El-Condor-Pasa

A trip to Galagapos-The Origin of Species-El-Condor-Pasa

Chinese meditation IBMT found to boost brain connectivity Eleven hours of training leads to positive changes based on brain imaging at the University

Chinese meditation IBMT found to boost brain connectivity.

EUGENE, Ore. -- (Aug. 16, 2010) -- Just 11 hours of learning a meditation technique induces positive structural changes in brain connectivity by boosting efficiency in a part of the brain that helps a person regulate behavior in accordance with their goals, researchers report.

The technique -- integrative body-mind training (IBMT) -- has been the focus of intense scrutiny by a team of Chinese researchers led by Yi-Yuan Tang of Dalian University of Technology in collaboration with University of Oregon psychologist Michael I. Posner.

IBMT was adapted from traditional Chinese medicine in the 1990s in China, where it is practiced by thousands of people. It is now being taught to undergraduates involved in research on the method at the University of Oregon.

The new research -- published online Aug. 16 ahead of regular publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences -- involved 45 UO students (28 males and 17 females); 22 subjects received IBMT while 23 participants were in a control group that received the same amount of relaxation training. The experiments involved the use of brain-imaging equipment in the UO's Robert and Beverly Lewis Center for Neuroimaging.

A type of magnetic resonance called diffusion tensor imaging allowed researchers to examine fibers connecting brain regions before and after training. The changes were strongest in connections involving the anterior cingulate, a brain area related to the ability to regulate emotions and behavior. The changes were observed only in those who practiced meditation and not in the control group. The changes in connectivity began after six hours of training and became clear by 11 hours of practice. The researchers said it is possible the changes resulted from a reorganization of white-matter tracts or by an increase of myelin that surrounds the connections.

"The importance of our findings relates to the ability to make structural changes in a brain network related to self regulation," said Posner, who last fall received a National Medal of Science. "The pathway that has the largest change due to IBMT is one that previously was shown to relate to individual differences in the person's ability to regulate conflict."

In 2007 in PNAS, Tang, a visiting scholar at the UO, and Posner documented that doing IBMT for five days prior to a mental math test led to low levels of the stress hormone cortisol among Chinese students. The experimental group also showed lower levels of anxiety, depression, anger and fatigue than students in a relaxation control group.

In 2009 in PNAS, Tang and Chinese colleagues, with assistance from Posner and UO psychology professor Mary K. Rothbart, found that IBMT subjects in China had increased blood flow in the right anterior cingulate cortex after receiving training for 20 minutes a day over five days. Compared with the relaxation group, IBMT subjects also had lower heart rates and skin conductance responses, increased belly breathing amplitude and decreased chest respiration rates.

The latter findings suggested the possibility that additional training might trigger structural changes in the brain, leading to the new research, Tang and Posner said. The researchers currently are extending their evaluation to determine if longer exposure to IBMT will produce positive changes in the size of the anterior cingulate.

Deficits in activation of the anterior cingulate cortex have been associated with attention deficit disorder, dementia, depression, schizophrenia and many other disorders. "We believe this new finding is of interest to the fields of education, health and neuroscience, as well as for the general public," Tang said.

In their conclusion, the researchers wrote that the new findings suggest a use of IBMT as a vehicle for understanding how training influences brain plasticity.

IBMT is not yet available in the United States beyond the research being done at the UO. The practice avoids struggles to control thought, relying instead on a state of restful alertness, allowing for a high degree of body-mind awareness while receiving instructions from a coach, who provides breath-adjustment guidance and mental imagery and other techniques while soothing music plays in the background. Thought control is achieved gradually through posture, relaxation, body-mind harmony and balanced breathing. A good coach is critical, Tang said.

Co-authors with Tang and Posner on the new PNAS paper were Qilin Lu of the Dalian University of Technology and Xiujuan Geng, Elliot A. Stein and Yihong Yang, all of the National Institute on Drug Abuse-Intramural Research Program in Baltimore, Md.

The James S. Bower Foundation based in Santa Barbara, Calif., John Templeton Foundation in West Conshohocken, PA, National Natural Science Foundation of China and U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse-Intramural Research Program supported the research.

• About the University of Oregon

  The University of Oregon is a world-class teaching and research institution and Oregon's flagship public university. The UO is a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU), an organization made up of the 63 leading public and private research institutions in the United States and Canada. The University of Oregon is one of only two AAU members in the Pacific Northwest.

Media Contact:

• Jim Barlow, director of science and research communications, jebarlow@uoregon.edu, 541-346-3481

Sources: Yi-Yuan Tang, professor of neuroinformatics (Dalian University of Technology, China) and visiting scholar (University of Oregon), yiyuan@uoregon.edu; and Michael I. Posner, UO professor emeritus of psychology, 541-346-4939, mposner@uoregon.edu

Open Educational Resources - A Review

"Open Educational Resources — Opportunities and Challenges for Higher Education”
Li Yuan; Sheila MacNeill; Wilbert Kraan
JISC CETIS
http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/images/0/0b/OER_Briefing_Paper.pdf

Review by Woon Kooi Lim

Reading this Article
As they have outlined, a number of approaches – theoretical, practical and
researched, are relevant to effective develop and distribute resources for teaching and learning. The first section of this article looks in detail the conceptual and contextual issues of Open Educational Resources (OER), while section 2 a review of current OER initiatives, their scale, approaches, main issues and challenges. Moving on from theory to practice, section 3 presents discussion on trends and emerging in Open Educational Resources with respect to future research and activities.
The JISC CETIS (JISC Centre for Educational Technology & Interoperability Standards)is a JISC funded service that has long been researching educational technology and covering the field’s latest developments under a CC BY-NC-SA license. One of their latest publications is a briefing paper on open educational resources (OER) titled, “Open Educational Resources - Opportunities and Challenges for Higher Education” and authored by Li Yuan, Sheila MacNeill, and Wilbert Kraan. According to Li, the briefing paper “Look at the latest developments and trends in Open Educational Resources (OER)initiatives worldwide” and serves as “a quick introduction to funding bodies, institutions and educators who are interested in OER initiatives. The paper includes three sections:
a)"Open Educational Resources — Opportunities and Challenges for Higher Education”
the conceptual and contextual issues of Open Educational Resources;
b) current OER
initiatives: their scale, approaches, main issues and challenges; and
c) trends emerging in Open Educational Resources, with respect to future research and activities.” (Jane Park ,2008).
They also explain their reasons for initiating and completing the study.“It appears
that OER will have a significant impact on managing and accessing the existing
repositories and in taking these initiatives forward as part of a global movement. They thought it might be useful to carry out a review of OERs that might benefit the JISC community in planning funding programs and in opening up discussions on future
research directions concerning the use and re-use of digital content.
The main focus seems to be (apart from section 4.2) on formal learning and
formal educational systems. It considered the possibility that future OERs might derive from general information sources (orders of magnitude greater in volume) that are harvested and contextualised for learning purposes? It might be worth exploring the idea that the Web will become a great repository of potential learning resources that come from commerce, industry, special interest groups and so on, and have little or no input from the educational community at all. Because the providers will be motivated to maintain the currency of their area of interest, it is likely that the materials will be self maintaining.
“We should be looking at a world where Virtual Learning Enviroments (VLEs),
repositories, Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and interoperability issues etc are things of the past. Where the role of the tutor is to facilitate and support the learning process, not provide the learning resources and where education operates globally”(Tony Toole, 2008).
Looking at the latest developments and trends in Open Educational Resources
(OER) initiatives worldwide, JISC has a long term record of interest in sharing and reusing digital content and has already supported many institutional repository projects in the provision of free access to teaching and learning materials in Higher Education or Further Education such as Jorum (Free online repository service for teaching and support staff in UK further and Higher Education Institutions). It appears that OER will have a significant impact on managing and accessing the existing repositories and in taking these initiatives forward as part of a global movement. It might be useful to carry out a review of OERs that might benefit the JISC community in planning funding programs and in opening up discussions on future research directions concerning the use and re-use of digital content.
They took much longer than they expected due to the complexity and rapid
development of OERs. “In the last few months, we have studied several well known OER
projects, such as MIT OCW, OpenLearn, Rice Connexions and have drawn invaluable
lessons from them”. ( Li Yuan, 2008 )
This briefing paper is an initial attempt to get some input from the wider JISC
community and get further debate started around the OER initiatives. It is intended to be a fluid document since the landscape on this subject is changing so rapidly at present. One of the ways we would like to keep it current would be to draw a group of people who are interested in OER together to continue to explore the issues, to share some thoughts and to participate in their discussions.
Have they considered the possibility the future OERs might derive from general
information? Why have most learning design approaches to date focused on content ?
(Revenscroft et.al, 2005). Large –sum of money have been invested into creating digital content in their resources , marking it up according to standards and making it available via repositories, VLEs and the like. But making content easily available and accessible does not lead to learning in the same that opening a library does not lead to a literate local community. Content only become ‘alive’ when it is intergrated and related to meaningful learning and pedagogical process. An anology of this point can be made through a comparison with our everyday use of a search engine such as Google. With Google we nearly always find some relevent content that has not undergone any complicated technical preparation to make it ‘findable’, they are just other web pages. Its power rests in the way it operates an ambient and accessible technology that allows us to get what we want when we need it in a way that seamlessly links with our behaviour. What we need for e-learning are tools that link as seamlessly with our teaching-learning behaviour as Google does with our everyday digital behaviour. They acknowledged that there are still considerable barriers to reusing educational content not least of which is IPR. However JISC are not intending to use this call to fund and develop a license structure, rather it is intended to support institutions to develop a process for licensing- whether that be CC or any other type of licence that enables open access to content. Buying licenses is not a sustainable model, changing practice is.
Clearly there is still a risk that institutions and individuals will balk at the idea of “giving away” resources with potential value during a time of recession. However they need to realise that the potential value of new students and enhanced institutional andindividual reputation is potentially of greater value than that of the content. This point was neatly illustrated by Patrick McAndrew’s impromptu presentation which included real evidence of the benefit to the OU of the Hewlett funded Open Learn project. So while the immediate aim of this call is the online release of existing UK HE learning content licensed for worldwide open use and repurposing the real goal of this programme is to help institutions develop processes and policies that result in sustainable open access to content. (David Kernohan, 2008) They also outlined the technical infrastructure approach that JISC are proposing for the OER Programme. Rather than mandating the use of Institutional Repositories and specific licenses, standards and application profiles a more lightweight approach to technical infrastructure is being explored. Content may be released anywhere, in any format, under any appropriately open license however the onus will be on the individual projects to ensure that their content is discoverable, accessible, reusable, attributable, copyright cleared, openly available and supported by stable URLs and a minimum set of tags.
To balance this , anything goes approach there will also be a centralised
aggregation of content in JorumOpen. However at this stage it is yet to be decided
whether this means all content must be deposited in JorumOpen or linked there. This
aggregation of content will enable JISC and HEFCE to showcase the outputs of the
programme and will hopefully also provide the potential to build rich services on the
aggregated resources. This is a relatively new approach to programme infrastructure and there is still much to be discussed and decided, in particular what constitutes the minimal technical requirements for tagging and persistent identifiers.
The trick here is to balance openness with consistency. The programme will
attempt to stitch together an infrastructure based on existing workflows, commonly used tools and the services that can be built around them. It’s not just about the content but the role of content in social networks and it’s not about forcing change but about supporting those that already want to change. (Amber Thomas, 2008)
Li Yuan who presented a summary of her whitepaper Open Educational Resources
Opportunities and Challenges for Higher Education has not going to go into the detail of his presentation her as her whitepaper which has already been extensively blogged about and their slides area available on the OER session wiki page. They have review two presentations from Peter Douglas on the forthcoming JISC commissioned study on business cases for sharing e-learning materials being undertaken by Intrallect and Lou McGill and from Patrick McAndrew on Open University’s OpenLearn project. “Good intentions: improving the evidence base in support of sharing learning materials” (Peter Douglas, 2008)
Their study, which have been reported in their review, focuses on the business case for sharing e-learning materials, sustainability and levels of openness. The study reports that many projects that started in or around 2002 had very similar aims to the current OER programme but ultimately haven’t been very successful. Understandably it has been difficult to learn why these initiatives failed as institutions are unwilling to publicise their lack of success. Traditionally institutional business models and IPR policies are developed by enterprise/knowledge transfer departments, which are often driven by rather more commercial ideology than academic departments. However it appear that many institutions are currently in the process of transitioning these business models. The impact of this transition remains to be seen.
In their last sesion (apart from section 3.5 Major Challenges and 4.0 OER- Calls for
research, actions and the future) OpenLearn has had considerable impact on the Open
University, this is measurable in terms of bringing students into the institution. An
estimated 7000 registrations are a direct result of OpenLearn and it is 5th on the list of reasons why people come to the OU. OpenLearn is aimed at primarily at learners rather than other educators, content is the attractor, but the push is for education.
The OU has also set up a range of low-level partnerships based on OpenLearn, this was
not a predicted outcome of the project, it’s a whole new approach to collaboration.
Initially the OU found it was surprisingly hard to convince people that Openlearn
materials were actually free and somewhat surprisingly there has been little demand for OpenLearn content from the JISC RePRODUCE projects. OER is about giving
permission in advance for things that otherwise have to be negotiated and therefore might never happen. It’s about “you act openly, we act openly, let’s collaborate”. However things take time, open collaboration really scales up the time element, it’s impossible to realistically measure impact over a one year period in any sensible way. (Patrick McAndrew, Open University)

Conclusions
They believe that the OER movement is making real progress worldwide, and
opportunistic, the money just happens to be available right now. They pointed out that higher education institutions business models have changed significantly in recent years as a result of the information explosion. Institutions are no longer the sole repositories of information and knowledge. Information is now ubiquitously availably through multiple channels, not least the Internet. However there is a difference between accessing information and developing learning and understanding and this is where higher education institutions still have a key role to play.
References:
Li Yuan; Sheila MacNeill; Wilbert Kraan (2008), Open Educational Resources
Opportunities and Challenges for Higher Education.
http://openeducationnews.org/2008/12/02/summaries-of-oers-presentations-at-cetis08/
http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/images/0/0b/OER_Briefing_Paper.pdf

Atkins, D, E.; Brown, J, S. and Hammond, A, L. (2007), A Review of the Open
Educational Resources (OER) Movement: Achievements, Challenges and New
Opportunities,
http://tinyurl.com/2swqsg

Downes, S. (2006) Models for Sustainable Open Educational Resources, National
Research Council Canada,
www.oecd.org/document/32/0,2340,en_2649_33723_36224352_1_1_1_1,00.html.

Geser, G (2007), Open Educational Practices and Resources - OLCOS Roadmap 2012,
http://www.olcos.org/cms/upload/docs/olcos_roadmap.pdf

Helen Beetham , Rhona Sharpe, Andrew Ravenscroft and John Cook (2007) ,
‘Rethinking Pedagogy for a Digital Age , Routledge , London and New York : 207 -217

MIT OpenCourseWare (2006), 2005 Program Evaluation Findings Report,
http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/global/05_Prog_Eval_Report_Final.pdf
OECD (2007), Giving Knowledge for Free: the Emergence of Open Educational
Resources,
http://tinyurl.com/62hjx6.

UNESCO (2005), Open Content for Higher Education,
http://www.unesco.org/iiep/virtualuniversity/media/forum/oer_forum_session_2_note.pdf

Wiley, D. (2006a) The Current State of Open Educational Resources,
www.oecd.org/document/32/0,2340,en_2649_33723_36224352_1_1_1_1,00.html.

Wiley, D. (2006b) On the Sustainability of Open Educational Resource Initiatives in
Higher Education,
www.oecd.org/edu/oer.
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/33/9/38645447.pdf

Tech tips

Unable to Open Partition on Hard disk by double Click
Posted on April 5, 2008 - Filed Under Virus Patch, Windows
This is a common problem now a days, the virus causes this problem.And today like my friends i also got stuck with this virus, it was really amazing to know about the methods and tools that are available to remove this virus.
Here is the List Of methods and Tools:-
Method 1:-
This method is the easiest and runs from cmd.Open start >>run
Type cmd over here, and command prompt will open.
In the command prompt type cd\ and enter.
Now at c:\ type attrib -r -h -s autorun.inf
type del autorun.inf
Now similarly follow for other partition on your hard disk d, e, f etc
Enter d: to reach d:\ root and follow the attrib and del commands as above.
Reboot your system.
Method 2:-
Open My Computer and on the top menu open the tools option>> folder options
A poup window will open in that window; select view.
mark the option Showing hidden files and folders and unmark the option Hide protected Operating system files and click Ok to apply setting.
Now Open your drives (By right click and select Explore. Don’t double click!)
Shift delete autorun.inf and MS32DLL.dll.vbs or MS32DLL.dll
Reboot your system.
Now you have your hard disk operating on double click

Good News

http://www.utusan.com.my/

MELAKA 16 Mei – Kira-kira 350,000 guru di seluruh negara merayakan Hari Guru tahun ini dengan berita gembira apabila Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi mengumumkan insentif baru bagi memperkasakan dan memartabatkan profesion perguruan di Malaysia.
Enam insentif itu termasuk keputusan Kementerian Pelajaran menaikkan pangkat dan gred guru-guru bukan siswazah yang telah melanjutkan pelajaran.
Berucap pada majlis sambutan Hari Guru Peringkat Kebangsaan di Dewan Seri Negeri, Ayer Keroh di sini hari ini, Perdana Menteri yakin dengan insentif-insentif itu guru-guru akan lebih bersemangat untuk bekerja.
"Saya berharap guru-guru akan berjalan sebatu ke depan. Inilah yang kita mahu.
"Mudah-mudahan apa yang diberikan ini akan diterjemahkan oleh para guru dengan bekerja lebih bersungguh-sungguh supaya kita dapat melahirkan pelajar yang lebih cemerlang,'' katanya.
Pengumuman itu disambut tepukan gemuruh lebih 3,000 guru yang mendengar ucapannya. Turut hadir ialah isteri Perdana Menteri, Datin Seri Jeanne Abdullah, Menteri Pelajaran, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein dan Ketua Menteri Melaka, Datuk Seri Mohd. Ali Rustam.
Menurut Abdullah, kerajaan bersetuju untuk mengambil kira pengalaman mengajar guru semasa dalam skim bukan siswazah DGA29 untuk dipertimbangkan kenaikan gred secara time-base setelah berada dalam skim siswazah iaitu dari gred DG41 kepada DG44.
"Kaedah yang akan digunakan ialah setiap tiga tahun pengalaman di gred DGA29 akan dikira sebagai satu tahun pengalaman di gred DG41, tertakluk kepada had maksimum pengiraan sebanyak tiga tahun pengalaman DG41.
"Insentif ini merupakan satu tambahan kepada keputusan kerajaan sebelum ini untuk memberikan hadiah kenaikan gaji kepada kakitangan awam,'' kata beliau.
Perdana Menteri berkata, langkah itu juga bertepatan dengan gagasan kerajaan dalam membangunkan modal insan dan bersesuaian dengan dasar pensiswazahan guru yang menggalakkan guru-guru untuk melanjutkan pengajian mereka.
Beliau berkata, pada masa yang sama kerajaan juga bersetuju meluluskan cadangan supaya guru gred DG41 yang berasal dari skim bukan siswazah dan memegang jawatan guru besar akan dipertimbangkan untuk kenaikan pangkat ke gred DG44 selepas tiga tahun berkhidmat sebagai guru besar pada gred DG41.
Susulan kepada penambahan kuota jawatan dalam skim cemerlang sebanyak 300 peratus pada tahun 2006, beliau memberitahu, kerajaan bersetuju untuk menambah baik dua syarat skim guru cemerlang.
Ini termasuk memendekkan syarat tempoh kelayakan guru cemerlang dari tujuh tahun kepada lima tahun pengalaman mengajar bagi pengisian jawatan guru cemerlang DGA32 dari gred asal DGA29 dan jawatan guru besar cemerlang DG44 dari gred asal DG41.
"Bagi pegawai yang telah dinaikkan pangkat guru cemerlang di sesuatu gred, mereka boleh dipertimbangkan kenaikan pangkat ke gred selanjutnya tanpa perlu menunggu tempoh tiga tahun perkhidmatan dalam gred yang sedang disandang,'' kata Perdana Menteri.
Beliau turut mengumumkan peruntukan 10 peratus daripada 1,700 kuota guru besar cemerlang DGA38 akan diberikan kepada pengelola dan guru yang berkhidmat di Kementerian Pelajaran, Jabatan Pelajaran Negeri dan Pejabat Pelajaran Daerah dengan syarat mereka menunjukkan prestasi yang cemerlang.
Selain guru dan guru besar bukan siswazah serta guru dan guru besar cemerlang, turut mendapat suntikan daripada insentif yang diumumkan itu ialah para pegawai pelajaran daerah (PPD).
Abdullah berkata, kerajaan bersetuju untuk menaikkan gred PPD dari gred DG48 kepada gred DG52 dan DG54.
Selain itu, menurut Perdana Menteri, kerajaan juga akan menyeragamkan struktur pejabat pelajaran daerah di seluruh negara dengan memansuhkan pejabat pelajaran gabungan (PPG) bagi negeri Sabah dan Sarawak.
"Selain kenaikan gred PPD, penambahbaikan ini juga akan mewujudkan ratusan jawatan kenaikan pangkat baru untuk para guru yang berkhidmat di pejabat pelajaran daerah,'' ujar beliau.
Beliau turut mengumumkan kerajaan telah meluluskan cadangan penstrukturan baru Kementerian Pelajaran yang kali terakhir distrukturkan pada tahun 1995.
Peringkat awal kelulusan itu akan melibatkan pertambahan jawatan dan kenaikan gred bagi jawatan pengurusan tertinggi dan ketua bahagian dari gred DG54 hingga ke JUSA A.
Sebagai contoh, jelasnya, kesemua jawatan Timbalan Ketua Pengarah Pelajaran kini diseragamkan pada gred JUSA A berbanding sebelum ini berbeza pada gred JUSA A, B, C dan DG54.
Beliau percaya penstrukturan itu dapat memantapkan sistem penyampaian pendidikan di setiap peringkat di negara ini.

Good Sharing

Good sharing..

TRUST is a very important factor for all relationships. When trust is broken, it is the end of the relationship. Lack of trust leads to suspicion, suspicion generates anger, anger causes enmity and enmity may result in separation.

A telephone operator told me that one day she received a phone call. She answered, "Public Utilities Board." There was silence. She repeated, "PUB." There was still no answer. When she was going to cut off the line, she heard a lady's voice, "Oh, so this is PUB. Sorry, I got the number from my Husband's pocket but I do not know whose number it is."

Without mutual trust, just imagine what will happen to the couple if the telephone operator answered with just "hello" instead of "PUB".



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NO POINTING FINGERS

A man asked his father-in-law, "Many people praised you for a successful marriage. Could you please share with me your secret?"

The father-in-law answered in a smile, "Never criticize your wife for her shortcomings or when she does something wrong. Always bear in mind that because of her shortcomings and weaknesses, she could not find a better husband than you."

We all look forward to being loved and respected. Many people are afraid of losing face. Generally, when a person makes a mistake, he would look around to find a scapegoat to point the finger at. This is the start of a war. We should always remember that when we point one finger at a person, the other four fingers are pointing at ourselves.

If we forgive the others, others will ignore our mistake too.



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CREATING PERFECT RELATIONSHIPS?

A person visited the government matchmaker for marriage, SDU, and requested "I am looking for a spouse. Please help me to find a suitable one." The SDU officer said, "Your requirements, please." "Oh, good looking, polite, humorous, sporty, knowledgeable, good in singing and dancing. Willing to accompany me the whole day at home during my leisure hour, if I don't go out. Telling me interesting stories when I need companion for conversation and be silent when I want to rest." The officer listened carefully and replied, "I understand you need television."

There is a saying that a perfect match can only be found between a blind wife and a deaf husband, because the blind wife cannot see the faults of the husband and the deaf husband cannot hear the nagging of the wife. Many couples are blind and deaf at the courting stage and dream of perpetual perfect relationship. Unfortunately, when the excitement of love wears off, they wake up and discover that marriage is not a bed of roses. The nightmare begins.



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NO OVERPOWERING

Many relationships fail because one party tries to overpower another, or demands too much. People in love tend to think that love will conquer all and their spouses will change the bad habits after marriage. Actually, this is not the case. There is a Chinese saying which carries the meaning that "It is easier to reshape a mountain or a river than a person's character."

It is not easy to change. Thus, having high expectation on changing the spouse character will cause disappointment and unpleasantness.

It would be less painful to change ourselves and lower our expectations..



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RIGHT SPEECH

There is a Chinese saying which carries the meaning that "A speech will either prosper or ruin a nation." Many relationships break off because of wrong speech. When a couple is too close with each other, we always forget mutual respect and courtesy. We may say anything without considering if it would hurt the other party.

A friend and her millionaire husband visited their construction site. A worker who wore a helmet saw her and shouted, "Hi, Emily! Remember me? We used to date in the secondary school." On the way home, her millionaire husband teased her, "Luckily you married me. Otherwise you will be the wife of a construction worker." She answered,"You should appreciate that you married me. Otherwise, he will be the millionaire and not you."

Frequently exchanging these remarks plants the seed for a bad relationship. It's like a broken egg - cannot be reversed.



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PERSONAL PERCEPTION

Different people have different perception. One man's meat could be another man's poison. A couple bought a donkey from the market. On the way home, a boy commented, "Very stupid. Why neither of them ride on the donkey? "Upon hearing that, the husband let the wife ride on the donkey. He walked besides them. Later, an old man saw it and commented, "The husband is the head of family. How can the wife ride on the donkey while the husband is on foot?" Hearing this, the wife quickly got down and let the husband ride on the donkey.

Further on the way home, they met an old Lady. She commented, "How can the man ride on the donkey but let the wife walk. He is no gentleman." The husband thus quickly asked the wife to join him on the donkey. Then, they met a young man. He commented, "Poor donkey, how can you hold up the weight of two persons. They are cruel to you." Hearing that, the husband and wife immediately climbed down from the donkey and carried it on their shoulders.

It seems to be the only choice left. Later, on a narrow bridge, the donkey was frightened and struggled. They lost their balance and fell into the river. You can never have everyone praise you, nor will everyone condemn you. Never in the past, not at present, and never will be in the future.

Thus, do not be too bothered by others words if our conscience is clear..


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BE PATIENT

This is a true story which happened in the States. A man came out of his home to admire his new truck. To his puzzlement, his three-year-old son was happily hammering dents into the shiny paint of the truck. The man ran to his son, knocked him away, hammered the little boy's hands into pulp as punishment. When the father calmed down, he rushed his son to the hospital.

Although the doctor tried desperately to save the crushed bones, he finally had to amputate the fingers from both the boy's hands. When the boy woke up from the surgery and saw his bandaged stubs, he innocently said, "Daddy, I'm sorry about your truck." Then he asked, "but when are my fingers going to grow back?" The father went home and committed suicide.

Think about this story the next time someone steps on your feet or you wish to take revenge. Think first before you lose your patience with someone you love. Trucks can be repaired.. Broken bones and hurt feelings often can't. Too often we fail to recognize the difference between the person and the performance. We forget that forgiveness is greater than revenge.

People make mistakes. We are allowed to make mistakes. But the actions we take while in a rage will haunt us forever.



"Good Life starts only when you stop wanting a better One"

" Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away "

SMM

New data system for schools

BANGI: Less bureaucracy and paperwork are on the cards for teachers.
The constant filling of forms and duplication of data, long a sour point for teachers who complained it took them away from teaching, will be a thing of the past with the Education Ministry’s new and improved Student Information System.

As of this year, the system, better known by its Malay acronym SMM, has finally been installed in all primary and secondary schools in the country, Education Ministry Schools Division director Noor Rezan Bapoo Hashim said yesterday.

However, the current system in schools is still not online, and thus cannot be accessed by education district offices and state education departments.

The ministry yesterday launched a pilot project in 10 schools which combined the SMM system with a computer platform called Smart Thin Client, which will have the capacity to go online and make it easier for schools to store their students’ information.
"It is a proven technology that helps us save costs and also help the teachers eliminate time spent on updating records and provide the ministry with timely submissions," Noor Rezan said.

"We are happy with the results and will now deploy SMM on the Smart Thin Client to the 10 schools involved in the project, with the possibility of implementation nationwide if all goes well," she said at the launch at Sekolah Kebangsaan Jalan 6, Bandar Baru Bangi here.

The SMM was first implemented by the ministry in 2004, and the ministry installed it in schools in stages, upgrading and improving it while it went along.

It maintains the student learning data for all the primary and secondary schools, storing the learning records and personal information of students as well as teaching staff.

Noor Rezan said if the pilot project was successful and approved by the ministry, all schools could be online by 2008 and information could be easily retrieved by education district offices and state education departments.

It is a mammoth task as there are around five million students in Malaysia, and the the figure is increasing, Noor Rezan said.

Currently the SMM, on its own, is installed on one computer in each school and only one teacher can access it at a time.

It cannot be installed on many computers due to the processing load and the difficulty in maintaining all of them individually.

With the new and improved system, now loaded on the Smart Thin Client platform, there is one network which links the computers in the school and does all the processing, relieving the burden on the individual computers.

The platform means that teachers can access the SMM database through any computer linked by it in the school.