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KS Projects necesitaba un nuevo diseño de impreso o envases y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 22 diseños de 7 diseñadores freelance.
KS is a boutique medical information company that develops manuscripts for publication in medical journals. We take projects from initial idea through research, analysis, story boarding, writing & editing, and submission. Our specialty and focus is Oncology (cancer research and treatment). The work we do is scientifically rigorous and challenging.
Our audience is medical Oncology professionals. The Lancet Oncology, our target journal for this project, is a top rated, peer-reviewed journal for medical professionals specializing in oncology. Our clients and end users expect accuracy, clarity and treatment impact from our work. This includes written text, tables, figures and illustrations.
The winning design will up the visual impact and clarity of an existing concept. This is the central illustration for submission with the manuscript. Illustration needs to be professional, clean and "eye catching".
Diagram required shows the drug development cycle using arrows to illustrate the sequential flow of steps around a clock face. The hour positions of the clock represent the years required to complete the development cycle (see attached file).
We would like to see :
1. Stylized, polished/refined versions of original design incorporating color
2. Variations on the theme that may better illustrate the idea.
The files we will require are: Print file format - .ai (CMYK)

subset: commoncrawl


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Gigantour is the name of a sporadically organised traveling heavy metal music festival organized by Megadeth's Dave Mustaine. The tour was founded in 2005 with dates across North America, and the 2006 and 2007 line-ups also traveled to Australia. The bands appearing at the festival were chosen by Mustaine because he wanted to "put together a festival that consisted of positive bands that play heavy music in a high energy environment." The tour is set as an alternative to tours such as Ozzfest. The name "Gigantour" was inspired by the classic 1960s anime Gigantor. he next Gigantour will take place in 2012.
deth have confirmed, on September 27th, 2011, that Motörhead, Volbeat, and Lacuna Coil are included in the next Gigantour that is set for early 2012.
Source: Wikipedia, 2011
Megadeth's fourth Gigantour festival exploded onto Chicago's beautiful, packed Aragon Ballroom on Friday, February 10, 2012 along with special guests Motörhead, Volbeat and Lacuna Coil. Organized by Megadeth's Dave Mustaine, 2012's Gigantour has been highly anticipated since the last tour in 2008.
As described by Mustaine, Gigantour offers a chance to tour with like-minded artists "that play heavy music in a high-energy environment." He founded the tour in 2005 and has played with such artists as Anthrax, Dream Theater, Fear Factory, Lamb of God, Opeth, and Static-X. This year classic metal rock legends Motörhead made Gigantour a must see event.
The fans were on fire for Megadeth as they chanted "Megadeth, Megadeth" until the set opened at the dramatic drop of the main curtain to their hit Trust off their Cryptic Writings album. Mosh pits and body surfing broke out immediately and continued throughout the show. It was warm and toasty inside, but the concert happened to fall on the coldest, snowiest day of an otherwise unseasonably warm Chicago winter, causing fans to hold jackets in one hand while throwing up devils horns with the other.
Megadeth showcased three songs from their aptly named thirteenth album "TH1RT3EN," along with fan favorites such as Peace Sells, Symphony of Destruction, and Holy Wars. Debuting at #1 on the Billboard Hard Rock Albums chart, TH1RT3EN may prove to be the band's lucky number as it has earned their 10th nomination for a Grammy - an award that has eluded Megadeth for their past 9 nominations.
Undaunted by the cold, Motörhead took the stage before Megadeth in their classic, hard core, in your face, rock and roll style with singer/bassist Lemmy Kilmister warming hearts with classics Killed by Death, Damage Case, Overkill and of course Ace of Spades, to which multiple mosh pits broke out. The pyrotechnic explosions helped warm up the audience too, especially during drummer Mikkey Dee's raucous drum solo.
Lemmy, frontman of Motörhead says, "Megadeth are one of the greatest bands to tread a stage anywhere and me and Dave have been promising each other we'd tour together ever since we met! We've done festivals in Europe with Lacuna Coil and they're workaholics as well! Volbeat are great too; the whole bill is pretty diverse and I advise everyone who likes being deaf, and/or can lip-read already, to come out and see what the stuff that doesn't get any MTV Video Awards sounds like! Gigantour is just that!"
To celebrate their 35 years on the road, Motörhead just released their DVD The Wörld Is Ours-Vol 1 - Everywhere Further Than Everyplace Else, containing some of the finest moments from the band, including the entire performance from Chile's Teatro Caupolican, shot and filmed in classic black and white by Banger Films and Sam Dunn (Iron Maiden Flight 666, Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage).
Danish rockers Volbeat opened for Motörhead with their melody core, college rock vibe. Most appreciated by the audience was their megahit "Fallen."
Volbeat vocalist and guitarist Michael Poulsen said the band couldn't refuse Mustaine's offer to join the tour. "This is something you don't think twice about; it's a must and a blessing. They [Megadeth and Motörhead] are two of the world's biggest/best and most important bands in heavy rock history. Since the beginning, Megadeth and Motörhead have been a huge inspiration of my/our musical careers. To have the opportunity to go on the road and share the stage with these two legendary rock bands, is another dream come true in the Volbeat adventure."
Volbeat will join Megadeth again this summer at the Rock on the Range Festival in Columbus, OH on May 18th - 20th. Forty-four bands will perform including Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson, Anthrax and Five Finger Death Punch - anyone up for a drive, Chicago?
Italian goth metal band Lacuna Coil opened for Volbeat, led by cutie Cristina Scabbia and their mellow metal sound. Lacuna Coil's new album, "Dark Adrenaline," sold around 20,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 15 on The Billboard 200 chart. Says Scabbia, "WOW! Gigantour! I am super excited!! I mean are you kidding me? A tour with Megadeth, Motörhead, Volbeat and us? This is going to be so crushing that I think the walls are gonna fall down in some of the venues!!"
Cristina played a special part in Megadeth's performance by singing "A Tout Le Monde" with Mustaine. I've seen Megadeth four times now, and this is the first time I've heard them play their haunting ballad about suicide, and Scabbia did an excellent job singing the female vocal part.
Gigantour will be visiting venues all over the U.S. and Canada this year. The name Gigantour was inspired by the classic 1960's Japanese animated robot "Gigantor," which came out at the same time as the Speed Racer cartoon. Megadeth has teamed up with VIPNation.com to provide fans with Ultimate VIP packages, including premium tickets, meet and greets, exclusive gifts and more.
Gigantour 2012 Tour Dates:
Gigantour review by Michelel Mussatto ©2012


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Archive for category digital learning
Digital on Day One of Learning
Posted by BYOT Network in Digital Age Learning, digital learning, IMS Global, Interoperability on February 25, 2020
A few years ago, I wrote a blog post on The Components of a Digital Age Learning Ecosystem. Now, it's becoming commonplace for district leaders to consider the digital resources and tools that they provide their teachers and students as the ecosystem that supports teaching and learning. When thinking about that ecosystem from a digital standpoint, reflect on what holds it together. What supports those platforms and enables them to easily share information and data? This connectedness or glue is provided by interoperability, which is most effectively and seamlessly enabled by open standards from IMS Global that any developer or edtech provider can use to ensure and validate effective integrations.
As a teacher in the classroom, it is essential that the instructional digital toolkit works together like pieces of a puzzle without a lot of wasted time and frustration. One challenge can be making sure that all of the students are able to log in to the various programs easily and securely. An open standard that is used throughout the edtech industry is OneRoster. It keeps student information safe, enables edtech suppliers to provide one-click access to programs, and ensures that students and teachers are provided with the appropriate district-provided digital resources for their classes and courses.
This may sound like a dream scenario to many teachers who are currently struggling with multiple usernames and passwords for their students that vary with each application. Teachers who are provided access to all of their technology tools directly from their district may be unable to select only those programs that implement OneRoster. However, it is possible for teachers to advocate for the use of the OneRoster standard. School and district leaders can require that their edtech providers support and implement the standard and insist that their products are OneRoster certified by IMS Global. Schools and districts can also join IMS Global and collaborate with other educators and edtech partners to improve the open standards as a community of leaders.
Being Digital on Day One of Learning means that as soon as students enter the classroom, they are ready to begin utilizing the digital resources available to begin learning. By facilitating easy and equitable access to technology tools and platforms, districts can ensure that they are making the most of their investment and providing teachers with the support necessary to focus on the instructional needs of their students instead of having to focus on the technology. By using technology resources that are OneRoster certified, districts can more effectively realize how to be digital on day one of learning.
To see an example of OneRoster in action, click here.
"Just Right" Content for Digital Learning
Posted by BYOT Network in Curation, Digital Age Learning, digital learning, Personalized Learning on July 22, 2017
We've all heard the story of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears." While the bears were away, the hungry little girl, Goldilocks, entered their cabin and tasted their porridge. However, one was too hot, and another one was too cold. Finally, baby bear's porridge was just right, and she ate it all up. Likewise, as teachers design digital learning experiences based on their students' personal strengths and interests, they need to search for the "just right" instructional resources to meet their students' varied needs.
With the use of the technology for digital lesson design and delivery, teachers have powerful tools that make it easy to communicate with students; manage the virtual classroom; provide access to instructional resources; and track student mastery of learning standards. Yet despite all that functionality, teachers still face additional ongoing challenges.
Teachers are now engaged in a time-intensive daily process of designing digital instruction from resources they find on the Internet. A recent survey noted that teachers spend up to seven hours per week searching for instructional resources and another five hours designing their own instructional materials. (Marci Goldberg of K-12 Market Advisors)
The seamless integration of interoperable technology resources within an intentionally designed digital learning ecosystem can provide teachers with the necessary digital lesson design tools and access to curated learning objects that are vetted for quality and correlated to learning standards. This digital content may include resources licensed from publishers; curated open educational resources; and teacher-created resources that are shared throughout the district.
As districts prioritize the process of curating instructional resources and making them readily accessible, teachers can begin designing digital instruction more effectively. The following strategies are important to remember during the process of selecting digital resources while designing lessons:
Focus on the Standards – Teachers should utilize content that is correlated to learning standards to make an instructional difference for each learner. After identifying the essential skills embedded within the standard, the teachers can determine what processes or products might demonstrate understanding. Teachers should be able to conduct a search for standards-correlated content and embed it in their assignments. These assignments should be designed to help students show mastery of a particular concept or skill.
Scaffold Understanding – Within the design of a lesson that incorporates digital content, teachers should scaffold understanding. How are those resources being used to engage student learning? Online discussions can include curated content. At the beginning of a lesson, questions can set the stage for new learning and help students focus on the core components of a concept or process. Video within a lesson should be used purposefully and with short clips (less than a few minutes) to stimulate questions and critical thinking. Directions need to be clear, yet minimal, so that students can utilize critical thinking when solving problems. Finally, there should be a variety of types of formative and summative assessments provided so that students have multiple risk-free opportunities to demonstrate learning and ensure success.
Plan for Interaction – After students view video or another form of digital content, they should be encouraged to interact and collaborate with each other to construct new meanings from that information. Students can participate in discussions to pose new questions and ideas about their learning. Assignments can be collaborative to support students working together to solve problems. Teachers can use digital content to help students compare and contrast new concepts in these collaborative groups, and students can create authentic products to demonstrate their learning.
Utilize a Variety of Content – As with all forms of media being shared with students, teachers must carefully preview all digital content. Teachers should consider the needs and expectations of their learning communities – the age of the students and the values of the community – before utilizing digital content for instructional purposes. In addition to the use of video, other types of digital content should be utilized for instruction, including interactives, images, audio files, documents, and eBooks.
Personalize Learning Experiences – Students have unique talents, abilities, and differences that can pose challenges to the one-size fits all classroom. By personalizing learning experiences, teachers can help students identify the pathways that meet their individual learning needs and interests. A teacher could begin helping students identify their strengths through a learning style inventory or interest checklist, but digital content can also be used meaningfully to differentiate learning experiences. One way that this can be accomplished is by designing personalized playlists correlated to learning standards and assigning them to students based on their learning needs.
Like Goldilocks who consumed the bear's "just right" porridge, through intentional lesson design, today's digital age students can engage with the "just right" digital content so that they can experience academic success and make the most out of every teachable moment. Those students may even become producers of their own "just right" original content that they are ready to share with others.
Content Curation Strategies for Digital Learning
Posted by BYOT Network in Curation, Digital Age Learning, digital learning on January 18, 2017
In our digitally connected world, most of us have become curators of content as we utilize the technology tools in our pockets to interact with each other. We practice curation for both personal and professional reasons by saving our favorite links, images, videos, and other resources, which we have either found ourselves or have been shared with us. In turn, we usually share this curated content with each other through social media, email, text messages, etc. We can then carefully curate the information that we assemble and organize on social media, as it collectively becomes our representation of our digital selves. Even this blog is another example of curation, as I often include the links to other sources that I find valuable, and arrange my thoughts, ideas, and illustrations into a cohesive whole.
Although most of us participate in daily content curation, many people frequently make mistakes in the types of content that they share online and damage their reputations and/or digital footprints. The content in these situations may be inappropriate, lack authenticity, or distract from the intended message. These concerns are relevant to both personal and professional attempts at content curation and necessitate a purposeful, focused, and methodic approach to this task
In my last blog post, Curation for Digital Learning, I detailed the reasons why schools and districts should engage in content curation to facilitate digital learning. I also listed the activities that are involved in content curation, specifically within K-12 learning environments. Now, to better nurture digital learning ecosystems, this blog post contains an overview of some specific strategies that schools and districts can undertake to begin, execute, and sustain a successful plan for content curation. I have attempted to list the strategies in order; however, once the process of content curation is initiated by a school district, many activities begin to happen concurrently, and there may be some overlap in timing as different teams and individuals begin to fulfill their roles and responsibilities within that process.
1. Design a comprehensive strategic plan for curation.
Different departments within school and districts often pursue their own disparate plans for new initiatives and seldom have a written plan for implementation. Because content curation requires a comprehensive strategy that involves everyone in the district, it is necessary to spend some time reflecting about this process and brainstorming about the requisite curation strategies. Likewise, mutually acceptable goals and objectives should be collaboratively established for content curation. Ultimately, this plan should be continually revisited and occasionally modified to remain current, relevant, and adaptable to accommodate changes in personnel, new goals and initiatives, and innovations in instructional practices and technology. The remaining strategies in this list should be included within the district's overall plan for content curation.
2. Specify what content needs to be curated and created.
Within a district's plan for curation, content serves various purposes and originates from various sources. A district can begin this process by conducting an inventory and review of its current instructional content. Some of these instructional resources may be available within a digital format to better connect students to engaging content at any time and place while using their own technology tools or devices provided by the district. Districts may already be subscribing to resources that will fulfill some of their content curation needs and purposes. These resources may be provided by various publishers of digital content. Other resources may be available from open educational resources that can be found online or acquired from the content that the district or its teachers have already identified. Once district personnel have completed this inventory of available resources, there may be a need to source additional content to further address instructional needs or learning initiatives. Any content that is determined to be unavailable to procure from external sources may need to be created internally within the district and included within the overall body of curated resources.
3. Organize and train teams in content curation at multiple levels.
A school or district needs to realize that curation is a process and will require organization and training at multiple levels from district-level to school-level personnel. This organization may require that teams will need to be involved in different aspects of curation process. Some teams may need to focus on specific subject areas, grade levels, or even instructional strategies. Other teams may focus on how the different resources are being utilized to facilitate teaching and learning. District-level teams may focus on the goals and objectives of a specific department and include the on-going review of resources that are being shared by schools. School-level teams may include lead teachers and department chairs who represent grade levels and content areas and curate the resources that are utilized by teachers daily for instruction. Teams may also be composed of media and technology specialists who regularly deal with curation of learning resources, an understanding of copyright information, and the use of technology platforms and tools for curation. Content curation teams should have clear goals and objectives, and the individuals involved should have determined roles and responsibilities. Finally, each team should operate under well-defined expectations and deliverables to be accountable for its success.
4. Outline the logistics of when, where, and how to curate content.
Because multiple individuals will be involved in the district's content curation strategy, they may need to follow a consistent set of procedures of when, where, or how they will curate content. They will need time to fulfill their responsibilities, and the district will need to consider how to provide that time. They may also require additional equipment or resources for curation that will need to be made available. These logistics should be clearly documented within the district's overall plan for curation. Finally, it may be necessary to develop specific forms or templates for recording the logistics for how each team will complete its assigned tasks in curation.
5. Develop a strategy for contextualizing curated content.
Individual items of content, otherwise known as learning objects, may have limited meaning when each resource is looked at separately. Curators will need to consider any metadata or additional information that is necessary to provide meaningful context to those resources. This information may include descriptive details such as key words, tags, correlations to standards, intended grade level, student interests, etc. Context can also be provided with how the curated content is packaged together into a cohesive whole such as within a playlist, individual lessons, or a comprehensive digital curriculum. Determining who is responsible for completing the above tasks and providing that context is another aspect of the content curation process.
6. Construct a rubric to assess content for quality.
Because the content is curated from many sources and by different individuals, it is important that the curators are utilizing a rubric or checklist to help ensure quality. Again, the design of this rubric should include whatever specific goals and strategies that the district determines are essential for the learning objects to reflect, and should support the district's overall digital learning initiative. Some evaluative aspects that could be addressed within the rubric include student engagement, flexibility of resources, accuracy of information, or other pertinent details. A school or district may also want to consider having different levels (school and district) of evaluation to ensure that the best resources are selected for curation.
7. Determine how content should be stored, accessed, and sustained.
There are a variety of digital platforms available for curating content. Some digital tools and resources make it easy for teachers to begin locating and sharing resources informally, but these platforms may not support an overall sustainable and equitable content curation strategy. Some platforms also focus more on instructional design or class management rather than on the curation of resources from a variety of content providers. Districts also need to consider interoperability among the digital platforms within their digital learning ecosystem to ensure that teachers and students have a seamless experience in accessing and utilizing these resources. Perhaps most importantly, districts should determine that any curated resources can be readily migrated from one platform to another, as necessary, since the needs and direction of the district tend to change over time.
8. Communicate about curated content to the intended users.
As resources are being curated for instructional purposes, districts will need to consider how they will communicate about the new resources and where they will be located for the intended users. Teachers and students are often unaware of where to find the resources that are being curated by district. The district may choose to send out a weekly newsletter of new content that has been curated and the intended purposes for those resources. They may also want to provide recorded webinars or other information about how to locate curated content. Having a consistent location and process for accessing the curated content will make it easier for everyone involved to know exactly where to search to better implement those resources for teaching and learning.
9. Provide professional learning in the use of curated content.
In addition to knowing how to locate curated content and utilize any platforms involved in this process, teachers will also need ongoing training for their role in the process of curation and in how to use curated resources for instruction. There may be different expectations for how that content is to be used, which would influence the training that is provided. For example, some of the curated objects may include interactive simulations, materials for research, specific units of study, or even digital lessons that each require their own specific training. A district may find it helpful to organize teams focused on various aspects professional learning and differentiate among training on how to utilize a platform; how to locate quality resources; or how to incorporate specific resources within instruction. An ongoing professional learning plan will help a district in achieving the instructional goals for their content curation strategy.
There is no one-size-fits-all content curation strategy that works for every school or district. Because every learning community has its own specific needs, challenges, and strengths, the above strategies may need to be modified to address those differences. In future blog posts, I am planning on exploring these strategies to provide more specific details and resources about the content curation process to benefit digital learning.
Curation for Digital Learning
Posted by BYOT Network in Curation, Digital Age Learning, digital learning on January 9, 2017
Schools and districts are now utilizing an influx of digital tools, content, and platforms with several hopeful intentions. With the use of these resources, educators are planning to better engage student learning, increase academic performance; and prepare students for an ever-changing digital world. Whether the technology devices are owned by the students and brought to school as part of a Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT) initiative or provided by the district, teachers and students are using these tools and accessing online platforms to transform learning experiences by developing new ways to connect with each other and digital content.
Although greater access to technology tools and devices has increased, with public schools now providing at least one computer for every five students and ensuring high-speed Internet connections (Education Week, 2016), these resources are still not fully achieving their desired goals. There are many possible reasons why teachers are still struggling to use technology to transform instruction. While districts have rushed to provide teachers with access to technology tools, platforms, and the Internet, most have not spent time curating the digital content necessary for teachers to maximize the potential of these resources. Of course, many districts have also increased their subscriptions to digital content providers, but to strategically curate digital content is a different initiative that requires its own comprehensive plan.
In a professional learning session, a teacher once complained to me that her district was technology rich, but resource poor. However, the district had placed greater emphasis on acquiring devices and the use of learning platforms for classroom management over the curation of digital content. Consider that in the past, teachers were usually provided with a textbook that included most of their necessary instructional resources. While simultaneously reducing the expenditures on print resources and raising funds for technology purchases, many districts eliminated textbooks and provided teachers with devices. Now, many teachers are engaged in a time-intensive daily process of designing digital instruction from resources they find on the Internet, in addition to learning how to use new technology tools, while attempting to increase student engagement and academic performance.
Content Curation Activities
A district's strategic focus on the curation of digital content for its teachers and students can help to facilitate the transition to a digital learning ecosystem. Curation for this ecosystem entails more than just collecting, gathering, and organizing. The process of curation involves the following purposeful activities:
- Selecting content at multiple levels and from diverse sources
- Evaluating content for quality, including relevance and authenticity
- Creating essential content that cannot be located externally
- Annotating content to provide meaning and context
- Organizing content to facilitate searching and productivity
- Storing content to ensure safe, reliable, and equitable access
- Archiving content that may no longer be relevant
- Deleting content that is no longer necessary
- Communicating about content to the expected users
- Sustaining the content with a thorough plan of action
Reasons for Content Curation
Although the strategic process of curation has often been overlooked by K-12 school districts, it has been a regular practice in higher education, museums, and libraries, and its necessity to business continues to grow in importance with the need to inform and educate workers and customers due to the abundance of information readily available online in the digital age. Likewise, there are numerous reasons why the task of curating content should be systematically implemented within K-12 school districts, including the following:
- Preserving instructional time
- Utilizing resources more effectively
- Providing greater access to content
- Promoting equity among users
- Protecting digital rights
- Supporting online safety
- Encouraging innovation
- Saving money and resources
- Ensuring quality in content
- Nurturing a sense of community
Without purposeful curation, it is impossible to realize the full impact of digital learning resources and initiatives. There would be no consistent approach to the acquisition and use of digital content to inform the improvement of teaching and learning practices. Not only does curation help to ensure the quality of resources that are being utilized for instruction, but it also promotes equity, especially when those resources are incorporated within an accessible digital curriculum. In my next blog post, I will explore various strategies for content curation.
Editorial Projects in Education Research Center. (2016, February 5). Issues A-Z: Technology in Education: An Overview. Education Week. Retrieved January 6, 2017 from http://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/technology-in-education/
Connection for Personalized Learning
Posted by BYOT Network in BYOT Strategies, Digital Age Learning, digital learning, Personalized Learning on September 24, 2016
This post is part of a series about the Building Blocks for Personalized Learning. By engaging in opportunities to make connections beyond the classroom to real-world learning activities and situations, students are better able to experience personalized learning. These connections may occur within a school's own learning community, but they may also include local or even global pursuits that help students learn more about themselves while making a contribution; participating in a work experience; or attending an off-campus educational environment. When students make these connections, the learning is more authentic, relevant, and in turn becomes more personalized to their individual perspectives and goals.
Strategies for Connection
Encourage Service Learning – According to the National Service Learning Clearinghouse, service learning is "a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities." Students must be provided with opportunities to give of their time and talents to improve their learning and living communities. Joe Bandy, the Assistant Director of the Center for Teaching at Vanderbilt University, describes several benefits for students that are directly related to the goals of personalized learning. One benefit is that by helping others, students are able to learn more about themselves and discover and develop their individual skills and abilities.
Provide Ways for Students to Serve within the School – Some schools begin the year by suggesting various ways that students can volunteer in the learning community, such as working in a school store; assisting a teacher or media specialist; offering support to an office; organizing special events or school activities; being active in a club or group; or participating in a safety patrol. Classrooms could be given a section of the school environment to beautify and maintain in order to encourage a sense of connection. Even typical classroom jobs give younger students the experience of contributing to their classroom learning community, and older students could be buddy readers for younger students or collaborators with technology and projects. Students of any age can offer technical support for their peers and teachers within a "genius bar." This resource may be especially important as schools are implementing 1:1 technology initiatives, Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT), and new digital learning tools and resources.
Locate Experts to Share Experiences – Schools and teachers can help students develop greater connections by identifying experts to share their experiences. One way to begin this process is to utilize the expertise of parents and teachers. When students hear about the paths that professionals have taken to achieve their careers and learn about specific occupations, they are able to make more informed goals and choices for their futures. It is also beneficial for the community members as they begin to feel more connected to their local schools. The use of digital tools and resources, can facilitate the connection with experts outside of the local community. According to Lock (2015) in Designing Learning to Engage in the Global Classroom, through "this change in the learning landscape and with the advances in technology, students and educators are better able to work with other students and experts in new and meaningful ways at anytime and anywhere in the world."
Collaborate with Local Organizations – There may be organizations within the community that can provide additional ways for students to contribute; to offer volunteer services, or to receive ongoing support. Some organizations focus on particular issues or groups with specific needs and interests within a community, for example, the Latin American Association, the food bank, churches, sports clubs, etc. Many of these organizations are already involved in some kind of local service or outreach, and as students begin interacting with them, they can better understand how a community works as a unit; is organized by its members; and collaborates to make necessary changes to benefit everyone. Observing this interaction in the 'adult world' reflects what we want for students to understand about interdependence in their worlds – in their schools and communities. Through these experiences, they may learn more about themselves and their passions and interests. Reaching out to these organizations can be begin with parents at the school, but it may require some careful research into what resources are available and appropriate for student involvement.
Connect with Local Businesses – By connecting with businesses, students are able to learn more about the types of local occupations that are available. Having students participate in internships can facilitate this connection. This work experience is valuable for students as they make choices about college and/or careers. Finding the right fit is important and will help students discover more about themselves and their abilities as they engage in real work. The National Research Council (2012) noted that work-based learning activities can also provide "employability" or "21st Century" skills and serve as a foundation for lifelong learning in a time of rapid technological change. Each school should develop its own database of business contacts, and connecting with the local Chamber of Commerce might be a good way to begin this database. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also provides multiple resources for high school students for career planning.
Provide Connections to Higher Education – Connecting with institutions of higher education is also another way of helping students develop greater understanding about what personally excites them concerning careers and education. Many colleges and universities offer summer youth summer programs, and with these experiences, students may discover new unique talents. These activities are often offered for free or at a lower cost for students from low income families. Colleges are also a wealth of resources for connecting with experts in in particular fields who could be good sources of information for the classroom. In addition, many colleges and high schools offer dual enrollment for students who are willing and capable to participate in classes outside of high school allowing for a district to truly personalize an educational path for a student with special needs or talents. Most districts already have information about these programs, but they need to ensure that the information is accessible and communicated to teachers, parents, and students.
Facilitate Global Connections – Students often have difficulty seeing beyond their local communities and having a clear picture of themselves as members of a global community. Beginning with their own country and expanding throughout the world, students could discover more about opportunities that exist for making global connections. This year, ISTE Connects published a blog post called 6 Resources for Fostering Global Education that provided some practical advice for educators to help students make global connections regardless of exceptions in age, language, or economics. Technology offers a variety of ways for classrooms to connect with each other throughout the world, and this provides students with a greater awareness of how they personally can participate within a global community.
Market the Success – When students began to bridge the connection between their personal interests and aspirations to the available resources within the community at large, it is necessary to begin marketing and publishing this success. Not only is the recognition from marketing positive for the school to showcase its efforts, but it also benefits the members of the community. This marketing allows community members to highlight how they are collaborating with their local schools and providing ongoing support. Some marketing strategies include publishing a video to document success; noting the activities on the school's website; and curating student portfolios. Many schools also have their own site-based news broadcast, and these experiences can be shared via this medium throughout the school. Incidentally, participating in the production of the school news is another way that students can volunteer their talents while developing new skills! These strategies help to communicate what students have learned and what they have accomplished.
In their book, A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change, Thomas and Brown explain, "In our view, the kind of learning the will define the twenty-first century is not taking place in a classroom – at least not in today's classroom. Rather, it is happening all around us, everywhere, and it is powerful" (17). Ideally, as students make connections, they may be better prepared to make personal choices about future careers; set goals for future learning; and find greater fulfillment in life.
Community for Personalized Learning
Posted by BYOT Network in BYOT Strategies, Digital Age Learning, digital learning, Personalized Learning on August 2, 2016
This post is part of a series about the Building Blocks for Personalized Learning. It is necessary for teachers to nurture the development of a Community within their classrooms in order to facilitate personalized learning. Each student needs to feel empowered within the learning environment to explore individual interests and passions. Consider the type of community in which you would thrive. How would you describe that environment? Generally, people describe an effective neighborhood community as friendly, supportive, secure, vibrant, participatory, and innovative. Designing this type of learning environment within each classroom is equally important. Students need to experience similar qualities in their classroom communities in order to achieve personal academic success.
Qualities of Community
Trust – I have previously blogged about the quality of trust (Learning to TRUST with Responsible Use) as my school district made the shift from an Acceptable Use Policy to Responsible Use Guidelines. When students are using technology tools and digital resources to engage in personalized learning activities, teachers have to be able to trust that students will be responsible. This TRUST poster provides five positive "I will…" statements to support the responsible use of technology tools and digital resources. As teachers begin a new school year, they should discuss each of these statements with their students and what they look like in practice. Trust involves developing an open, supportive, and vigorous classroom culture, so these items need to be reviewed regularly with the students.This includes ensuring safety and respect so that students feel comfortable enough to participate fully in personalized learning.
Inclusive – A classroom community is constructed of diverse individuals, but they can come together in the personalized learning environment and support each other with common goals. Each student should be encouraged to share their unique qualities and differences, as they pursue their own interests and individual learning paths. To develop a more inclusive learning environment, teachers can include various perspectives on topics. This approach provides students with an opportunity to see examples from many viewpoints. Diversity should be purposefully incorporated throughout the curriculum by using multiple examples, relevant content, and meaningful illustrations that are free of stereotypes. In this way, everyone is welcome within the classroom to contribute their personal strengths and abilities to benefit the whole community.
Responsive – When teachers possess a good understanding of their students, they should know when students might have personal challenges or difficulties that keep them from performing to their maximum potential. Knowing what makes each student tick helps a teacher become more responsive to their needs and personal differences. One way to develop this understanding is to conference with students regularly (ideally weekly) to set goals, design personalized learning paths, determine progress, and celebrate success. The feedback that teachers provide during these conferences should not only be for instruction, it should encompass the needs of the whole child. Likewise, when difficulties do arise, the teacher should have access to other resources within the school community to assist them in meeting each child's individual learning needs.
Empowering – By empowering students to make relevant choices about the direction of their learning, teachers can help students become more involved within the classroom community. Encouraging students to believe that they have control over their success is an indicator of a growth mindset and could be one of the most important qualities a student can develop. Growth mindset is the concept that through dedication and hard work you can achieve anything. Carol Dweck wrote about the differences between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset in her book, Mindset: A New Psychology of Success. Essentially, one difference is that a student with a fixed mindset may quickly give up working on a challenging problem after a few minutes, but a student with a growth mindset will persist and view the problem as an exciting challenge! Students with a growth mindset will also learn to see themselves as the architects of their own success. Developing this understanding within students arises in part from ownership of the learning experience.
Joyful – The personalized learning environment is joyful as teachers and students share in the learning process. Even when situations become challenging, there is pleasure in discovering new solutions to problems and collaborating with others in the classroom community. Not only do students feel more connected to their teacher and each other, but they begin to feel more connected to the content they are exploring along their unique learning paths. It is essential to have opportunities to celebrate this joy of learning and each student's personal successes and achievements. Hosting visitors to the classroom so that students can share what they have learned with others is a good strategy for showcasing success. Also, identifying ways that students can contribute what they have learned to benefit their school, neighboring community, or the world provides a more authentic learning experience and produces a sense of satisfaction and purpose.
Communication for Personalized Learning
Posted by BYOT Network in BYOT Strategies, Digital Age Learning, digital learning, Personalized Learning on June 28, 2016
This post is part of a series about the Building Blocks for Personalized Learning. When teachers facilitate the building block of Communication, not only are they nurturing a learning environment that supports personalized learning, they are also helping students to develop skills that are essential for personal and professional success. Consider the following forms of communication: reading, writing, speaking, and listening and their importance in the digital age when information is so readily accessible. The use of technology can benefit the development of these skills. However, there is some concern that the connection to technology tools and devices in the classroom will lead to students being disconnected from each other or from the teacher. In my experience, this isn't the reality of classrooms that encourage Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT) or in 1:1 classrooms where students are equipped with school-provided technology resources. These classrooms tend to have more effective communication as the teachers and students have greater opportunities to communicate with each other.
Strategies for Communication
Begin with the Purpose – The five major purposes of communication are as follows: to inform, to express feelings, to imagine, to influence, and to meet social expectations (Communication, 2016). The teacher has to strategically utilize each of these purposes when communicating with students as well as ensure that students practice and develop these skills. These strategies are integral to the teacher's ability to address the unique needs, interests, aspirations, or cultural backgrounds of individual students in the personalized learning environment. Communicating effectively for personalized learning, requires the teacher to have a good understanding of each child within the classroom learning community.
Develop Norms for Communication – Students have already been learning and practicing their own rules for how they should communicate with others, especially through social media. Teachers have to negotiate norms and procedures with the students for communicating in the personalized learning environment. Some of the communication will be happening face to face, but there will also be communication in online spaces and platforms. Discuss with the students how they need to communicate differently in different situations and give them opportunities to practice their developing skills. Realize that they will make mistakes in communication, yet it is important to know how to respond to those mistakes. It should never be acceptable for a student to demean or intimidate anyone, and those instances must have clear and specific consequences.
Vary Modalities – Students vary in the ways that they perceive and understand what is being communicated and how it is being communicated, so teachers need to present information in multiple ways. By incorporating visuals, movement, music, and illustrations, teachers are more likely to address individual student needs, interests, and preferences. The National Center for Universal Design for Learning provides an excellent graphic organizer, which includes guidelines for providing multiple means of representation; action and expression; and engagement. Remember that attention spans also differ among learners, and it is normal that the attention of participants drifts occasionally throughout instruction. Including variety and novelty, helps the learners focus on what is being communicated and providing activities that utilize movement is essential.
Consider Your Tone – Since perception varies among learners, teachers need to think about how they are sounding when they are communicating. If they have taught the same lesson several times during a day, are they beginning to sound bored or impatient? The tone of personalized instruction should sound supportive and encouraging, rather than directive, and engaging, rather than monotone. Again, having a good understanding of the students is necessary, because teachers focused on personalized learning are more likely to know what tone to use within a specific situation or with a particular student to communicate a message.
Use Effective Presentation Skills – In the personalized learning environment, the students will be communicating and presenting as much (if not more) that the teacher. By modeling effective presentation skills, teachers can teach students how to be better communicators. The following strategies are important to consider when presenting:
- Make whole class presentations short and then work with individual students or with small groups.
- Post a written list of steps or directions that students should follow.
- Consider how much the teacher is talking compared to the students.
- Model professional and appropriate communication behaviors for students.
- Emphasize key points, ideas, and directions when speaking.
- Provide enough time for students to respond to questions.
- Record instruction and watch the video for feedback about communication.
Use a Microphone (if possible) – As an instructional technology specialist, I worked at an elementary school that had microphones and a sound system installed in every classroom. At first, many teachers were hesitant to wear their microphones as this was a change in traditional practice. We established some school-wide expectations for that system, and all of the teachers began the practice of wearing the microphones on a lanyard throughout the day. Each classroom was also equipped with a handheld student microphone. After an initial period of assimilating and normalizing the use of the microphones into regular instructional practices, the teachers eagerly reported that the new sound systems had a dramatic improvement on the teaching and learning experiences in their classrooms. Students were eager to share what they had learned while using the handheld microphone for communication, and this encouraged even shy and reticent students to express their ideas and opinions about what they had learned. Teachers noted that they were more comfortable in communicating with their classes as they realized that they rarely had to raise their voices to get the attention of the students, and the students attended better to instruction and class discussion.
Remember Nonverbal Communication – Listening is an important skill for communication for personalized learning. A teacher has to show openness to new ideas and strategies. If the students sense a feeling of agitation, disinterest, or confusion, the teacher will lose their participation. Likewise, facial expressions and posture can encourage or discourage enthusiasm for learning. It is important to practice patience when dealing with difficult situations or even with the subjects or topics that the teacher may not find personally interesting. One of the best practices for personalized learning is for teachers to imagine what it would be like to be a student in their classes and to consider how they would want to be perceived. Note that nonverbal communication is the first message that students receive as they walk into the classroom to begin a new day.
Communication. (2016). In Compton's by Britannica. Retrieved from http://kids.britannica.com/comptons/article-198990/communication


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This event has passed.
Game Changers
June 13, 2019 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
|Recurring Event (See all)
An event every week that begins at 7:00pm on Thursday, repeating indefinitely
Game Changers
Game Changers is for young men and women ages 13-24 looking to grow in their relationship with Jesus. We meet every other Thursday from 7:00p.m. to 9:00p.m. for a simple and comprehensive Bible study. A small informal meal (generally pizza) will be provided. (ages 13-24)


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Courtyard Raleigh Crabtree is proud to be a Gold LEED certified hotel. This Raleigh, NC, hotel sits perfectly in the city center next to Crabtree Valley Mall and offers an on-site lounge and restaurant in the evening, as well as tasty breakfast at The Bistro with Starbucks coffee. We are unique among Raleigh hotels with our guest rooms and suites featuring comfortable amenities, including plush bedding and glass enclosed showers in our suites. The Courtyard Raleigh Crabtree is designed with the business traveler in mind, offering high-speed Internet, a business center and close proximity to many major businesses in the area. Our innovative Green accommodations are a short drive from Carter Finley Stadium, NC State Fairgrounds, PNC Arena and the Carolina Hurricanes, downtown Raleigh. Our LEED status is achieved by offering recycling, green cleaning products and in 2011 we received the Carolina Recycling Assoc. Outstanding Green Purchasing Award.
Courtyard Raleigh Crabtree Valley
3908 Arrow Drive
Raleigh, North Carolina, United States


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Memorial Day in Missoula – What is Open and What is Closed?
As the unofficial kick-off to summer, Memorial Day weekend is a time traditionally reserved for picnics, barbecues and fun with family and friends. Whether you need to make a last-minute run for paper plates, or you're just looking for a place to relax and enjoy your day off, here's the lowdown on what will be open in Missoula on Monday, May 27.
A Carousel for Missoula – Open
Banks – Closed
Currents – Closed
Grocery stores – Open
Historical Museum at Fort Missoula – Open
Liquor stores – Closed
Movie theaters – Carmike Cinemas and the Village 6 are open
Post offices – Closed
Public libraries – Closed
Schools – Closed
Southgate Mall – Open, but with shortened hours (10 a.m. to 6 p.m.)
Splash Montana – Closed due to weather
The University of Montana – Closed
Walmart – Open


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This thread is for discussing Season 15's unbalanced heroes and reworking their design to fix the problems. Please post with your ideas, as well as, the problem and include why and how your proposed changes can solve the issues.
When posting please try to be concise and use language we can all understand. Don't use this thread to whine and complain, use it instead to contribute to the conversation and help solve the problems
April 10, 2017
Latest Balance Update: http://forums.kobojo.com/showthread....BALANCE-UPDATE
Note: Lion and Phoenix League players always have their ELO reset back to 1100 at the end of each season.


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Indicative Rate * AU$140 to AU$140
Relax and escape to this tropical country retreat located only 25 minutes south of Mackay. Access roads are all sealed - only 10 minutes from the highway. The air-conditioned self-contained unit provides a convenient home-base while you explore the Mackay/Whitsunday region's rainforests, reefs and many other unique tourist attractions.
After a day of sightseeing or fishing, unwind with a game of tennis and then cool down in the resort-style pool. You might like to assist with feeding the farm animals or just take a leisurely walk while you absorb the country atmosphere. A full breakfast is included in the tariff and country style evening meals are available with 24 hours notice.
The unit has a well-equipped kitchen and the laundry includes a washing machine, iron and ironing board. Wi-fi is available and they accept Visa and MasterCard.
Due to current health advice on social distancing, please contact the business for the most up to date information regarding opening times and services.
They offer a self contained unit that is suitable for an overnight or weekly stay. The unit is private as it is separate from the homestead. Guests enjoy the relaxed country atmosphere, as the property has six acres of land. There is an abundance of Australian wildlife, especially birds. The gardens are landscaped with native and tropical plants and is mainly flat and suitable for walking. Droughtmaster Drive is a quiet, sealed country road with a 60 kilometre speed limit. It is suitable for taking an early morning or late afternoon walk. It is not a through road and is one kilometre long.
Note: Information on listed products and services are provided by the operator and were correct at the time of publishing. Rates are indicative based on the minimum and maximum available prices of products and services. Please visit the operator's website for further information. All prices quoted are in Australian dollars (AUD).


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You give your clients clear instructions about handling their life insurance trusts, but what happens when they disregard your instructions and get themselves into an intractable tax mess by personally paying premiums directly to the carrier? Direct payment of premiums on a policy in an ILIT can net your clients a big gift tax bill. Is there anything you can do to soften the blow and get them back on track?
The Tax Court recently considered a case, Estate of Turner v. Commissioner, where an insured did just that—paying some premiums directly to the carrier against orders—and correctly gifting some premiums to the trust. Turner's estate believed that the premium payments made directly to the carrier were present interest gifts qualifying for the $10,000 annual gift tax exclusion ($13,000 in 2011). The IRS disagreed, claiming that the direct payments were gifts of future interest that were subject to the gift tax and ineligible for exclusion.
Present Interest Gifts
A donor can make $13,000 in gifts (2011) to a person each year without gift tax exposure. The catch is that this annual exclusion can't be used to exclude gifts of future interests from gift tax; a gift must be of a present interest to be excludable. As a result, no gift of a future interest can be excluded from gift taxation using the annual exclusion.
A present interest is "an unrestricted right to the immediate use, possession, or enjoyment of property or the income from property (such as a life estate or term certain)." A gift is not a present interest gift if it is subject to a third party's discretion. Thus, if a gift is made in trust and use of the gift by the recipient is solely in the discretion of a trustee, the gift will not qualify for the annual exclusion.
The job of ensuring present interest treatment of premium payment gifts to life insurance trusts has typically fallen on the Crummey letter. The landmark Crummey decision spawned Crummey planning, under which most life insurance trust beneficiaries are aware they have a time-limited right to demand withdrawal of the trust additions. Because beneficiaries have a right to demand withdrawals, their interest in gifts to the trust can be classified as a present interest that is eligible for the annual exclusion.
The Court's Analysis
In Turner, The IRS and the estate agreed that Turner made indirect gifts to the beneficiaries of the trust when he made direct payment of the life insurance premiums on the policy owned by the trust. Where they disagreed is on whether the gifts were of a present or future interest.
The estate claimed that the gifts were present interest gifts because the beneficiaries had an "absolute right and power to demand withdrawals of amounts transferred to [the trust]." The IRS disagreed, claiming that the beneficiaries had only a future interest in the gifts. In their view, because Turner did not make deposits into the trust, paying the premiums directly to the carrier, the beneficiaries had no way to access the gifts. As a result, they had no meaningful withdrawal right.
The court agreed with the estate, holding that, because the beneficiaries had an absolute right to demand withdrawals after each premium payment, the gift was a present interest gift that was eligible for the annual exclusion. The fact that Turner made only indirect transfers to the trust by paying policy premiums was irrelevant to the question of whether the gift was of a present interest.
And it didn't matter to the court that some of the trust's beneficiaries might not have understood that they had a right to make withdrawals from the trust following each new gift. According to the court, their absolute right to demand the withdrawals was sufficient for the gift to be classified a present interest gift.
The moral of Turner is not that we can dispose of Crummey letters or that our clients can avoid the inconvenience of making gifts to their ILIT by directly paying life insurance premiums; the IRS has not yet acquiesced to the Turner decision.
So, despite the positive result for the taxpayer in the case, proper Crummey gifting is still an essential aspect of life insurance trust administration. Unless insureds are prepared for the expense of litigation, premiums should still be paid through the ILIT and Crummey letters should still be sent to beneficiaries.
The good news from Turner is that if your clients have been disregarding your instructions and have been paying life insurance premiums directly to the carrier, or if Crummey letters have not been issued diligently, they may be getting a kind of second chance.
For additional coverage of this issue and similar ones, we invite you to sign up with AdvisorOne'sSummit Business Media partner, AdvisorFX, for a free trial.
You may also be interested in signing up for a free trial with another Summit Business Media partner, Tax Facts Online.
See also The Law Professor's blog at AdvisorFYI.


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Presidio necesitaba un nuevo diseño de página web y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 22 diseños de 8 diseñadores freelance.
Presidio Insurance Solutions is a small insurance agency specializing in professional liability insurance (aka malpractice insurance) for healthcare and dental providers in the US. Client service is our top priority. No one can match our expertise and level of service.
We represent approximately 25 different insruance companies.
Prospective clients : Physicians, Surgeons, dentists, cosmetic surgeons, medi-spas, hospitals, clinics and the like in the US.
Must use existing logo. Must have telephone #, blog and "click to get a quote" prominently displayed. Objective is to get prospective clients to contact us, send us an email, or click to get a quote.
Want client testimonials easily located as they are a core of our marketing program.
Want to be able to list the companies we do business with for SEO purposes.
Current site built in dreamweaver. Blog is in word press. According to IT people we are considering changing entire site to Wordpress to make text updating easier.


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Make: Asks is a weekly column where we ask you, our readers, for responses to maker-related questions. We hope the column sparks interesting conversation and is a way for us to get to know more about each other.
This week's question: What dream tool could you imagine that would complete your workshop?
Ever since I saw the MakerBot Replicator I knew I wanted one. This device would definitely be in the "dream tool" category for me.
Post your responses in the comments section.


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Fresh off a guest role in the Fox comedy "New Girl," Angela McEwan smiled when asked about her career.
"It's been a long road to get on this set, but it's been a rewarding one," said McEwan, who at 70, is just starting her career after retiring from teaching a few years ago. "I could have started acting a long time ago, but I've had a lot of great experiences lately, especially working on this wonderful show, so I really don't have any complaints."
Having attended the Cannes International Film Festival earlier this year for the screening of her upcoming film "Nebraska," starring Bruce Dern ("Django Unchained") and Will Forte ("SNL"), McEwan recalled her role as Peg, the crusty small town newspaper editor in the film.
"I was pretty headstrong and feisty so it was totally different the way I really am. But we had some good scenes with Will," she recalled. "Nebraska" is scheduled for release on Nov. 22.
Although she appeared in a few scenes in "Nebraska," McEwan received rave reviews from critics at the New York Times, the Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety. "I'm just thrilled to be a part of it and to be able to work in a lot of different things. It wasn't always that way."
And she's right. Angela began her acting career late in life after a career in teaching, public relations and other jobs. But after her husband died a few years ago, Angela returned to her love of acting and began taking classes and going on auditions for plays, films and TV shows.
"It was hard to find an agent and people who believed in you, but I knew I could do it. I've always loved acting and portraying different kinds of characters."
As a child, Angela grew up taking on roles in school plays and local theater but after going to college, she met her future husband and soon thereafter had two children, leaving her plans to become a professional actress on the shelf for good seemingly. To help out the family, she took on a variety of jobs that had nothing to do with her first love of acting.
"I had the idea of becoming a professional actress while I was in college, but then I got married and had kids and I had my hands full with the family," she said. "I knew I would eventually get back to acting, but I had to help out the family so I took on jobs that didn't have anything to do with being an actress and for a while I forgot about acting."
The family moved around much over the years that followed, taking them across the country and even to Mexico and Latin America before returning to Los Angeles for good years later. But as she mourned her husband's death, she felt returning to acting would alleviate some of that pain. It didn't take long for Angela to gain the attention of producers and casting directors who began to cast her in a number of TV series, commercials and films.
Among her credits are series such as "New Girl," "Parks and Recreation," "Matchmaker," "Untold Stories of the E.R.," "The Hustler," and many others. Besides "Nebraska," her film credits include the upcoming "Old Souls," and "Loud and Deep."
"My husband said I should get back to acting, but I didn't think I could. So the years passed and now I'm glad I went back to it. It's been a lot of fun."


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What do the Pope and Facebook have in common? They both abhor public displays of nudity.
Facebook though may not go to quite the lengths of one medieval pope, who allegedly sponsored the mass removal of every penis (of the statuary sort) in the Vatican - thereby giving rise to the legend of the papal penis room, where the removed organs were then stored.
In fairness to Facebook, it claims that its latest censoring of nakedness on the net owes more to human error than nanny corporatism.
According to Elinor Mills, a writer for CNET, a photo of Bliss Dance, a work of art, recently exhibited at the Nevada Burning Man event was this week removed from Facebook because, according to Facebook, the image violated the site's terms of use, which ban the posting of photos that contain nudity.
As with other stories of inconsistent Facebook intervention – most recently, our own questioning of Facebook about its failure to ban a group that incited violence in Serbia - this decision was swiftly reversed after CNET contacted Facebook to demand explanation.
Facebook informed the poster: "Our reviewers look at thousands of photos a day that are reported to them. Of course, they make an occasional mistake.
"This is just an example. Our compliments to the artist--the statue is quite lifelike. We encourage the person who uploaded the photo to repost it and apologize for any inconvenience."
A spokeswoman for Facebook in the UK was unable to add any more to that statement, beyond suggesting that there were of course exemptions to the no-nakedness policy for certain categories of objects. However, this is not obvious from a close reading of the site's terms and conditions.
What, then, of that pesky papal penis room? The idea that at least one Pope – allegedly the 19th century Pius IX – required that pagan statues have their willies lopped off is one that has frequently been propagated by tour guides, and is just as resolutely denied by Catholic officialdom. Whether it really happened or is mere urban myth remains up for debate.
The Vatican is not, however, wholly innocent in matters of censorship, having come in for much criticism from art historians for its "censorship" of paintings by artists such as Michaelangelo.
The question of how we treat nakedness has a serious side to it, with many arguing that by automatically equating the unclothed body with sex and porn, it is Facebook and the Church that is sexualising and objectifying our view of the world.
Avedon Carol, founding member of Feminists against Censorship, told us: "It [the censorship] is obscene."
She went on: "There's a famous quote from Marilyn Chambers who points out that in American video and TV you can show a breast being cut or shot but you can't show it being kissed.
"Its not about protecting anyone from sex: its about making sex dirty and keeping it dirty. They may pretend that they are not being anti-sex – but they are and there is no reason that sex should be stigmatised in that way. Sex isn't the problem." ®
Sponsored: How to simplify data protection on Amazon Web Services


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DUBLIN (Reuters) - Europe is still some way from severing the vicious link between troubled banks and states despite a landmark deal anointing the European Central Bank as supervisor-in-chief.
Persuading national governments to cede responsibility for their biggest lenders to Frankfurt was a major first step towards banking union but it was arguably the easiest bit.
Getting agreement on sharing the burden when one of those banks goes belly-up, the key component of a euro zone firewall, could take years yet to be agreed, with German elections late next year likely to rule out any meaningful discussion of bold policy moves beforehand.
"The deal on ECB supervision is step one of 10 or 20 to get banking union delivered and there are going to be lots more summits," said Alex White of JP Morgan.
"We will only really feel happy about the region's future when we have got ... some sort of banking union system that enables a stressed Spanish or Italian bank to be dealt with on a regional level. This is a step towards that but from the signs the Germans are giving we are good 18 months away from that."
Europe's financial crisis showed how toxic banks or overstretched governments in one part of the bloc could put the whole region in peril.
A banking union is meant to break what leaders described in June as the "vicious circle" whereby indebted governments prop up their ailing banks at great cost and the banks in turn buy the lion's share of their country's bonds as they sink in value.
To succeed it must also reassure investors and savers that if they put their money into a euro zone bank, the bloc will, up to a point, honor them.
Making the ECB the euro zone's ultimate banking supervisor after six months of negotiation — a short period of time in EU terms — now paves the way for discussions on how to deal with bank failures.
Market reaction to the deal was muted but investors said further progress would boost shares and bonds.
"If we can clean up the banks, it adds another brick in the firewall around the euro. And we will start to see some increased confidence among investors to invest," said Morten Spenner, CEO of International Asset Management.
"Is there still event risk out there? Yes, without any doubt, but it has reduced I think. We are not faced with the same scale of risk of a bank collapse as we were before."
At a summit in June, EU leaders pledged that once a common bank supervisor was in place, the bloc's 500 billion euro bailout fund, known by its acronym the ESM, would have the power to directly recapitalize struggling banks, removing the burden from governments already saddled with high public debt.
But Germany, the bloc's paymaster, discouraged any discussion on when the ESM would be able to directly support ailing banks. It will not happen before 2014.
Under the deal, the ECB will directly supervise banks with assets of at least 30 billion euros or larger than one-fifth of their country's economic output, meaning at least 150 banks across 17 countries.
National supervisors will oversee smaller lenders but the ECB has the authority to step in to deal with smaller banks if problems arise.
Using size to decide which banks to supervise is a simple but blunt tool.
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) used five categories, including interconnectedness, when deciding what banks were systemically important in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.
A spokesman for the European Commission said once a bank exceeded the 30 billion euros threshold, it would fall under the ECB's supervision, and if it dropped below 30 billion, it would no longer be directly monitored from Frankfurt.
Restricting the size of the lenders affected means that most of Germany's politically influential savings and cooperative banks, will remain under local supervision, satisfying a key demand from Berlin.
It also means that most of the bloc's 6,000 or so lenders will remain outside the ECB's direct oversight and most critically of all, as things stand, they will remain dependent on their national governments if things go wrong.
Collectively, small banks can be dangerous.
"This is worrying that they have allowed small banks out of this," said Alan Ahearne, who served as special adviser to the Irish government during the peak of its banking crisis.
"A failure of small banks, lots of them, if there is some common shock, that can do a lot of damage to the sovereign."
Spain's Bankia, which was at the heart of Madrid's banking crisis, was formed from a merger of seven struggling regional lenders in 2010.
The new system of supervision should be up and running by March 1, 2014 although ministers agreed that could be delayed if the ECB needed longer to prepare itself.
Finding personnel and organizing the welter of data on its 150 plus charges, many of which have operations spread across the globe, will be an enormous task. The ECB will also be competing with the banks for talented regulatory experts.
"There aren't, as far as I know, tens of thousands of unemployed bank regulators wandering around looking for a job," said White. "It will take time to build the system."
Additional reporting by Luke Baker in Brussels, Madeline Chambers in Berlin, Jonathan Gould in Frankfurt and Sinead Cruise in London. Editing by Mike Peacock


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Check software version
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Set default email account
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Lissa Kaufman, director of Student Legal Services at Portland State University, will receive the 2014 Judge Mercedes Deiz Award from Oregon Women Lawyers.
This honor recognizes a person who has made an outstanding contribution to promoting minorities in the legal profession and in the community. For the past several years, Kaufman has worked with the diversity section of the Multnomah County Bar Association to encourage Portland State students from under-represented communities to pursue a legal career.
Kaufman graduated from the University of Washington School of Law in 1996. She worked as a staff attorney in the Oregon Legal Services Farmworker Unit in Woodburn, Oregon, representing migrant farm workers in employment and housing cases. From 1998 to 2006, she worked at the Metropolitan Public Defender office in Portland and Hillsboro, Oregon, where she continued to represent indigent clients in criminal and juvenile cases. Since 2006, Kaufman has been the sirector of PSU's Student Legal Services, which helps students persist in college by removing legal barriers.
"I am so proud of Lissa and of all the work that she has done to help pave legal career pathways for our under-represented students," said Jackie Balzer, vice president for Enrollment Management and Student Affairs. "Lissa is one of the most dedicated attorneys who work in student services."
Kaufman will receive the award in Portland on Friday, March 14.
For more information on the award, go here.


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Important Notice: Rakuten Global Market will be closed as of June 1, 2020, 02:00 PM (JST).
Learn more »
Shop Japan. We ship worldwide, bringing Japan directly to you.
We accept credit card and Paypal.
●Credit card
We accept Visa, MasterCard, JCB, AMEX and Diners.
We will send an order confirmation e-mail with a link to make a payment by PayPal after your order.
Please make sure that you make a payment from the said link within 7 days after you receive the order confirmation e-mail.
Completion of your payment will be notified to us directly by PayPal, so you do not need to inform us of your payment.
Your order will be shipped after we receive PayPal's confirmation of your payment.
支付总额 = 商品价格 + 国际运费 在收到您确认订单信息的回复之后,我们会通过邮件发送支付宝支付链 接。
请在链接过期之前点击进入支付宝安全支付页面并完成支付,以保证订 购成功。
个人电脑:About Alipay
Regarding our customers'personal information (address, name, e-mail address, etc.), we are taking the utmost care. Your personal information may be used for, and be used only for conducting our business.
Matters pertaining to personal information are controlled within the confines of the law and unless required by government to disclose such information, personal information shall not be disclosed to third parties without prior written consent.
Any return or refund will not be accepted once order confirmation e-mail is sent out.
Cancellation after our sending shipping notice e-mail is not accepted.
Credit card is chargeable only 2 months after receipt of order, so please understand there may be a case we charge on credit card before shipment.
Your ordered items are subject to delay because of manufacturer's delay of shipment and reduction of production.
We will inform you by e-mail in case there is any delay. Cancellation due to delay of shipment is accepted.
★Please note that in case the manufacturer implements reduction of production, we ship in turn considering the day of order and payment.
We offer free gift wrapping service. Please write "request free gift wrapping" down on the note when ordering if you want to use the service.
●Direct ship to gift receiver
We can take the price tag off the product, but you cannot keep the price secret because the price on the commercial invoice and EMS label has to be clearly stated even for gift. We can mark it as a gift, but customs duty can be imposed depending on destination. In that case, the gift receiver would have to pay the duty.
All the ordered items are shipped by EMS.
Freight charge defers depending on destination and weight of package.
The total amount including freight charge is informed you by order confirmation e-mail from us.
●Rough Estimate of Freight Charge
Total weight of the package will be about 50g heavier than the weight stated on the product page. Please visit the link below to check the freight charge.
Your packages may be subject to the customs fees and import duties of the country to which your order ships. These charges are always the recipient's responsibility. Please note that we refuse any request of illegal practice such as undervaluing commercial invoice and marking it as a gift. We appreciate your understanding.
●Business Hours
10:00 a.m.?7:00 p.m. (Japan Time)
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Closed every Tuesday and Saturday
Postal code:506-0011
4-262-4 Okamoto-cho,Takayama,Gifu
Tel.+81-577-36-3663 Fax.+81-577-36-3663
Shop manager :Soutaro Aramiya
Copyright(C)2012 SelectShopMU All Rights Reserved.
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Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 3:54 pm
Asztalos Attila Oszkár translated the fbackup.com website in Hungarian and we thank him for that. You can check out the newly translated version here: fbackup.com/hu (Hungarian)
If you want to help us translate the website (or the interface) in a language that's not yet translated in, you can start by visiting this page: Languages. You'll see here in which languages FBackup is not translated, and if you want to help you'll simply have to email us and we'll reply with details.


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Boy Booted from All-Girls Field Hockey Team for Being Too Good — Is It Fair? [VIDEO]
Usually, being really good at athletics ensures you a spot on your school's teams. Not so in the case of Keeling Pilaro, a teen from Long Island, New York.
In what feels like a case of reverse discrimination, Pilaro, 13, is not allowed to play on his field hockey team simply because he's too good.
Pilaro, one of the team's leading scorers, is the only male on an all-female team. Therein lies part of the problem.
Some feel the fact that he is so good and that he is a boy creates an unfair advantage. Section 11, which governs high school sports in New York's Suffolk County, has blocked Pilaro's participation this year. "As a sport it's a girls sport," Section 11′s Ed Cinelli said. "When a boy plays, it leads the way for other male players to come in and take over."
Pilaro, on the other hand, just wants to get on the field with his girls. "I do hope they let me play," he said. "I really like these girls — they are my family."
He has lost his bid to be permitted to play as well as his initial appeal, but he will try it one more time.
[Fox 5]


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For the first time ever in Los Angeles, Continuum Entertainment Group (CEG), proudly produced the first day of HAWKEN® (Game) HAVEN on Tuesday, June 5th. The three-day inaugural event extravaganza took place at the Luxe Hotel during the 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3).
Mix Master Mike made his first public appearance since the death of Beastie Boy band mate, Adam Yauch spinning at the kick off night of HAWKEN® HAVEN, a 3-day inaugural event extravaganza for the launch of combat game, HAWKEN®. Tuesday's event was presented by Machinima and Mix Master Mike pumped up the crowd spinning everything from Beastie Boys classics to house music, hip hop and old school jams.
Snoop Dogg was also spotted on Tuesday night at the event which was held at the Luxe Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles. Snoop Dogg was one of many in attendance who were able to try out the new, HAWKEN® at the first day of the 3-day inaugural event. Lucas Till ventured to the Luxe Hotel in Downtown LA Tuesday night to check out the HAWKEN® HAVEN event presented by Machinima. Lucas tested out the brand new combat game, HAWKEN®. Lucas, accompanied by his petite, adorable blonde girlfriend, seemed smitten, stealing kisses from his beau the entire night, never leaving her side.
HAWKEN® HAVEN is an interactive, high-end activation that offered media, high-profile gamers, celebs, entertainment execs, E3 attendees and invited guests to a daytime "lounge" on Tuesday, June 5th and continues on through Thursday, June 7th. HAWKEN® HAVEN provided guests with an exclusive chance to experience the highly anticipated HAWKEN®, the action-packed first person shooter mech game that is taking both the Hollywood and gaming community by storm. The patio hosted a happy hour with appetizers and signature cocktails by El Cartel Tequila, Svedka Vodka and Singha Beer. ASTRO Gaming (a division of SkullCandy) gifted their Scout Backpack from their Transport Series which includes an A*Star in-ear headset.
Hart of Dixie star Scott Porter checked out HAWKEN® HAVEN during day two a 3-day inaugural event extravaganza for the launch of the combat game HAWKEN®, alongside his fiancée Kelsey Mayfield. The couple was spotted hanging out with Lucas Till, Kevin Alejandro and Clinton Sparks Wednesday evening at the event presented by BlackBook Magazine. Scott joined Kevin, Lucas and Clinton as they tested out the game, watching their every play intently, eager to take a stab at it. Lucas Till had such a great time Tuesday that he made his way over Wednesday night as well, stopping by HAWKEN® HAVEN presented by BlackBook Magazine to get a sneak peak of the brand new combat game HAWKEN® along with his girlfriend. Lucas stepped away from the gaming to enjoy a game of ping pong with a close friend.
HAWKEN® HAVEN is presented by Adhesive Games and Meteor Entertainment in association with Machinima.


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Robert Widman
Associate Professor
Location: 220 Whitehead Hall
Phone: 718.951.5000 x2645
Fax: 718.951.4383
Professor Robert Widman joined the faculty of Brooklyn College in September 1978. He was an adjunct associate professor at New York University Graduate School of Business (currently the NYU Stern School of Business). Prior to his tenure at Brooklyn College, Widman spent five years with the accounting firm of Coopers & Lybrand (currently PricewaterhouseCoopers - PwC). Widman is licensed in the state of New York as a certified public accountant (1976). He has been published in numerous professional and academic journals, including Taxes - The Tax Magazine, The National Public Accountant and The Enrolled Agent and has published review material for the CPA Examination. He teaches in several of Brooklyn College's graduate programs, including the master of fine arts in performing arts management and master of science in sports management. He currently teaches financial accounting, taxation and accounting for the non-accountant.[ BACK TO FACULTY PROFILES ]


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A new system that uses magnetism to purify hybrid magnetic nanoparticles may significantly broaden their potential medical uses, say Penn State inventors Mary Beth Williams and Raymond Schaak.
Hybrid magnetic nanoparticles are infinitesimal structures made up of two or more materials—one of which is iron or another magnetic element—that show promise for drug delivery and medical imaging, among many other applications inside and outside the human body. Until now, though, there has been no good way to clean them.
"Although molecules are synthesized and purified using well-known methods, there have not been analogous methods for purifying nanoparticles," says Schaak, professor of chemistry. Hybrid particles "are especially challenging," he adds, "because the methods used to make them often leave impurities that are not easily detected or removed." Impurities can change the properties of a particle, and even render it toxic. "We had to find a way to separate impurities from the target nanoparticles, even when these particles are similar in size and shape," Schaak says. The team's new system does just that.
"Our method uses magnetic fields to slow the flow of particles through tiny glass tubes called capillaries," explains Williams, associate professor of chemistry. "We use a magnet to pull magnetic particles against the wall of the tube and, when the magnetic field is reduced, the particles flow out of the capillary. Magnetism increases as particle volume increases, so small and gradual changes in the magnetic field let us slowly separate and distinguish between nanoparticles based on even minute magnetic and structural differences."
The new method has many potential applications, especially within the fields of medicine and diagnostics, Williams says. For example, purified nanoparticles could be used in lieu of contrast dye when patients undergo MRI imaging studies, to track where a drug is traveling in the human body. "Some patients are allergic to traditional contrast dyes, so nanoparticles offer a promising alternative," she says.
In the future, such particles might even be used to improve cancer-fighting drugs.
"Unfortunately, chemotherapy drugs don't discriminate: They attack healthy tissue, as well as cancerous tissue," Williams explains. "If we could use nanoparticle technology to manipulate exactly where the drugs are going, which tissue they attack, and which they leave alone, we could greatly reduce some of the bad side effects of chemotherapy, such as hair loss and nausea. But to do this we need to be able to separate out nanoparticle impurities to make them safe for medical use.
"That's where this new technology comes in."
Raymond Schaak, Ph.D., is professor of chemistry in the Eberly College of Science, email@example.com. Mary Beth Williams, Ph.D., is associate professor of chemistry in the Eberly College of Science, firstname.lastname@example.com.


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d.school Paris necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 287 diseños de 68 diseñadores freelance.
d.school Paris
d.school Paris is a new graduate program in design where students from all walks of life (engineering, design, business, etc.) come together to experience design and innovation first hand. We believe that design is at the intersection of people, business, and technology, and our goal is for a school where people can work on "design for X" where X can be things such as wellbeing, sustainability, the neglected, etc.
In order to sustain our program we need support from the following audiences: students (mostly graduate level) who participate in our program, corporations who sponsor our projects, and academics whom we develop partnerships with. Our reach is truly global, from Colombia to Japan to California.
The logo will be used everywhere from print material to posters to websites to power point slides.
As our existence in Paris makes us unique, we would like the logo to capture some essence of Paris without it being too cliche.
We draw a lot of inspiration from the Belle Epoque and the Universal exhibitions in Paris(1889 and 1900) and the notion of bridging the different disciplines (art, engineering, etc.).
We encourage some graphic in addition to the typeface but we would like the entire logo to be simple and not too fancy.
You're welcome to use any color but we would like a black & white version for print material in addition to the full color version. We do have a preference for earthy colors (i.e. green) and prefer avoiding colors that are too strong (i.e. gold).
The files we will require are:
Print file format - .ai (CMYK)
Web file format - layered .psd (RGB)
Please do not use any stock images or clip art in the logo.
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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If you are a Turquoise enthusiast you probably have more than one piece of Turquoise Jewelry and you also have probably fallen in love with this wonderful gemstone. It is no wonder as Turquoise was one of the very first gemstones founded by mankind over 7,500 years ago. Ancient people believed that Turquoise was put on earth by the great ones above. Turquoise has had an important history on this earth and Durango Silver Company has a lot of information about that which you can find in our Turquoise Learning Center. Many cultures believe that Turquoise has important spiritual as well as metaphysical powers and there is no Turquoise on earth that has as many metaphysical minerals that grew in the ground with this Turquoise.
Bisbee Turquoise is one of the most beautiful types of Turquoise on earth and American Turquoise Collectors feel Bisbee Turquoise is the best Turquoise that ever came out of the ground in the world. They stopped mining Bisbee Turquoise around 1976 so it is now pretty hard to come by, however, you can own a Bisbee Turquoise Cabochon or a piece of Silver Jewelry with a Bisbee Turquoise Cabochon. Durango Silver Company has outstanding quality Bisbee Turquoise Cabochons as well as Bisbee Turquoise Jewelry available in our online store as well as in our Trading Post located in Durango, Colorado USA.
Durango Silver Company has been collecting, cutting and using Bisbee Turquoise Cabochons in their Silver Jewelry for over 40 years. In 2001, Durango Silver Company had the great fortune of purchasing the balance of the Cecil Mickelson Bisbee Turquoise collection from his descendants, which, was one of the largest remaining collections of Bisbee Turquoise in existence. We have been in a continuous hunt for additional Bisbee Turquoise since and have landed several smaller collections throughout the years. Most recently, we have acquired another major Bisbee Turquoise collection from an old miners stash of over 30 years of mining at the Bisbee Turquoise mine. This collection came directly from the descendants of the Turquoise miner and is 100% authentic and natural Bisbee Turquoise.
We have been sorting and preparing a large new parcel of Bisbee Turquoise to be cut into a premier selection of Bisbee Turquoise Cabochons which will be marketed in late 2011 and throughout 2012. Bisbee Turquoise Cabochons are very rare and are not usually available, this is a rare occasion that you may what to be on top of as these Bisbee Turquoise cabochons become available from our company.
Check out the WordPress on TurquoiseNews.com on Bisbee Turquoise Cabochons. Also, check out our Bisbee Turquoise informational page, our Bisbee Turquoise Video, our Bisbee Turquoise Jewelry Video and BisbeeTurquoise.com.
We hope you will come back often for to see what we have in Bisbee Turquoise Jewelry and Bisbee Turquoise Cabochons.
All prices are in USD