Special Issue Guiding Themes
We welcome submissions that are based in a variety of perspectives and methodologies, that focus on language, literacy and singing in the early years, adolescence, and/or adulthood, and that feature either in- and/or out-of-school domains. Policy analyses and conceptual reviews are also welcome. Some potential themes for papers include:
1. Language and literacy teaching through singing: In what ways might singing be implicated in language and literacy learning and with what effects (e.g., vocabulary building, phonological and phonemic awareness, writing and print)?
2. Impact on language and literacy development of learners with disabilities: How might singing be implicated in the language and literacy learning of learners with special needs (e.g., learners with dyslexia, autism, and physical disabilities)?
3. Intercultural understanding: How might singing serve as a means for promoting intercultural communication and multilingual literacy in culturally and linguistically diverse societies? In particular, what are the ensuing impacts on English language learners’ literacy learning and practice?
4. Multiliteracies & multimodality: How do multiliteracies pedagogies address and/or engage with new media and technologies as associated with singing?
Language & Literacy is a peer-reviewed, open access, online journal for educators interested in a broad range of literacy issues encompassing research and teaching in multimedia, print and oracy.
Potential authors will have the opportunity to submit their work to the peer review process.
The current and past issues of Language & Literacy can be found at http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/langandlit/issue/archive
Deadline for submissions is: Monday, October 1, 2013
Blinded Submissions should be sent via email to:
Zheng Zhang at firstname.lastname@example.org
Please see details below:
· Research articles and position papers must be accompanied by a 50-100 word abstract.
· All submissions should use Canadian English and follow APA format for citations.
· Word limit: no more than 10,000.
· Please send blinded submissions in RTF (Rich Text Format) from your word processor.
· Please add a short biographical statement (approximately 50 words).
· Articles should be accompanied by a letter confirming that the article has not been published elsewhere and will not be under consideration elsewhere while in the review process for Language and Literacy. If published, the author agrees not to reprint the article in any form for a year.
· Articles based upon research with humans should be accompanied by a cover letter confirming that the author has observed the Tri-Council Ethical Guidelines or appropriate institutional guidelines related to ethical conduct of research.
· For co-authored papers, please indicate which author will serve as the contact person.
Peer review is done by at least two reviewers who have knowledge of the topic and/or form of the article. Authors will be notified only after reviews are completed. Submissions that do not meet the requirements as set out above will not be sent out for review. Authors should expect an approximate 3-month turnaround time from article submission until notification of decision from an editor. Generally, accepted articles are published within a year of submission. The decision of the editors is final.
Copyright Information: Language & Literacy: A Canadian Educational E-Journal © All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the written permission of the editors, except as stated below.
Language & Literacy grants permission to individuals to download or print single copies of articles for personal use or individuals may photocopy a single work without written permission for non-profit, one-time classroom use. Any person may reproduce short excerpts from Language & Literacy contributions for any purpose that respects the moral rights of authors, provided that the source is fully acknowledged. As a courtesy, the consent of authors of such material should be obtained directly from the author.
Copyright remains with the contributors and requests for reprints should be made to those individuals.
Booch, D., & Hachiya, M. (2004). The arts go to school. Markham, Ontario, Canada: Pembroke Pub.
Campbell, P. S. (2010). Songs in their heads: Music and its meaning in children’s lives (2nd Ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.


Overcoming the Cultural Stereotypes of Classical Music
The Sphinx Organization is helping change the face of classical music by creating opportunities for African Americans and Latinos.
In 1996 violinist Aaron Dworkin and educator Carrie Chester founded a non-profit to combat stereotypes and build diversity in classical music through year-round programming in arts education, awareness, and presentation. Their goals include increased Black and Latino participation in music schools, as professional musicians, and as classical music audiences.
“Growing up, I was always the only person who looked like me who was playing the violin. It was pretty isolating,” says From the Top alum and 2001 Sphinx Laureate Melissa White. Historically, only about one or two out of every 100 orchestra members have been Black or Latino.
“If you only permit one type of voice, one type of interpretation, it limited artistic vision, artistic excellence, the creativity that can be brought to our art form. By diversifying our classical music institutions our art form will evolve and that I think is a benefit to everyone,” Aaron Dworkin explains.
The Organization administers youth development initiatives in underserved communities and promotes the creation, performance and preservation of works by Black and Latino composers. This is accomplished through five areas: artist development, Sphinx Preparatory Music Institute, Sphinx Performance Academy, Sphinx Presents, and Sphinx Legacy Project. These programs provide various types of music education, intensive training, and performance opportunities for all ages. Sphinx has created educational opportunities, many free, for young people to find their musical voice.
In the 14 years since its inception, Sphinx has touched over 85,000 students in 200 schools nationwide, provided $300,000 worth of instruments to young minority musicians, and awarded $1.8 million in prizes and scholarships in the Sphinx Competition.
Many From the Top alums have participated in the annual Sphinx Competition. First and second place winners include Clayton Penrose-Whitmore (2008), Tony Rymer (2009), Khari Joyner (2009), Randall Goosby (2010), Xavier Foley (2011), and Alexandra Switala (2011).


The students of St. Lawrence have created the first comprehensive collection of the history of St. Lawrence School and Parish. This collection is filled with stories, legends, and tall tales as well as artifacts, props, and creations. The collection captures memories of the past and the traditions of today along with many hopes and dreams for the future.
Oral history involves interviewing a person or group to get an inside perspective into what it was or is like to live as the member of a particular group within a society. Interviewing a group of people can create a picture of that experience, and an oral history project can be a way of preserving a piece of history.
In Spring 2007, two USF faculty members, Jenifer Schneider, Ph.D. and James King, Ed.D., brought a group of 33 elementary education pre-service teachers to work with students to develop an oral history of St. Lawrence Catholic School and Parish. The St. Lawrence students conducted, produced, and disseminated the oral history project. They used research and writing skills to create multi-media projects such as digital storybooks, podcasts, and movies. The USF pre-service teachers guided the students through the oral history project using various technological media and instructional strategies such as modeled, shared, and guided reading or writing.
Oral history is the systematic collection of living people’s testimony about their own experiences. Oral historians attempt to verify their findings, analyze them, and place them in an accurate historical context. Oral historians are also concerned with storage of their findings for use by later scholars.
Oral history depends upon human memory and the spoken word. The means of collection can vary from taking notes by hand to elaborate electronic aural and video recordings. You may read more about oral history on the following websites: Step-by-Step Guide to Oral History, UNC Oral History Handout.


Did you know lemons float on water? Do you know how to make a lemon sink?
Photo taken from Snackable Science
What you need to make a lemon sink
Lemon or orange
We tried pushing one down to make the lemon sink, but it just popped back up again.
What about if we chop it into smaller pieces?
I expected these small bits to sink, as without its waterproof skin water can get into the lemon pulp and add to its weight, but our segments still floated.
We then removed the skin and found the bits of lemon sank? Why do you think this is?
Why do lemons float?
If you look at the inside of the lemon skin you can see it is very thick and porous, this means it contains lots of air which makes it float.
Which other fruits do you think would float and which would sink?
Can you predict which fruits will sink and which float and test them?
Why do objects float in water?
Density plays a part in why some things float and some sink. Objects that are more dense than water sink and those less dense float. The inside of the lemon has a bigger density than inside and skin together, making it float.
When an object floats, it pushes water out of the way ( displacement ). Have you ever noticed that when you climb into a bath the water level goes up? That’s because your body displaces the water upwards.
More science for kids in the kitchen
We’ve got lots more kitchen science experiments including finding out why pineapple stops jelly setting, making meringue and more.
Preschool Inspirations has a great lemon battery to make.


Date of Final Oral Examination (Defense)
Type of Culminating Activity
Doctor of Education in Curriculum and Instruction
Curriculum, Instruction, and Foundational Studies
Scott Willison, Ph.D.
Politicians and educational leaders often cite school choice as a sound mechanism for improving public education. However, education theorists and researchers call for more research to verify whether and how choice has an impact on what happens in public schools for all learners, and suggest that there is a need for more naturalistic-constructivist studies to examine the realities inherent in school choice contexts. Missing from the research literature are in-depth perspectives of those on the front lines of school choice decision: parents.
This naturalistic-constructivist inquiry used grounded theory and mixed methods to examine parents’ recollections of their own elementary education experiences, perspectives on their children’s schooling experiences before and after school choice decisions, and perceptions of school choice as a mechanism for school improvement. Data collection included a demographic survey, school and community data, and semi-structured interviews with 33 parents who enrolled children at a progressive charter public school in a northwestern state during the 2009-2010 school year. Emergent-grounded theory methods were used throughout data collection and analysis to develop a theory that reflected parents’ perceptions in this context, in relation to school choice in other, broader contexts.
The results of this study can inform policy makers, educators, and theorists about how school choice influences parents’ perceptions of and decisions about school improvement and public schooling. Findings within the three themes of Who Chooses and Why, Parental Involvement, and Outcomes of Choice included:
- School choice decisions are tied to parents’ reasons for choice, parents’ demographics, and the types of schools being selected. School choice decisions are complex mosaics of influences, and may be further complicated by potential barriers in learning about and accessing schools of choice.
- Participants identified both a moral imperative as citizens to provide good public schools for all children and a moral duty as parents to provide their own children with the best opportunities and education possible, and recognized conflicts in meeting both.
- Parental involvement is related to how much a school encourages and utilizes parents for purposes that validate parents' time by engaging them actively with children and necessary tasks.
- A symbiotic relationship exists between parents, who have an interest in being involved, and the school, which needs and expects parental involvement, resulting in enhanced success for students and the school.
- Parents perceived that choice would not improve the educational opportunities for students who do not access schools of choice. Instead, choice will divide schools into parallel schooling systems.
- The primary tool for school improvement, according to parents in this study, is changing the culture of schools through combining parental involvement with choice.
This naturalistic-constructivist theory resulted in a grounded theory reflecting parents’ perceptions of school improvement, parental involvement, and the private and public goods of education in a democratic society.
Keywords: school choice, school improvement, charter schools, parent perceptions, parent involvement, schooling in democracy, grammar of schooling.
Gibson, Emily Louise, "School Choice Decisions: A Naturalistic-Constructivist Inquiry into Parents’ Perceptions on School Choice and School Improvement at a Pedagogically Progressive Charter School" (2011). Boise State University Theses and Dissertations. Paper 199.


Baron Wilhelm von Humboldt Facts
The German educator, statesman, political theorist, and philologist Baron Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835) reformed the Prussian school system and founded the University of Berlin. He was influential in developing the science of comparative philology.
Wilhelm von Humboldt was born in Potsdam on June 22, 1767. He studied law in Berlin and Gttingen. In his essay Ü ber das Studium des Klassischen Altertums (1793) he summarized his program for educational reform, which was basically the program of German neohumanism. In Jena (1794-1797) he was a member of Friedrich von Schiller's circle. After traveling through Spain and France, during which Humboldt became interested in philology, he was appointed Prussian resident minister in Rome (1802-1808).
Humboldt was influenced by the educational principles of Johann Pestalozzi. As Prussian minister of education (1809-1810), he sent teachers to Switzerland to study Pestalozzi's methods, and he founded the University of Berlin (1809). Humboldt's ideas profoundly influenced European and American elementary education.
From 1810 to 1819 Humboldt served the government as minister in Vienna, London, and Berlin. He resigned from the ministry in protest against the reactionary policies of the government. His philological works on the Basque language (1821) and on Kavi, the ancient language of Java, published posthumously (1836-1840), were landmarks in their field. He died at Tegel on April 8, 1835.
In The Sphere and Duties of Government (published in part in 1792 and completely in 1851) Humboldt held that although the nation-state is a growing body, government is only one of the means aiding its welfare, a means whose sole aim should be to provide security for social development. As in biological evolution, all growth is good, as it brings forth an organism more complex, more diverse, and richer, and government—while a major agent in fostering this development—is not the only one. If it tries to do too much, it interferes with and retards the beneficial effects of other agencies.
Under the influence of romanticism Humboldt became almost mystical as he placed more stress on supra-individual and historically conditioned nationality and viewed individual nationality in turn as part of the universal spiritual and divine life which was the characteristic expression of humanity. In essays on the German (1813) and Prussian (1819) constitutions he advocated a liberalism which would preserve the unique character and traditions of individual states, provinces, and regions, with the constitution of any state adapted to the particular genius of its national character. He rejected both the artificial and atomistic liberalism of the French Revolution, which derived the state from the isolated and arbitrary wills of individuals, and the ultraconservative program to revive the old feudal estates. He advocated a liberalism grounded in tradition with regional self-governing bodies participating in governing a monarchical civil service state.
Further Reading on Baron Wilhelm von Humboldt
There is no definitive biography in English on Humboldt. One work is Hermann Klencke, Lives of the Brothers Humboldt, Alexander and William (trans. 1952). Humboldt is discussed or mentioned in the following works: Henry Barnard, Pestalozzi and His Educational System (1881); Eugene Newton Anderson, Nationalism and the Cultural Crisis in Prussia, 1806-15 (1939); Leonard Kreiger, The German Idea of Freedom (1957); and Walter Horace Bruford, Culture and Society in Classical Weimar, 1775-1806 (1962).
Additional Biography Sources
Sweet, Paul Robinson, Wilhelm von Humboldt: a biography, Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1978-c1980. □


Moving way beyond simply being an enjoyable pass time, music can have a huge number of benefits for a child’s education. Many teachers and educational institutions believe in this theory so much that they will actively encourage children with learning difficulties to take up a musical instrument. So what are the benefits and how can music help to enhance an educational path? Having been involved in music education for many years, we’ve laid out some of the benefits we see having a great impact on a child’s learning time after time.
Music can have such a varied effect on a child’s life and if you’ve got a child currently learning an instrument it would be great to hear your stories in the comments below.
Many children who struggle with academic learning do so because of a lack in confidence. Not believing in your abilities can seriously impact anyone’s ability to soak up new information – if you don’t believe you can learn then you’re starting on the back foot. We’ve found repeatedly that children suffering from confidence issues approaching learning an instrument in a different way to academic subjects. Unlike maths or science, learning the guitar is something kids can relate to right from the off which can really help with making progress quickly. The other factor is that learning an instrument is something that not everyone can do, and as such it often feels like owning a ‘special skill’. Children that may have traditional fallen into the bottom section of a class suddenly start achieving with a skill that sets them apart.
Learning an instrument takes time, patience and commitment. Unlike a games console, success can only be reached through hard work. Seeing a skill develop as a direct result of hard work is a valuable lesson to learn and helps with not only education but work, relationships and many other areas of life. It can sometimes be a tough and long lesson to learn, especially in the beginning stages. When a new student starts they often have dreams and visions of their guitar heroes; but reality can bite hard when they realise quite how much effort and time it takes to get that good!
There’s also something deeply satisfying with sweating over something and then finally getting it right. Learning an instrument offers a unique opportunity to do this; an opportunity that simply isn’t available with standard elements of mainstream education.
As discussed above, learning an instrument is not easy. When you first start it can feel a bit like repeatedly hitting a brick wall with constant challenges that are seemingly impossible to beat. And herein lies the next benefit – learning to solve problems and breakthrough challenges as and when they present themselves. Anyone who’s ever achieved anything will always tell you that it wasn’t easy, and that the road to success is a rocky one.
Starting to play an instrument can often be a child’s first experience of having to solve problems in a practical situation. As a teacher you can show someone how to play and provide advice on how to get over problems, but the only way a student will ever succeed is by figuring out how to break through struggles in their own way.
As a young player starts to advance, the music and techniques they learn will naturally start to get more technical. At some point in their development a student will have to start gaining an understanding of at least the basic principles of music theory. Music theory is basically a practical application of simple maths. Most career paths will require an application of maths. Most jobs certainly won’t include doing mathematical exercises as learnt in school; the real skill is learning to apply maths in a practical situation. Music theory is a great introduction to this skill – it’s maths but not maths!
If you think learning music is for you and could help with your child’s education then start finding out about your options and investigating the best way to get started. You’ll be amazed by the wide spread benefits that it can have on your child’s development.


legion(predicate) band teachers will be happy to recount both of the ways that take to the woodsing an puppet will make you smarter, solely are they re ally align? Of course! Many studies learn been done that show practice of medicine nurture expediting learning in other subjects and boosting abilities that are sure enough to be utilise in everyday life (Brown 2). one of these studies was published by the psychological science of Music journal. It found that turninging an cock bunghole rep aerate reading and comprehension skills because of the medical specialty making process. In enounce to play a song, distinctions deliver to be read, the name of the note must be recognized, reborn into the finger position or slide, and comprehend how much air is needed for a bad-tempered section (Matthews 2). Because math is used in every neb of medicine, vie an instrument can greatly benefit anyones math skills. Division, fractions, figuring and phase recognition are all m ath skills needed to play an instrument, and which can be break by learning to play scales, reading time signatures, and counting beats and rhythms (Kwan 1). Music education can be initiateicularly beneficial in tender children because it helps one learn to strike out different sounds, pitches and frequencies, which plays an integral part in improving linguistic performance for everyday perceive tasks and when learning a opposed language (Wilcox 2). Another fill done by the University of Toronto in Mississauga found that the average IQ of six year olds went up three points after they took music lessons for nine months, versus no change magnitude in IQ in the control group of children who had no music lessons (Brown 2). Not solo did music education improve IQ, the University of Kansas has proven that playing an instrument improves standardized test scores. Christopher Johnson, a professor at the Uni. of Kansas, verbalise this was because standardized test affect a simila r centralise and concentration that goes along with playing an instrument. Their study showed that stu... If you want to foreshorten a full essay, pasture it on our website:
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A blank 5 W’s and 1 H graphic organizer to use when planning a piece of text.
Use this 5 W’s and 1 H (Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How) graphic organizer when planning a piece of text, questionnaire, newspaper or magazine article, or an interview.
Download this resource as part of a larger resource pack or Unit Plan.
Applying Reading Comprehension Strategies Unit Plan
This reading unit is designed to explicitly teach the reading comprehension strategies of activating prior knowledge, making connections, questioning, monitoring, predicting, inferring, visualizing, and summarizing to elementary students, with a focus on literary texts.
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The Early Childhood years are very critical for laying foundational skills for all children, but this is especially so for children with visual impairments. Most children with visual impairments will need extra support to succeed in school. Ideally students will have received early intervention which includes the involvement of a Teacher of Students with Visual Impairments. Unfortunately, this service is not available in all states and many students have not received a formal education program until the preschool years, or sometimes later.
This page will show you how to structure the day and establish a program for students who are blind or visually impaired. Children not only need a predictable and consistent schedule, but they will also need adaptations made to the typical areas of the daily schedule.
Gathering or group times are wonderful opportunities to incorporate concepts, work on conversation skills, refine sentence construction, and to address self-concepts and interpersonal skills. This page provides suggestions for adapting the morning meeting time.
Incorporating a weather check into the later morning is ideal time to incorporate this area of the science curriculum as well as help students know if there will be an indoor or outdoor recess. This page provides suggestions for checking the weather that are adapted for the student who is blind or has low vision.
Although students of all ages enjoy dressing up, the dramatic play area is typically found in preschool and kindergarten classrooms. For preschool and kindergarteners, dramatic play is a great opportunity to role play and explore and practice home chores and jobs as well as role play careers. This page provides suggestions for dramatic play.
Block play is an area that naturally incorporates math skills. It can provide opportunities for learning classification; shape, size and color identification; and counting and matching skills.
This page provides suggestions for selecting children's books, poems or songs that relate to the unit, to familiar experiences or books that suggest new experiences the class will be encountering.
Preschool classrooms and those for students of multiple disabilities will have multiple adults to work with the students. Create a “zoning chart” along with variations to the chart that accommodate for changes in the schedule along with plans for substitutes. A zoning chart makes it clear where all adults are expected to be during all activities including routines and transitions. This eliminates any questions of who is responsible for each area or student. Remember that unexpected circumstances may arise and flexibility is important. It is important to learn to work as a team and to balance each other out.
The Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center (ECTA) is a federally funded national center to support early intervention and preschool special education programs and practitioners and assist states in building effective, efficient systems by scaling up and sustaining effective services and promoting research-based interventions for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers with disabilities and their families.
Sign up for free membership to access the FREE downloadable handbooks and handouts on the Free Printables page along with access to the Goal Bank pages. Simply click on the Log In | Register link in the navigation bar. If you haven't joined yet, you will be prompted to create a password.
Purchase the TVI's Guide to Teaching the ECC Complete Set and immediately unlock the pages within the ECC Complete Set Bonus including bonus printables, interactive sensory stories, interactive matching activities, interactive choice making activities, job task box activities and MORE! This is my way of continuing to support you and say "Thank you!" for choosing to purchase the Complete Set.
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What You Need to Know About Your Child's Start at Kindergarten
Welcome to one of your child’s biggest adventures ever: starting school.
Prekindergarten and kindergarten provide a safe, happy place for your child to grow, learn and discover. It’s a place where your child can feel confident and secure while he or she constantly explores. Your child will probably have many questions about school. So will you.
What Will My Child Learn?
These are the years when your child learns the foundational skills he or she will need to succeed. When you meet with your child’s kindergarten teacher, he or she may talk about the seven “Domains of Learning.” What the teacher means is the areas, or “domains,” in which your child learns. Each of these seven areas has its own important skills. The teacher will pay attention to how your child performs in class in each of these areas. Every child is different. Not all children learn things at the same ages. The kindergarten teacher will evaluate your child in the first few weeks of school, and talk with you in your scheduled parent/teacher conference about your child’s skills and abilities in the Domains of Learning. Here are some things to think about now as you prepare your child for school:
The Seven Domains are:
- Social and Emotional Development: Does your child get along with others? Follow rules? Start an activity, work on it, and finish it?
- Physical Development: Does your child run, jump, climb, play ball? Button a shirt? Zip a jacket? Use scissors? Trace? Draw? Use good health and safety skills?
- Language and Literacy: Does your child alk and listen to adults and to other children? Speak clearly? Understand stories? Love books? Know some letters and numbers?
- Mathematical Thinking: Does your child sort things by color and shape? Can he or she count?
- Scientific Thinking: Does your child explore? Look, listen, touch, smell and taste to get information? Talk about how things are alike or different?
- Social Studies: Does your child talk about himself or herself, the family and the community? Talk about how people are similar and different?
- The Arts: Does your child dance? Draw? Paint? Sing? Make music? Play make-believe?
Your child's teacher will talk with you about your child's strengths and weaknesses, and work with you to support your child's learning in each of these areas.
Washington Virtual Academies
Tuition-free online school for Washington students.
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Shuishan Yu is a fourth generation Mei’an School guqin player, Professor of Architectural History at the Northeastern University in Boston, and Chair of North America Mei’an Guqin Society. Born in China and learning Chinese instruments since age seven, Yu’s early music education belongs to the rich and dynamic folk traditions of the Shandong Province. He later became a student of Master Wu Ziying, a third generation Mei’an School guqin player who had learned from such renowned 20th century guqin masters as Wang Jiru, Xu Lisun, Wu Jinglue, Zha Fuxi, Sun Zongpeng, and Gu Meigeng. Yu is especially committed to the spread of guqin among non-Chinese speaking communities. His fingering-centered etude writing aims to systematize traditional experience-based guqin education and his composition based on Classical Chinese literatures explores new possibilities of traditional musical vocabulary.
Guqin is the symbol of traditional Chinese music and culture. As one of the four noble arts of the literati tradition, it had been widely played since the time of Confucius (551-479 BCE) with a legendary history further back to the time of Fuxi and Huangdi some 5,000 years ago. Most cultural sages and celebrities in Chinese history play guqin, for instance, Cai Yong (133-192) and Su Shi (1036-1101). Millenniums of unbroken development have created a unique system of notation, education, performance, and appreciation, and left hundreds of ancient manuals, over 3,000 titles of music, many stylistic schools, and numerous poems, calligraphies, and paintings about guqin.
As a literati instrument, guqin was historically nurtured and promoted mainly by scholars, who do not consider themselves as specialized artists, but first and foremost as human beings completed by Confucian moral cultivation and elevated by Daoist integration with nature. Guqin music thus emphasizes art as a way of life that, in turn, nurtures the cultivation and moral character of the practitioner. It is a means for attainting higher spirituality, not an end in itself. Ancient and exquisite, guqin is one of the most endangered musical traditions in the world. Many historic schools and pieces have disappeared and guqin was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Intangible Cultural Heritage. It is the author’s hope that this album will make guqin more intelligible to the western audience and find America a new home of “zhiyin,” a spiritual and keenly appreciative friend.
Many unique features of guqin make its contemporary development a challenge. On the cultural level, guqin and Chinese history are closely related. The emphasis on moral and ritual aspects of music in Confucianism and the fusion of art forms in the literati tradition require guqin participants to be very familiar with Chinese calligraphy, painting, historical anecdotes, and literature. On the conceptual level, the rhythm of guqin music has a syntactic structure like Classical Chinese text, with no regular time and beats as in most other musical traditions. Another example is the central role played by fingering, which is not just a means to achieve sound but the essence of guqin aesthetics. On the communication level, guqin notation is daunting for those who do not know Chinese characters. On the artistic level, guqin players need to make more effort to recreate music, such as the interpretation of rhythm in the dapu process and the option of ornamentations. And on the technical level, the fingering uncertainty as a result of the variable string arrangement, the missing of hand positions in fingering and so on, are different from other string instruments.
On one hand, these characteristics make it difficult for the wide spread of guqin; on the other hand, the potential of its unique quality was not completely exhausted in the traditional repertoire, such as the emphasis on timbre, choreographic fingering, integration with other instruments and so on. There are rooms for new development. Most works in Shuishan Yu's CD albums are centuries old, but some are the artist's new creations.


Music education provides great benefits to the mental and social development of young individuals. Similar to art education, music also helps to develop spatial intelligence that allows students to visualize how the necessary elements to solve mathematical problems fit together. Music education also supports language development; because music supports the development of the left side of the brain in which the language is processed. This development is particularly important in children aged 2 to 9 years.
Our performing arts program reflects our commitment to a free art education, with a focus on each student's creative expression. All students receive a general music education that emphasizes creativity, musical appreciation, music literacy and performance preparation.
The music program offers many opportunities for individual development and strengthens each child's, innate musical love. For gifted students, our institution offers performance programs such as IFLC, FESCO or Brother Culture Festival. Our institution also publishes a music album every year. This album contains music made by our students.
At least one musical instrument
We believe that every child in our schools should learn to play at least one musical instrument. In order to achieve this goal in each class, students begin to learn how to play an instrument from an early age. Later to provide more professional progress for talented students, clubs are created. Each school has a music room specially designed to motivate our students and provide an environment that encourages students to unleash their innate potential.
Folk Dance Performances
Our students can take part in optional folk dance classes to learn about local and international folk dances. Thanks to these courses, all students can participate in the activities of local and international organizations in more than 20 countries to show their skills.
Drama is an important part of our institution. With the English and Turkish curriculum, all of our talented students are educated in the field of drama and then perform sketches, parodies and rehearsals.
Students who have the ability to read poetry are trained by professional instructors and learn how to read poems in different languages.


Since I have started using technology in the classroom, one teacher that I have been following regularly is Zoe Branigan-Pipe. Zoe is a Grade 6 teacher at Lawfield School, and she is one of the most incredible teachers that I know. Last year, I had the opportunity to meet Zoe at a SMART Board Symposium, and since that time, she has been a huge inspiration to me to try out new technological tools with my students.
From Twitter to Blogs to Google Docs to Bitstrips to VoiceThread to Wallwisher, and now, to Diigo, Zoe has been the push that I needed to try these amazing tools. Of all the tools that I use in the classroom, my students were most excited to try out Diigo because they knew that Grade 6 students used it, and they are only in Grade 1. For my first Diigo activity, the children commented right on the website about the accuracy of predictions that they made before a modelled reading activity. Diigo allowed the students to look at what they initially wrote and what they wrote after reading the book: making it easy for them to compare the two. For my second Diigo activity, the students worked in pairs on Google Docs to write about connections that they made between a book (Owen by Kevin Henkes) and a comic strip that they found on Google Images featuring Linus and his blanket. Students also wrote their inferences about the comic strip. When the partners were done, they used the SMART Board to copy and paste these connections and inferences into a floating sticky note: one of Diigo's tools. As you can see from what the students wrote, they shared many ideas about the texts, made use of a couple of different reading comprehension strategies, and used their dictionaries well to write using predominantly conventional spelling. Students used phonetic spelling well too. I am so impressed with what the children were able to complete in a very short period of time (about 20 minutes). I can't wait to use Diigo more!
The other day, one of my students told me that she "visited Mrs. Branigan-Pipe's Twitter Page" because she "wanted to see the person that told [us] about these great new activities!" Thank you, Zoe, for inspiring my students, inspiring me, and inspiring the entire Grade 1 Team!


LING1002 Language as a Cognitive System
- 6 points
|Semester 2||UWA (Perth)||Multi-mode|
- Details for undergraduate courses
- Level 1 core unit in the Linguistics major sequence
- The area of knowledge for this unit is Society and Culture
- Category B broadening unit for students
- Level 1 elective
- This unit considers language from a cognitive perspective, focusing on models of language informed by what we know of how language is represented in the human brain and how it is realised by the body in speech and sign, how human language evolved and how linguistic ability develops in the normal human child. The unit also introduces basic concepts in the formal modelling of linguistic systems.
- Students are able to (1) demonstrate an understanding of the relationships between language and the mind and the physical body; (2) describe the basic properties of the physical realisation of language in speech, sign and writing; (3) describe the progress of child language acquisition in the domains of phonology, morphology and syntax, and explain how the facts of acquisition are key issues in the debate on the innateness of language; (4) describe how language is localised in the brain, and how this relates to various language pathologies; and (5) describe the basic issues in the evolution of the language capacity of humans.
- Indicative assessments in this unit are as follows: (1) tutorial participation; (2) assignments; and (3) examination. Further information is available in the unit outline.
Supplementary assessment is not available in this unit except in the case of a bachelor's pass degree student who has obtained a mark of 45 to 49 overall and is currently enrolled in this unit, and it is the only remaining unit that the student must pass in order to complete their course.
- Unit Coordinator(s)
- Dr Maïa Ponsonnet
- Unit rules
- LING1102 Language as a Cognitive System
- Contact hours
- Up to 3 hours per week over 12 weeks.
- The availability of units in Semester 1, 2, etc. was correct at the time of publication but may be subject to change.
- All students are responsible for identifying when they need assistance to improve their academic learning, research, English language and numeracy skills; seeking out the services and resources available to help them; and applying what they learn. Students are encouraged to register for free online support through GETSmart; to help themselves to the extensive range of resources on UWA's STUDYSmarter website; and to participate in WRITESmart and (ma+hs)Smart drop-ins and workshops.
- Books and other material wherever listed may be subject to change. Book lists relating to 'Preliminary reading', 'Recommended reading' and 'Textbooks' are, in most cases, available via the Booktopia Textbook Finder, which has the functionality to search by course code, course, ISBN and title, and may also be posted or available at the appropriate school's administrative offices. Where texts are listed in the unit description above, an asterisk (*) indicates that the book is available in paperback.


Making it REAL is a service that helps parents support their children’s literacy and reading development. Making it REAL aims to build the confidence of parents in how they can support children’s literacy and early communication and language within the home and in their local neighbourhood.
Making it REAL draws evidence from the original REAL project delivered by Professors Cathy Nutbrown and Peter Hannon at the University of Sheffield.
REAL uses a framework called ‘ORIM’ (Opportunities, Recognition, Interaction and Model), which is based on the idea that there are four main ways in which parents can help their children’s literacy development.
Settings taking part in the service decide which families would most benefit from being involved in it.
Practitioners working with early years families in the LEAP wards.
The primary purpose of Making it REAL is to support parents in looking at activities they can do to support their child's literacy at home, including learning about the four strands of literacy:
A practical support package for instances where there is a concern with a child's speech or they have limited interest in early literacy activities (i.e. looking at books, singing rhymes, early mark making) and parents are unsure on how they can support their children.
Making it REAL training also introduces the principle of 'ORIM' which is the idea that there are four main ways in which parents can help their children's literacy development through:


How to squeeze the utmost quality out of your film/scanner combination.
By Tom Ang
A number of film scanners use infrared light to detect dust specks prior to a mask-based removal of them. But silver grains scatter infrared very well, so dust removal based on infrared cannot work with black-and-white film, apart from those developed in a C41 process (such as Ilford XP2 or Kodak T400CN). Some systems will not work with Kodak Kodachrome film.
Poor numeracy skills combined with a confusing subject make resolution a topic that will baffle digital photographers for many years to come. One reason for this is that the term "resolution" is now used in at least five distinct senses:
* Input resolution: in points per inch (ppi), measures the fineness of details scanned-the frequency or density of data sampling.
* Output resolution: in pixel per inch (also ppi), measures the size of pixels in the output-the spacing of output pixels.
* Device resolution: in dots per inch (dpi), measures the fineness of output from a device such as a printer, or the density of device-addressable points.
* Sensor resolution: in pixels or megapixels, measures the total effective number of pixels available on a photosensor.
* Lens resolution: in line pairs per millimeter (lpm), this measures the fineness of detail that can be distinguished to a given contrast.
The other reason for confusion is that we are not used to the virtual unit. That unit is the pixel, and it has no size until it is output.
The central notion, therefore, is that you think pixels and you count in pixels. As you get used to working with digital images, you get a feel for whether the number of pixels you have in the image is sufficient.
Broadly speaking, given images of average proportions, images smaller than about 150 pixels long cannot show anything but the broadest structure of a picture. For Web use, your images generally need not be longer than 720 pixels-which is also adequate for smaller prints (i.e., half the size of an average postcard). For fair-quality prints and output to A4 size, you will work in the 2000 to 2500 pixel range. For good quality work, the numbers rise to image lengths of 3000 to 4500 pixels and more.
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Este elemento no está disponible en español. Está disponible actualmente soló en inglés y francés.
The First World Conference on Arts Education was heralded as a success by the international community. It was the first global gathering solely devoted to arts education, bringing together 1200 participants from 97 UNESCO Member States. The main outcome from Conference was the Road Map for Arts Education, a policy-guiding document aimed at providing advocacy and guidance for the strengthening of Arts Education at country level.
Furthermore, the Government of the Republic of Korea proposed to host the next edition of the World Conference on Arts Education in Seoul, providing a coherent follow-up for the First World Conference.
In addition, an alliance was formed between the three participating NGOs INSEA (International Society for Education through Art), ISME (International Society for Music Education) and IDEA (International Drama/Theatre and Education Association), in order to form a stronger coalition in the promotion of Arts Education.
Finally, the Conference established a stronger basis for the exchange of ideas, practices and knowledge to encourage future developments in the field of Arts Education, gathering the main actors involved in Arts Education: Ministries of Culture and/or Education, representatives from NGOs, researchers, artists, practitioners and specialists in the field of arts education.Principio de la página


"The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem -- but the way some people sing it, it's a national plea for help. Desperate help.
A Harris poll found that two thirds of Americans don't know all the words to the anthem. And coming out of the mouths of some that do-- Well, it's ugly.
Which is where a group of determined music teachers comes in.
"We're becoming a nation of watchers and listeners in regard to the national anthem, and we're trying to fix that," said John Mahlmann, director of the National Association for Music Education.
Founded by music teachers, the National Anthem Project is traveling to towns and schools in all 50 states to teach people the song -- a song with tough words, and high notes that cause high anxiety.
"It is a very challenging song, you are right about that," Mahlmann said. "But that is why we want music teachers helping young people deal with it."
They are also trying to teach some of the history of the song. Francis Scott key wrote the poem that became "The Star-Spangled Banner" while watching the British bombardment of Fort McHenry in 1814. When Key gazed over the walls of the fort, or the "ramparts," he saw the American flag still waving -- or as he put it, so "gallantly streaming."
By teaching the words and music, the music teachers are also passing on the message.
"It means that we're very kept together and our flag is very, very important to us," said Anna Brosius, a 10-year-old at Fort McHenry.
It means that in good times and in bad, we can come together and sing -- sing about "the land of the free and the home of the brave."


Job description / Role
• As an elementary school teacher, you have the opportunity to set the tone for learning for the rest of a student’s life.
• When students have a good, educational, happy experience during elementary school, they are more prepared to take on the challenges of middle school, high school and college.
• You are able to teach students to love learning and also how to overcome the challenges and obstacles they face that keep them from reaching their goals.
• While adhering to the core curriculum required by the state, you are able to find creative, engaging ways to teach students real-life application of difficult concepts like literature, math and science.
• Create daily lesson plans that are engaging, educational and exciting for the kids, encouraging them to want to come to school.
• Deliver lesson plans in a way that catches the attention of the students and keeps them occupied and excited about learning.
• Reach school and course-wide performance goals for every student in class.
• Watch closely for students who are struggling with emotional problems, learning disabilities or situations at home, and help them find the resources they need.
• Grade papers and homework regularly to keep students updated on how they are doing and to head any problems off before they become habit.
• Increase educational knowledge and stay up to date on new methods by joining professional organizations, attending continuing education courses and attending regular training sessions for teachers.
• Weave goals, competencies and objectives into lesson plans in ways that directly apply to the student’s life.
• Offer praise and encouragement to students when they do well and when they are struggling, and teach them that they have the power to do well in school no matter what.
• Prepare younger students for future education by teaching them vital subjects, such as reading, science and mathematics.
• Develop and enforce classroom rules to teach proper behavior.
• Engage students in learning and teach students how to study, communicate and work with others.
• Bachelor’s degree in elementary education
• Pass state certification exams designed to meet the needs of elementary students
• Specialization in either math, science or ESL
• ILSE Certification minimum 6.0
• 2-4 years of teaching experience
• Organized, capable and able to multitask
• Ability to develop critical thinking skills, learn to solve problems and understand abstract ideas.
• Excellent communicators with students, other staff, parents and administrators.
• Resourceful, Creative as well as patient.
• MS office & smart board
About the Company
Nojoom Al-Huda School is a private educational institution approved by the Ministry of Education. We are paying the bulk of our attention to education, striving to develop, improve and upgrade it. We are seeking to update, deepen, enrich and adapt current knowledge of the ever-changing world proceeding from the importance that the Sultanate gives to the development of human resources and the consolidation of approaches to scientific-thinking. And the composition of educated generation involved in the development process in order to be able to deal with local and global changes with efficiency and professionalism.
Some educational establishment, with a noble mission aiming to create the student's personality, ensure their education and provide them with the Islamic values, role models and self-respect. Committed to equal opportunity for high quality education for all the students enabling them to think in a creative and critical way, continuous education, tolerance, respect the others and gain the skills required for them to be productive citizens, actively participating in making the culture of their Omani community while preserving their heritage and customs.


Liechtenstein, or Principality of Liechtenstein, a country in central Europe. It lies between Switzerland and Austria where the Rhine River emerges from the Alps. Liechtenstein is about 15 miles (24 km) long and up to 6 miles (10 km) wide. It has an area of nearly 61 square miles (160 km 2 ). There are two sections: the Rhine Valley and an Alpine part, with mountain peaks rising to about 8,400 feet (2,560 m) above sea level. Summers are warm to cool, depending on elevation; winters are rather cold and snowy.
The economy of Liechtenstein is linked with that of Switzerland and is based mainly on light manufacturing, trade, tourism, the issuing of finely engraved postage stamps (largely for collectors), and farming. Farmers produce grain, fruits, vegetables, and dairy and beef cattle. Also important are revenues from foreign firms that have nominal headquarters here to take advantage of banking and tax laws advantageous to business. Roads link all the cities and towns and form the chief arteries of transportation.
A prince and a parliament, called the Landtag, of 25 elected members rule the country. Their Prime minister heads a five-member collegial board that operates the government.
German is the official language; the local dialect is Alemannic. Elementary education is free and compulsory. There is no university in Liechtenstein.
Liechtenstein became an independent principality within the Holy Roman Empire in 1719. It became a member of the Confederation of the Rhine in 1806 during the Napoleonic era and later a part of the German confederation, which was dissolved in 1866. Close ties with Austria were maintained from 1852 until 1918; a much closer affiliation with Switzerland began with a customs union treaty in 1923. Liechtenstein remained neutral during both World Wars. During the 1990's, conflict between the monarchy and the legislature arose over several issues, one of which (Prince Hans-Adam's refusal to reappoint a judge as directed by the legislature) resulted in the filing of a formal complaint against the reigning prince with the European Commission of Human Rights.
|Facts in brief about Liechtenstein|
|Official language: German.|
|Area: 62 mi2 (160 km2). Greatest length—17.4 mi (28 km). Greatest width—7 mi. (11 km).|
|Elevation: Highest—8,527 ft (2,599 m). Lowest—1,411 ft (430 m).|
|Population: Current estimate—36,000; density, 581 persons per mi2 (225 per km2); distribution, 79 percent rural, 21 percent urban. 2004 official government estimate—34,600.|
|Chief products: Agriculture—beef and dairy cattle, fruits and vegetables, wheat. Manufacturing—ceramics, electronic equipment, fabricated metal products, food products, pharmaceutical products.|
|Flag: Liechtenstein's flag has two horizontal stripes, the upper one blue (for the sky), and the lower one red (for the glow of evening fires). A crown representing the prince appears in the upper-left corner.|
|Money: Basic unit—Swiss franc. One hundred centimes equal one franc.|


Share & Connect
While K-12 schools around the country search for funding to provide iPads to every student, an education researcher in North Carolina has found that even a single iPad can make a huge difference in the classroom.
The results of her experience with student teachers at Wake Forest University appear in the December/January issue of Learning & Leading With Technology, the magazine of the International Society for Technology in Education.
“Because they’re truly part of the digital generation, our pre-service teachers and the K-12 students they teach have a natural aptitude for tablet devices,” said Kristin Redington Bennett, an Assistant Professor of Education at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C.
Though iPads can cost more than $500 with 3G access and a budget for apps, Bennett said, “Don’t discount the device because of its price. We found that just one iPad allowed teachers to design creative lesson plans tailored to individual learners.”
One of her pre-service teachers even used the iPad to solve a problem with a disruptive student who made trouble in the reading center every morning. When the teacher showed the student how to download books on the iPad, he read with focus for 20 minutes each morning – a goal he had not achieved until then.
“Anything new and different is engaging for kids,” said Nancy Davidson, a senior elementary education major at Wake Forest who used an iPad in her student teaching last semester. “Tracking student growth through apps, pictures, and videos became more efficient for me and more interesting for the children. Using the iPad in class started as a luxury, but quickly became a normal part of their learning process.”
Bennett’s pre-service teachers used the iPads in three ways:
*Comparing students’ progress on identical tasks using the iPads, interactive whiteboards, and desktops to see if the less-expensive iPad would work as well.
*In groups of two or three, working out a problem together. This approach required a set of rules (only one set of fingers on the iPad) and specific tasks for each team member. The group would capture an image of their work and store it in the iPad’s photo album for teacher review.
*For the teacher only, taking the place of other digital displays. One teacher took photos around the school and flipped through as she explained geometric shapes occurring in the school and in nature.
“What often happens in schools is that they purchase this new technology and expect teachers to use it with little training in how to design successful instruction with it,” Bennett said. “My goal is to train our elementary education candidates to graduate from our program with the skills and fluency in the use of mobile technology to support teaching and learning. This has allowed many of our graduates to be leaders in their schools even as a first-year teacher.”
Based on her experience, Bennett recommends these top 10 apps for use with elementary-school students:
1. Google Earth: (all ages) Take a virtual field trip to anywhere through this app that uses global satellite and aerial imagery with a swipe of a finger.
2. DoodleBuddy: (all ages) Students and teachers can use this across all content areas as a whiteboard equivalent to paint, draw, sketch, and write.
3. Story Buddy: (K-2nd) This app allows kids to create, read, and share stories that they create with the iPad.
4. Stack the States: (2nd-6th) An animated, game-based way to learn state locations, capitals, shapes, abbreviations, and nicknames.
5. Geocaching: (3rd-6th) In this global treasure hunting game, participants hide and seek containers, called geocaches, outdoors, then share their adventures online.
6. Numberland HD: (PK-1st) Twin heroes teach numbers using the Montessori Method.
7. Corkulous: (2nd – 6th) This app allows students to collect, organize, and share ideas through notes, labels, and photos.
8. iThoughtsHD: (3rd-6th) This mind-mapping tool can be used to sequence ideas, write mind-maps, organize thinking, and assess interrelatedness.
9. Coin Math: (K-3rd) Students learn both sides of a coin, how to add them, and how to pay for something with the correct coins.
10. StarFall ABC’s: (PK-1st) Students learn to recognize letters and develop skills as they begin to learn to read.


Note: To protect the privacy of our members, e-mail addresses have been removed from the archived messages. As a result, some links may be broken.
"Implications of Gregory Bateson's ideas for a semiotic art education." By
C.A. Bowers. In Critical essays on education, modernity, and the recovery
of the ecological imperative. New York: Teachers College Press. 1993
Some other essays and texts that discuss semiotics and post-structuralism
"Semiotics and Art History" by Mieke Bal, N. Bryson
"Thinking about education structurally: and Thinking about education
By C.H. Cherryholmes. From Power and Criticism: Poststructuralist
investigations in Education. New York:Teachers College, Columbia
Literary Theory: An introduction. (chapter on semiotics and
poststructuralism) University of Minnesota Press. 1983
Hope this helps,
On 12/1/97 Jessica wrote:
I don't know of any lesson plans for this topic but one of my recent hobbies
is reading post structuralist and structuralist linquistic theory. Thsi
segment of linquistic theory really relates to art on many levels...For the
most part, it deals with the signs and signifiers in language...which relates
to symbols in art and text in art. I doesn't strictly deal with spoken word.
I can refer you to a theorist that relates to art.....Roland Barthes. Other
theorists such as Jaques Derrida, Ferdinand de Saussure, Jaques Lacan, Julis
Kristeva, Claude Levi Strauss, Norm Chompsky, and Charles Sanders Pierce.
If you have any questions about linquistic theory please ask....I don't
know how helpful I may be but I can give it a shot.
Scotch Plains, NJ
Kevin Michael Tavin Ph.D. Candidate
Dept. of Art Education
The Pennsylvania State University
School of Visual Arts


Early Grade Reading
Reading is the foundation of learning. Ensuring that children can read in early grades will determine their future educational success.
In Mali, a boy in primary school learns to read.
If all students in low income countries left school with basic reading skills 171 million people could be lifted out of poverty. This is equal to a 12% cut in global poverty. (EFA Global Monitoring Report. UNESCO)
An estimated 250 million children who attend primary school in developing countries are struggling to read even basic words. Over the last two decades, national education policies and international aid for education have mainly focused on improving access to primary school and completion rates. Progress has been steady on these two indicators, but the focus now has to shift to ensuring that children who attend school actually learn.
Children who fail to read in the early grades will fall further behind each school year, when the reading ability is progressively used as a tool for acquiring other types of knowledge. Poorly performing students struggle to catch up and some of them simply drop out of school.
GPE partners have put learning to read at the forefront of their priorities. The third objective of GPE's Strategic Plan is:
"Dramatic increase in the number of children learning and demonstrating mastery of basic literacy and numeracy skills by grade 3."
Breaking the illiteracy trap requires early intervention and early grade reading in particular is a powerful tool to achieve later educational success. To make reading a reality for millions of children, the Global Partnerships has set up ambitious goals:
Over the past several years, promising interventions to improve reading have been carried out in ten countries, with significantly improved reading outcomes achieved over a large number of schools. Several vanguard countries, including the Gambia and Nicaragua are already rolling out programs at the national level.
Mobilizing our partners
At its 2011 Pledging Conference, the Global Partnership of Education pledged to improve quality education and learning outcomes for all children. This can be achieved with the strong commitment of all our partners, especially developing countries, through:
Several regional workshops have been organized to galvanize efforts around early grade reading.


GEOCAP is a bilateral program between Indonesia and the Netherlands that has been running since 2013 as a public-private partnership involving universities, knowledge institutes and companies from both countries. The prime objective of GEOCAP was to contribute to the development and uptake of geothermal resources in Indonesia particularly in the new to be developed areas outside of Java. For this purpose an elaborate and advanced state-of-the-art training and research program has been developed focusing on issues related to exploration, production, governance, legislation and environmental issues involving the full chain from exploration through project development to exploitation. This focused not only on energy generation but also on direct use applications of geothermal resources. Within the 8 targeted training work packages, training materials were developed and subsequently train-the-trainer workshops were given to empower the next generation of geothermal tutors with state-of-the-art education materials. These were used to assist universities, technical and vocational education and training centres to develop their curricula in geothermal. Research has been focused on real-world problem solving in the context of uptake of geothermal resources in Indonesia. This Handbook is a preliminary version of an education package that will be provided in fall of 2018 for geothermal training institutes to be used to develop and enhance their curricula.
This results of the project is presented in this handbook based on their themes. There are seven themes included in this book
The bigger picture of all this effort is combating climate change in response to agreements made in Paris in COP21. Our climate is changing, global temperatures are rising, more frequent and severe hydro-meteorological disasters occur as a result of atmospheric CO2 emissions in large related to fossil fuel burning. Energy transition to renewables is one way to mitigate this and reverse the trend. Besides hydro, solar and wind energy, geothermal energy generated from the natural heat of the earth is an potential source of renewable energy. This is largely confined to areas with high heat flows which are typically areas in geologically active zones such as the subduction zone of Indonesia is.
Indonesia is in the world’s top ten of geothermal energy producers and in the top ten of countries in terms of geothermal resources. Only a fraction of the resource is currently being exploited but the government has a strong policy in place to boost that development. This training Handbook could serve as a catalyser for curriculum development in geothermal, it also may serve as a resource providing a state of the art overview of our collective Indonesian-Netherlands knowledge on geothermal development, it may serve as a means of informing policy makers on the do’s and don’ts’ of geothermal exploration and it may serve as a means to promote geothermal energy development to the broader public.


Early intervention and education is critical to preparing children to be school ready and establish a life-long love of learning and literacy. Through partnerships with the Maryland State Department of Educationís Early Childhood Division, the Maryland Family Network, the Maryland Family Support Centers, HIPPY International, the Judith P. Hoyer Early Childhood and Family Education Centers, and HeadStart, MAEC has gathered evidenced-based best practices and developed programs to help train early childhood education providers, childcare providers, and families to promote healthy child development, school readiness and ease the transition from preschool/home/childcare to kindergarten. MAEC delivers these services through the following programs:
The IPSC curriculum is especially geared to culturally, ethnically and linguistically diverse families to promote healthy, early childhood development, provide information on choosing child care, and offer general parenting information for parents of children ages birth through five years. The curriculum is written in a trainer-of trainers model and is meant to serve as a tool for agencies, early childhood educators and child care providers to use in a manner appropriate to their program and the families they serve. The curriculum is divided into age groupings (0-6 months; 6-12 months; 12-18 months; 18 months-3 years; and 3-5 years) and also into four developmental areas: physical, cognitive, social-emotional, and language and literacy. The training includes a trainer’s manual, handouts, illustrated brochures, and activities that parents/caregivers can do to promote healthy early childhood development and school readiness. The curriculum is available in five languages: English, Spanish, Korean, Vietnamese, and Mandarin (Chinese). You can find out more information about it here.
One of the most critical transitions young children make is the transition into Kindergarten. Parents of young children are naturally involved in their children’s early schooling, but as they
enter Kindergarten, family engagement in education lessens. This trainer-of-trainers curriculum offers schools and transitioning families an opportunity to build foundational skills to ensure family
engagement in their children’s education throughout elementary school. The curriculum includes: a trainer’s manual, handouts, PowerPoint slides, and resources to help preschool or elementary
school transition teams ease the transition into kindergarten. The five, 90 minute sessions cover information about: childhood development, establishing good study routines, navigating the school
system, the importance of family engagement in education, school culture, creating welcoming schools, parent advocacy and leadership, communication and discipline, communication between parents and
teachers, literacy and planning for transitions. The training guide and materials are available in English and Spanish. You can find more information about it here.
For more information, please contact:
Nora Cartland, Vice President


Early childhood development programs help Mexican children develop cognitive skills that will help them later.
As a child development agency, one of ChildFund's primary goals is to expand access to educational opportunities for young children, especially those living in communities mired in poverty. In Mexico, many children lack such pre-school opportunities, and without intervention, may struggle to succeed in primary and secondary school. Since 1955,
ChildFund has worked in some of the poorest parts of Mexico to provide children with access to early childhood development programs and initiatives that will allow them to acquire the cognitive skills they need to succeed in school and later life.
Optimism Amid Enduring Difficulties
After many years of funding challenges, the Mexican government committed to substantially increase spending on education. As a result, virtually all children in Mexico enroll in pre-primary education, according to UNESCO. However, the Mexican education system still faces significant challenges in providing students, particularly very young children, with the quality of instruction they need. Student-teacher ratios are still high, meaning that children with learning difficulties often fail to receive the individual attention they need to develop their literacy and numeracy skills. Over time, this can have a serious effect on a child's likelihood of success in later grades.
Much progress has been made in expanding coverage of education and health care facilities across many parts of Mexico. In fact, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development suggests that education spending in particular has remained largely stable, despite reductions in government revenue. However, the quality of these services varies widely, and demand often places great strain on existing schools and health care facilities. Without support, many children will go without vital educational opportunities, and their overall cognitive development will suffer as a result.
Supporting Young Minds
ChildFund takes early childhood development seriously and has worked hard to ensure more children in Mexico can access the services they need to improve their chances of success later in life. One program in particular, our early stimulation initiative, has seen great success. Through the expansion of this project, we helped 2,490 children in areas relating to childhood cognitive development, which lays a strong foundation for later learning.
Several of our other programs for children in Mexico focus on the development of learning skills and other essential attributes. For example, our cognitive development and literacy programs help children learn how to make decisions, improve their reading skills and strengthen their abilities to reduce learning gaps across varying age groups. Our Reading to Transform initiative helped 255 children develop their literacy abilities and improve their likelihood of succeeding in early grades once they enter school.
The support of our donors and partners has been invaluable in expanding these vital programs and giving more Mexican children a solid start to their academic lives. However, there is still much to be done, and one of the best ways you can help us ensure that children have the best possible chance of success is by sponsoring a child.
For just $28 per month, you can help ChildFund provide essential supplies to a child living in poverty. Some of our sponsored children, such as Noemi, have been long-term sponsored children, and thanks to the generosity of her sponsor, she is currently enrolled in college, where she is pursuing a degree to become a foreign-language teacher.
Sponsoring a child makes an incredible difference, and is one of the most direct and rewarding ways to invest in the future of a boy or girl in need of assistance. Please consider becoming a child sponsor and make a difference in the life of a Mexican child today.


Kindergarten and preschool board games
6 Great Board Games for Kids
Playing kindergarten and preschool board games with children is an excellent way for them to learn to share and take turns, cooperate with each other, to increase logical thinking skills, and to learn basic math concepts, as well as letters, colors and shapes.
Check out some of the great games below and have fun playing with the children. Don't feel that you have to let children win every time they play kindergarten and preschool board games. Learning to lose gracefully is a skill that will help them as they progress in life. Choosing cooperative games ensures all players win.
What makes a great board game for young children?
- The instructions are simple
- The game does not depend on reading
- The game is easy to set up
- No batteries needed
- The game builds skills in some way
- The game is constructed of safe, non-toxic materials
- For very young children, the pieces need to be sturdy and easy to grasp
Kindergarten & preschool board games
Hi Ho Cherry-O is a counting game in which players race to be the first to have 10 cherries in their basket. A spin of the arrow instructs children to pick one, two, three, or four cherries from their tree and put them in their basket. Watch out for the dog, the bird, and the spilled bucket! Colors and parts may vary. No reading required. Includes game board, four cherry buckets and 40 plastic cherries. For 2 to 4 players.
Each player tends a small garden composed of four different types of vegetables. The object is for all players to harvest all the vegetables before winter arrives. The game ends when all players harvest all vegetables, or when all six Winter pieces are filled in. The job is to harvest the gardens before Winter comes. A Cooperative kindergarten and preschool board game.
Chutes and Ladders There are many versions of this kindergarten and preschool board game available.
Children will definitely need help to understand the numbers and the direction of play but it is a good introduction to two digit numbers. As the game can go on for a long time, we used a timer in class to give more children an opportunity to play.
Cooperative Game of Memory and Mystery, Secret Door
Players work against the clock to discover which three treasures are hidden behind a secret door. Builds memory, cooperative, and logical thinking skills.
I recommend reading the customer reviews at the bottom of each of the page links above to see if the game will work for the children in your care.
For a print ready list of suggestions for parents to encourage summer learning, click here. (Some browsers require right click and "save as..")
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In talking about the need for a well-rounded education, Secretary Duncan has consistently invoked the importance of keeping arts in the mix. Over the past three years, researchers at Northwestern University have teamed up with the Harmony Project, a nonprofit instrumental music program based in Los Angeles, as well as public charter schools in Chicago, to investigate just how important the arts are to learning.
Harmony Project works with students, such as Fatima Salcido, who enrolled in group violin classes during middle school. Since then, she has been a high achiever. Through diligent practice, Fatima earned her way into private lessons and membership in the Hollywood Youth Orchestra, one of Harmony Project’s most elite ensembles. In addition to these activities, during her last two years of high school Fatima gave weekly private violin instruction to a less-advanced musician as a volunteer peer mentor. Fatima has gone on to earn a full four-year scholarship to Tulane University, where she is currently a neuroscience pre-med major and a member of the Tulane University orchestra.
Looking at Fatima’s success and that of others in Harmony Project, Northwestern is conducting a longitudinal study that investigates the impact of music education on child and adolescent brain development. In particular, neuroscientists are evaluating how music education affects learning skills, communication abilities, and biological development in underserved, grade-school-aged children participating in Harmony’s mentoring program.
On July 25, 2013 at 3:30 p.m. EDT, the U.S. Department of Education and the National Endowment for the Arts will host a webinar focused on this research. The NEA’s Federal Interagency Task Force on the Arts and Human Development has been working since 2011 to encourage more and better research on how the arts can help people reach their full potential in all stages of life. Nina Kraus, Hugh Knowles professor of neurobiology and physiology and director of the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern, is the principal investigator. One research question she is trying to answer is “Can music offset the ever-widening academic gap between rich and poor?” Preliminary results of her research suggest that it can.
According to Kraus, many scientists have written about a link between music and reading. In learning to read, the learner must have an auditory representation of a sound if it is going to be linked to a visual image (letter).
The research scientists in this study have measured the nervous system’s activity in response to sound. When people hear sounds, neurons fire, and those neural events can be measured. This measurement shows that musical training has a positive effect on biological processes important for auditory learning, memory, and hearing speech in challenging listening situations (e.g., noisy classrooms), which appear to translate into better language learning results. Northwestern’s findings have the potential to provide valuable information for educators, clinicians and policymakers interested in the potential of music to nurture academic success, particularly among students from low-income homes.
“We’ve already discovered that the biological processes that underlie reading skills are the very processes that are strengthened by music training,” Kraus says. “What we don’t know—and what this research in schools is trying to assess—is whether musical education, delivered in school-based group settings, will have the same impact on these fundamental biological processes.” The Webinar on July 25, will further illustrate the research and its implications.
Another example from the Harmony Project illustrates why scientists are curious about this project’s ability to affect a student’s academic ability. Christian Martinez enrolled in Harmony Project in elementary school. He was an ESL student until he reached 6th grade, and by the second half of 6th grade Christian was moved to a regular English class. By 7th grade, Christian was placed in an honors English class. Christian explains that he moved up in his English classes by applying the same lessons he learned studying violin. Christian will be a junior in high school this fall. Currently, Christian earns (dual enrollment) college credit from Los Angeles City College for his participation as a principal player in an intermediate-level Harmony Project orchestra and as a section member of an elite Harmony Project orchestra.
To register for the webinar, visit http://artsgov.adobeconnect.com/artsdevjuly2013-webinar/event/event_info.html.
Tony Fowler, Interagency Coordination in the Office of Communications and Outreach


Art Education list is looking for lessons using
technology for elementary students. Jan Hillmer shared
this one called "Warhol Hands". I'll eventually put it
on Incredible Art Department.
In Paint on the computer,
1. One hand was drawn using pencil tool
2. Lasso the hand (dotted line icon) and drag to upper
3. copy, paste, rotate by angle 90 degrees in upper
4. Repeat for each of the 4 corners.
5. Color is optional
Here is my revision.
6. Divide image into four equal sections using line
tool. Make a bold line. If your program does not have
a line tool - hold the shift key down to make a
straight line. Make sure hand and/or wrist lines go
off the edge - draw in lines if necessary. Stop and
start line if it crosses part of hand(some of Jan's
students' hands are overlapping)
7. Flood fill each background (negative space) section
a bold color. Correct any broken lines on hand if
color goes into hand.
8. Flood fill hands (positive space) a contrasting
color. (Mine are all complementary actually split
complementary - See Andy Warhol's self portraits in
These drawings were done by fourth graders. Jan's
Power Point will not remain on the site for long....it
is just here now to give you the idea. Some of the
images will be put on the lesson plan.
Let me know if you try this lesson and how it works
for you. Share an image for the lesson, if you want.
Post any art/technology lessons you have done with
elementary. I'll forward them to all lists. I have
another one from Jan to get on the site and will post
that soon (I already sent it to the Art Education list


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Teacher Resources by Grade
|1st - 2nd||3rd - 4th|
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|9th - 10th||11th - 12th|
Word Recognition Strategies Using Nursery Rhymes
|Grades||K – 2|
|Lesson Plan Type||Standard Lesson|
|Estimated Time||Four 20-minute sessions|
Nursery rhymes are the perfect vehicle for teaching word families because they are rich with examples of rhyming words. In this lesson, students learn to identify written words with similar endings by singing and reciting nursery rhymes. Students begin by reciting Humpty Dumpty, identifying two words with similar ending sounds, and creating their own lists of words with the same ending sound. Students repeat this procedure with words from Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater and Jack and Jill. Finally, students access a website to identify the word families featured in other nursery rhymes and then create an illustration and text based on their favorite nursery rhyme.
Juel, C., & Minden-Cupp, C. (1999/2000). One down and 80,000 to go: Word recognition instruction in the primary grades. The Reading Teacher, 53, 332–335.
- Children benefit from both direct phonics instruction and the reading and discussion of texts.
- Children entering first grade with minimal reading skill seem to have the greatest success with the following practices: modeling of chunking, sounding, and blending, comparing and contrasting words sounds and spelling patterns, and small group lessons.


Guzheng, as one of the most representative Chinese instruments, first appeared around the Warring States period (475 - 221 BC), then became extremely popular during the Tang Dynasty (618 - 907 AD) and spread to all neighboring areas ever since (e.g. Guzheng is the forefather of Japanese Koto). Guzheng was originally a rather simple instrument with only five strings. After all the years of evolution, today's Guzheng has twenty-one strings and is still widely used in all kinds of Chinese music.
Guzheng has a unique, rippling sound character. The playing techniques developed for Guzheng are also unique and distinct, therefore set it apart from any other members in the world's zither family.
ChineeGuzheng II has an extensive sampleset which contains various types of tremolo, slide, glissando, and strumming.
ChineeGuzheng II is recorded with an acclaimed GuZheng musician, YingPing Lin. Lin was academically trained within the best Chinese classic music education system. She has won many national and international music awards, performed domestically and overseas routinely and published recording albums as well as books and papers.
ChineeGuzheng II, now coupled with the new QIN engine, provides the most characteristic sound of China with the depth and liveliness pursued by musicians around the globe.
- 580 MB meticulously produced sample sets.
- Powered by the Windows native QIN engine.
- All samples are recorded in 24 bit 96 kHz.


increase may be approximated is exhibited by the London tables, according to which the estimated population of that city on April 2, 1871, was 3,247,631; while the decennial census completed on the same night gave the number of the inhabitants as 3,251,804—a difference of only about four thousand in three and a quarter millions—one almost inappreciable in the calculation of percentages.
To the casual thinker, statistics of marriage might seem of little consequence. But, in fact, the deductions from a review of marriage-returns are of positive value not only to the moral philosopher, but to the political economist as well. The relations of marriage to various industries—to mining, agriculture, trade, commerce—in a word, to the material prosperity of a people—have been well established by statistics. A decided diminution in the marriage-rate of a community within a given period of time is an unerring indication that war or pestilence, or commercial crisis, or other great disturbing force, has rendered the necessaries of life clear, and occupation difficult to procure. The various forms of marriage—the numbers of bachelors, widowers, spinsters, and widows, united in wedlock; the tendency to early or late marriages among certain classes and peoples; the condition of elementary education as indicated by the proportion of men and women capable of signing their names to marriage-documents; the effect of a demand for skilled labor upon the proportion of early marriages; the relations between waste of life and proportions of marriages and births in towns as contrasted with rural districts; the influence of the marriage-rate on morality; the ratio of marriages to births, and its conformity to density and character of population, and to industrial pursuits—all of these considerations furnish assuredly social problems of deep and constantly increasing importance to civilization.
THE New-World pioneers of the sixteenth century, when they first looked on the sea-worn shores and giant forests of New England, had in reality no compelling reason for believing in the veritable old age of this new-found land. They had no "first order of proof" that the shores were not recently upheaved there for them to land upon, and with the growth of the centuries on them for the trial of the manhood that was soon to reclaim them. But I think those sturdy adventurers, if they stopped at all to consider of scientific doubts, were not long in deciding that the scene before them was conformable to the laws and processes of Nature, and therefore must have been the slow growth of time.


This is a great exercise for your 11+ child because it gives them instant confidence when they need it. First tell him that he needs to imagine a circle in front of him on the floor.
Step 1. Ask him how we wants to be when he is sitting his 11+ or when he is doing a practice paper. There is no need to prompt him although you can remind him of anything he has said to you about it such as for example ‘I wish I didn’t feel so scared’ or ‘I wish I could stop shaking’. You need to encourage him to think about what he does want though! Encourage him to say what he does want to feel and write the words down on a piece of paper or post it notes.
Step 2. Take the first word and ask him ‘When do you feel like this?’ It may be in another context or it could be related to school or 11+ work.
Step 3. He is going to anchor this feeling so ask him what action he’d like to make to remind himself of this good feeling. Maybe he wants to squeeze his ear lobe or put his thumb and first finger together.
Step 4. Now ask him to remember having that great feeling, what it looked like, sounded like and felt like. When the feeling is strongest, he’s to step into his imaginary circle and use the action he’s decided upon. When the feeling subsides, take away the action and step back out of the circle and break state – that means give yourself a little shake and think about something else for a moment.
Step 5. Ask him to repeat this a few times until he has made a strong link between the action and the feeling.
Step 6. Now do the same for the other feelings he wants to have and use the same procedure with the same action and stepping into the circle each time.
Step 7. Tell him that whenever he wants these feelings all he has to do is imagine his circle, step into it and make the action. He can take the circle anywhere he wants. The ideal time to use it is of course just before he sits his 11+ but he can use it for practice papers as well.
The circle of excellence can be used extensively and when he wants to add feelings he can repeat the process.
My book ‘Passing the 11+ with NLP’ contains very useful information on how to use NLP for the different question types in the NLP paper, how to develop literacy and numeracy skills for life, not just the 11+ and how to manage all the mixed emotions children will experience as they get close to the test.
You can buy the book from my bookshop. Click HERE to take a look. You can also buy it on Amazon of course or other online and offline bookshops.


While the video game has been, and probably will be for years to come, synonymous with entertainment, the time spent in front of the screen can transcend from recreation to training. Pulling from the situational awareness an officer's already learned from classroom lectures and real-life exercises, computer-based training can become a training 'result' instead of wasted hours saving a pink-dressed damsel in distress.
The switch is in how the player, officer or otherwise, handles the simulation. The "game" or "entertainment" aspect is removed once the player begins to take the scenario seriously, beginning to sympathize or care about the virtual situation at hand.
It is possible for a video game to teach usable skills when you consider that according to national news sources, 28-year-old gamer, Paxton Galvanek, rescued two victims from an overturned SUV, on the shoulder of a North Carolina interstate, using skills he had gained by playing the video game, America's Army. His character choice for game play: the medic class. While his wasn't formal training, the concepts Galvanek learned while sitting at his computer seemed real enough to the two individuals he rescued.
In Galvanek's case, he chose America's Army for its entertainment value — he and countless others. In 2007, video game sales generated a monstrous $17.94 billion. In comparison, United States movie ticket sales added up to $9.7 billion. Judging from those dollar amounts, this technology is no longer a "future-tech" concept, it is here today, and it isn't going away anytime soon.Boots on the ground
Physical training is what officers typically encounter in their training experience. They strengthen their foundational skills by practicing the physical actions required by their jobs, such as pulling the trigger of their duty gun or kicking down a door. Each action has its own skill set with each set reinforcing itself upon correct completion.
While the goal may be to instill the correct foundational skills as second nature, officers are also inundated with decision making — the cognitive aspect of their training. Officers must react to a situation and make critical decisions in a split second, while performing practiced physical foundational skills. The decisions they make can mean the difference between the innocent victim and the injured partner.
Simulated training can help officers hone their decision making skills. In a simulated training scenario, learning objectives should be the focus of the training mission, not foundational skills that should be second nature. Participants' learning objectives should change to focus on one particular aspect of training, requiring them to make the rest of their decisions correctly to defend against negative training. These skills ultimately gather to form situational awareness, an education that assists everyone in potential situations in the future. To reiterate, Galvenek's virtually based situational awareness helped him in a real-world situation.Boots in the game
Michael van Lent, chief scientist at Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Soar Technology, where he's part of game development for training/teaching purposes, offers three points to show how a video game becomes a teaching tool: interactive, immersive and engaging.
• Interactive. The simulation's interactivity comes from the user's decisions. The game's effectiveness is in coaxing these decisions, and the effectiveness of a simulation's interactivity directly correlates to the game's success or failure as a teaching tool.
Simulation does not attempt to replace field training, but rather exercises a different domain of the brain, explains Capt. Jeremy MacDonald, who heads the research and development team of new training technology for the Canadian Army and produces Canadian Forces: Direct Action.