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All posts in Education
August 22, 2014 — By Heath Wickline
Nice article from Josh Dulaney, writing for the Long Beach Press Telegram, on efforts underway in the California State University system to address the rising costs of textbooks, including those of MERLOT, a grantee of our Education Program:
Twenty campuses in the CSU system run their own Affordable Learning Solutions programs. "For most classes, students do have to purchase a textbook one way or another," said Naomi Moy, who heads the initiative at Cal State Dominguez Hills in Carson. "Sometimes those textbooks are $200 or more. Most students can't afford that when they have four or five classes." More than 200 of the 750 faculty members at CSUDH chose to use no-cost or low-cost alternatives to textbooks in 2012-13, according to CSU officials. At Cal Poly Pomona more than 140 chose no-cost or low-cost alternatives to textbooks. "Those faculty have an alternative to the print textbook that would either be available in the library or a resource that is an Internet-based resource that may not be the traditional books," Moy said. The CSU provides more than 45,000 free instructional materials through MERLOT — Multimedia Educational Resources for Learning and Online Teaching — which is accessed by more than 500 universities and colleges.
Twenty campuses in the CSU system run their own Affordable Learning Solutions programs.
"For most classes, students do have to purchase a textbook one way or another," said Naomi Moy, who heads the initiative at Cal State Dominguez Hills in Carson. "Sometimes those textbooks are $200 or more. Most students can't afford that when they have four or five classes."
More than 200 of the 750 faculty members at CSUDH chose to use no-cost or low-cost alternatives to textbooks in 2012-13, according to CSU officials. At Cal Poly Pomona more than 140 chose no-cost or low-cost alternatives to textbooks.
"Those faculty have an alternative to the print textbook that would either be available in the library or a resource that is an Internet-based resource that may not be the traditional books," Moy said.
The CSU provides more than 45,000 free instructional materials through MERLOT — Multimedia Educational Resources for Learning and Online Teaching — which is accessed by more than 500 universities and colleges.
Carla Rivera covered similar ground for the Los Angeles Times earlier this month.
Discuss »
July 16, 2014 — By Dana Schmidt
Louise Bay Waters is the Superintendent of Leadership Public Schools, a network of four charter high schools serving predominately low income students in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is committed to ensuring that her graduates are fully prepared for college. Given the academic level of entering ninth graders, in order to attain this goal she and her faculty face the formidable task of helping students catch up on two years of academic content for every one year they spend in Leadership Public Schools. They have been impressively successful at their task: 97% of graduates have been accepted to college.
To facilitate these remarkable learning gains, Louise and her staff built a deep understanding of the needs of their students and committed to adapting their curriculum to meet those needs. They realized that the vocabulary in traditional textbooks was too advanced for their students, many of whom were English language learners. In searching for an alternative, Louise discovered that CK-12 provided high quality textbooks under an open license, which meant that anyone could download them for free and modify them without violating copyright law. So that's exactly what Louise and her staff did. They created their own college access readers that had embedded vocabulary support to help their students develop reading comprehension while learning grade-level content. CK-12's open license saved Louise and her team from starting from scratch while also enabling them to create unique material that met their needs.
Since 2001 the Hewlett Foundation's Education Program has supported a movement towards more openly licensed materials, also known as Open Educational Resources (or simply "OER"). Over the years, the Foundation has supported organizations to develop high quality openly licensed education content like MIT's OpenCourseWare, helped to develop the standards that enable OER like Creative Commons' open licenses, and promoted the broader development and use of OER worldwide through organizations like UNESCO and the Commonwealth of Learning. Through this stream of grantmaking we have seen that open licenses can dramatically increase access to valuable knowledge. As just one example, an open license on the PhET science simulations created at the University of Colorado has allowed others to translate them into more than 40 languages and reach thousands of students around the world. We have also seen that the ability to adapt open content means it can easily be reinvented for new contexts, as exemplified by the experience at Leadership Public Schools.
Until recently, our work to promote open licenses was restricted to our OER grantmaking. But the Foundation supports organizations producing valuable knowledge across many domains—knowledge that could have broader and deeper impact if it, too, were openly licensed. That is why the Education Program has started encouraging all of its grantees to license work created with funding from the Hewlett Foundation under the most recent version of the Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY 4.0). Although this is already common practice among our OER grantees, it is new to many of our grantees working on Deeper Learning. Our initial conversations with grantees new to using open licenses have revealed that while in some ways open licensing is attractive, in other ways it is intimidating.
Our grantees aspire to have the greatest impact for their work, which can happen when their materials are used by as many people as possible as productively as possible. Some of them have seen how an open license can pave the way for this to happen. For example, after posting its Common Core-aligned curriculum under an open license, Expeditionary Learning has seen 1.6 million downloads from across the U.S. On the flipside, a concern among our grantees has been the possibility of for-profit companies taking their content and profiting from it. Another concern has been that an open license will decrease opportunities for generating revenue. For these reasons, organizations like the Teaching Channel have chosen to only openly license videos of inspiring teachers in practice that have been created with Hewlett funds. Most of the rest of its videos will remain openly accessible but under a proprietary license. We think this mixed approach will be informative for the Foundation and the wider field, allowing us to test the downside risk of commercial appropriation against the upside potential of brand-building and wider uptake. We recognize that organizations face real and important tradeoffs when it comes to open licensing and will be monitoring the impact of these decisions alongside our grantees.
At the Hewlett Foundation we have a bold mission of "helping people build measurably better lives." The organizations we fund have equally bold visions. To achieve audacious goals like these we need to improve on what we know. By openly sharing the knowledge and resources we produce we can not only expand access to knowledge, but also enable adaptation and improvement of that knowledge. For the Hewlett Foundation, openly sharing resources is one important component of our commitment to transparency. We will be building off our experiences in the Education Program to expand a policy around open licenses in other programs as well over the coming year and hope to continue learning along the way about the constraints and the opportunities this presents to amplify the work of our grantees.
Interested in learning more? Check out this video from Creative Commons in New Zealand for more information on the licenses and this video for more examples of the benefits this kind of licensing provides in practice. To adopt an open license, you simply go to the Creative Commons license chooser, select your license, and add the license to your work or web site as a replacement for the traditional © symbol. Details on marking your work with a CC license can be found online. For additional background, read this full description of the Creative Commons licenses.
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July 10, 2014 — By Monica Martinez
Monica R. Martinez, PhD, is a former president of the New Tech Network and was previously vice president of Knowledge Works.
I have a confession to make: although I love my nephew, Benjamin, I actually didn't go to his high school graduation last month. In fact, I also skipped out on my niece Danielle's graduation ceremony last year. My parents, brother, and sister were not too thrilled. I offered reasonable excuses for my absence but, truth be told, deep down I don't think the occasion should be treated as that big of a deal any more. I see high school graduation as only a small step toward success in today's economy and complex lifetime. I am much more excited about the time when my niece and nephew eventually graduate from college since that, in my mind, is the new starting line for success as an adult.
Data and prominent education leaders support my thinking. As Hewlett Foundation Education Program Director Barbara Chow wrote in her last post, Graduation Day, if high school graduates "do not go on to postsecondary education, they will likely move very quickly from celebrating commencement to struggling to find a job and keep it." In fact, every report out there, several of which Barbara referenced, validates the importance of postsecondary enrollment and success.
My laissez-faire attitude about even my own family's high school graduations can be coupled with work on my new book on high school reform, Deeper Learning: How Eight Public Schools are Transforming Education in the Twenty-First Century. This forced me to stop and think. When did I decide that the traditional high school diploma lost its value? And what would it take to get it back?
What many people might not know is that an initial principle of what we think of as "high school" was a means to reduce the barriers to secondary education so many more kids would enroll. That way society could then identify the few select students with the necessary "finite talent" to be prepped for college. This created a system of "tracking", wherein some students were set on a course towards college and others were not.
In my own experience I felt the effects of tracking. I was one of the few Mexican American students in my school in Denver, and despite maintaining a good grade point average and the fact that my parents and I had every intention that I would go to college—I was not placed into the college preparatory track. Despite that setback, I did go on to college but, because my high school education lacked rigor, I failed miserably during my freshman year. My experience made me realize that secondary education needed to change so that all students will be set up for success. My experience led me to earn a PhD and to research and lead education reform as a career.
As I visited high schools in my various professional roles I began to see that this was a problem all around the country, and not just where I grew up. Because of school reforms that required a curriculum "a mile wide and an inch deep," teachers were forced to focus on passive learning, leaving students to learn through rote memorization. Students then seemed to view high school as simply a rite of passage. Even college-bound students saw their studies as meaningless hazing—the real learning would happen in college. I met a high schooler at Avalon High School in Minnesota, who said:
"My goals were superficial: all I wanted to get out of high school was a good GPA. [M]y whole high school career was going to culminate in a number on a piece of paper that won't really mean anything to me… but just something I had to do to get in to college."
Here was a young woman who expressed exactly why I—after all these years—couldn't get excited about a high school graduation any more.
But there is hope: the eight schools I profiled in my book shared a single-minded resolve to create curious and passionate learners of all students—not just those who fit some outdated stereotype of "talented." With a focus on deeper learning outcomes, the students understood core academic content and concepts, were critical thinkers and problem solvers, effective communicators and productive collaborators who were persistent and believed in their abilities (known as an academic mindset) and were able to direct their own learning.
The culture of these schools is one of trust, respect, and collaboration. They promoted camaraderie and professional development among teachers and, most importantly, they shifted control from government administrators back into the hands of teachers and students. The teachers shared a sentiment summarized so well by Susan McCray, the eleventh grade Humanities teacher at Casco Bay High School in Portland, Maine: "Everything is integrated; [students] can see and feel the meaning and purpose of what they are doing." The barriers between school and community have been blurred.
I saw students and educators in twenty-first century classrooms that empowered students to learn through projects that interested them, whether it be developing smart phone apps or participating in lively debates. These schools incorporate technology purposefully to enhance, rather than simply automate, learning. Their principals and teachers value technology —"part and parcel of everything we do," according to Chris Lehmann, Principal of Science Leadership Academy.
We need to purposefully ensure that high school graduation is not simply a rite of passage where students receive a "certificate," but rather where a diploma guarantees students are capable of being leaders of their own educational lives and are able to apply their knowledge and skills to succeed at whatever they choose to pursue.
The eight schools in my book—and the many others like them around the nation that are part of what has become known as the Deeper Learning Network—are examples of what a meaningful high school diploma could look like. Deeper learning must become the new normal.
Then, maybe, the schools that I spend time researching and documenting won't feel like the exception; I will be able to happily visit any high school on graduation day, knowing full well that all students were placed in the "deeper learning track". We all need to make sure that students get an education and a degree that is more meaningful. We should all be asking if our kids are attending schools that deliver knowledge and the skills and dispositions they would need to take charge of their learning and succeed in college, career, and life. Schools like the case studies I've written about. I know that's what I would have wanted for my niece and nephew.
September 10, 2014 — By Ameerah Rollins and Desiree Gabarin
Ameerah Rollins and Desiree Gabarin are recent graduates of Polaris Charter Academy in Chicago. This post is the second in a three-part series on the relationship between deeper learning and the Common Core State Standards. The first part appeared earlier this week.
As two students who just graduated from 8th grade, we are representing the work of 50 of our classmates from Polaris Charter Academy in Chicago, Illinois. Together, we took part in a 7th grade learning expedition called "The Peacekeeper Project" that included a year-long study of the United States Constitution. During our deep dive into the Constitution, we started a discussion about second amendment rights, trying to answer the question "Who is responsible for gun control: The people or the government?" We learned that the Second Amendment protects people's right to bear arms, but we also knew that guns were a big problem in our community.
We began studying the gun debate in Chicago, researching how policy makers shape city gun laws and debated their constitutionality. During this time the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary happened. This horrible event created a sense of fear in our school. Our teachers set aside time for us to share our own stories and experiences of gun violence. What we found out about each other was shocking: 84% of us had been around a gun, 96% knew someone who has been shot or killed and 100% have felt unsafe in our neighborhood. We think it is important for people to understand that gun violence isn't new for us - we just accepted it as the way things were. It wasn't until our 7th grade expedition that any of us thought about trying to do something to change it for ourselves. When Sandy Hook happened it brought up all of the fears we were living with and because Polaris teaches us to be Active Citizens within our community it seemed like the right time to try and do something about it.
We returned to our expedition's guiding question, "Whose responsibility is it to 'ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity'?" It didn't take long for us to come to a consensus that it was our responsibility to create change in our community. So we created a plan to try and change things for the better in our community and at the same time honor all the people who have dedicated their lives to trying to stop the violence in our city.
The Peacekeeper Project included two final products: a city wide Day of Peace—in which there would be a day of no violence throughout the city—and a published book honoring the people we refer to as "Peacekeepers"; those people in our community who actively advocate for peace.
The city wide Day of Peace was a big undertaking. We scheduled meetings with local officials to get their support. We worked with the seniors at Westinghouse High School to create four original public service announcements (PSA's) about gun violence
and the alternatives to gun violence. We then hosted a series of neighborhood events, called "sweep-and-greets", that got neighbors (who otherwise don't interact) to work together to literally clean up their community, and in the process build trust and cooperation.
During the taping of our PSA's we invited 16 Peacekeepers to be interviewed on camera and took an original portrait of each person to later be used in the book. We interviewed amazing people like Ameena Matthews, a local hero whose life work as an anti-gun violence activist was featured in the documentary "The Interrupters". We used the images and the interviews to begin writing our book "Peacekeepers of Chicago". To the get the money to publish our book and promote our day of peace we started our own Indiegogo campaign. You can see our short video promotion here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/polaris-7th-grade-honoring-the-peacekeepers-of-chicago
The Peacekeepers book took us through the whole writing process of planning, revising, editing and rewriting. We used peer critique sessions in order to help us revise our bio-sketches so they would be clear, convincing and correct. The end product is a book that is housed in the Mayor Daley Branch of the Chicago Public Library - something we are really proud of.
So here we were: 50 7th graders engaged in Deeper Learning, figuring out the Constitution, gaining a deeper understanding of direct action versus public policy and trying to use what we were learning to make our neighborhood and our city a better and safer place. June 10th, 2013 was our proposed citywide Day of Peace. We had gotten the word out through the news channels, our alderman, our neighborhood sweep-and-greets. We thought we were really going to change our city.
The fact is, we fell short. We didn't have a citywide Day of Peace, but…we did have a day of peace in our community! No shootings, no killing, no violence in all the neighborhoods we targeted on the West Side. We were very excited and very proud.
The Peacekeeper Project was an important expedition for us. We learned a lot about our government, we learned a lot about writing and we learned the most about ourselves. The Peacekeeper Project taught us that we have a role to play in changing our futures for the better. Our work together taught us that with perseverance and persistence we can accomplish more than we thought possible. Our deeper learning expedition—starting with studying the Constitution and leading to making a real change in our community—has given us the confidence that makes it possible for us to walk through the doors of high school, collegeand beyond.
June 18, 2014 — By Barbara Chow
It is graduation season: caps and gowns, relieved students, and happy parents across the country.
I graduated from Troy High School in Fullerton, California many years ago—more, in fact, than I care to either count or reveal, but suffice it to say that when I donned my cap and gown, Tony Orlando and Dawn had the number one song in the country, the Berlin Wall was still intact, the closest thing anyone had to a personal computer was a calculator, and people still thumbed through gargantuan white and yellow tomes to find phone numbers.
My son Lucas graduated from high school only six years ago, just as the Great Recession was ratcheting up, and, while much has changed in the span of days that separates my son's graduation from my own, one thing that remains remarkably constant is the classroom experience in most of our nation's high schools.
Why is that a problem?
Here's why: while my son, like me, was lucky to finish college and land a job in his field straightaway—whew!—he and his classmates are unlikely to have a career path that is remotely similar to mine or that of my peers. After graduate school, I worked for nearly three decades for essentially the same employer—that curious industry known as the federal government—both at the White House and in Congress, before leaving to head the Hewlett Foundation's Education Program.
According to a 2012 study by the Associated Press, however, 53 percent of today's college graduates are unemployed or underemployed, the highest in more than a decade. Students born today will also probably have between ten and fourteen jobs before their thirty-eighth birthday. Further complicating things for this generation, according to the Department of Labor, is that most of the jobs that Lucas and his friends will likely apply for in the future—the good ones anyway—haven't even been invented yet.
Coupled with automation and outsourcing, these trends have redrawn the map of the American labor market, requiring today's high schools to reinvent the employees, employers, and citizens of tomorrow. To keep pace with the seismic environmental and social changes that are recalibrating America's future, our children will need a different set of skills than we acquired in high school.
When I graduated from high school, it was possible to get a job that would last a lifetime, as long as you possessed a strong work ethic and a basic procedural understanding of the world. Lucas' generation will almost certainly have to go a step further, and convince prospective employers that they can solve unforeseen problems, which don't appear on any standardized test or surface in a job interview. They will have to demonstrate a certain nimbleness of mind—and possess an educational portfolio that indicates a certain kind of depth.
To help address the needs of today's graduates, the Hewlett Foundation's Education Program has invested, since March 2010, in an emergent initiative known as Deeper Learning, which we believe best equips high school graduates with the tools—or in educators' lingua franca, "competencies"—they need to navigate the twenty-first century's shifting and uncertain terrain.
So, what is "deeper learning"? First, perhaps, I should note what deeper learning is not: it does not represent an abandonment of the basic principle that high school graduates should master core academic content such as reading, writing, and math. Indeed, deeper learning is a bit like baking a cake, with core content as a key ingredient, but the final product relies on a mix of desired educational outcomes that emphasize the ability to think critically and solve complex problems; communicate effectively; and collaborate, learn how to learn, and value learning (or what we in education call an "academic mindset"). These higher-order thinking skills and learning dispositions enhance mastery of content and allow students to apply their knowledge to new situations.
Until recently, the tools and evidence base available to reformers in this arena were limited. But a new book, written by a Bay Area educational consultant, Monica Martinez, and a research study released this month by one of our grantees, the American Institutes for Research (AIR), provide us with the strongest evidence yet of deeper learning's promise.
In the book, published by New Press, titled Deeper Learning: How Eight Innovative Public Schools Are Transforming Education in the Twenty-first Century, Martinez and her co-author, sociologist Dennis McGrath, were impressed with student achievement, both in the classroom and in their communities, when they were "freed from traditional educational systems that expected and relied on their passivity."
By eschewing a one-size-fits-all curriculum, teachers in the eight deeper learning schools studied were able to tailor the educational experience to their students' unique needs and ambitions, and identify "the spark—a subject, idea or project that makes a student light up."
That classroom success is beginning to materialize in ways that we can measure. In the recent AIR study, researchers found statistically significant increases—standard deviations of between 0.19 and 0.50—in all eight indices they established to measure opportunities for learning outcomes, including "communication, complex problem solving, creative thinking, and real world connections."
What's more, AIR found that the deeper learning schools they studied produce significantly higher on-time graduation rates. If non-network schools graduate sixty students on time, schools in the deeper learning network graduate sixty-nine students within four years.
These differences seem admittedly modest, but research of educational interventions typically show no change at all, so I hope you share the enthusiasm we felt at the Foundation to learn that our hopes for deeper learning are much more than mere wishful thinking.
They're on to something here.
So, with another graduation season upon us, we should think hard about what our kids can actually do with their degrees. If they receive only a traditional education, do well on multiple-choice tests like the ones I took, and do not go on to postsecondary education, they will likely move very quickly from celebrating commencement to struggling to find a job and keep it. If, however, they can demonstrate that they can solve unstructured, complex problems using new information—made possible because they have mastered deeper learning competencies—they are much more likely to be successful in college, land that first job, and fashion a rewarding—and remunerative—career as an adult.
Changing education to deliver deeper learning won't be easy for teachers, administrators, or policymakers. But deeper learning gives us a sense of where the finish line is, and while getting there will require a concerted effort from everyone—policymakers, teachers, parents, and schoolchildren—perhaps we should be mindful, now, more than ever, that America didn't become America by failing to rise to a challenge.
April 28, 2014 — By Barbara Chow
Earlier this month, I was in Philadelphia for the annual American Education Research Association conference—the largest gathering of education researchers in the country. It is, in a word, overwhelming: roughly 13,000 education researchers sporting name tags and blue bags, looking exhausted or annoyed; scurrying through the vast maze of conference center hallways searching for sessions, colleagues, coffee.
Three things struck me about the whole event and the state of education research. First, with thousands of researchers examining some aspect of education that they are hoping no one else has studied, it seems to me that a lot should be known about education. The amount of research and breadth of topics is staggering. I randomly sat down at a roundtable discussion (number 21 of 40 or so tables) and it turned out that five researchers were studying the question of how teachers use assessment data in their instructional practices. This is exactly what I'd hoped to hear more about and I just stumbled into the conversation.
But I also discovered that while much is investigated, nothing is very definitive. So of the five research studies, a few were still in early stages, others had conducted some research but found "no effects," and so on. Even with the "no effects" research, we all (including the researcher) hypothesized that perhaps this tweak or that would improve the results and they should try again. I've found this often happens in education research. Maybe it is appropriate that research is never really finished, but it is nonetheless frustrating when the primary recommendation is usually "more research is needed."
Every once in a great while, something is actually concluded. We have decided, for example, that class size reduction, once considered the great silver bullet, does not consistently correlate with higher student achievement. Good to know. At least we don't need to spend money on that any more. But even here, it turns out that class size reduction under the right circumstances does produce effects. So, the answer to the question, "does this work?" is most accurately answered by "it depends." Context, culture, fidelity of implementation, and the mysteries of the human brain all figure into the answer and the inexplicable alchemy of it all make it difficult to create many generalizable and useable action steps emerging from research.
Look, I get it. No self-respecting researcher is ever going to make an unqualified statement that X always causes Y. That doesn't describe reality, particularly in complex systems populated by unpredictable humans. But research is being funded in large part because we want to understand how to get better at what we are doing. To improve our education system we will need to take action and we'd like to do this based on evidence.
So, what to do? I have three suggestions. One, make it easier to find the research. One way to do this would be to create a taxonomy that categorizes all of those thousands of research studies and a clearinghouse with a really good search engine that stores them. Two, we need more meta-analyses that sum up what is known and give practitioners guidance (as best we know) about what should be done and what should be avoided. Lastly, we need open anonymized data (that protects student privacy) so that all of the millions of data points that are emanating from online education can be accessible to those thousands of researchers so they can learn stuff and speak with greater authority about what they know.
And we need more coffee stands in convention centers.
April 28, 2014 — By Heath Wickline
The National Association of State Boards of Education, an Education program grantee, devoted the most recent issue of their journal to deeper learning:
Today, we expect our students to be ready for the 21st century. Now more than ever, they are asked to learn more, to master new technology, and to apply what they have learned. These skills, including critical thinking and problem solving, effective communication, collaboration, and academic mindsets are competencies often referred to as "deeper learning." A new issue of the State Education Standard, the National Association of State Boards of Education's award-winning journal, is dedicated to the topic of deeper learning, and how state policymakers — and state boards of education in particular — are in a position to adopt policies that ensure students graduate from high school with the knowledge and skills to succeed in college, career, and civic life.
Today, we expect our students to be ready for the 21st century. Now more than ever, they are asked to learn more, to master new technology, and to apply what they have learned. These skills, including critical thinking and problem solving, effective communication, collaboration, and academic mindsets are competencies often referred to as "deeper learning."
A new issue of the State Education Standard, the National Association of State Boards of Education's award-winning journal, is dedicated to the topic of deeper learning, and how state policymakers — and state boards of education in particular — are in a position to adopt policies that ensure students graduate from high school with the knowledge and skills to succeed in college, career, and civic life.
April 23, 2014 — By Christopher Shearer
Forty is the new 30. Orange is the new black. Coffee is the new wine.
It seems that snowclones like these are everywhere nowadays. They pop up as unavoidable YouTube and Facebook memes. Indeed, in our Internet-driven lives, memes are the new clichés. One is tempted to come up with a "what is the new what" phrase for education reform. Okay, let's be honest, you are probably not tempted to do so; but I am. So, here goes.
When our nation was entering the Industrial Age from its agrarian past, education needed to change pretty dramatically. Instead of just a few elites getting Reading , 'Riting, and 'Rithmatic, a growing workforce—a majority of Americans—now needed the literacy and numeracy required by an emerging, rapidly-changing industrial job market. Further, the assembly model of industry shaped the classroom itself: sit in rows, copy from a known body of knowledge, test for accuracy and repetition.
This method did a good job for a long time (especially if you could live with glossing over the fact that "a majority of Americans" meant male and white). Our economy boomed. The middle class thrived. The US ascended to economic leadership. And along with that momentum came a cliché all its own: teach kids the "hard" skills.
This back-to-basics mentality stresses the common sense notion that you only really learn by learning about something. You gotta memorize your multiplication tables. You can either spell or you can't. You need to know a Shakespeare reference when you see one. These things matter to getting a job, getting ahead, and getting along. I agree, as far as it goes.
The problem is that it's been clear for some time now that we're moving from our industrial past to a new Information Age—and that education needs to change pretty dramatically all over again. Instead of just a few elites getting the skills to think critically and collaborate with others to innovate, a growing workforce—a new, multi-ethnic majority of Americans—now needs the "deeper learning" required by a rapidly-changing global job market. Researchers tell us that such learning comprises a mix of content knowledge, learning skills, and academic mindsets. Further, the knowledge-based model of the information economy should reshape classrooms: work in groups, leverage past knowledge to solve new problems, test for deep understanding and analysis.
This has also been made into a cliché: referred to somewhat condescendingly as the "soft skills." But, increasingly these skills define who gets, and keeps, a job. Routine work—car assembly— is now done by robots. Even complex jobs based on knowable rules—tax preparation—are now automated and done by computers. On top of it all, the global economy can find talent anywhere—and does through outsourcing. These forces privilege an elite education that values full inclusion of soft skills. Yet, most kids today are being driven to memorize just the "hard" basics and spit them back out on multiple choice tests. This isn't preparing them to get a college degree, to get a good job, and to enter the middle class as far too many recent news reports have been telling us. As one of the Foundation's grantees, the Alliance for Excellent Education, points out in a persuasive report, in the new economy, both individuals and the nation as a whole are suffering when we don't provide a quality education for all students.
So how do Americans get back on top? By acknowledging that—while, in fact, you do need the Three Rs—you now also need a robust set of skills that let you apply your knowledge to solve problems, to persist in the face of challenges, to reinvent your own job, and to learn how to learn across a lifetime. Add to this America's get-up-and-go and you've got a winning formula for meeting the fast-paced challenges of the global economy and revitalizing citizenship here at home.
Turns out you need skills, man. Sometimes a cliché is a cliché for a reason.
Soft is the new hard.
April 15, 2014 — By Pat Scheid
Last month, my colleague Dana Schmidt wrote a blog post about what the Hewlett Foundation and its grantees have learned about improving children's early learning from the Quality Education in Developing Countries Initiative. Under this Initiative, our grantees implemented a variety of instructional models both within the school day and after school hours, with children enrolled and with those who were not. Many of these were evaluated using randomized control studies or other quasi-experimental evaluation designs to determine the impact of these interventions on children's learning.
At the Hewlett Foundation, we encourage our grantees and also try ourselves to talk about and learn from failure, or at least from those things that don't always go according to plan! As the (relatively) new kid on the block with the Global Development & Population team, I thought I would offer a few observations about what we learned about the evaluation process itself, recognizing that hindsight is 20-20 (or some approximation thereof). Most of this wisdom comes directly from conversations with our grantees and colleagues since I've joined the Foundation.
We underestimated the time that was needed for some of the instructional models to be more fully developed, and in hindsight, should have allowed our grantees more time to work the kinks out before carrying out some randomized control evaluations. In some cases, randomized control study designs were just not possible, and so we had to be flexible about evaluation methods. One of the smartest things we did was to encourage grantees and evaluators to work closely together—so evaluators could better understand the instructional model and the context, and grantees had input in framing the questions and helping determine how best to measure learning outcomes.
While the randomized control studies that we commissioned were able to measure the impacts of these instructional models on learning, they were not able to sufficiently unpack the effect or most essential elements of each instructional model. Practically speaking, this has meant that it has been difficult to tell which elements contribute most to learning improvements and thus are highest priority for scaling up, and which could be dropped or emphasized less, depending on resource availability. Despite these challenges, the Meta-Analysis by Patrick McEwan of Wellesley College goes a long way towards unpacking what is known about improving learning based on a review of dozens of randomized control studies conducted over the past 20 years or so. We think it is essential reading. We will continue to work with our grantees to help them better unpack the elements of their instructional models wherever possible; we encourage others to take this essential step before initiating randomized control studies in the future.
We also underestimated the challenges associated with completing cost analyses of these instructional models. But where we did succeed in doing so, it has produced valuable information that our grantees and policy makers can use for identifying possible areas for streamlining or improving efficiencies that will enable scale-up (e.g. rethinking or restructuring teacher training, mentoring and support, and options for getting instructional and reading materials into the hands of teachers and children most affordably).
Finally, we learned that it is especially important to spend more time and energy figuring out possible delivery channels and constraints to scale-up from the outset. We assumed that we and our grantees would be able to build ownership and political will for scaling up based on evaluation results coupled with brokering new partnerships and financing relationships. We did not fully appreciate all of the systemic barriers to change in environments where incentives and accountability are not currently structured around learning outcomes. We did not sufficiently plan how to manage the discontinuity in political will when reform-minded leaders and other allies left office.
We also could have done a better job of structuring our support to some grantees to enable them to work with policy makers and other key stakeholders to answer vital questions about scaling up. Such as: when to scale and whether this meant deepening services and impact in existing locations, viral spread of innovations, or scaling programs vertically through government or other key providers to reach more children with a basic package of improvements? How to do this without losing the basic integrity of these instructional models? Who would be responsible for quality assurance? Who pays for what and how to achieve the necessary commitment and clarify the roles of various key actors?
So what does this mean for the remaining nine months or so of this time-bound initiative that we started several years ago? The Hewlett Foundation is not funding the full scale-up costs of these programs—we don't see that as our role in getting sustainable solutions in place, and simply don't have the resources to do so. Rather, we are supporting our grantees to consolidate and expand the most promising instructional models, and also to use the results of evaluations and cost analyses to their best advantage. We are providing more intensive technical support and capacity building to a few of our existing grantees to assist them in pursuing opportunities that have emerged for scaling up. We also hope to document and share some of our experiences through our participation and support of the Brookings Institution Center for Universal Education's "Millions Learning" work. Finally, we will be intensifying our support for household-based assessments of student learning, like ASER in India, Uwezo in East Africa and Beekunko and Jangandoo in Mali and Senegal, in order to better capture data on all children's learning and inspire both communities and policy-makers to take notice and take action to improve children's learning.
April 15, 2014 — By Marc Chun
How can we measure learning beyond just knowledge about academic content? KQED writer Katrina Schwartz ponders this provocative question. In her article, I was quoted as suggesting, "Ultimately what we want students to be able to do is solve problems they've never seen before." I feel this resonates with the idea of transfer that was explored in a recent National Research Council report. I do believe that when students are engaging in challenging projects in class or in an internship (or even in a conference deep dive about lobsters), what we should try to measure is their ability to apply what they have learned to solve non-routine, novel problems they will likely face later in life.


text:
Hi, I am curious where you have found the Greek census records online. Is it a free or pay site? I'd love to see if I can find any family info there as well, even if they are in Greek. Thanks! Notify Administrator about this message?
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text:
The small empire that is Whisknladle Hospitality started with a serendipitous meeting of French Laundry vet Ryan Johnston and aspiring restaurateur—and undaunted cooking-school dropout—Arturo Kassel. Their vision? Gourmet comfort food, with none of the guilty excess that term might imply. Just about every ingredient at Whisknladle, down to buttermilk dressings and canadian bacon, would be prepared from scratch, filling a menu that would change with the finest gradations of the seasons. "We want to find that balance of making our guests comfortable and pulling one foot out of their comfort zone," Johnston recently told San Diego Magazine—which means the french toast might exude lemon and lavender and the fried chicken might nest on purslane.
In a 2008 review, the Union-Tribune described "delightful, soul-satisfying" dishes such as "juicy, perfectly roasted chicken" at "one of the most exciting restaurants in San Diego." The crowds agreed. So Johnston and Kassel decided to expand the experience, inspired, as their website says, "by our desire to eat Whisknladle-quality food on a regular basis while sticking to our restaurant-employee budgets." Prepkitchen is a little simpler and more casual, but dishes such as porter-braised short rib and biscuits with chorizo gravy prove the new venture takes the same care as the original when it comes to sourcing ingredients and clearly labeling sugar and salt containers.
Property Location
With a stay at The Inn At Rancho Santa Fe in Rancho Santa Fe (Rancho Bernardo - Scripps Ranch), you'll be close to Del Mar Horse Park. This 4-star hotel is within the region of University of California-San Diego and La Jolla Cove.
Make yourself at home in one of the 87 air-conditioned rooms featuring refrigerators and microwaves. Your room comes with a memory foam bed. Rooms have private patios. Premium TV channels and DVD players are provided for your entertainment, while complimentary wireless Internet access keeps you connected. Bathrooms have makeup/shaving mirrors and designer toiletries.
Rec, Spa, Premium Amenities
Take time to pamper yourself with a visit to the full-service spa. You can take advantage of recreational amenities such as a health club, an outdoor pool, and a spa tub. Additional features include complimentary wireless Internet access, concierge services, and gift shops/newsstands.
Take advantage of the hotel's room service (during limited hours).
Business, Other Amenities
Featured amenities include a business center, limo/town car service, and audiovisual equipment. Event facilities at this hotel consist of conference/meeting rooms, small meeting rooms, and a ballroom. Free parking is available onsite.
Trapeze High owners David Ayers and his wife, Lindsay Van Voorhis, refer to their trapeze school as a ?tribe.? It?s home to a close-knit community of passionate fliers who work together in order to ensure everybody?s safety and development. At least three instructors operate the trapeze rig during classes for beginners, helping novices climb the ladder, attach their safety lines, get ready for takeoff, and execute their first trick. Exhaustive attention also extends to more advanced students, who can hone complicated techniques and learn how to dodge flying squirrels in courses up to Level 5.
Beyond guaranteeing operational safety, David and Lindsay recognize that maintaining a nurturing, supportive community is the best way to help newcomers overcome their fears of flying through midair. To that end, they invite students to bring along their friends and family to cheer them on. They ban the word can?t from the school premises, although they encourage each student to progress through lessons at his or her own pace according to strength, skills, and desire.
The husband-and-wife team also operates the Circus Fund, an outreach program that provides at-risk youth with the chance to experience the circus arts and form support systems with their peers.
The Spa Gregorie team won Spa Finder?s Reader?s Choice award for Best Day Spa of 2011 for rejuvenating skin with Spa Gregorie's botanically enriched product line. Steps away from the spa's tranquil hair salon, Arcona formulas play a central role in the spa's 18 facial treatments while massage clients benefit from fluffy robes and a eucalyptus steam room. But the staff's dedication to well-being doesn't stop with the clients?contributions to the Make a Wish Foundation and multiple cancer research organizations echo this allegiance to communal prosperity, and any nonprofit group or charitable organization may use the Del Mar spa's conference room for free.
In 2011, the International SPA Association honored Spa Gregorie's CEO Angela Cortright with the Dedicated Contributor of the Year award. The press release cites her commitment to well-being and public service beyond her three eucalyptus-scented spas and reveals her favorite quote to be Muhammad Ali's maxim, ?Service to others is the rent we pay for our room here on Earth.? This attitude has earned the company an avalanche of awards, which document the good works of its expert aestheticians, hair designers, and massage therapists.
Former Naval surgeon Dr. Maurice Sherman has an impressive resum?. He is triple board certified in facial plastic and reconstructive surgery, cosmetic surgery, and otolaryngology, he was the past president of the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery, and is an associate clinical professor at the University of California?San Diego. He has even appeared on Fox 5 to discuss Vaser Shape body contouring.
At Del Mar Cosmetic Medical Center, Dr. Sherman treats patients of all ages with an array of cosmetic procedures that improve faces, breasts, bodies, and skin. Popular procedures include therapeutic facials, Botox injections, rhinoplasty, breast augmentations, and liposuction. For more invasive procedures, patients sojourn to an accredited surgical suite, relaxing under local or general anesthesia while Dr. Sherman minimizes perceived flaws. He makes every effort to create tiny incisions and hide them in the natural lines and creases of the skin.
Since the age of 7, Dr. Robert Stonebreaker shared a special affinity with all birds. Wanting to bring people closer to his feathered friends, he lent his passion to Free Flight in 1989, helping evolve the avian boarding and breeding center into a sanctuary where visitors could interact with the exotic creatures. Amid open air and emerald palm fronds, guests can let a yellow, orange, and green sun Conure perch on their arm or pet a Timneh Grey. The tropical oasis also teems with Koi lagoons, where schools of shimmering Koi swim under the flaps of fluffy white Cockatoos soaring through the aviary.
Dr. Stonebraker tragically passed away in 2010, but the team at Free Flight has upheld his tireless work by fostering human-avian relations and furthering visitors' understanding of parrots. Free Flights also encourages involvement through donation, membership, volunteer opportunities, and, most notably, education programs.


text:
found a new home!
Plenty of my friends are looking
for one too. Find a pet to adopt.
Find a pet to adopt |
My name is Tucker!
Facts about Tucker
- Breed: Labrador Retriever Mix
- Color: Tan/Yellow/Fawn - With White
- Age: Adult
- Size: Large 61-100 lbs (28-45 kg)
- Sex: Male
Tucker's Info...
I am already neutered, housetrained, up to date with shots, good with kids, good with dogs, and good with cats.
Meet Tucker, our beautiful golden boy. He is 1-2 years old. He loves toys and water.. He is smart and anxious to please, so he will love to learn. He is wonderful with all other dogs and children.
Tucker is a big boy and strong, but listens well. He would make the perfect family dog.
If you are interested in adopting Tucker please visit our website: www.heavencanwaitanimalrescue.com, where you will find our adoption application. Please complete and return via email for review.
*Adoption Fee*
$200.00 includes the following: neuter, parasite free, Rabies vaccination, DHLPP , vaccination, Bordetella vaccination, microchip, heartworm negative and current on prevention.
Thanks for choosing adoption!!!!
Other Pets at Heaven Can Wait Animal Rescue
Why Adoption is a Great Option
Tucker, a Russellville Labrador Retriever dog was adopted! Here's how you can benefit by looking at adoption as an option to buying a Labrador Retriever for sale in Russellville, or seeking a Labrador Retriever dog from a breeder in Russellville.
- Rescues and shelter volunteers in Russellville already know the personality and tendencies of their pets. This means they can match you with the right pet. That will makes it much easier transition to owning a pet for yourself and your new pet.
- On average adoption fees are much less than you'd pay a Russellville breeder, or pet store. Plus most often rescue pets have already been to the veterinarian for a check-up, had a round of vaccinations, and are spayed or neutered. That is a lot of savings!
- You will become a hero, and give a needy dog or cat a loving home. In fact, there are even Labrador Retriever breeders who help with Labrador Retriever rescue. One puppy or kitten adopted in Russellville paves the way for another one to be saved.


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Clean Energy
After the hottest year on record, the U.S. rejects two big offshore wind farms. That's not how we get out of this mess, friends.
You know the scene in those science fiction movies when the gigantic starship passes overhead? It's kind of like that.
A University of Minnesota study finds out just how clean electric cars can be.
Denmark supplies three out of four of the world's offshore wind turbines, and it's on track to be free of fossil fuels by 2050.
Find out if you're spending too much money on hot showers.
Caffeine won't be the only reason you love coffee. Arthur Kay and his team at Bio Bean have developed the technology to convert coffee grounds into a uniquely sustainable, clean source of renewable energy.
Instead of filling our landfills with toxic animal poop, these innovative solutions might be another way to deal with the grubby facts of life.


text:
Black Jeans: kate spade, Boots: Corso Como
my outfit was seen earlier on my instagram: kate_oregan
don't forget to follow me! :)
counting all the things I have to do before break starts....
J.Crew is having an amazing deal right now: spend $150 or more
& you get 25% off & if you spend $250 or more you get 30% off! this awesome deal finally
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Greenfield - "Morning's at Seven," the amusing tale of the four aging Gibb sisters living in a small town and a couple who have been courting for 12 years, will open at Greenfield High School Thursday.
The production continues on Friday and Saturday, with each performance beginning at 7 p.m., in the Performing Arts Center at the Greenfield High School, 4800 S. 60th St.
In the play, which originally opened on Broadway in 1939, Cora (played by Samantha Gager) lives with her husband, Thor (Joe McNutt), and her younger sister Aronetta (Analisa Mundell-Wachowiak).
The sisters live next door to their third sister, Ida (Corie Stingl) and her husband, Carl (Matt Clarey), and their son, Homer (Joey Krasovich). The eldest sister, Esther (Constance Scheffler) and her husband, David (Eli Haas) live a block away.
The story begins with Ida telling her son Homer that it's time for him to marry his girlfriend Myrtle (Sandra Polakowski), whom he has been dating for 12 years. After all, he's 40 and she's 39. What are they waiting for?
The Gibb sisters like the routine of their lives, but when Homer finally brings Myrtle home to "meet the family," the results are anything but routine.
Admission is $6. The show is appropriate for all ages.
For information, call (414) 281-6200, Ext. 2531 and leave a message.
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- Teenage Greenfield race car driver sweeps three points championships
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- Denny's coming to Highway 100 in Greenfield
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- Greenfield police report: Jan. 22, 2015 issue
- Whitnall heads to referendum on $29.4 million in facilities projects
- Hotel, retail/office, residential project proposed at Greenfield former school
- Whitnall School Board to be only local race in Greenfield next April
- Greenfield police report: Jan. 15, 2015 issue
- Whitnall ready to go for $29.4 million facilities referendums


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text: inhave always carried IWB but am tired of carrying in this manner, it just never agreed with me, no mater the gun size, it just always bothered me. my question to you is: what do all you OWB wearers use, the reason i never carrie outside the waistband is because of the natural advantage to conealment, i carry an h&k 45c my concern is not the magwell, but the barrell, i would love to find a holster manufacturer that has high rise that would be able to conceal anywear close to iwb? i know about all aspects of the 2 carry methods, would really appreciate any of your experiences with owb, and best methods to carry using any other method rather than iwb? sob? cross draw?


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Makes a Great Gift! The new Double Back cushion combines a stuffed leg pillow with a foam lumbar support wrap. Use together as a portable pillow, or separately as a leg pillow and lumbar support.
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Check out our new leg pillow that also "doubles" as lumbar support. It's a smart, extremely fundtional pillow that combines a lumbar support foam band that wraps around a super-comfortable leg pillow. This allows you to separate and use each piece individually, or itogether - producing a handy pillow for head support, a convenient leg pillow and a comfortable lumbar support. Use the lumbar support for side, back or stomach sleeping. As with all of our leg pillows, use between your knees to align help your spine. Or place behind your head to cradle your neck for better posture, or even to support your shoulder!
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Exploitation and Narrative Responsibility: Comparing Far Cry 3 and Tomb Raider - Destructoid
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Exploitation and Narrative Responsibility: Comparing Far Cry 3 and Tomb Raider
on 12.09.2012
(The following post is full of SPOILERS for the recently released Far Cry 3. If you are the kind of person who is bothered by such, please dont proceed.)
Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down and play through the entirety of the newest entry into the Far Cry games a series which had, for the most part, eluded me up until this point. The most that I knew about the series as a whole was how highly touted the games graphics and presentation were, especially given that the first game was the premier for Crytek Studios new engine. Eight years worth of new developers, engines, and graphical updates later, and very little has changed. Far Cry 3 is a visually stunning game bursting with minor details that more than once left me breathless. Its a gorgeous rush of ultra-violence and open-ending gameplay that is ultimately quite fun and engaging. All of this is enhanced by a thematically rich plot that merits a great deal of discussion regarding its themes, ideas, moral stance, and place within the medium of gaming as a whole.
Within this article, I mean to address an aspect of the game that Ive found to be rather lacking in coverage, as well as its relation to another big title being discussed this year. Thats right I want to address the Lara Croft-shaped elephant in the room.
Stop me if youve heard this one
Our young protagonist is out traveling, when unfortunate circumstances lead to them being stranded on a tropical island inhabited by bloodthirsty, rapacious pirate/slave-traders. Their friends are taken captive by said rogues, and now our protagonist must summon up inner-strength and survival instinct if they want to rescue them and return home alive. If you havent caught the joke yet, its that I could be talking about either Far Cry 3 or the upcoming Tomb Raider reboot, published by Square Enix and developed by Crystal Dynamics. They do sound rather similar, dont they? Now, at the time of this writing, Tomb Raider is still several months from release. What the final product could look like is anyones guess, and I eagerly await my own opportunity to find out. That said, I will be using what has been shown and said by the developers thus far, as well as assorted internet talking heads that have addressed the truckloads of controversy surrounding the title, to inform upon this discussion.
And boy, does this game have a lot of controversy surrounding it. People are angry about Lara being reinvented. People are angry about Lara being weaker. People are angry about tasteless comments made by members of the development team. And Im sure some people are angry that Lara is no longer proportioned like the lady from Heavy Metal 2000. The number of people ready to throw the Tomb Raider reboot under a bus seem to heavily outweigh those with a more wait and see mindset, though that may well be due to the nature of internet discussion and the former group being by far the louder. And amidst all this cacophony, the strongest theme for these dissenters that I can find is this why take one of gamings strong female heroines, and make her weak?
I will admit, I find the question a bit perplexing. I certainly knew about the Tomb Raider games growing up, I played through two of them entirely before completely losing my taste for them come 2003s Angel of Darkness. But I never really regarded Lara as a strong female heroine. My vision for what that meant growing up was a lady who stood up for what she believed in, who kicked ass with a complete lack of self-consciousness. I was enamored of the Agrias Oakeses, the Freya Cresents, the Jill Valentines. Lara always just seemed like she was trying too hard to impress me. Now that Im older, my feelings largely havent changed Lara basically has built a career of breaking into dead peoples homes and stealing their things, shooting every last endangered animal and breaking every piece of ancient pottery she can find. And she does this for what seems like no reason other than boredom. This is a woman who, when accused of murder, spends the next six hours of the game shooting security personal in the face while trying to clear her name. (Angel of Darkness spoilers, I guess.) A great thinker, she is not. And she is certainly nobodys role-model. Shes static the idea of a heroine, nothing actually resembling one.
"Fuck you nature, I'm too sassy for your bullshit."
So that brings us to Crystal Dynamics new Lara. Shes young, inexperienced, vulnerable. In way over her head, and only through gut instinct and sheer force of will can she overcome the seemingly-crushing challenge presented before her. She feels fear. She feels pain. Oh lord, does she feel pain. A common criticism that Ive found of the game thus far is that the amount of pain that Lara must endure borders on the fetishistic. Ive never been shipwrecked and had to rescue my friends from rapacious pirates before, so I cant speak to whether the amount of suffering depicted is realistic, but I can say that in pre-release footage alone weve seen Lara be beaten, impaled, shot at, burned, nearly-drowned, and yes, sexually-assaulted. Whether or not shes electrocuted, frozen, paralyzed, drugged, stung by hornets, or launched into orbit within the game proper is anyones guess. Laras tale, weve been led to believe, is one of empowerment of trial by fire. We will see Lara brought to her lowest point, only to learn the self-reliance and skills to become the heroine that we know she can be. She is made weak, torn down, so that she may be built back up, stronger and better than what she was. At least, that is Crystal Dynamics spin.
She and Jason Brody, the protagonist of Far Cry 3, might just end up in the same post-island support group. See, Jason knows something about suffering. Like Lara, he is beaten, impaled, shot, burned, nearly-drowned, faced with sexual assault, drugged, forced to watch his brother die right in front of him, repeatedly attacked by vicious local wildlife, and brutally removed of one of his fingers. Like Lara, he is forced to go through hell and rise, stronger and more capable than he was before, as a warrior and a hero. Or, maybe he just descends into insanity, becoming a complete psychopath as a result of all that he is forced to endure.
When this isn't the worst part of your day, you know you're in a bad place.
There is a point, about a third of the way through the game, where Jason has finally located the fourth of his kidnapped friends, one Keith Ramsay, in the home of a villainous professional killer named Buck Rogers a bearded Aussie who had purchased Keith from the pirates that captured him, and who forces Jason to locate a particular artifact for him if he ever wants to see his friend alive again. Throughout this entire quest-line, Buck makes repeated oblique references to his activities with his new possession, but never anything concrete. We dont get the full picture until afterwards, when the artifact has been delivered to Buck and Jason goes into his basement, where he is told he will find Keith. And find him he does hunched over on a dirty mattress, pleading that he cant take anymore. Buck appears behind Jason and offers to thank him like a man should, gripping his groin and thrusting it lewdly. He tells Jason that neither of them would be leaving. This is the point where there is no doubt left. Buck has raped his captive multiples times, and if Jason is not able to defend himself, the same will happen to him.
If there has ever been another point within a video game wherein a male protagonist is threatened with rape, I dont know of it. Im sure commenters will be happy to point it out, if it exists. But for the most part, games as a whole sail around the issue of sexual assault by a fairly wide margin, often editing it entirely out of the games reality. Of all the Very Bad Men most heroines fight, almost none of them display any intent outside of ending their life, regardless of whether theyre coarse bandits or corrupt paramilitary members. And as rarely as the subject is broached, its no wonder that most heroes never have to even think about such a possibility.
And for the most part, Im fine with that. Most game writing borders on the atrocious already, and the developer that could factor something like that into their games world without it feeling creepy, exploitative, or just simply misplaced, are few and far between. Its a subject that carries weight, weight that we as a society are not conditioned to ignore in our media in the same way that we are, say, murder. But Far Cry 3 is a gritty little number, and it has no interest in sugar-coating any facit of the misery and terror that Jason or his friends are forced to endure by their circumstances, largely identical ones to what Lara and her friends are placed in.
But what strikes me as odd is the fact that so few people are chomping at the bit to condemn Far Cry 3 for any of this. Tomb Raider 2013 has been called exploitative, overly-graphic, creepily fetishistic, or worse since its debut, while the same material within Far Cry 3 has largely gone un-discussed. My best theory for this is that Far Cry 3 is working with an original protagonist, while Tomb Raider is working with one of gamings own poster-girls. People think they know who Lara Croft is, and how she should be portrayed, and this certainly isnt it. But then, Crystal Dynamics has never said that this was the same Lara in fact, theyve been upfront that this is a continuity reboot, and that their Lara is a completely different girl. Perhaps its a matter of framing Far Cry 3 is entirely first-person, while Tomb Raider 2013 is third, allowing us to see every bad thing that happens to Lara in excruciating, unpleasant detail.
Or maybe its simply that we in the gaming community have enough frightened, helpless female characters. Sure, all the things that happen to Jason Brody are terrible, but they arent costing our medium one of its few strong, confident lady warriors. Why would anyone want to take such a character and purposefully make them weak and vulnerable? But something I loved about Far Cry 3 is that, like Spec Ops: The Line before it, its willing to ask whether or not the alternative is any better.
Narrative Responsibility
Jason Brody is a monster. A psychopath. He is exactly what the island shaped him to be a remorseless, pitiless murderer with a body count well into the hundreds, perhaps even into the thousands. And hell tell you as much himself. In the Save Friends ending of the game, his narration tells us Ive killed so many people Ive lost count. I cant come back from this. In the Join Citra ending, he doesnt tell us anything. After killing his friends, his girlfriend, his younger brother, he is murdered post-coitus by the woman who helped shape him into a warrior. Or a killer. Neither option presents us with a Jason who is anything but fundamentally damaged. All the blood on his hands has stained his soul, and he is fully aware of that. Even if he started out scared, weak, frightened what he has become may be much, much worse.
This, I think, may well be my great concern with the Tomb Raider reboot, and my biggest problem with those claiming some sort of assassination of Laras character. For my money, Lara has always been an unpleasant, violent person. (Did I mention that she murders dozens of people while trying to clear herself of murder? Because that was a thing.) She kills without hesitation, throwing herself into situations wherein it will likely occur, often without any greater motivation than the thrill of the search, the hunt. Lara Croft may be strong, but she is only nominally a heroine. Im very much in favor of Crystal Dynamics efforts to reshape Lara into a more three-dimensional, nuanced person, as well as push towards more realistically-tinged, emotive story-telling. But that push also carries with it an expectation/obligation, towards more mature handling of complex themes and ideas. And I worry that Crystal Dynamics may not be up to the task.
"Accuse me of murder, will they? Someone is asking for a murderin'."
Now, again, this all purely speculation. The game isnt even out yet, and it may well surprise me. But based on Crystal Dynamics own words about the game, this is supposed to be the story of Lara coming into her own, of her becoming strong. After this, she is supposed to emerge a heroine. But as Far Cry 3 demonstrates, its not really that simple a question. It can be, if all you want to tell is a light and entertaining adventure story, ala Uncharted. No one ever truly questions the immense number of lives that Nathan Drake seems to take every single day of his life (Drake, by the by, is much like Lara in the sense that Im hesitant to call him a hero. At least hes witty, though). But then again, Nathan Drake is also never threatened with sexual assault, or made to watch any of his own digits be chopped off. There is a point wherein the content of your story (based on how graphic, shocking, or controversial it is) must be justified by something more thematically deep and impactful. Otherwise, youre writing smut. And at that point the arguments that call your content exploitative are, ultimately, correct.
I hope that I like Tomb Raider (2013). I really do. It does not bother me to see this new version of Lara Croft placed in all of these terrible, unpleasant situations. In my lifetime, Ive seen plenty of movies, TV shows, and games place their characters in far worse situations. I hope that the game lives up to its new, darker tone with maturity and narrative quality, and that it follows games like Far Cry 3 and Spec Ops: The Line by providing gamers with gritty, thematically deep material. And I really, truly hope that Crystal Dynamics is able to prove so many of its detractors wrong and deliver a complex, nuanced study of its leading lady that will justify all the mud shes dragged through. But to do so, they must realize that they themselves have changed the rules. And that having a different Lara isnt going to be enough their world and all its complexities must change as well if they are going to produce a work that lives up to its own promises.
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Aniket Ullal is the founder of First Bridge Data (www.firstbridgedata.com), a provider of institutional quality ETF data & analytics. Previously he had product responsibility for S&P's US index products including the widely tracked S&P 500 and S&P/Case-Shiller indices. First Bridge's clients range from individual financial advisors to hedge funds with over $10BN in assets. First Bridge's products include daily holdings & granular classifications data, as well as daily analytic dashboards to monitor ETF portfolio risk.
- Description: Independent / boutique research firm analyst.
- Interests: ETFs
First Bridge First Bridge provides institutional quality data & analytics on Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), including daily holdings & classification data. Our clients include financial advisors and hedge funds, who use our data & tools to evaluate, compare and monitor their ETF investments. The First Bridge team combines ...More
deep expertise in the Indexing & ETF domain with skills in statistical programming and data visualization.
We can be reached at email@example.com or (650) 762-9270.
'ETF Investment Strategies': Best Practices from leading experts (McGraw-Hill; released August 2013) "Terrific" - ETF Editor, Barron's
"A must read" - Editor, Journal of Investment Management
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Willkommen, Bienvenue, Bienvenido, Benvenuto, 歡迎
Thanks for Stopping by My Page!
"Nationalism is an infantile disease, the measles of mankind." [Albert Einstein]
"One Planet: One Mission" — Save our Planet Earth and All Creatures on it!
"Our home — Earth — is in danger. What is at risk of being destroyed is not the planet itself, but the conditions that have made it hospitable for human beings." [Al Gore]
"This is not a political issue. This is a moral issue, one that affects the survival of human civilization. It is not a question of left versus right; it is a question of right versus wrong. Put simply, it is wrong to destroy the habitability of our planet and ruin the prospects of every generation that follows ours." [Al Gore]Some Things we can do to Save Our Planet Earth:* Use compact fluorescents.* Turn off lights and other electric devices (TVs, stereos, and radios) when not in use. * Use rechargeable batteries. * In summer, use fans instead of air conditioners. * In winter, insulate the home, wear a sweater instead of turning up the thermostat, and use less hot water. * Plant trees. * Don't waste products made from forest materials. * Use recycled paper. Reuse old papers and recycle it. * Buy products with little or no packaging. * Avoid disposable products. * Buy organic fruits and vegetables. * Don't buy products if animals were killed to make it.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Be One with the Cosmo": Seek for Harmony of Man with all Creatures and Things in Nature
"The universe and I came into being together;I and everything therein are One." [Chuang-tzu, ca. 369-286 BC]
To live Life with Grace, Peace & Joy
Man-Man:No war, no killing, no exploitation of the people, no hate crime, respect human rights, no exploitation, no violence, no crueltyMan-Animals:No hunting, love animals, rescue endangered species, protect marine wildlife, no cruelty, no cruel exploitationMan-Environment:Protect rain-forests, no pollution, stop global warming
"Peace is not achieved by controlling nations, but mastering our thoughts." [John Harncharan]
"First keep the peace within yourself, then you can also bring peace to others." [Thomas a Kempis]
Click to Send a " Wave of Peace " around the Planet"If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends.You talk to your enemies." [Moshe Dayan]
"Peace has to be created, in order to be maintained.It is the product of faith, strength, energy, will, sympathy, justice, imagination,and the triumph of principle.It will never be achieved by passivity and quietism." [Dorothy Thompson]
"Peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of creative alternatives for responding to conflict -- alternatives to passive or aggressive responses, alternatives to violence." [Dorothy Thompson]
Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up,it knows it must run faster than the fastest lionor it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up, it knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle. When the sun comes up, you'd better be running. [Anonymous]
Humans gradually became dominant and took over the planet, but Homo sapiens has never been an environment friendly species. With the invention of tools and weapons, animals are captured, exploited, slaughtered or tortured to death. When trees are cut down en masse and rainforests are destroyed, the natural habitats of wildlife are severely damaged and eliminated. The rapid proliferation of humans has been a severe threat to the survival of all other species, and to our own living environment. Even the planet itself has been irreversibly damaged.
Article 1: All animals have equal rights to exist within the context of biological equilibrium. This equality of rights does not overshadow the diversity of species and of individuals.
Nowadays there are so many humans on Earth, but so few remaining animals. It has been totally out of proportion. Wouldn't you give them a chance to survive?
STOP CRUELTY TO ANIMALS:"If man wants freedom why keep birds and animals in cages?Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds them.We live by the death of others. We are burial places!" [Leonardo Da Vinci] "If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals." [Albert Einstein]
Watch the video and Sign your petition at SaveTheSheep.com
Watch the video "Live Export -- Indefensible" for barbaric slaughter See more videos from Animals Australia
Millions of sheep are sent from Australia to the Middle East each year to endure horrific cruelty and the terror of having their throats cut whilst fully conscious!
Amer. Soc. for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA)
Click and sign your petition at:
* We need to file petitions for animals because they don't speak English.
STOP VIOLENCE AGAINST CHILDREN AND WOMEN:"The highest realms of thought are impossible to reach without first attaining an understanding of compassion." [Socrates]
"The violent will not die by natural death." [Lao-tzu]xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxUNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS:
UN OHCHR.ORG "Universal Declaration of Human Rights"Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. Article 3: Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. Article 5 : No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Don't Forget Burma: Monks Do Not Kill !Free Burma !Also watch "My Video":
Want to know more about Kelvin Carter, Click :
Photographer Kelvin Carter 1960-1994
WE DO NOT TORTURE PEOPLE:head-slappingsimulated drowningfrigid temperatures"Our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights. We've said that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to those people in Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo, and we've said we can torture prisoners and deprive them of an accusation of a crime to which they are accused." [Jimmy Carter]Torture (According to International Law): Torture is "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity."xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
THE TAO OF DEMOCRACY:"The best leaders are thosethe people barely aware of their existence; the next best leaders are those whom they love and praise; next are those whom they fear;and next are those whom they despise.When they fail to inspire the people's faith,the people will lose faith in them." [ Lao-tzu; ca. 570 BC - ? ]"The people are starvingbecause the government levies too much tax.This is why the people are starving.The people become difficult to governbecause of too much interference of their government.That is why the people are unruly.The people take death lightlybecause the rulers demand too much of life.That is why the people take death lightly." [Lao-tzu]"When the people no longer fear of punishment,something greatly dreadful could descend.Do not constrict their dwelling,do not lay heavy burdens upon their livelihood.Only when the ruler cease to oppress them,they will cease to be wearied of him." [Lao-tzu]
Heaven & Earth:(My photo image)"Heaven is everlasting and Earth is perpetual. Their endurance is due to the factthat they do not exist for themselves.Therefore, they last forever." [Lao-tzu]
Water:(The theme of my page)
"Nothing is more pliant and yielding than water;but when it attacks hard and strong objects,nothing is more capable than water.Thus, nothing is able to win water.
The yielding conquers the strong,and the pliable conquers the rigid.Even though everyone in the world knows this,no one put it into practice.
The supreme goodness is like water.Water nourishes and benefits all life,and does not strive with them for position. It dwells in the lowest places that all disdains,and in this it is close to the way of Tao (Truth)." [Lao-tzu]
Wishing you a wonderful year ahead!


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Signed Bookstore | Authors | eBooks | Books | Stories | Articles | Poetry | Blogs | News | Events | Reviews | Videos | Success | Gold Members | Testimonials
Sitemap My Blog Contact Author Message Board Read Reviews Short Stories· The Gift· Akashic Hall· Determination V· Determination Part IV· Determination Part III· Determination Part II· Determination· The Light on the Wall· An Adoption, for what is meant to be willPoetry· I walk the Woodland Dunes· You Illuminate my room· There comes a Time· Every Tear that's Fallen· Nights Chirping of the Frogs· Do you remember when· When we are born· People Lie· I'm Just a Simple Woman· It's been 20 short days More poetry...
The beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides. The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mode but the true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives the passion that she shows. The beauty of a woman grows with the passing years. ~ Audrey Hepburn~
The Measure of Beauty


text:
Lollipop is a tasty update with a candy-colored, cohesive design and updated core features.
Pricing not available
News, analysis and tips on the Google Android operating system, and devices and apps that use it.
CNET's Dan Graziano shows you how to fix one of the most annoying features in Android 5.0 Lollipop.
Accidentally enabled the Hotspot or Invert Colors feature in Android 5.0 Lollipop? You may have noticed two new icons in the Quick Settings menu. Here's how to get rid of them.
The mobile phone maker lays out the challenges involved in pushing out the latest version of Android to all Motorola smartphone owners.
Chrome OS has been updated to include a beta version of Smart Lock.
This new handset is aimed at a younger demographic.
An executive confirms Google has no plans to fix a security hole in the default browser for older versions of Android, which around 60 percent of all Android users rely on.
The second generation of the midrange smartphone is the latest to pick up Google's Lollipop OS update.
HTC makes good on its promise to deliver the latest version of Android in a timely manner.
Keeping track of your data usage throughout each billing cycle is easier than ever when using Android's latest flavor, Lollipop.


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"The Other Side" used to be the name that Mexicans and Central Americans gave to California and points north. As envisioned by Martinez in this work of cultural reportage and personal memoir, "the other side" designates other frontiers as well. Whether he is writing about graffiti writers in L.A. or guerrillas in El Salvador, about the gap between a Mexican mother and her dying gay son, or the fierce young punkeros of Mexico City, Martinez never fails to provoke and affect.
PRAISE FOR The Other Side:
"The Other Side is a brilliant and breathtaking account of the new culture created by guerrillas of San Salvador and performance artists of feverish Tijuana, by young painters of graffiti in Los Angeles and rock n' roll singers of Mexico City. It is a revealing, remarkable, and timely book."
--Ryszard Kapuscinski
"Ruben Martinez is a brilliant writer with rare grace and a keen, supple, beautifully directed anger. The Other Side is important, both for the quality of his takes on L.A.'s systematic disarray, and for the sympathy with which he paints those who struggle forward anyway."
--Dennis Cooper, author of Frisk


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RF Micro Devices® Press Release - December 19, 2009RFMD Ships Pre-Production Gallium Nitride (GaN)-Based CATV Hybrid Amplifiers to Major U.S.-Based CATV Equipment
RFMD'S GaN Hybrid Amplifiers Provide Highest Available RF Output Levels for Cable Operators in Fiber Deep
Network ArchitecturesGREENSBORO, N.C., Dec 9, 2009 (GlobeNewswire via COMTEX News Network) -- RF Micro Devices, Inc. (Nasdaq:RFMD), a global leader in the design and manufacture of high-performance radio frequency components and compound semiconductor technologies, announced today that RFMD has commenced pre-production shipments of high-performance gallium nitride (GaN)-based CATV hybrid amplifiers to a major U.S.-based cable television (CATV) equipment provider. Operators of hybrid fiber coax (HFC) networks are installing fiber capacity deeper into their networks ("fiber deep" networks) in order to address the increasing demand for higher throughput video and broadband services. Accordingly, CATV equipment providers looking to reduce the cost of fiber deep networks are seeking semiconductor devices capable of higher RF output levels than those available from today's state-of-the-art GaAs-based devices. RFMD's GaN CATV hybrid amplifiers provide industry-leading RF output levels, and cable operators using RFMD's GaN can reduce the number of amplifiers required in emerging architectures, also known as N+1 architectures, and achieve up to 20-percent cost savings in fiber deep networks. "We are excited to announce pre-production shipments of our GaN-based CATV hybrid amplifiers to this major CATV customer," said Alastair Upton, general manager of RFMD's Broadband Components business unit. "With our GaN semiconductor expertise and our world-class CATV manufacturing capability, RFMD is uniquely positioned to bring the next generation of high-performance CATV amplifiers to the CATV equipment market." RFMD's initial GaN shipments to this CATV customer are intended for use in optical nodes, and subsequent shipments are also expected to be used in line extender amplifier applications. Volume production is expected in the first half of calendar 2010. RFMD has a leading position in the design and production of high-performance CATV hybrid amplifiers and leads the industry in the application of GaN technology to the CATV market. RFMD is currently shipping GaN-based CATV hybrid amplifiers to CATV equipment suppliers in Europe, Japan and North America. About RFMD RF Micro Devices, Inc. (Nasdaq GS: RFMD) is a global leader in the design and manufacture of high-performance semiconductor components. RFMD's products enable worldwide mobility, provide enhanced connectivity and support advanced functionality in the cellular handset, wireless infrastructure, wireless local area network (WLAN), CATV/broadband and aerospace and defense markets. RFMD is recognized for its diverse portfolio of semiconductor technologies and RF systems expertise and is a preferred supplier to the world's leading mobile device, customer premises and communications equipment providers. Headquartered in Greensboro, N.C., RFMD is an ISO 9001- and ISO 14001-certified manufacturer with worldwide engineering, design, sales and service facilities. RFMD is traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol RFMD. For more information, please visit RFMD's web site at www.rfmd.com. This press release includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements about our plans, objectives, representations and contentions and are not historical facts and typically are identified by use of terms such as "may," "will," "should," "could," "expect," "plan," "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "predict," "potential," "continue" and similar words, although some forward-looking statements are expressed differently. You should be aware that the forward-looking statements included herein represent management's current judgment and expectations, but our actual results, events and performance could differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements. We do not intend to update any of these forward-looking statements or publicly announce the results of any revisions to these forward-looking statements, other than as is required under the federal securities laws. RF Micro Devices' business is subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, including variability in quarterly operating results, the impact of global macroeconomic and credit conditions on our business, the rate of growth and development of wireless markets, risks associated with our planned exit from our wireless systems business, including cellular transceivers and GPS solutions, the risk that restructuring charges may be greater than originally anticipated and that the cost savings and other benefits from the restructuring may not be achieved, risks associated with the operation of our wafer fabrication facilities, molecular beam epitaxy facility, assembly facility and test and tape and reel facilities, our ability to complete acquisitions and integrate acquired companies, including the risk that we may not realize expected synergies from our business combinations, our ability to attract and retain skilled personnel and develop leaders, variability in production yields, our ability to reduce costs and improve gross margins by implementing innovative technologies, our ability to bring new products to market, our ability to adjust production capacity in a timely fashion in response to changes in demand for our products, dependence on a limited number of customers, and dependence on third parties. These and other risks and uncertainties, which are described in more detail in RF Micro Devices' most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and other reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, could cause actual results and developments to be materially different from those expressed or implied by any of these forward-looking statements. CONTACTS: Doug DeLieto VP, Investor Relations +1-336-678-7968, or Jerry Neal Executive Vice President +1-336-678-7001, both of RFMD Web Site: http://www.rfmd.com Posted 12/9/2009
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