Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Dubai Women's College to organize 6th International Conference on Excellence in Education 2012 on Jan.10

The conference, to get off the ground with a set of high-calibre workshops, has carved a niche for itself as a global educational platform. The previous 5th conferences, staged by ICIE in conjunction with prestigious universities, were convened beginning in 2008 in Paris, Ulm in Germany, Amman in Jordan, Athens in Greece and Istanbul in Turkey.

The outcomes of these conferences, focusing on excellence in education, were of paramount importance. They were published and made available to different institutions for potential benefits.

Dr. Howard Reed, Director of Dubai Women's College (DWC), said that he is looking forward to meeting 'Excellence in Education 2012' conference as it has assembled a distinguished group of innovative educators to share their ideas and enthusiasm and build a network of educators that are passionate about doing it better.

This year's edition will bring together more than 800 government ministers, scholars and educators in different disciplines, providing them with a platform to discuss education-related issues from the perspectives of educators, psychologists, physicists, engineers, doctors, sociologists and decision-makers.

The conference is to focus on educational excellence, quality education, giftedness, creativity, leadership, e-learning, education for peace, learning environment, core education issues, programme development, integrated services and future trends.

The organizers expect participation from ministers of education and higher education as well as presidents of universities and education centres.

Registration is available for everyone interested in getting acquainted with the latest developments in the areas covered by the conference. The targeted audience includes academics, specialists, teachers, and parents, administrators in schools, ministries and universities as well as post-graduate students in relevant majors.

An education exhibition will be held on the sidelines of the conference displaying works by a group of academic institutions, companies and training centres.

A key speaker on the first day of the conference is Ken McCluskey of Winnipeg University in Canada. His speech explores the expansion of enrichment programming to include hitherto marginalized populations: nonconformists, dropouts, the "tough bright", children and youth from minority groups, and young people whose talents surface in domains other than reading, writing, and arithmetic.

His project, already carried out in the Canadian city of Winnipeg, is so successful that it has been supported by some governments in Africa. Experts believe that the United Arab Emirates has contributed to many international projected geared towards promoting literacy in the impoverished countries. McCluskey's initiative harmonizes with these projects.

Also speaking at the key session will be John P. Anchan, of Winnipeg University, who will tackle the role of technology in developing education systems. Anchan is an established educator who has made accomplishments in several countries including the UAE. In his speech at the conference, he will point out that the emerging and increasingly shrinking world with dismantled borders and international networking of technologies has overwhelmed the traditional thinkers in the field of education. He will, moreover, emphasize the effects of education technologies on instruction methods, evaluations, students' performances and trends and knowledge economy.

Meanwhile, Steve Van Bockern of Augustana College in South Dakota, the US, will make a key address titled "The Circle of Courage: A strength-Based Resilient Model for Child and Youth Development".

The Circle of Courage is a strength-based model that challenges traditional deficit-based mindsets about challenged and challenging youth.

The Circle of Courage suggests belonging, mastery, independence and generosity are universal growth needs for all children. When the "circle is broken" and needs aren't met, youth are placed at risk for a host of undesirable outcomes. The model has become a lens for many throughout the world that informs their work with all children and youth.

Speaking on the second day of the conference will be Todd Lubart of Universite Paris Descartes in France. The focus of his speech will be evaluation of potential creativity. Professor Lubart and his team have developed a new battery that allows creative giftedness to be measured.

Available in French, English, Arabic, Turkish and German, this battery includes verbal and graphic subtests that measure the two key modes of creative cognition "divergent-exploratory" thinking and "convergent-integrative thinking" in elementary and middle school students.

The unique instrument can be used as an efficient diagnostic tool to identify creative potential and to monitor progress, using pre-tests and post-tests, in educational programmes designed to enhance creativity. Easy to use by psychologists and educators, this instrument can, for example, help school psychologists to identify, in regular schools, children with creative potential.

Don Ambrose, a key educator in giftedness, creativity and quality education, will give a speech tackling malpractices in education and an outlook for future solutions. In his coming lecture, Ambrose will also spell out his view of individual and institutional creativity. He will also highlight key obstacles to education systems and how to overcome them.

In order to discover the ways in which dogmatism distorts and suppresses the development and manifestation of creative intelligence, he initiated an interdisciplinary project, soliciting contributions from eminent scholars in creative studies, gifted education, history, sociology, economics, psychology, educational critical theory, and theoretical physics.

Ambrose teamed up with Robert Sternberg to bring all of these contributions together into a common, interdisciplinary bridge-building forum. The coming session provides some of the results of the project.

The audience will have the chance to debate with him the characteristics of the innovative teachers, the creative classroom environment and the 21st century potential of teachers and students.

The second day of the conference includes a session by Joseph S. Renzulli, of the National Research Centre on the Gifted and Talented at University of Connecticut, the US. He will focus on the latest advances in instructional communication technology. Renzulli has sought since the 1970s to develop education systems in the US, with his endeavours being designed to providing services, programmes and activities for the gifted, developing education and benefiting ordinary students.

His session will highlight the Renzulli Learning System (RLS) that uses a strength-based learning theory called the Enrichment Triad Model that is purposefully designed to promote advanced level learning, creative productivity, and high levels of student engagement by focusing on the application of knowledge rather than the mere acquisition and storage of information.

A question-and-answer session will be held with key speakers McCluskey, Lubart, Ambrose, and Dr. Taisir Subhi Yamin, the conference chairman.
The key session of the third day will be given by Wolfgang Schnotz on the development of representational skills in childhood and adolescence. Based on a top-level German experiment, Schnotz will talk about excellence in education and quality education. Teachers will benefit from strategies than can be utilized in the classroom while researchers will be updated on the latest developments in this field.

He will analyze different forms of representation and their perceptual as well as cognitive demands on learners from the perspectives of cognitive science, developmental psychology and educational psychology. Empirical findings will be presented regarding the development of corresponding representational skills with children and young adolescents. Perspectives for further research and instructional practice will be pointed out.

In his session, Professor Taisir Subhi Yamin will address gifted education, talent development and international practices: past, present and future. The session is designed to acquaint the audience with the present education of the gifted and talented based on a series of practices in different parts of the world, and will address strategies for extending thinking in addition to the importance of programmes designed to develop productive thinking.

It will also define the prerequisites for gifted education programmes and sustainability as well as assessing them. At the end of the lecture, Prof. Yamin will answer questions related to education of the gifted and investment in giftedness.

Mentorship and the realization of potential in gifted, talented and creative individuals will be the focus of a keynote speech by Trevor J. Tebbs of the Psychology Department at Castleton State College in Vermont , the US.

Mentoring has been a cornerstone of human growth and development worldwide for millennia and has been at the centre of attention in the advanced countries. Although not always referred to as mentoring, the powerful influence of older, wiser, knowledgeable and pedagogically-disposed individuals in the lives of others is an experience common to humankind irrespective of epoch, culture, geographical location, language and other conditions separating groups of people.

As a mentor himself, Dr. Tebbs has long advocated for mentoring as a means whereby gifted potential may be more fully realized. He believes it is not only a simple and convenient way to accommodate exceptional needs of highly able individuals but also profoundly wise from multiple personal, socio-emotional, psychological and societal perspectives. In his lecture, Dr Tebbs will talk about the nature of mentoring programmes, mechanisms and success conditions. He will also present examples of successful mentoring worldwide.

The 10th and final session will be given by Heinz Neber on problem-based learning as a learning environment for the gifted students. This key lecture will tackle highly important issues of relevance to modern education.

A noted German expert in problem-based learning, Neber collaborates with curriculum development specialists. Therefore, this lecture will provide a chance to learn about problem-based learning and its psychological and educational fundamentals as well as how to utilize these strategies to upgrade educational materials and maximize education outputs.

Capping the third day will be a question-and-answer session with key speakers Schnotz , Tebbs, Neber, and Yamin.

Ten workshops will be held on the sidelines of the conference, notably "problem-based learning" by Heinz Neber; "Advanced Models in e-Learning and School Management" by Taisir Subhi Yamin; "ADHD: Disorder or Gift?" by Ken and Andrea McCluskey; "Teaching Gifted and Talented Skillfully" by Trevor Tebbs; and "Evaluation of Potential Creativity" by Todd Lubart.

Source: http://c.moreover.com/click/here.pl?r5692213118

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Columbia University Offering Course In Occupy Wall Street, With Field Work

Not to be outdone by NYU and their upcoming course on Occupy Wall Street, Columbia University will offer its own course on the nascent movement this spring. Offered by the Anthropology Department, the course [pdf], called "Occupy the Field," will offer "training in ethnographic research methods alongside a critical exploration of the conjunctural issues in the Occupy movement: Wall Street, finance capital, and inequality; political strategies, property and public space, and the question of anarchy; and genealogies of the contemporary moment in global social movements." Finger Twinkling 101 is a prerequisite.

Professor Hannah Appel will be teaching the course, which will consist of seminars and lots of fieldwork with Occupy Wall Street, where students are encouraged to get involved with any of the working groups that meet regularly in the atrium at 60 Wall Street. Appel is a self-proclaimed "regular participant in the Occupy movement," and in the course description she assures students with "absolute certainty that there is no foreseeable risk in teaching this as a field-based class. On the contrary, the risks of disengaged scholarship seem more profound." All of this is really tickles the student-run Columbia blog The Bwog, which notices in the course description that "the reading is admittedly 'lighter than many other classes.' Score! Attendance is also a big part of the grade."

So with NYU and Columbia both offering OWS courses, it's probably only a matter of time before a publicly-funded CUNY school takes the plunge, and we can't wait to hear what the NY Post has to say about that. For now, the tabloid simply wonders, "Does getting pepper-sprayed count as extra credit?"

Source: http://feeds.gothamistllc.com/click.phdo?i=3ee3b9d0265a68a64a65b437182c3615

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postsecret: PostSecret shuts down iPhone app due to abusive posts (CNET) http://t.co/tHKDqRBy

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Monday, January 2, 2012

CNN_INS: The crew from M6 France at the #Royal Wedding http://t.co/lIUMEOcA

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Gravity twins set to orbit Moon

Continue reading the main story

Measuring the Moon's gravity

  • The Grail satellites measure the distance to each other as they circle the Moon, pole to pole
  • Flying over gravity variations will induce tiny acceleration changes in the spacecraft twins
  • Making the measurements requires the satellites to carry very precise timing devices
  • The survey will probably continue until the end of 2012 if the pair survive an eclipse in June

Twin satellites are due to go into orbit around the Moon this weekend with the intention of mapping its gravity.

Nasa's Grail spacecraft are expected to give scientists remarkable new insights into the internal structure of the lunar body.

This new data should clarify ideas about the Moon's formation and resolve many mysteries, such as why its near and far sides look so different.

Lead scientist Dr Maria Zuber is expecting some dramatic discoveries.

"Grail will improve our knowledge of the Moon's nearside gravity by more than 100 times over what was previously known, and by more than 1,000 times over what was known on the far-side," the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researcher said.

"In science, when we can improve measurements by a factor of two, we usually learn an awful lot; but when we improve measurements by orders of magnitude, the kind of science that we do is actually transformative."

The duo were launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, last September, and have taken a long spiral out to their destination.

This weekend's approach to the Moon will bring them in over the south pole. Each satellite will execute a roughly 40-minute engine burn to slow itself and take up an elliptical orbit around the 3,500km-wide sphere.

The Grail-A spacecraft will initiate the manoeuvre at 2121 GMT on Saturday, 31 December; Grail-B will do a very similar burn a day later, starting 2205 GMT. Nasa should have confirmation near midnight on New Year's Day that both satellites are in the positions they should be.

"Following the lunar orbit insertion, the spacecraft will perform a series on intricate burns that take about two months, and these are required to get both spacecraft down to a [55km; 34-mile] altitude; and once that's done, that's when the science for Grail can begin," explained David Lehman, the mission's project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California.

Grail will map the small variations in gravity across the Moon.

These differences are the result of an uneven distribution of mass. Obvious examples at the Moon's surface include big mountain ranges or deep impact basins, but even inside the lunar body the rock will be arranged in an irregular fashion, with some regions being denser than others.

All this will have a subtle influence on the pull of gravity sensed by over-flying spacecraft.

The Grail twins will make their measurements by carrying out a carefully calibrated pursuit of each other.

Continue reading the main story

Near and far-side of the Moon

  • It takes the Moon about the same amount of time to rotate on its axis as it does to complete an orbit of the Earth
  • This is known as "synchronous rotation" and explains why the Moon always presents its familiar nearside to Earth (top left)
  • The nearside is covered in smooth, dark lunar maria (Latin for "seas") created by magma flooding into crater depressions
  • The far-side is more rugged, with a thicker crust pock-marked by impact craters; the highest elevations are on the far-side (top right; bottom)
  • In 1959, the USSR's unmanned spacecraft Luna 3 became the first to image the far-side; many of its features have old Soviet names

As the lead spacecraft flies through the uneven gravity field, it will experience small accelerations or decelerations. The second spacecraft, following some 100-200km behind, will detect these disturbances as very slight changes in the separation between the pair - deviations that are not much more than the width of a human red blood cell.

When the gravity map is combined with comparable-resolution topographical information showing the surface highs and lows, scientists should be able to deduce the Moon's probable internal structure and composition. This is fundamental knowledge that will play into theories of how the lunar body formed and how it has evolved over time.

"We believe the Moon formed from the impact of a Mars-sized object into Earth, but we understand little really of how this happened and how the [lunar body] cooled off after the violent event," said Dr Zuber. And she described as "shocking", the continued inability of science to explain why the rugged far-side of the Moon looks so different from that of the nearside with its great swathe of dark volcanic plains, or maria.

"Given that we've sent so many missions that have studied the outside of the Moon, it seems that the answer is not on the surface. The answer is locked in the interior," she said.

Grail's mapping phase will last for 82 days until early June. The Moon then goes into shadow, into eclipse, behind the Earth.

If the satellites can survive the hours of darkness on their batteries, it is likely they will be tasked with a second mapping cycle in the second half of 2012.

This would be at a much reduced altitude, perhaps as low as 25km from the surface. Getting lower would improve the resolution of the gravity maps yet again, and enable scientists to study even the structure of relatively small, shallow craters.

Grail is an acronym for Gravity Recovery and Internal Laboratory. The satellites will be given more engaging names than just "A" and "B" once the weekend's orbit insertion is confirmed. The names are being chosen via a public competition.

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/science-environment-16353839

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Sunday, January 1, 2012

Air India finally coming of age

Air India finally coming of age

Air India, by raising its capital by Rs. 7500 crores will not only perform better but will also save an amount of Rs 1000 crore, which they are paying as an interest to their bankers annually.

DURING NOVEMBER 2011 they have picked up a reasonable good business with an increase of 12.3 % in Aviation Grid while for the same period there has been an increase of 10 % in the number of Passengers carried; good going indeed.


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The Air India Management in their Committee Meeting held recently, decided to issue Preferential Shares amounting to Rs 7500 Crores to their Bankers. There are 21 Banks with whom Air India has their official link.


Being a State owned carrier, a formal approval from the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Govt of India is a must which may take its own time. We know very well how our system works.

Meanwhile Air India Board has appointed a four-member panel to finalize the selection of the Chief Operating Officers for Air India and its low cost subsidiary named Air India Express. The applications are already pouring in and the interviews are likely to take place very?? shortly.

Air India thus by raising its capital by 7500 crores will not only perform better but will also save an amount of Rs 1000 crore which they are paying as interest to their bankers annually.


The Management of the State Bank of India has already taken a lead by processing their requests to the Reserve Bank of India for its occurrence. Probably they want to acquire good percentage of their share in Air India?s total working capital. Indeed a good business step for any Banker.

We wish all the best to the Air India Management to come out with a grand success in the process which they should have thought long ago.

?

Source: http://www.merinews.com/article/air-india-finally-coming-of-age/15863358.shtml

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Obama hopeful for more economic progress in 2012

President Barack Obama, left, and Admiral Robert Willard, arrive to participate in a wreath laying ceremony at the USS Arizona Memorial, part of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument, Thursday, Dec. 29, 2011, in Pearl Honolulu, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

President Barack Obama, left, and Admiral Robert Willard, arrive to participate in a wreath laying ceremony at the USS Arizona Memorial, part of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument, Thursday, Dec. 29, 2011, in Pearl Honolulu, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama, arrive at the USS Arizona Memorial, part of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument, with Admiral Robert Willard and his wife Donna Willard, Thursday, Dec. 29, 2011, in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

President Barack Obama, right, and first lady Michelle Obama, second from right, take flowers to drop into the water at the USS Arizona Memorial, part of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument, with Admiral Robert Willard and his wife Donna Willard, left, Thursday, Dec. 29, 2011, in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

(AP) ? Reflecting on a challenging year, President Barack Obama says he's hoping for more economic progress following action by Congress to prevent tax increases at the start of 2012.

"It was good to see members of Congress do the right thing for millions of working Americans," said Obama, using his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday to deliver a New Year's message.

He said the public made itself heard on a Social Security payroll tax cut and that was one big reason that lawmakers agreed to extend it for two more months.

The American people, Obama said, "had the courage to believe your voices could make a difference."

The president said he expects Congress to finish the job when lawmakers return to Washington in January and extend the tax cut through the end of the year.

Reflecting on 2011, Obama said it was a time of great challenge and progress, including the end of the war in Iraq, the death of Osama bin Laden and signs of an economic recovery.

"There's no doubt that 2012 will bring even more change," Obama said. "And as we head into the new year, I'm hopeful that we have what it takes to face that change and come out even stronger ? to grow our economy, create more jobs and strengthen the middle class."

On the eve of an election year, Obama said the months ahead will help determine "what kind of country we want to be and what kind of world we want our children and grandchildren to grow up in."

Sen. Johnny Isakson, delivering the GOP address, outlined his party's commitments to the American people for 2012.

The Georgia lawmaker said his party's No. 1 goal is to make it easier for small businesses to create jobs.

"We'll accomplish this by focusing on three things: fundamental tax reform, regulatory reform and energy security," he said.

Isakson said that while some people may think Congress will be too consumed with the 2012 elections to accomplish anything significant, the public deserves better.

"Americans cannot wait until after the November election," he said. "They need us to do our job and do it right now to create an economic climate that makes it easier to put people back to work."

___

Online:

Obama address: www.whitehouse.gov

GOP address: http://www.youtube.com/gopweeklyaddress

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-12-31-Obama/id-ed98363fd6aa459e83b62111f30f7949

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