One of the questions parents considering homeschooling often ask is how do they get start with the right program to insure that their children are being challenged properly? The answer is the same as with traditional schooling, testing. Testing will show what areas are your child’s strengths and weaknesses. Happily this testing can be conducted right online and the results will help you choose the best home schooling curriculum for your needs.

In the elementary school levels you’ll find a wide range of curriculum to work with. When considering your customized program now would be a good time to consider your state’s education regulations. Once you know this it will be easier to focus on your child’s needs while still fitting in with the state’s requirements.

The next thing to consider is what you would prefer your child to learn. This may include studying a specific language or perhaps bringing religion into your curriculum would be important. Whatever it is, take the time to choose the right home school package to include all of your criteria. Study each home schooling package and make sure you understand not only what is included but what type of teaching methods will be needed to teach that package.

I hope this article helps to take you through the process of starting your elementary aged kids in a home school program. Not only will your children reap the benefits of a great education designed specifically for their needs but they will also be able to learn at their own pace from the comforts of your home.

Weighing The Options Of Elementary Home Schooling is a post from: Sing Club QLD Education Site

Scrapbooking is all about creative use of paper products. Paper is an all-natural, renewable resource, automatically making it an environmentally friendly medium. Plus, you never need to throw anything away-every little bit of paper can be used to make a scrapbook. Here are some scrapbooking tips from the Abundant Forests Alliance:

1. Start off on the right foot-or the right paper, that is. Look for “acid-free” or “archival” paper, which can protect your scrapbooking materials and fingertips. While paper is a natural, renewable resource, it is also recyclable. Remember to always recycle or use your scraps.

2. Protect those photos. After gathering your photos, make color copies of the originals so you can use them for something else besides your scrapbook.

3. Can’t scrap it? Snap it. If you cannot fit a large object in your scrapbook, you can take a photograph of it and include that instead.

4. Save the small stuff. Save small items from special events and day-to-day life, and recycle them in your scrapbook. Using a variety of materials adds personality and texture to every page.

5. Repurpose gift wrapping. Instead of throwing away used wrapping paper or gift bags and tags, include pieces in a holiday or birthday scrapbook as page decorations and colorful reminders.

6. Bring the outside in. Take your kids on a nature walk. Collect items such as leaves, flower petals, bark and pebbles to include in your scrapbook.

7. Celebrate a special newborn. In addition to taking photos of a child’s special day, create a scrapbook that honors his or her first day in the world. Recycle that day’s newspapers to chronicle world and local events.

8. Create rainy day memories. Initiate a rainy day scrapbook with a scavenger hunt for the kids and ask them to collect items that represent a good day at home, such as a label from a favorite food, a drawing of a favorite toy, or magazine cutouts of words and pictures.

9. Say “I do” to scrapbooking. Whether you are her friend or the bride herself, collect fun items from a wedding to remember the special day. Natural resources include invitations, dried flowers, photos, confetti, dress fabric and ribbons.

10. Remember to recycle. Scrapbooking by its very nature relies on a renewable resource-paper. Paper is also recyclable, so remember to recycle your scraps.

Scrapbooking Tips That Respect The Environment is a post from: Sing Club QLD Education Site

So we decided that we’d had enough, and that we’d have to do something about it. We didn’t need other people to help us meet our basic needs at university. We’d do it ourselves. And thus SearchMyCampus was born. searchmycampus is an online campus noticeboard where students as well as student service providers can advertise their needs – merchandise/services they want to buy or sell. The idea behind this is that all students need certain basic merchandise and services during their time at university, and they can help each other get access to these. What one student has and doesn’t need another student may want. If they can be put in touch with each other, they can fulfill each others’ requirements i.e. the need of one to get rid of something and the need of to obtain it.

I may have purchased a television when I was a student at university, but when I graduate I need to sell this television. Another student who has just started university may need a television, but may not want to purchase an expensive new one. If I can get in touch with him to sell my television at a reasonable price, we both benefit. Students also tend to have common needs. I need to get to college everyday but commuting everyday is expensive. If I can find 5 other students from areas near my house, we can share the costs among ourselves and so mutually benefit. I may have found an excellent apartment near university that I cannot afford to live in by myself. If I can get in touch with students from my college who also require cheap accommodation in a convenient location, I can share the rent with them, and save my money for more important things like food.

Sure this sounds pretty simple when we say it, and I’m sure you’re all smacking yourselves on the head for not thinking of it earlier, but there is a problem here. There are at present no efficient and effective means of communicating your need to people who can fulfill them. If I’m one among a few thousand students in my college, and my college is one among 100 in my university, then my chances of locating someone who meets my requirements are low. At least if I stick conventional methods such as campus noticeboard advertisements, college newspaper classifieds etc. And ultimately if I do manage to find someone, the expenses involved would probably force me to live on air and water for the next 6 months.

This is where SearchMyCampus comes in. We provide students with an online platform to express these needs so that others have convenient access to them. Not only does this mean increased efficiency and convenience, but it also means 0 cost because it is totally free to use for students.

Why should I, a student, pay a month’s rent to a property agent just to find accommodation during term time when I can contact the owner directly and arrange it? I’m broke enough as it is, and I can think of much better uses this money can be put to *evil grin*. SearchMyCampus allows accommodation providers (PGs, Hostels, etc.) as well as students to advertise their needs to each other, thus enabling direct contact without the need for intermediaries. Similarly, students don’t need the services of consultants to find jobs (especially summer and part-time jobs). They can do it themselves by contacting interested companies directly. Thus, the site not only identifies needs, but puts them in public notice to be fulfilled.

This interaction to meet mutual needs internally without the need for intermediaries gives birth to an interlinked group of people having the ability to fulfill each other’s mutual material needs. Creating an independent student community of this type is bound to have far reaching consequences, extending beyond convenience and cost saving for students. Not only should it enable the Indian youth to stand on its own feet, it could also encourage entrepreneurial ventures based on the newly created channels of communication.

Evidence of the website’s success is visible already even in the brief time it has been available to the public, and as its utility is proved, the community of students thus created will only get stronger. As the success of social networking sites has proved, students are ready to create and participate in virtual communities that ultimately strengthen physical ones. SearchMyCampus will play a vital role in taking this trend to a whole new level.

Making The World a Smaller Place – SearchMyCampus is a post from: Sing Club QLD Education Site

The Culinary Institute In Atlanta:

This art culinary institute in Atlanta is the best school an individual can attend to. It offers novel advances towards the culinary education. The curriculum covers the international recipes and food proficiencies from all over the world. Various professionals from the cuisine world formulate the course study of this school. Nutrition and Safety are the motives that form the foundation of any basic study here. Different kitchen operations, catering management, cost control and supervision of food are the skills taught here. Various superior baking, culinary arts, catering and pie concentration techniques are taught to the students by skilled faculties. Apart from this, student is taught about how to handle customer service and beverage sections. The emphasis is more in attaining expertise in different American, traditional and international food forms.

The students from this school participate in various competitions that are held more often. The institute offers exceptional facilities in terms of lodging and other modern amenities. The accreditation is given by ACF (American Culinary Federation) that awards the CPC (Certified Pastry Culinarian) and CC (Certified Culinarian) on the successful completion of the arts degree. The institute also offers one of its kind paid 1 year membership upon the completion of graduation. The culinary art school also has 3 programs of Traditional, Plus and Online Courses using which a student can earn their degree, which is exclusively custom made to suit the schedule of the students.

Career Prospects:

Students passing out of this culinary Institute in Atlanta gain direct entry as chefs, cook, baking trainee, catering aide in various restaurants, hotels and in food catering companies. With further expertise in the profession students become head chefs, pastry chefs and can open their own restaurants. Moreover, there are prosperous opportunities in Atlanta that houses more than 8,000 restaurants. The culinary art school in Atlanta offers exceptional dining skills, which is full in terms of experience of flavor, aroma as well as presentation.

Importance of Choosing the Right Culinary Arts School (ACS):

Every enthusiast wishing to become an exceptional chef needs to choose the best ACS. An ideal culinary school provides the students with all the training and learning necessities to excel in this field. The arts culinary school includes different specialization fields such as food writer, gourmet, restaurant owner, a baker and so on. It entirely depends upon the students that what kind of work in culinary field they need to consider after graduating from the culinary school.

There are various culinary schools located across various places in the world who claim that they are the best. An individual can directly visit the school or can surf the federal websites that rank and provide the accreditation to the arts culinary schools. But choosing the right school becomes really difficult. Hence, a student needs to adhere to certain guidelines before choosing the best culinary school.

Arts Culinary School In Atlanta is a post from: Sing Club QLD Education Site

(2) If we have absolutely nothing in common with the Aliens, can we still recognize them as intelligent life forms and maintain an exchange of meaningful information with them?

II. Artificial vs. Natural

“Everything is simpler than you think and at the same time more complex than you imagine.”
(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Complexity rises spontaneously in nature through processes such as self-organization. Emergent phenomena are common as are emergent traits, not reducible to basic components, interactions, or properties.

Complexity does not, therefore, imply the existence of a designer or a design. Complexity does not imply the existence of intelligence and sentient beings. On the contrary, complexity usually points towards a natural source and a random origin. Complexity and artificiality are often incompatible.

Artificial designs and objects are found only in unexpected (“unnatural”) contexts and environments. Natural objects are totally predictable and expected. Artificial creations are efficient and, therefore, simple and parsimonious. Natural objects and processes are not.

As Seth Shostak notes in his excellent essay, titled “SETI and Intelligent Design”, evolution experiments with numerous dead ends before it yields a single adapted biological entity. DNA is far from optimized: it contains inordinate amounts of junk. Our bodies come replete with dysfunctional appendages and redundant organs. Lightning bolts emit energy all over the electromagnetic spectrum. Pulsars and interstellar gas clouds spew radiation over the entire radio spectrum. The energy of the Sun is ubiquitous over the entire optical and thermal range. No intelligent engineer – human or not – would be so wasteful.

Confusing artificiality with complexity is not the only terminological conundrum.

Complexity and simplicity are often, and intuitively, regarded as two extremes of the same continuum, or spectrum. Yet, this may be a simplistic view, indeed.

Simple procedures (codes, programs), in nature as well as in computing, often yield the most complex results. Where does the complexity reside, if not in the simple program that created it? A minimal number of primitive interactions occur in a primordial soup and, presto, life. Was life somehow embedded in the primordial soup all along? Or in the interactions? Or in the combination of substrate and interactions?

Complex processes yield simple products (think about products of thinking such as a newspaper article, or a poem, or manufactured goods such as a sewing thread). What happened to the complexity? Was it somehow reduced, “absorbed, digested, or assimilated”? Is it a general rule that, given sufficient time and resources, the simple can become complex and the complex reduced to the simple? Is it only a matter of computation?

We can resolve these apparent contradictions by closely examining the categories we use.

Perhaps simplicity and complexity are categorical illusions, the outcomes of limitations inherent in our system of symbols (in our language).

We label something “complex” when we use a great number of symbols to describe it. But, surely, the choices we make (regarding the number of symbols we use) teach us nothing about complexity, a real phenomenon!

A straight line can be described with three symbols (A, B, and the distance between them) – or with three billion symbols (a subset of the discrete points which make up the line and their inter-relatedness, their function). But whatever the number of symbols we choose to employ, however complex our level of description, it has nothing to do with the straight line or with its “real world” traits. The straight line is not rendered more (or less) complex or orderly by our choice of level of (meta) description and language elements.

The simple (and ordered) can be regarded as the tip of the complexity iceberg, or as part of a complex, interconnected whole, or hologramically, as encompassing the complex (the same way all particles are contained in all other particles). Still, these models merely reflect choices of descriptive language, with no bearing on reality.

Perhaps complexity and simplicity are not related at all, either quantitatively, or qualitatively. Perhaps complexity is not simply more simplicity. Perhaps there is no organizational principle tying them to one another. Complexity is often an emergent phenomenon, not reducible to simplicity.

The third possibility is that somehow, perhaps through human intervention, complexity yields simplicity and simplicity yields complexity (via pattern identification, the application of rules, classification, and other human pursuits). This dependence on human input would explain the convergence of the behaviors of all complex systems on to a tiny sliver of the state (or phase) space (sort of a mega attractor basin). According to this view, Man is the creator of simplicity and complexity alike but they do have a real and independent existence thereafter (the Copenhagen interpretation of a Quantum Mechanics).

Still, these twin notions of simplicity and complexity give rise to numerous theoretical and philosophical complications.

Consider life.

In human (artificial and intelligent) technology, every thing and every action has a function within a “scheme of things”. Goals are set, plans made, designs help to implement the plans.

Not so with life. Living things seem to be prone to disorientated thoughts, or the absorption and processing of absolutely irrelevant and inconsequential data. Moreover, these laboriously accumulated databases vanish instantaneously with death. The organism is akin to a computer which processes data using elaborate software and then turns itself off after 15-80 years, erasing all its work.

Most of us believe that what appears to be meaningless and functionless supports the meaningful and functional and leads to them. The complex and the meaningless (or at least the incomprehensible) always seem to resolve to the simple and the meaningful. Thus, if the complex is meaningless and disordered then order must somehow be connected to meaning and to simplicity (through the principles of organization and interaction).

Moreover, complex systems are inseparable from their environment whose feedback induces their self-organization. Our discrete, observer-observed, approach to the Universe is, thus, deeply inadequate when applied to complex systems. These systems cannot be defined, described, or understood in isolation from their environment. They are one with their surroundings.

Many complex systems display emergent properties. These cannot be predicted even with perfect knowledge about said systems. We can say that the complex systems are creative and intuitive, even when not sentient, or intelligent. Must intuition and creativity be predicated on intelligence, consciousness, or sentience?

Thus, ultimately, complexity touches upon very essential questions of who we, what are we for, how we create, and how we evolve. It is not a simple matter, that…

III. Intersubjectivity and Communications

The act of communication implies that the parties communicating possess some common denominators, share some traits or emotions, and are essentially more or less the same.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica (1999 edition) defines empathy as:

“The ability to imagine oneself in anther’s place and understand the other’s feelings, desires, ideas, and actions. It is a term coined in the early 20th century, equivalent to the German Einfühlung and modelled on ‘sympathy’.”

Empathy is predicated upon and must, therefore, incorporate the following elements:

Imagination which is dependent on the ability to imagine;
The existence of an accessible Self (self-awareness or self-consciousness);
The existence of an available Other (other-awareness, recognizing the outside world);
The existence of accessible feelings, desires, ideas and representations of actions or their outcomes both in the empathizing Self (“Empathor”) and in the Other, the object of empathy (“Empathee”);
The availability of common frames of reference – aesthetic, moral, logical, physical, and other.
While (a) is presumed to be universally present in all agents (though in varying degrees), the existence of the other components of empathy cannot be taken for granted.

Conditions (b) and (c), for instance, are not satisfied by people who suffer from personality disorders, such as the Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Condition (d) is not met in autistic people (e.g., those who suffer from Asperger’s Disorder). Condition (e) is so totally dependent on the specifics of the culture, period and society in which it exists that it is rather meaningless and ambiguous as a yardstick.

Thus, the very existence of empathy can be questioned. It is often confused with inter-subjectivity. The latter is defined thus by “The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, 1995″:

“This term refers to the status of being somehow accessible to at least two (usually all, in principle) minds or ‘subjectivities’. It thus implies that there is some sort of communication between those minds; which in turn implies that each communicating minds aware not only of the existence of the other but also of its intention to convey information to the other. The idea, for theorists, is that if subjective processes can be brought into agreement, then perhaps that is as good as the (unattainable?) status of being objective – completely independent of subjectivity. The question facing such theorists is whether intersubjectivity is definable without presupposing an objective environment in which communication takes place (the ‘wiring’ from subject A to subject B). At a less fundamental level, however, the need for intersubjective verification of scientific hypotheses has been long recognized”. (page 414).

On the face of it, the difference between intersubjectivity and empathy is double:

Intersubjectivity requires an EXPLICIT, communicated agreement between at least two subjects.
It pertains to EXTERNAL things (so called “objective” entities).
Yet, these “differences” are artificial. This is how empathy is defined in “Psychology – An Introduction (Ninth Edition) by Charles G. Morris, Prentice Hall, 1996″:

“Closely related to the ability to read other people’s emotions is empathy – the arousal of an emotion in an observer that is a vicarious response to the other person’s situation… Empathy depends not only on one’s ability to identify someone else’s emotions but also on one’s capacity to put oneself in the other person’s place and to experience an appropriate emotional response. Just as sensitivity to non-verbal cues increases with age, so does empathy: The cognitive and perceptual abilities required for empathy develop only as a child matures… (page 442)

Thus empathy does require the communication of feelings AND an agreement on the appropriate outcome of the communicated emotions (an affective agreement). In the absence of such agreement, we are faced with inappropriate affect (laughing at a funeral, for instance).

Moreover, empathy often does relate to external objects and is provoked by them. There is no empathy in the absence of an (external) empathee. Granted, intersubjectivity is confined to the inanimate while empathy mainly applies to the living (animals, humans, even plants). But this is distinction is not essential.

Empathy can, thus, be recast as a form of intersubjectivity which involves living things as “objects” to which the communicated intersubjective agreement relates. It is wrong to limit our understanding of empathy to the communication of emotions. Rather, it is the intersubjective, concomitant experience of BEING. The empathor empathizes not only with the empathee’s emotions but also with his or her physical state and other parameters of existence (pain, hunger, thirst, suffocation, sexual pleasure etc.).

This leads to the important (and perhaps intractable) psychophysical question.

Intersubjectivity relates to external objects: the subjects communicate and reach an agreement regarding the way THEY have been AFFECTED by said external objects.

Empathy also relates to external objects (to Others) – but the subjects communicate and reach an agreement regarding the way THEY would have felt had they BEEN said external objects.

This is no minor difference, if it, indeed, exists. But does it really exist?

What is it that we feel in empathy? Do we feel OUR own emotions/sensations, provoked by an external trigger (classic intersubjectivity) or do we experience a TRANSFER of the object’s feelings/sensations to us?

Probably the former. Empathy is the set of reactions – emotional and cognitive – triggered by an external object (the Other). It is the equivalent of resonance in the physical sciences. But we have no way of ascertaining that the “wavelength” of such resonance is identical in both subjects.

In other words, we have no way of verifying that the feelings or sensations invoked in the two (or more) subjects are the same. What I call “sadness” may not be what you call “sadness”. Colours, for instance, have unique, uniform, independently measurable properties (their energy). Even so, no one can prove that what I see as “red” is what another person (perhaps a Daltonist) would call “red”. If this is true where “objective”, measurable phenomena, like colors, are concerned – it is infinitely more so in the case of emotions or feelings.

We are, therefore, forced to refine our definition:

Empathy is a form of intersubjectivity which involves living things as “objects” to which the communicated intersubjective agreement relates. It is the intersubjective, concomitant experience of BEING. The empathor empathizes not only with the empathee’s emotions but also with his physical state and other parameters of existence (pain, hunger, thirst, suffocation, sexual pleasure etc.).

BUT

The meaning attributed to the words used by the parties to the intersubjective agreement known as empathy is totally dependent upon each party. The same words are used, the same denotates, but it cannot be proven that the same connotates, the same experiences, emotions and sensations are being discussed or communicated.

Language (and, by extension, art and culture) serve to introduce us to other points of view (“what is it like to be someone else” to paraphrase Thomas Nagle). By providing a bridge between the subjective (inner experience) and the objective (words, images, sounds), language facilitates social exchange and interaction. It is a dictionary which translates one’s subjective private language to the coin of the public medium. Knowledge and language are, thus, the ultimate social glue, though both are based on approximations and guesses (see George Steiner’s “After Babel”).

But, whereas the intersubjective agreement regarding measurements and observations concerning external objects IS verifiable or falsifiable using INDEPENDENT tools (e.g., lab experiments) – the intersubjective agreement which concerns itself with the emotions, sensations and experiences of subjects as communicated by them IS NOT verifiable or falsifiable using INDEPENDENT tools.

The interpretation of this second kind of agreement is dependent upon introspection and an assumption that identical words used by different subjects possess identical meanings. This assumption is not falsifiable (or verifiable). It is neither true nor false. It is a probabilistic conjecture, but without an attendant probability distribution. It is, in short, a meaningless statement. As a result, empathy itself is meaningless.

In human-speak, if you say that you are sad and I empathize with you, it means that we have an agreement. I regard you as my object. You communicate to me a property of yours (“sadness”). This triggers in me a recollection of “what is sadness” or “what is to be sad”. I say that I know what you mean, I have been sad before, I know what it is like to be sad. I empathize with you. We agree about being sad. We have an intersubjective agreement.

Alas, such an agreement is meaningless. We cannot (yet) measure sadness, quantify it, crystallize it, access it in any way from the outside. Both of us are totally and absolutely reliant on your introspection and on my introspection. There is no way anyone can prove that my “sadness” is even remotely similar to your sadness. I may be feeling or experiencing something that you might find hilarious and not sad at all. Still, I call it “sadness” and I empathize with you.

FINIS

SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) and the Aliens Conundrum – Part II is a post from: Sing Club QLD Education Site

Just one more thing before conducting your free online searches for criminal records using the list of site below, understand that there is no such thing as a “nationwide” database of public records available either on line or off line. The closest you’re ever going to get to a nationwide database is the FBI database and that is not considered public information. Therefore, your only choice in widening the scope of your free online searches for criminal records is to check out every available database out there. Doing it online is much cheaper and way more convenient than having to go out there and manually retrieving information from office data files.

Free Online Searches for Criminal Records: http://ATF.Treas.gov – ATF Online

ATF Online website is an initiative by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (U.S. Department of Justice) in its continuing effort to combat violent crime in cooperation with other federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. The site provides a list of most wanted individuals upon whom outstanding warrants of arrests were issued.

This is an excellent website to check out while doing your free online searches for criminal records. Here you can find wanted persons who fit the following description: seriousness of the crime committed, past criminal record of the defendant, potential for the defendant to be a dangerous menace to society based on the current or past charges, and belief that publicity afforded by the program will be of assistance in apprehending the wanted person.

Free Online Searches for Criminal Records: http://USDOJ.gov – U.S. DEA

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration keeps a list of DEA fugitives. You can use this as a resource in your free online searches for criminal records. The list includes the first and last name of the fugitive, accompanied by a photo. If you click on any of the names, the page will show you some more additional details about the person, such as offense information, jurisdiction, alias, race, last known address, et cetera.

Free Online Searches for Criminal Records: http://BOP.gov – Bureau of Prisons

The Federal Bureau of Prisons is responsible for the custody and care of sentenced Federal inmates, as well as a significant number of pretrial detainees and pre-sentenced offenders for the U.S. Marshals Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service. This is also another excellent resource that would greatly aid you in your free online searches for criminal records. Use the inmate locator to search for a particular subject in a particular prison facility. There also links where you can learn about visiting information, as well as an explanation of the differences between Federal, state, and local inmates.

Free Online Searches for Criminal Records: http://USTreas.gov – United States Secret Service

Another government agency that keeps online lists of most wanted individuals is the U.S. Secret Service. You can also use the information and photo provided in your free online searches for criminal records.

Free Online Searches For Criminal Records – A Must Have is a post from: Sing Club QLD Education Site

First things first, you are going to need positive feedback. That means you need a way to measure your goal of learning the new language. Whether this includes tracking your progress or actually trying to speak the language with someone fluent in it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you have a way to gauge that you’re really learning. Otherwise you may get frustrated and give up long before you get anywhere at all.

Secondly, you need to follow a step-by-step course that progresses from easy to hard. It should also do this slowly. Again, the reason you want to learn a foreign language in this manner is so you do not get too frustrated.

The problem with early frustration is that it steers people toward giving up. If you don’t see any progress in the early stages, you may not feel like you can accomplish your goal at all. Obviously, if you don’t think your goal is achievable after all, chances are good you’ll give up.

So minimizing the amount of frustration (especially early on) is a big part of learning a foreign language. On another note, you want to make learning a foreign language as interesting as possible.

As I’m sure you’ve experienced, learning from a textbook can be monotonous. Not only is reading from a textbook boring, but your chances of sticking with it are slim to none. Besides, merely learning vocabulary and grammar is not going to prepare you for a real-life conversation in a foreign language.

Interaction is the best way to learn anything. You can’t just passively read, listen or watch as someone explains everything to you. You need to get involved.

By turning learning a new language into a game, you’ll stick with it and actually remember more of what you learn.

You need to actually listen (not just read from a book) and then speak lots of foreign words and phrases. Turn the words into something familiar by associating them with their actual meaning.

You need to practice the new language with fluent speakers, all the while listening to it as it’s properly spoken. Many foreign languages are spoken very quickly, therefore you need to make sure you can keep up with the pace and actually hear it spoken correctly.

What Is The Best Way To Learn A Foreign Language? is a post from: Sing Club QLD Education Site

For example, If I used the Canadian Virtual University, or CVU, I have the option of taking classes from 13 established universities across Canada. There are several of these types of organizations, such as the Global University Alliance. This is a consortium of nine different major universities from the U.S., Britain, New Zealand, Australia, and the Netherlands. As you have probably gathered by now the Global University Alliance or CVU themselves have no classes to offer, but simply act as a portal for the major universities. This way your getting the benefits of a university online degree (classes at your own pace and convenience, yet still offering personalized attention), but also having the satisfaction that you’re not sacrificing a quality education.

Online Paralegal Degree – Never Leave Your Home is a post from: Sing Club QLD Education Site

Rubbish I hear you say? I couldn’t agree more. I find it quite amusing that “scholars” and the media treat the home schooled child and parent this way. The number one argument against homeschooling is the buzz word of “socialization” in other words the lack of social interaction with others through schooling.

This is easily avoided by joining numerous organizations, including, independent study programs and specialized enrichment groups for physical education, art, music, and debate. Most are also active in community groups by learning through doing. Home-educated children generally socialize with other children the same way that school children do: outside of school, via personal visits and through sports teams, clubs, and religious groups etc.

Most home education parents have often argued that their alternative actually enhances the student’s “socialization”. They argue that the school years are the only time in a person’s life that he or she will be artificially segregated into chronologically-determined groups. They say that home educated children have a more normal interaction with people of all ages. This will result in more influence on the child from adults, and less from other children, leading to more mature young citizens while still keeping friends and interacting with children of the same age.

In 1999 a statement from the National Education Association that, “home schooling cannot provide the student with a comprehensive education experience”. It is funny then that earlier this month shows home-schooled students are actually more socially and academically advanced than their peers. Patrick Basham from Cato Institute and author of the study says one of the greatest quotes ever (and relates to my confronting headline) “aren’t surprising in intellectual terms, but it does turn the major anecdotal opposition to home schooling – that it produces social retards – on its head.” “Almost one quarter of home-schooled students perform one or more grades above their age level peers in public and private schools,” said Basham. Indeed, the study cited findings that by Grade 8, the average home-schooled student performs four grade levels above the national average.

According to the study’s findings, the typical home-schooled child is more mature, friendly, happy, thoughtful, competent, and better socialized than students in public or private schools and less peer dependent and exhibit “significantly higher” self-esteem, according to the study.

Where is this socialization the government school crowd always promotes as a reason for not home schooling? The latest blurb is that home schooled kids, even though possibly better educated, just can’t be socialized in a home school setting. Once again the difference between theory and practice is showing just the opposite. Socially, home schoolers socialize in soccer comps, football comps, special events, ski trips, astronomy clubs, church groups, on the internet etc. So please, help me find this lack of socialization among home schoolers so we can stamp it out and stop depriving them of this most important asset?. What do you think?

WARNING! Lack of socialization causes home schooled children have two heads?…. is a post from: Sing Club QLD Education Site

Combine this with a huge increase in equipment costs and maintaining old buildings, along with a certain amount of wear & tear that our harsh climate produces and you have a challenging situation facing the owners of Scotland’s old ancestral homes. Unless they have other income streams independent of the estate, they are facing a grim future. Many owners do indeed now work in other industries and channel those resources into maintaining their properties. Most do a combination of traditional farming and sporting activities, combined now with private lets and other commercial activities. These could include offering castles for rent, marketing the property as a venue for film shoots, weddings, concerts and corporate events.

Fortunately many are located close to wonderful golf courses, so make perfect venues for golfing parties, whilst others allow easy access from major cities so can welcome corporate groups to dine or to hold special events. More rural properties tend to specialise more in the sporting market, although Ackergill Tower, which is located near Wick, is the premier country house operation in Britain and you don’t get much more rural that Caithness. They manage this by offering amazing service, huge amounts of Highland charm and wonderful facilities. Other properties have followed their lead and many now enjoy high occupancy levels.

There are now properties available to suit all incomes and preferences and it has been the saving of many of our fine old homes. The improvements and re-investment that many have made over the last decade is astonishing and the market for private rentals is now very sophisticated, with many properties offering hotel level facilities (swimming pools, tennis courts, spa treatments, broadband internet access, fancy chefs and premier cru wines). The interiors of many have been totally refurbished and additional bathrooms, new kitchens, media rooms etc have been added.

It should be noted that ownership of many of these homes has changed hands over the last decade or so and many that were the old family homes of prominent Scottish families are now owned by admirers of Scotland from all over the world. It is their enthusiasm, energy and most importantly resources that have brought back many properties from the brink of ruin. They have also be sensible to look to the future and many realised early on that only by diversifying into new areas like private rentals and corporate events could they recoup some of their upkeep costs. Indeed many of the homes run at a deficit of around £100,000 a year and this is where new income sources come in handy for their survival.

Of course as Scotland prospers and there is more and more building going on, along with wind farms, electrical masts and other light industry and office developments, many estates have found yet more ways of bringing in much needed funds. However most still use a combination of all or some of the above and many now welcome guests to take over their homes for a family celebration or other event and to live like a laird, without the hassle of actual ownership!

Scotland’s castles and estates face funding challenge is a post from: Sing Club QLD Education Site