A QA Interview With Film and TV Critic Troy Patterson

A QA Interview With Film and TV Critic Troy Patterson Troy Patterson wears many hats, though hed hate that cliche. Hes a book critic for NP, TV critic at Slate.com and the film critic at Spin magazine. He also written for a host of other publications including The New York Times Book Review, Mens Vogue, Wired, and Entertainment Weekly. Patterson, who calls Brooklyn home, is a wickedly funny and nimble writer who crafts sentences like this one about Jon and Kate Gosselin, the feuding couple at the center of Jon Kate Plus 8: She is a moaning 34-year-old harpy with highlights as wide as mountain-bike tires sporting an asymmetrical haircut suggestive of a wounded stork. He is a sullen 32-year-old layabout whose skate-punk sideburns and gelled forelocks signal boring bad news. And, on the show, both struggle to act half their age. Or read his take on The X Factor: People like to talk about how reality TV attracts exhibitionists. This was literalized last night when a pervert at the Seattle audition dropped his pants, inspiring Paula Abdul to discreetly vomit. If we set him aside, the most memorable rejectees were the geriatric husband-and-wife team of Dan and Venita. They warbled off key through Unchained Melody, wore clothes too transfixingly tacky to rate as vintage, and were mildly lobotomized in manner. If this were a tryout for a dinner-theater adaptation of a David Lynch film, they would have definitely gotten a callback. Heres a QA with Patterson. Q: Tell me a little about your background: A: As a kid and teenager in Richmond, Virginia, I was a big reader Twain, Poe, Hemingway, Vonnegut, Salinger, Judy Blume, detective novels, out-of-town newspapers, Cheerios boxes, whatever. I got hooked on magazines by way of Tom Wolfe and Spy. I went to college at Princeton, where I majored in English Lit and edited the campus weekly. After graduating, I lived in Santa Cruz, California, for a little while, working in a coffee shop and freelancing for the local alt-weekly. Those were the clips I used when I applied for a magazines jobs in New York. I worked at Entertainment Weekly for seven years, where I started as an assistant and later became a book critic and staff writer, and I left EW on my 30th birthday to freelance and to fool around writing fiction. In 2006, I went to Slate, where Im on contract, and subsequently picked up regular gigs reviewing movies for Spin and books for NPR. Q: Where did you learn to write? A: I think that all writers educate themselves through practice, practice, practice. It helps to have good instructors along the way (mine include nursery-school teachers to Toni Morrison) and to hunker down with the usual guidebooks (Strunk White, William Zinsser, etc). Q: Whats a typical workday like for you? A: I dont have a typical workday. Sometimes I write all day, sometimes I write for 90 minutes. Sometimes its all reading and reporting and research. Some days Im running around watching movies or recording podcasts or schmoozing with editors. Then theres keeping up with the news, fending off publicists, replying to hate mail, and staring at the ceiling trying to come up with ideas. Q: What do you most like/dislike about what you do? A: May I quote Dorothy Parker? I hate writing; I love having written. Q: Is it hard being a freelancer? A: You betcha. And success, though dependent on hard work, is also contingent upon pure luck to a ridiculous degree. Q: Any advice to aspiring writers/critics? A: Forget it; go to law school. But if youve got too much passion to resist becoming an arts journalist, then try to learn something about a broad range of history and cultureShakespeare, horror flicks, fashion, philosophy, politics, everything. And dont worry about developing your voice; if you study your elders closely and try to write naturally, itll develop itself.

Mark Twains Colloquial Prose Style

Mark Twain's Colloquial Prose Style Described by biographer Mark Krupnick as the single most important cultural critic in [the 20th] century among American men of letters, Lionel Trilling is best known for his first collection of essays, The Liberal Imagination (1950). In this excerpt from his essay on Huckleberry Finn, Trilling discusses the robust purity of Mark Twains prose style and its influence on almost every contemporary American writer. Mark Twains Colloquial Prose Style from The Liberal Imagination, by Lionel Trilling In form and style Huckleberry Finn is an almost perfect work. . . . The form of the book is based on the simplest of all novel-forms, the so-called picaresque novel, or novel of the road, which strings its incidents on the line of the hero’s travels. But, as Pascal says, rivers are roads that move, and the movement of the road in its own mysterious life transmutes the primitive simplicity of the form: the road itself is the greatest character in this novel of the road, and the hero’s departures from the river and his returns to it compose a subtle and significant pattern. The linear simplicity of the picaresque novel is further modified by the story’s having a clear dramatic organization: it has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and a mounting suspense of interest. As for the style of the book, it is not less than definitive in American literature. The prose of Huckleberry Finn established for written prose the virtues of American colloquial speech. This has nothing to do with pronunciation or grammar. It has something to do with ease and freedom in the use of language. Most of all it has to do with the structure of the sentence, which is simple, direct, and fluent, maintaining the rhythm of the word-groups of speech and the intonations of the speaking voice. In the matter of language, American literature had a special problem. The young nation was inclined to think that the mark of the truly literary product was a grandiosity and elegance not to be found in the common speech. It therefore encouraged a greater breach between its vernacular and its literary language than, say, English literature of the same period ever allowed. This accounts for the hollow ring one now and then hears even in the work of our best writers in the first half of the last century. English writers of equal stature would never have made the lapses into rhetorical excess that are common in Cooper and Poe and that are to be found even in Melville and Hawthorne. Yet at the same time that the language of ambitious literature was high and thus always in danger of falseness, the American reader was keenly interested in the actualities of daily speech. No literature, indeed, was ever so taken up with matters of speech as ours was. Dialect, which attracted even our serious writers, was the accepted common ground of our popular humorous writing. Nothing in social life seemed so remarkable as the different forms which speech could takethe brogue of the immigrant Irish or the mispronunciation of the German, the affectation of the English, the reputed precision of the Bostonian, the legendary twang of the Yankee farmer, and the drawl of the Pike County man. Mark Twain, of course, was in the tradition of humor that exploited this interest, and no one could play with it nearly so well. Although today the carefully spelled-out dialects of nineteenth-century American humor are likely to seem dull enough, the subtle variations of speech in Huckleberry Fin n, of which Mark Twain was justly proud, are still part of the liveliness and flavor of the book. Out of his knowledge of the actual speech of America Mark Twain forged a classic prose. The adjective may seem a strange one, yet it is apt. Forget the misspellings and the faults of grammar, and the prose will be seen to move with the greatest simplicity, directness, lucidity, and grace. These qualities are by no means accidental. Mark Twain, who read widely, was passionately interested in the problems of style; the mark of the strictest literary sensibility is everywhere to be found in the prose of Huckleberry Finn. It is this prose that Ernest Hemingway had chiefly in mind when he said that all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. Hemingways own prose stems from it directly and consciously; so does the prose of the two modern writers who most influenced Hemingways early style, Gertrude Stein and Sherwood Anderson (although neither of them could maintain the robust purity of their model); so, too, does the best of William Faulkners prose, which, like Mark Twains own, reinforces the colloquial tradition with the literary tradition. Indeed, it may be said that almost every contemporary American writer who deals conscientiously with the problems and possibility of prose must feel, directly or indirectly, the influence of Mark Twain. He is the master of the style that escapes the fixity of the printed page, that sounds in our ears with the immediacy of the heard voice, the very voice of unpretentious truth. See also: Mark Twain on Words and Wordiness, Grammar and Composition Lionel Trillings essay Huckleberry Finn appears in The Liberal Imagination, published by Viking Press in 1950 and currently available in a paperback edition published by New York Review of Books Classics (2008).

Business Skills Evaluation of Sources Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Business Skills Evaluation of Sources - Essay Example The sources serve as a means of backing up whatever conclusion (on the topic at hand) that the researcher has come to in the study they are involved in(Gorard, 2013). This means that if the source for example, contains false information then the argument that had been brought forth in the research will be declared invalid as the support structures used to stand the subject matter can no longer be considered stable. This can be considered to be the most important factor that needs to be determined when attempting to evaluate the value of the sources used. Accuracy has to do with the truthfulness of the information provided from that particular source and how exact it is to the actual reality(Gorard, 2013). It should be noted that in some cases the accuracy of some sources cannot be measured to a tee but a certain level is still required to classify it as accurate information. Within the topic of accuracy come other factors that lie beneath this main subject and determine whether the source is accurate or not. These factors include issues such as how recent the information provided is and issues such as the methods that were used to collect, store and pass on the information. The Accuracy of the sources provided can be considered to be high as a result of the where they come from. The information provided in the books, have been brought about by professionals who are aware of what they are talking about and more importantly, have used established information to put their points across(Gorard, 2013). The sources can also be considered to be accurate via the publication dates of the literature that was used. The more recent the publication, the more recent the information and thus the less likely it is for the information provided in that particular work to have been rendered obsolete or have undergone renovations as a

National Trust CaseStudy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

National Trust CaseStudy - Essay Example A SWOT analysis is a useful instrument for helping managers to identify internal strengths and weaknesses of a business and external opportunities and threats facing it (Strydom, 31). Based on the case study, it can be noted that National is a registered charity that looks after special places and was founded in 1895. The major strength of the organization is that it is unique since it specialises in looking after historic places that are centers of attraction. Many people are attracted by the beautiful places under its jurisdiction and this helps National Trust to generate substantial revenue from the number of visitors that go to the place every year. The main weakness confronting National Trust is that it is not for profit business. It relies on membership and entrance fees to cater for its operational costs. Costs incurred in maintaining the places as well as advertising are high which leaves the organization vulnerable to financial constraints. The major threat for National Trust is that the members of the public have alternative ways of spending their time. This entails that National Trust might not be in a position to attract the large envisaged numbers. Research has also shown that a lot of young people are not comfortable to work for the organization. Promotion is very important in the operations of the organization. For instance, this marketing strategy is used to raise awareness among people about the product and services offered, appeal to the interests of people as well as to remind them about the product (Kotler & Armstrong, 2004). In case of National Trust, promotion is used to raise awareness among the people about the product as well as to explain the benefits of the services offered. Different marketing communication tools such as new media including social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, Youtube, Weibo, MSN and advertising are often used. National Trust promotes its activities mainly through the use of social

Long Form Journalism writing ( see instruction) Article - 1

Long Form Journalism writing ( see instruction) - Article Example To some people, their extreme conviction and dedication in participating the church’s evangelical mission, and in thanksgiving to God seemed like a big mystery. Why are they doing it like a robot? Why are they giving too much dedication not just in thanksgiving God, but in attending all worship services and evangelical missions? In an interview with a church member, he replied, â€Å"we give much importance to our worship services because it is a duty God is waiting for us to fulfill. We have so many reasons to thank God. We were awakened from false teachings of our former religions, and we were given the right to belong to His chosen people in these last days. We doesn’t care even if we miss great opportunities, we doesn’t care even if we can’t report to our office work. What’s most important to us is that we could fulfill God’s given task to us. Our annual thanksgiving is another duty in praising God for all the blessings He is pouring on the entire church, and in the individual member’s lives. We treat everything as God’s gift: life, opportunities, peace, we could not achieve it on our own struggle. That is why we always cling to God, and we believe in His promise of eternal life.† From their issue of God’s Message, their magazine, published on May 2004. There is an article about the Brother Felix Manalo as God’s messenger. Looking backward to the history of the church, it has started in the Philippines by Bro. Felix Y. Manalo(1886-1963). Manalo was born on May 10, 1886, 10 years prior to the Philippine Revolution that ended the 400-year of Spanish colonialism. The church’s members believe that he is the fulfillment of biblical prophecies concerning God’s â€Å"chosen servant† from the â€Å"ends of the earth† mentioned in Is. 41:9-10 and the â€Å"angel ascending from the east† entrusted with the task of sealing the â€Å"servants of God† mentioned in Rev. 7:2-3. He was the eldest child of

Perception In Humans Vs Computer

Perception In Humans Vs Computer The Essay which I am going to write is about Minds and Computers. Here I will explain that what is a human mind, what a computer is and what is a relation between them. Its all about the idea of constructing or developing artificial intelligence. This question of possibility is not limited only to construction of such an advanced technology which will possess artificial intelligence and will act in a manner as human can do but is also a philosophical question. The word perception comes from the Latin words perceptio, percipio, and means receiving, collecting, and action of taking possession, apprehension with the mind or senses. [1] Humans perceive through their minds and senses. So how human mind or human brain works? According to Hippocrates (the father of Medicine) Man should be fully aware of the fact that it is from the brain and from the brain only that our feelings of joy, of pleasure, of laughing arise as well as our sorrow, our pain, our grief and our tears. We are thinking with the brain and we can see and hear and we are able to draw a distinction between ugliness and beauty, bad and good what is pleasant and unpleasant. A computer is defined as a programmable machine that receives input, stores and manipulates data, and provides output in a useful format. So how a computer perceive? The answer to this question is that computer perceives through knowledge of Artificial intelligence. Is it possible for a computer to learn and becomes capable like humans, to learn from observing the environments, is it possible that computer learn by trial and error basis. In Artificial intelligence some developers have developed robots that claims that are able and that they can learn like a newborn human baby can do. In my opinion it is not only the problem that is bound to software but also to hardware that hinder the growth in computer technology. As compared to human brain a super computer is unable to take off the powers of a human mind. In recent years, there was a rapid increase in the improvement and development of electronic race. Day by day the computational speed of electronic computer is increasing. The main focus in this electronic era is to make computers smaller and faster in processing. Transistors replaced the vacuum tubes and then transistors were also replaced by smaller and tiny integrated circuits. With the passage of time all these circuits are incorporated to microchips. The recent advancement in computer technology is forcing humans to think about such computers/robots that will match humans in performance and capabilities. Lets have a comparison between human brain and computer that whether computer is capable to learn and adopt more or human. Human brain is capable to receive a lot of information at real time from all the senses at constant rate, so its natural that human is able to adopt and learn more quickly from its environment and its surroundings. Human brain is capable to get a lot of information of the surroundings only in a single glance that will help the brain to respond in a quick way. Human brain is able to learn by mistakes, by errors, by experiences that may be good or bad and it is due to this learning that makes him capable of dealing with situation efficiently. It is the common judgment of many peoples that human brain as compare to computer is far more superior in acquiring new skills and techniques. On the other hand, the human brain requires more time to espouse to changes like erudition of more skills and quitting of old once. The more we do a particular work repeatedly the more easily it gets. If an individual does the same work for a longer time he gets used to it, than he can even do it subconscio usly and it becomes a habit for him. Computers are getting more and smarter with the passage of time. Computers are capable to learn anything that the computer programmers want to feed it in research centers. Different engines like voice recognition systems are developed in order to nourish the program with different voices that it could pick up patterns in speech, the accents and slangs and that it should recognize them. Another Engine is optical character recognition which is able to pick and choose up fresh information and patterns as it scrutinize the dissimilar styles of writing from its constantly growing database. Some programs are now able to classify between objects, it can place and recognize that object accordingly with their patterns and shapes to different categories. The perception rate of computer is increasing day by day. Some computer programs are now capable of learning and seeking by trail and errors, they learns from their mistakes and then they records a best solution in its database to tackle that problem or error for future reference. The ways in which computers are learning or we can say the computer learning techniques are getting better day by day and it is progressing in the right direction especially with the stop towards learning by using perceptions. Computer is progressing towards a big revolution and is now able to use the two most important senses that is senses like sight and sounds. It will be not too far that computer will learn and will be able to observe environment and will learn from examples. So who is more capable human or computer? Who is better in performance and capabilities? In my opinion a computer cannot over cross a brain and a brain well remain winner and is winner. There are a lot of fields in which a brain is more powerful than a computer. A brain is only less efficient when it is used for only one purpose or specific function. The brain completely depends on how we make it. When it come to calculations and memorizing, computer lefts brain behind. As now we are somehow up to some extent familiar with what a mind and a brain is. Now I will explain some philosophical problems in artificial intelligence. All these problems are associated with consciousness and emotions. As we all know that human possesses consciousness. Consciousness is defined as The ability or state of being aware especially of something within oneself, the state or fact of being conscious of an external object, state, or fact. However it can be used in many different ways. It is occasionally used to refer to our alertness of certain actions or processes that we are conscious of. Sometimes it refers to the ability of awareness of our own selfs and also the way in which we distinguish ourselves to the rest of the world. In the paper Replication of the Hard Problem of Consciousness in AI and Bio-AI: An Early Conceptual Framework by Nicholas Boltuc and Piotr Boltuc they are suggesting that a machine can be equipped with phenomenal consciousness. According to their claim if we know how a phenomenal consciousness works and if we are able to understand its precise operation it is possible to instantiate it in a machine. This is very significant claim; the reason behind this is that if it is true it would discredit the privileged access problem of first-person consciousness. It will cast as an empirical problem of science and not a fundamental question of philosophy. In my personal opinion they did not presented any logical argument about the implementation of human consciousness in a machine. In my personal opinion it is impossible to preclude a machine with human consciousness. We cannot call a computer to be intelligent unless until it does possesses common sense. It is impossible for a computer to adopt common sense because human common sense works on know-how basis. For example, as we know that A Bird in Hand is better than two in the Bush is all related to common sense, yet it is impossible to ride a bicycle through knowledge or by teaching. All we get is our experiences. It is impossible that without experience u will ride a bicycle just by knowing its procedures. It is not because of knowledge that we can eat an apple in darkness. If it is because of knowledge than we would need some parameters to locate our mouth, like the angle of our hand, the position of our mouth, the speed with which our hand is moving etc. All these things we cannot attained without experience.Recent computers are only able to represent things. In my opinion it is difficult to transfer them skills and emotions. This is a large problem in the field of artificial intelligence. Is it possible to mimic intelligence? Is it possible to copy a significant amout of thought and planing to paste it in a computer. In my opinion no such thing exist as to mimic intelligence. I think it is not possible to copy intelligence because still we are not hundred percent able to know that how our minds works. Till now some questions related to brain like its functionings are yet unanswered. There is a doubt about the explanatory power of computers programs, Even though if a program makes a computer capable of what a human can do. For example, like understing and talking English, or describing some images, which forces us to think about a question that whether a computer program is doing it in the same way as we humans are doing. Still its not clear that whether the program is correctly explaning our abilities. As we know that existing computers do not do things as we do, it physical level they employe on transistors, interpreters or compilers, computer follows these instructions blindly and there is no evidance that humans do this. The notion that computers can do in the same way as humans do is systamatically ambiguous. Even it is not possible between two different persons. An arithmatical question calculated by different persons may be same, if they both use the same logarithms, but it will be different if they both are using it in a different bases. This notion does not apply in case of computers because there is no such level for computers at which he do it in the same way as we do it. We cannot say that a pakistani is playing chess in different way than a swedish, because of the fact that the language that is used is different. In case of stratigies both can have different stratigies. It should be noted that every human does not do things in one way they may fallow different ways to approach a problem, whether its all about playing chess, remembering names, soving problems, perceiving faces, or understanding of a particular language. So it is not reasonable to deny that in a computer simulation which is very much complex. I dont think that it is possible to simulate every aspect of human mind to a computer program. How is it possible for a computer to feel thirst, to feel naunsance, sexual desires, the feeling to dance, or the feeling which one gets one he is going to loose his balance while walking on ice, to feel hungry, to feel love, to feel sympathy, to feel proud and a lot more which humans feel. It is not possible to construct a computer that will be capable to feel as humans feel. There are much more peoples who are dreaming for the day to see that mans own thinking creation can take a human form. Who can be a true friend, who will always keep your secrets and will always listen to what ever you say, and it will be your best servant without demanding for leave, or even it can do a lot of things for you from research to minor calculations, all these services without demanding for salaries. There are much more peoples who feels fear because of different possibilities of AI. Espacially the ones who thinks that what will happen if it goes wrong as we have seen it in some of the blockbuster movies. Movies like the Matrix, the teminator, the cyborg, universal soldiers, eye robot and a lot more. They all tells us the stories about when artificial intelligence goes bad. Movie or no movie, all we should worry about is that anything can happen. I am not arguing that what the story writers want to say is correct or incorrect. The fact which all know is that there is a lot of differnce between God made and Human made thing.

The Frankenstein Phenomena in Life and Education :: Mary Shelley Frankenstein Essays

The Frankenstein Phenomena in Life and Education When we consider most traditional Hollywood Frankenstein films, the 'monster' is depicted as evil because he is 'malformed' but this is not always the case. The simple one-to-one relationship of ugly equals evil was not prominent in the Mary Shelley's original book or in more true-to-text films such as The Bride or more recently Kenneth Brannagh's attempt to make the authoritative film interpretation, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. In these versions, the monster was portrayed as more human in his endeavors to question his origins, find a father and be happy. However, his physical characteristics have become the most salient feature in popular culture, so much so, that he is generally viewed as unquestionably evil bec ause his appearance offends the eye. The signs in this case are the monster's scars, his stitches, the bolts that hold his head on, the hands of a murderer sewn on, his club feet, his staggering jerky walk, his strange and retarded speech. We often take t hese signs as bei ng indexes and symbols of evil and malevolence that signify insidiousness and threat, even though these are characteristics of so many real conditions in our fellow humans. When we consider such people, we call these signs symptoms, infir mities, disabilities and medical problems. Are we so sure that we can separate how we view these signs depending on whether we are watching movies, such potent sources of how we regard our world, or when we deal with patients or students in the 'real' wor ld? Looking at how people that are considered aberrant either physically or mentally are portrayed in movies gives a good view on how society as a whole may see them, in my opinion. In the film The Bride, the monster's only companion after his escap e is a dwarf who was a circus performer. Although, this movie is definitely a more positive and sympathetic portrayal of the monster's condition, it also highlights the assumption that anybody with a physical makeup that is unusual, is considered just as much a 'monster' by society. In this discussion, I will initially take the representation of dwarves in movies and myth, and how they are perceived by society as being prototypical for a range of other physical differences that are considered negatively i n this culture. I choose dwarves because I believe they have been one of the most pervasively stereotyped groups in movies and myth and whose negative depiction continues to persist even in the politically correct era because now they can be labeled as "w eird but cool.

Radium Girls

Isn’t it scary to think that someone could keep a huge secret from you, a secret so big that it could potentially kill you and hundreds of other people? This happened in the 1920’s and changed many people’s lives forever. Today, I’m going to share with you something that had a big effect not only as u as a country but us as the Illinois Valley. My topic is the Radium Girls of Ottawa. This is a topic that I know much about; I did my 8th grade history fair project on this, read a few books about it, and even interviewed two of the radium girls.My three main points will be what the radium dial company was, who the living dead girls were, and the after effects of this tragedy. My first point is the Radium Dial company, according to the book Deadly Glow, in 1922 the radium dial company moved from Peru Il, to Ottawa and hired hundreds of girls to paint the dials of WWI and WWII clock faces. The paint used was called luna that contained radium to make the watch g low in the dark.To get the dials perfect the girls were told to wet the tip of the brush with their lips. Their boss failed to mention that radium can cause anything from cancer anemia, bone fractures and necrosis of the jaw, known as radium jaw. Their boss knew about the dangers but told them it would only make their cheeks rosy. Unaware of the dangers the girls would paint their teeth, nails, skin, and hair and turn off the lights so they could glow. This brings me to my second main point, who were the society of the living dead?According to the book Radium Girls, after a year the girls started to complain about jaw pains and their teeth started to fall out. They demanded to be seen by doctors, only to be lied to about not having radium in them and they were perfectly healthy. The doctors who saw them knew they had radium in them, but didn’t tell them. This started their group â€Å"the society of the living dead† the girls were filing for unsafe working conditions. Catherine Donohue was the leader and she was one of the girls who were affected the most.Even through her illness she still won the case that granted all the girls $10,000 to split amongst themselves and all their medical bills were paid. Some of the girls benefited from the case, but money could never heal their mental and eternal illness. The death toll in Ottawa was 35, and 4,000 nation. My third and final point is the aftermath of the case. In my interview with June Menne and Pauline Fuller in October of 2010 both who worked for the radium dial company at this time shared a little information on just how things hanged. Even though a lot of the young girls died before they reached thirty, this tragedy changed lasws that ban people form working hands on with deadly chemicals and right to sue corporations for labor abuse. The building was torn down in 1969. The governor then appointed 2 million dollars to clean up the radium. This tragedy is still affecting Ottawa today, there was a test in 2007 for radium detection and to this day it is still scattered in Ottawa. Thankfully there have been no other cases of anything like this.It just shows that something bad has to happen before things will change. On September 2, 2011 a statue was put up of a girl holding a wilted tulip in one hand and a paintbrush in another to remember the tragedy. Thank you for listening to my speech on the radium girls. I hope you learned my three main points which were what was the Radium Dial Company, who the society of the living dead was and what the effects of this case had on our nation. Any questions?

The Alliance for Childhood and Computers in Education

The Alliance for Childhood and Computers in Education The Alliance for Childhood is one of the most famous organizations, which aim at promoting children healthy development, their enjoyment of this life, and love to education. Nowadays, the vast majority of children cannot imagine their lives without computers: they may communicate being far from each other, play various games, listen to music, find more friends online, and get their education.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on The Alliance for Childhood and Computers in Education specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More However, as The Alliance for Childhood states, people’s faith in technology should not be higher than children’s needs. The representatives of this organization admit that â€Å"the renewal of education requires personal attention to students from good teachers and active parents, strongly supported by their communication.† (The Alliance for Childhood) Lots of parents think that the earlier their child will learn how to use computer, the better job will be waiting for him/her in future. The Alliance for Childhood cannot agree with such a point, neither do I. Parents are afraid that their children may be left behind, this is why they are eager to use all chances, which are presented to them. â€Å"Wiring and computerizing America’s schools is an urgent priority – not for children, but for high-tech companies that need to constantly expand their markets.† (The Alliance for Childhood) This is why it is crucially important to pay attention to ethical and social technological implications. The Alliance for Childhood focuses on the importance of physical, emotional, and social development of children. Computers pose certain hazards to child’s life, and the mission of parents and teachers is to protect future generation from destructions and health problems, caused by computers. Of course, there are certain benefits of computers and the abilities c hildren may get, however, it is necessary to remember about the limits and pay enough attention to active life, healthy food, and real communication – and all this is impossible to get sitting in front of the computer. Microsoft Word and Writing Poetries The Microsoft Word program turns out to be rather helpful for completing different kinds of assignment. Students get much more opportunities to demonstrate their creativeness, present quite interesting ideas in order to explain the topic under consideration, and represent their personal vision of the issue. The Microsoft Word program may be also used as a helpful tool to teach students of upper elementary schools on how to write poetry. Without any doubts, students may get lots of benefits using the Microsoft Word program. Microsoft Word may correct automatically students’ spelling mistakes and underline the sentences, which may cause some doubts. With the help of this program, students can easily find out several syno nyms to make the work more sound.Advertising Looking for essay on education? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More It is quite possible to add a captivating picture or any other illustrative material in order to attract reader’s attention. However, it is necessary to remember that this program deprive students from the opportunity to correct all the mistakes and train him/herself to pay attention to each detail in the work. Students can just rely on the corrections, their computers should make. But still, Microsoft Word cannot be sure about the proper use of this or that word. When a student creates poetry, it is necessary to use soul and imagination. Of course, this program helps to represent the ideas in the best ways; but the works created by means of some computer programs may be usually deprived of soul and personal emotions, and such deprivation is not inherent to real pieces of art. Poetry is something that s hould come from the heart; the Microsoft Word program can help to present the ideas in a really attractive way, but still, students should not rely on this program only in order not to forget about emotions, which are not inherent to computers. Presentation for the Parents’ Open House Evening Parents’ open house evenings play a very important role in the life of school and each student. Students have a wonderful chance to demonstrate their abilities and underline the issues, which are crucially important for students. This is why it is very important to present captivating presentation and use of the reliable material to prove or disprove some fact. Within 15 minutes, it is quite possible to present the topic and explain its strong and weak points. However, certain steps have to be taken. First, it is necessary to choose the appropriate media for the presentation and for the display. Nowadays, a lot of things can be made with the help of computers. If yesterday, people spend much time to paint something or create the necessary exhibits, nowadays, the same people have a good chance to make a presentation within several minutes – all the necessary example can be created on computers and presented to the smart auditory. Of course, one of the most reliable and frequently used media is CD-R or even CD-RW disks in compatible format. It is crucially important to close the session, otherwise, the information on the disk will be impossible to read on the PCs. Second, it is better to make several copies of the disk and check whether the information on it is available.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on The Alliance for Childhood and Computers in Education specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More To make the presentation really captivating, it is better to use big and not quite bright letters. This way, parents will not spend their time and efforts to view the information. It is also better not to use too complicated terminology, because not each parent can be aware about it. This is why it is better to find the way to speak to the point and use simple language. Interesting photos and real life facts – this is also what can make the presentation better. Computers Are Needed in Classes Without any doubts, the use of computers makes our lives easier. Students have a wonderful opportunity to prepare interesting tasks and do not pay much attention to their spelling, as they truly believe that certain computer programs will make all the necessary corrections. Teachers may spend less time to check each work, because computer programs may be rather helpful. Is it correct that computers turn out to be so crucially important in our lives? There are actually so many doubts according to this very answer. But, this time, we have another question to consider: whether computers are so important in schools. In fact, computers in education may be rather helpful. The Internet and e mails may easily stimulate the student to work â€Å"because they notice that they have audience.† (Ortega and Bravo, 2000) This is why it is better to use any means to attract student’s attention to study. However, it is also important to analyze what classrooms should be equipped with computers and students of what age should use them. To my mind, libraries and labs should have several computers in order to make the work of students easier and provide them with more time for researching. With the help of computers, students find the necessary material quicker and can concentrate on the assignment itself. At such classrooms where the lessons on literature, language, and history take place, computers are not necessary. However, where certain experiments take place or when students learn to programming or design, the computers should be obviously present. The students of 10-12 years do not pass such classes as programming or science; this is why the students of such age and early may study without computer support. As for the other students, to get proper education, they should have an access to computers and be involved into the work.Advertising Looking for essay on education? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Reference List Alliance for Childhood. (2000, September 12). Computers and Children: A Call for Action. Retrieved from http://drupal6.allianceforchildhood.org/computer_position_statement Cordes, C., and Miller, E. (Eds.) (2000). Fools Gold: A Critical Look at Computers in Childhood. Alliance for Childhood. Web. Ortega, M. and Bravo, J. (2000). Computers and Education in the 21 st Century. Springer.

The Korea Question Essays - Geography Of Asia, East Asia, Asia

The Korea Question Essays - Geography Of Asia, East Asia, Asia The Korea Question What is national identity? This question may seem to be to simple to even bother answering. The easy answer is that national history is the events in a nations past that, when put together, unify all aspects of life in that nation. From this rough definition it would make sense that all of the nations in the world have a national identity. However, this question is not as black and white as it may seem. Some people believe that a nation whose history is nothing more than occupation by other countries should not be considered an independent nation. This can be seen very well in the case of Korea, which ahs had a history filled with Chinese, Japanese, and western influence. However, though Korea has strong ties to all of these imperialistic powers; it still shows aspects that are uniquely Korean. Korea has a history that includes dominance, subservience, and reemergence. The people of the Korean peninsula have had a very colorful history. Through the period of the Later Bronze Age the Korean peninsula experienced significant political development. Perhaps the most important of these developments was the creation of the walled-town states. The six walled-town states of the Korean peninsula are seen in Chinese records. The most advanced of these states was Chao-hsien. The early leaders of Chao-hsien called themselves tangun wanguom to signify both their descent from the divine creator and their monarchial status . The leaders of Choa-hsien soon realized that in order to maintain power over the peninsula they would need to join with other walled-town states to ward off invaders. By the fourth century BCE the confederated kingdom was created and served as an extended political unit of substantial military power . Shortly after the confederated kingdom was created it was challenged by the powerful Yen faction, a powerful contender from northern China. The Yen people asserted that Chao-hsien was arrogant and cruel. By the fourth century BCE the Yen faction invaded the Korean peninsula resulting in the inevitable decline of Chao-hsien. The Yen invasion stimulated new waves of Chinese traffic in official, administrators, traders and military personnel . Chao-hsien was able to use the Chinese influence to strengthen allowing it to subdue its neighbors. This new strength ushered in the Three Kingdoms Period. The Korean peninsula was divided into three sections, Kingdoms, known as Kroguryo, Paekche, and Silla. As is the case throughout history, one of these kingdoms eventually rose to become the dominant force on the peninsula. In the sixth century BCE Silla felt confident enough to expand its domain. It consumed the small neighboring tribes in southern Korea and then prepared to take on the other kingdoms of Kroguryo and Paekche. In the end Sillas goals of unification did not come to fruition. Much of Manchuria remained out of the reach of Sillas armies. However, it was Sillas unified rule over the bulk of the peninsula that laid the basis for the subsequent course of Korean history . Throughout its history the Korean peninsula has always been crucially affected by political developments on the Asian land mass. This phenomenon can be seen during the chaos that accompanied the end of Tang and the Five Dynasties. It was then that Wang Kon was able to overthrow Silla and establish the Koryo dynasty. The Koryo dynasty found itself having to ward off many enemies. In the beginning they felt pressures from the Mongol barbarians who eventually allied with Koryo becoming their sole protector. In the last century and a half they saw the emergence of the Japanese marauders intent on raiding the peninsula. After the collapse of the Mongol Empire Koryo fate was imminent. They had no way to fight off invaders and were bound for failure. The peninsula may have slipped into foreign control if General Yi Songye hadnt mounted an offensive against the Ming armies. In 1932 Koryo finally fell opening the door for Songye and the Yi Dynasty in Korea . The Yi Dynasty, the longest in Korean history saw many revolutionary ideas introduced to Korea. Songye had become not only a military leader but also the leader of a new literati class. Songye encouraged a wide range of cultural activities such as

MedTerm Question Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

MedTerm Question - Assignment Example You should ask yourself questions that will lead to the body formation (Beach, 2010). An inquiry essay begins with a topic or an idea then the summary of the information learnt from the topic (Beach, 2010). After researching on a topic you want to write on, an outline should follow (Beach, 2010). The introduction should be written using facts, statistics, anecdote, or a question (Beach, 2010). The question will enhance the heart grabbing of the reader (Beach, 2010). The thesis should tell the purpose of the essay (Beach, 2010). A thesis is a short sentence or roadmap that defines the information in a sentence inquiry (Beach, 2010). Using the correct terminologies will enhance the understanding of the reader (Beach, 2010). Use personal experience and research information so as to come up with a good essay (Beach, 2010). Give background information on the essay so as to enhance more understanding (Beach, 2010). When writing this essay it should be based on strong arguments (Beach, 2010). Writing the essay, you should proofread for grammatical errors and spelling mistake (Beach,

Liberal International Thought Since Immanuel Kant Essay

Liberal International Thought Since Immanuel Kant - Essay Example This essay stresses that liberal thought has followed Kant’s opposition to direct democracy, where individuals in society cannot directly participate in politics. Instead, it has followed the tradition of people selecting representatives to provide representation on the national stage. The discussion above has sought to show that liberal international thought has not really moved on since Immanuel Kant through a study of liberalism in the contemporary world. The arguments within it have shown that from the time of Kant, a liberal international thought has essentially remained the same with very few variations between the various thinkers and has come to the conclusion that liberal thought has become inflexible. One of the arguments that have been made is that Kant’s ideas concerning the creation of constitutional democracies all over the world to ensure peace are still being practiced. Furthermore, a liberal political thought has continued to follow the Kantian belief that the power of the state has to be limited in order to protect individuals against the arbitrary use of power by leadership, hence the definition of the extent of a leader’s authority in a constitution. The discussion has also argued for the persistence of meliorism, which is an idea that was vigorously supported by Kant and remains relevant in liberal international thought today. In addition, it has been argued that liberal Kantian thought has led to a situation where there have developed conflicts between liberal countries and those that tend to be more conservative.