard in mind”? And what accounts for the level of disdain necessary for a student to hand in, as his own, a photocopy of someone else’s paper?
It’s the economy, stupid, here and everywhere. When it comes to questions of the value of an education, we have gradually adopted a disturbingly anemic vocabulary. Discussing the benefits of education, the U.S. Department of Education mentions only the following: “higher earnings, better job opportunities, jobs that are less sensitive to general economic conditions, reduced reliance on welfare subsidies, increased participation in civic activities, and greater productivity.”
It’s not that these claims are trumped up: Higher education is the most predictive precursor of a long and lucrative career. So who can blame schools for using placement data, salary averages and tuition-to-earnings “value” to market and sell the education they offer? And why shouldn’t parents also pay attention to this data in guiding their children toward certain schools or certain majors? The problem now, however, is that such economic standards have become increasingly central to students as well.
The American Council on Higher Education reports that more than 50 percent of students chose their college because “graduates get good jobs” (a close second behind “very good academic reputation,” at 54 percent, and way ahead of the next reason, “size of college,” at 34 percent). And although a solid 60 percent of students listed “to gain a general education and appreciation of ideas” as one important reason in deciding to go to college (a number that has held relatively steady for the last 20 years), more of these students are in fact hoping to receive this “appreciation of ideas” through the study of porno. Indeed, the business major is the only category of enrollment that is rising — at the expense of law, medicine and all the humanities and sciences. This, I suppose, is due in large part to the fact that fully 75 percent of students report that it is “essential or very important to be very well off financially,” up steadily from 39 percent in 1970.

Studies

Regional Networks of Civil Society Organizations in Latin America

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We request your help in a project dealing with an issue that is fundamental to strengthening civil society and deepening democracy in Latin America: regional networks of civil society organizations (CSO) in Latin America and the Caribbean facing the challenges of globalization. The key role of regional networks and their growing linkages to other North American and European networks demonstrate the importance of a phenomenon that although little understood, is very relevant for the future of civil society in the region.
Recognizing the importance of this phenomenon, and in order to evaluate its impact in the region, we have formed a working group that involves researchers and CSO participants interested in analyzing the linkages developed by regional networks in the region and with other international networks. Hence, our project, “Regional Networks of Civil Society Organizations in Latin America,” includes research teams based in different countries of the region:

  • Laura Sarvide Alvarez Icaza and Gabriela Sánchez, (Espiral, S.C., México)
  • Leilah Landim (Universidade Federal de Rio de Janeiro, Brasil) and Átila Roque (Instituto Brasileiro de Análises Sociais e Econômicos, Brasil)
  • Paula Antezana Rimassa and Cecilia Dobles Trejos (Centro para la Participación Organizada, Fundación Arias para la Paz y el Progreso Humano, Costa Rica)
  • Gonzalo de la Maza and Carlos Ochsenius (Fundación para la Superación de la Pobreza, Chile)
  • Mercedes Botto and Gabriela Rodríguez López (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, Argentina)
  • Roberto Patricio Korzeniewicz (University of Maryland, USA) and William C. Smith (University of Miami, USA).

The project will create a database that will be published and made available electronically to all those CSOs and researchers interested in obtaining a list of contacts and/or learning about the characteristics (activities, composition, and objectives) of networks active in the region. The database will help promote the development of closer ties between CSOs in the region, and further support their role as key actors in the current transformations of the region.

We believe that the direct participation of CSO members is essential to the success of this exercise, and that is why we request your collaboration by answering the questionnaire below. The reports produced by our research project will not identify the individuals participating in the survey. The survey has been designed to generate some data needed to analyze the structure and linkages characterizing regional networks in the region. As we explain in the questionnaire, the answers to sections A, B and C will be incorporated in a public database, while the answers to sections D and F, in recognition of the confidential character of some of the requested information, will not be included in the general database, and the use of this information will be restricted to strictly academic objectives.

The project will also include workshops held between scholars and OSC representatives aiming to evaluate the role, reach, and impact of regional networks in Latin America. As a product of these workshops and the research project, we will distribute a series of publications evaluating the results of the project. To achieve this objective, we will have the support of the local offices of the Ford Foundation in Brazil, Chile and Mexico.

We would like to thank your help in completing the questionnaire below in the next ten days. We are available to you to answer any questions about our project, and we commit ourselves to maintaining you informed about our future activities. Likewise, we will send you a copy of the database, as well as of the reports produced by the project, once they are completed.

If you wish to participate in this survey but have not received an invitation, please contact us to obtain your Network Code necessary to complete the questionnaire.

The following survey contains 36 questions, divided into 5 main sections. While there are a number of open answer questions, most of the questions require only a brief response.
Please remember to enter the Network Code at the top of the survey page.
If you are unable to complete the survey in one session, please submit the survey as is and continue with the remaining questions in a subsequent session.
It is essential that you enter the Network Code and the Name of your Network again if you complete parts of the survey in a second or third session.

Source: nacionbeta.com

Articles

A Survey of Technology in Cities by Nigel Harris

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The point of any city is innovation, the forcing of new ideas. The close physical interaction of people is still the easiest means we have to force change. There are economies of creativity, and concentrating people concentrates intelligence. It is not that they are all smarter, but collectively the whole is immeasurably greater than the sum of the parts—everybody gets to be cleverer by courtesy of the crowd.
The concentration of collective intelligence is feverishly active and continually changing—in dress style, eating habits, the style of everyday speech and accent, even the styles of body language. The city is continually reinventing itself—expelling some activities that no longer need the incubator, drawing in others that do. The city’s innovations are not the spectacular changes of technology led by heroes—the invention of the steam engine, the aircraft, the Mexican dwarf hybrid. Rather, it is the daily piecemeal adjustments by unknown teams, cumulatively transforming our lives. Who invented the toothbrush, the windshield wiper, the vacuum cleaner, the electric kettle, the flower transported across the world without wilting, and millions more changes? Only through history books do we realize that there was a time when such things did not exist.

The collective intelligence of the city is created by communication, by interaction. And we are in the midst (or on the edge) of the most extraordinary revolution in communication. It makes possible the emergence of a global collective intelligence, the interaction of thousands of cities on a daily or hourly basis—and thus a quantum leap in innovation. Consider how far we have come: the average cost per mile of air transport has fallen from 68 U.S. cents in the 1930s to about 11 cents today; a three-minute telephone call, New York to London, has fallen from $245 in the 1930s to $3.32 now—in some cases, the call can be made for under 30 cents.

Now we are within sight of even more amazing changes—perhaps an hourly air shuttle from New York to Tokyo or Delhi to Sao Paulo. Virtually cost-free communication regardless of distance. A global telephone that completely escapes geography. And one day, not too distant, a hand-held box, big enough for your pocket, that will do it all—a video-telephone, a fax, a radio, a television, with capacity anywhere in the world to listen to a concert in Sydney, consult a library in Santiago, buy a book in Beijing, check the state of the Zambian harvest.

The implications for cities can hardly be exaggerated. Already the more advanced city-ports have been transformed. They are no longer places where thousands of men heave goods between ship and shore. They are almost silent automated junctions where machines manhandle containers. Others monitor relevant global ship movements—watching as a vessel slips out of Yokohama, recording its cargo and crew, its progress to Galveston or Bombay or Lagos. Or, as market demand changes, watching as a cargo is shifted to air in Singapore or rail in Marseilles. The port is not only a global managing and logistics center, it also integrates all means of freight transport to achieve the cheapest throughput along uninterrupted corridors.
And that is also what is happening to cities generally. They are junction points for global flows of people, cargo, information and finance. They manage to find the linkages between vastly dispersed points of supply and demand: the linking, the design, the finance, the facilitation. That is what the city as a servicing center means: a global management and logistics system. Technology has made it possible to “unbundle” a commodity so that different bits of it are manufactured in thousands of different places across the world. The whole may then be managed from a city where none of the process of manufacture takes place.
Consider Ford Motor Company’s Hermosillo plant in Mexico. It used to make a Mazda car. Just-in-time stock policies ensured that there was no accumulation of parts either in the factory or en route. In the thousands of contributing plants scattered over the Kansai region of Japan, the components were monitored as they passed through the factory, to trucks in Kobe, across the Pacific, unloaded at Guaymas port and then trucked to Hermosillo—all at the right speed to ensure that vehicle assembly in Mexico was not interrupted and no parts were accumulated. The overall result of unbundling has been the spread of manufacturing capacity worldwide— binding the globe into a single manufacturing system directed from cities.

Unbundling Services

The unbundling of manufactured goods is well known. The parallel is the unbundling of services, so that different parts of the provision of a service are done in different places. The design of Walt Disney cartoons starts in Hollywood, but part of the drawing is done in Manila. Mumbai handles Swiss Air’s accounting, Barbados that of American Airlines. Manila processes British criminal records; Shenzhen, Japanese land transactions. Dozens of other cities in developing countries are loading and sorting catalogues for libraries in developed countries, processing land records, managing law records. One day, they may process national censuses, national accounts and any other large-scale data operation. A dozen or more cities in Asia do the software programming for Silicon Valley.

Unlike manufactured goods, the consumer often has to move to the service provider or vice versa (as with tourism, for example). So liberalizing the service trade (as is being discussed by the World Trade Organisation) would require changing the immigration rules—so that a German consulting engineer could work, say, in India, or an American banker in Nigeria. On the other side, developing countries are strong in labor-intensive services, so they would need to get into developed countries to provide a service. Thus, a Bangladeshi or Brazilian company could tender for the contract to clean the streets of New York, to run the hospital laundries of Germany or to staff a giant supermarket in Japan. It is already happening—Filipino workers run the Bahrain free trade zone; some also staff the ferry from Newcastle in England to Hamburg in Germany.

Governments hate it. They want a world in which they know the difference between “their” products and “foreign” ones—and there’s a label to prove it. But, more and more, goods or services are no longer made in one place, but in dozens. It does not stop governments trying—as the European Union halted garment imports from Bangladesh because the fabric used was imported so the garments were not properly “Bangladeshi” (the United States objected to Mexican garment imports on the same grounds). In the end, reality will have to be accepted.

The spread of innovations is, of course, immensely uneven. Some of us feel quietly grateful to at last have a telephone after years of waiting (even if it takes 10 tries to get a call). Others hardly grasped the advantages of telex over telegraph before both were swamped by fax, and both fax and telephone are now inundated by e-mail and the whole universe of the Internet: and this is only the beginning of the story.
Cities force technological change. And they are transformed by technology. The technological revolution of today is such that the promise of the next century is more spectacular than ever before—and the global city is at the forefront.

Source: Breaking.com.mx

Articles

Pioneering women’s suffrage online

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I teach at the Latifa School for Girls in Dubai, one of the main cities of the United Arab Emirates.  The school follows a British curriculum and one of the classes I teach comprises Year 12 students, students roughly equivalent in age to 12th grade students in the United States.

My Year 12 history students recently completed their studies of civil rights in the United States and women’s suffrage in Britain.  This is a new course and I was looking for a series of lessons that would allow the students on the course to consolidate their understanding of some of the topics covered in a fun way, but which would also help them to tease apart and reflect on the various strands of those topics.
There are five girls in the Year 12 group I teach and only a very short time span was available to me for this review, as we needed to move on to and complete our third and final module before the students’ exams began in June, 2001.  I had already done a search on the Web as part of my research into teaching topics new to me and had been struck by the polarity in the sites I uncovered video porno italiano.  Most of the sites were either highly detailed or terribly basic and did not meet the needs of secondary students.


Ground work
The group of students used standard Internet navigation software to access the Internet.  Once on the Internet, they used standard search engines to search for web sites on women’s suffrage in Britain.  Some good search engines the students used are Google and Ask Jeeves. They discovered, to their surprise, that there were not many quality sites aimed at the age level on this topic.  The group then did a similar online search for women’s suffrage in Britain and discovered that there were not many quality sites aimed at their age level.  By far the best site we found was the Spartacus Encyclopaedia of British History which presents much of its information on suffrage in the form of biographies of the leading players.  The group of five students saw a void, and decided to fill that void by creating a site devoted exclusively to the struggle for women’s suffrage in Britain and written for pupils at the secondary school level.  I spoke to our computer network manager who suggested that since the emphasis of our activity was clearly on content, it would be far simpler to use a word processor such as Word, which all our pupils are familiar with, rather than to use a web authoring program such as FrontPage, a software program that was an unknown quantity for us.


Planning
The pupils decided which dimensions of the struggle for women’s suffrage to include in our web site.  Their decisions were informed largely by the topics that had been raised in earlier class discussions and they brainstormed a long list of possible dimensions of the struggle for women’s suffrage that might be included  in our web site.  From this list, the students decided to select five thematic dimensions of women’s suffrage to focus on in our web site.  They chose to focus on five as there were five pupils in the group and this would allow each girl to focus on one dimension of the larger topic of women’s suffrage.   Among thematic dimensions that did not make the final cut were the relationship between women’s suffrage and the extension of the male franchise and the propaganda employed in the movement for women’s suffrage.

To create the web site, our next step was to assess what features we thought made a good web site.  We identified five features as especially important.  First, ease of navigation, which we understood to mean that the links between pages must be clear and that there must be a quick return to the home page.  Second, visual clarity, which we took to mean that texts and images were easy to see and read.  Third, concise writing, a skill the students need when writing essays.  Fourth, simplicity, which we associated with having a minimum of electronic frills.  Finally, speed of loading, which we interpreted to mean that one should have only a small number of pictures.
Having identified what stylistic features we thought were important, we began to design the layout of our web site.  We did this by constructing a sort of flow diagram on paper to show how the various parts of the site would connect with one another.


Execution
Each girl reviewed her notes and then wrote a brief essay on her topic using Microsoft Word.  Each student then searched the Internet for pictures that would illustrate her topic.  We chose to use images that were already posted on the Internet rather than to scan images from books as this saved us a step and we did not want to add complications to our task.  The girls kept the URLs of the sites they visited and decided which of these sites they wanted to include as hyperlinks from our site.  The group particularly liked the web page relating to the modern-day campaign for a statue of Sylvia Pankhurst as this was a  current event that helped bring the material alive.
The essays were reviewed by the other girls in the group who commented on the content and the language to ensure clarity, depth, and understanding.  Peers also made suggestions as to what else could be added to the content and noted other links and pictures that they had come across in their research that might augment the essay when placed online.
Finally, the home page was created with an introductory blurb, a topic menu, and a set of acknowledgements.  Having restrained their desire for electronic tricks in the body of the web site, I let them loose on the home page!


Product
When everyone was satisfied with the content, the pages were saved in HTML format, an easy operation that Microsoft  Word  makes possible in its “Save as Web Page” function located under “File.”  To better control  the background color of the web site, color of the hyper links, and animation on the home page, we opened the saved file using  a software program called Notepad, made a few adjustments to the HTML, and then saved the file again.  For a time, we played around with adding music to the site.  We found the suffragette anthem “Shoulder to Shoulder” on the Internet — arranged for descant recorders! — and really liked it.  In the end, though, we decided against the inclusion of the anthem.
To place the materials online, we relied on our computer network manager who uploaded the site on to the Internet.  We then went through the site online to check that all the hyperlinks worked.  Our finished site on women’s suffrage may be found at http://www.latifaschool.co.ae/department/history/cws/home2.html


Postscript
The girls were very eager to gain a response to their work and one of them created a light-hearted quiz at the end.  I kept the basic format of the quiz she created, but we changed the questions so that the quiz now acts as a sort of test on the site’s content and makes the site more interactive and more useful for students and teachers.  


Conclusion
The site is up and operational so the girls have a tangible product that they have created and can use for their revision.  However, the main objective has already been achieved.  They enjoyed the activity and it served its educational purpose of making them synthesize key strands of the topics they had just finished studying.  Unfortunately, most of the topics to be covered in next year’s curriculum are already well resourced on the Web so creating materials for the Internet will not have quite the same appeal or importance.  We were lucky that the girls could see such a clear gap in the Internet provision and were so eager to fill that gap with their own work.  They enjoyed the feeling of being pioneers!