Desire2Learn, a Canadian online education startup that offers an increasingly popular cloud learning platform for higher education, K-12 and Fortune 1000 companies, just announced that it has raised a $80 million Series A round led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and OMERS Ventures. The company, which is based in RIMs hometown of Waterloo, Ontario, says that it plans to use this investment to bolster its customer service and cloud infrastructure, support global growth and to accelerate the development of its platform.

Todays $80 million financing marks the first time the company has taken an outside investment and is actually the largest-ever VC investment in a Canadian software company.

For NEA, this is also one of the companys largest investments. The global venture capital firm just closed on its new $2.6 billion fund in July and todays investment was made out of this fund. According to NEA, $1 trillion is spent on K-12 and higher education globally and technology is starting to transform how education works. Desire2Learn, NEAs Jon Sakoda and Ravi Viswanathan write today, is at the forefront of this shift with its leading software-as-a-service (SaaS) learning platform.

Desire2Learns platform, which competes with incumbents like Blackboard, currently has about 700 clients and 8 million learners have used its tools. The company was founded all the way back in 1999.

Desire2Learns platform aims to cover virtually every angle of the online education experience. Here is a short list of what the companys services capabilities:

Founded in 1999, Desire2Learn Incorporated is a leader in providing innovative eLearning solutions to academic and other leading organizations around the world. Desire2Learns focus is on research and development and service and support for their clients, and their products lead the market in innovation and client satisfaction.

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Online Education Platform Desire2Learn Raises Massive $80M Round From NEA & OMERS Ventures

On the plus side, MOOCs are free, open to anyone and taught by professors at prestigious universities. On the downside, they have low completion rates, and critics questions the utility of students being graded by their peers. TIME is enrolling in several of these classes to see what all the fuss is about

Johannes Simon / Getty Images

Sebastian Thrun of Stanford University speaks during the Digital Life Design conference (DLD) at HVB Forum on January 23, 2012 in Munich, Germany.

MOOC may be a silly-sounding acronym, but this new breed of online classes is shaking up the higher education world in ways that could be good for cash-strapped students and terrible for cash-strapped colleges. Taking a class online might not sound revolutionaryafter all, in the fall of 2010, 6.1 million students were enrolled inat least one online course. But those classes were pretty similar to the bricks-and-mortar kind, in that students paid fees to enroll in classes taught and graded by a professor and some teaching assistants. But MOOCs, short for massive open online courses, are a different animal. They can be taken by hundreds of thousands of students at the same time. And perhaps the most striking thing about MOOCs, many of which are being taught by professors at prestigious universities, is that theyre free.

Since MOOCs first made waves in the fall of 2011, when then-Stanford professor Sebastian Thrun opened his graduate-level artificial intelligence course up to any student anywhere and 160,000 students in more than 190 countries signed up, the free online classes have been heralded as revolutionary, the future, the single most important experimentthat will democratize higher educationand end the era of overpriced colleges. Thrun has even gone so far as to say he envisions a future in which there will only need to be 10 universities in the world. In January, he launched Udacity, a private educational organization, offering a dozen courses that anyone can sign up for and complete at his or her own pace; it now says it has more than 739,000 students. A similar company, created by two Stanford computer science professors, called Coursera, launched in April with four major university partnersStanford, the University of Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton. Since then, Coursera, which features humanities as well as science courses, has added more big-name partners, including Duke, the University of Washington and the University of Virginia, and saysit has one million registered students. The third major player in this space, edX, was launched by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University in May. It has a more limited, high-level course catalog, but announcedin July that the University of California-Berkeley was joining.

There is a lot of excitement and fear and overblown rhetoric surrounding MOOCs. While some say free, online courses are a great way to increase minority enrollment, others have saidthey will leave many students behind. Some critics have saidthat MOOCs promote an unrealistic one-size-fits-all model of higher education and that there is no replacementfor true dialogue between a professor and his or her students. In a column for The New York Times in May, David Brooks said research has shown online education is only half as effective as in-person learning. A brain is not a computer, he wrote. We are not blank hard drives waiting to be filled with data. People learn from people they love and remember the things that arouse emotion. Some critics worry that onlinestudents will miss out on the social aspects of college.

Despite all the hype and the marquis players involved, the first few MOOCs have not been without issue. Of the thousands of students who have signed up for the classes, only about 10% complete them, and some professors have expressedconcern that its nearly impossible to grade a students work if you have no way to verify if the student is in fact the person completing the work. Indeed, in the first few courses taught over the summer at Coursera, dozens of studentsin at least three classes complained that their work was copied by students. (Coursera added an honor code in response to the reports ofplagiarism.) And even in this social-media savvy era, plenty of people are wondering how much students will learn in some MOOCs when it is their peers rather than their professors who are doing the grading.

To see what all the fuss is about, a handful of TIME editors and writers are signing up for MOOCs and will be blogging about the experience in order to give readers a sense of what its like to take a free, massive online course. Editor at Large Harry McCracken, a self-described gadget nerd who writes about consumer technology for the magazine and TIME.com, is enrolling in Courseras Gamification courseto learn how digital game elements and design techniques apply to non-game business and social problems. Brad Tuttle, who covers personal finance, travel and parenting for TIME.com, will be taking Courseras Introduction to Mathematical Thinking. Writer-Reporter Nate Rawlings has already started CourserasIntro to Sustainabilitycourse (and scored 100% on his first quiz). And photo editor Alexander Ho will learn the basics of computer programming in Udacitys Intro to Computer Science course.

As for me, Ill be taking Courseras Securing Digital Democracy coursea timely class given the upcoming electionthat will cover the risks and potential of electronic and Internet voting. This isnt my first encounter with online education, although my previous experience was of the traditional variety. As part of my bachelors degree at the University of Washington, I took a web-based environmental science course. I took the class because I needed a science credit, and rumor had it the class was a breeze. The rumor was true: I didnt watch a single lecture, but passed the class with an above-average grade by completing a group project and pulling an all-nighter before the final exam (which, by the way, was the only time I bothered to download the professors PowerPoint slides). Needless to say, Im hoping with a little added investment on my part, my latest foray into online education will be much different from my first one. Then again, my Coursera class started yesterday, so I already have some catching up to do.

Kayla Webley is a Staff Writer atTIME. Find her on Twitter at@kaylawebley, onFacebookor onGoogle+. You can also continue the discussion onTIMEs Facebookpageand on Twitter at@TIME.

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Will Open Online Courses Renew Higher Education?

From submitted report September 4, 2012 10:36AM

Yoga Aid Naperville invites the community to support the yogis who will complete 108 sun salutations Sept. 9 at Naper Settlement. | Sun file photo

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During Yoga Aid Naperville, yogis from all over the world will salute the sun for charity Sunday, Sept. 9. Sun salutations will be led by local yoga studios at Naper Settlement. To sign up, go to http://www.facebook.com/YogaAidNaperville. To learn more about Yoga Aid, visit http://yogaaid.com.

Updated: September 4, 2012 2:49PM

Yoga Aid Naperville plans to complete 108 sun Salutations Sunday and the group hopes youll join them.

Community members can either support local yogis or join them at Naper Settlement. Money raised will go toward charities worldwide.

Yoga Aid began in 2006 when two yoga enthusiasts, Clive and Eriko, created the Yoga Aid Challenge, an international fundraising event with the dual purpose of raising funds for charity and sharing the benefits of yoga. Since the first Yoga Aid Challenge, the Yoga Aid events have raised more than $1.2 million for charities throughout the world.

This year, Clive and Eriko decided to expand the reach of Yoga Aid, resulting in the Yoga Aid World Challenge, which pledges to raise $1 million for charity by united yogis worldwide.

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Yoga Aid Naperville to complete 108 sun salutations for charity

NEW YORK, Sept. 4, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --Gaiam, Inc., the leading distributor of lifestyle media, announced the DVD release of Intro to CorePower Yoga, based on the classes taught at CorePower Yoga Studios the largest individual network of yoga studios across the country. A truly unique practice, Intro to CorePower Yoga brings a fresh perspective on yoga by offering a more fitness-focused practice.

Through the combination of movement, music and energy, Intro to CorePower Yoga tones the entire body while increasing strength, balance, and flexibility. Led by CorePower Yoga CEO and Founder, Trevor Tice, the DVD is designed to be focused and time efficient so that it can be easily incorporated into anyone's daily routine.

"CorePower Yoga has generated an overwhelming fan base across the country due to its modern approach to the practice that is attractive to so many people especially the younger demographic," says Tice. "By partnering with Gaiam to bring the CorePower Yoga practice to DVD, everyone will be able to take advantage of this unique, results-driven style of yoga regardless of whether or not they live near a CorePower Yoga Studio."

Intro to CorePower Yoga features three workouts plus a pose breakdown section to increase strength and flexibility, as well as lose weight and manage stress:

"We are thrilled to partner with the renowned yoga chain CorePower Yoga," says Bill Sondheim, President of Gaiam. "At Gaiam, it is our mission to bring our consumers the best in yoga and the CorePower brand truly offers a fresh, contemporary spin on the traditional practice. We are confident that this DVD will appeal to a broad audience of those just getting started, as well as those that are already devotees of CorePower Yoga."

Intro to CorePower Yoga has an approximate runtime of 65 minutes and a suggested retail price of $14.98. The DVD will be available beginning September 4, 2012 at Target, Amazon, and wherever DVDs are sold.

About CorePower YogaTrevor Tice opened the first CorePower Yoga Studio in Denver, Colorado in 2002, filling a niche in an emerging yoga market with the goal of creating an empowering and health-focused environment where individuals are not bound by conventional ideas about the limits of body and mind. By the end of 2012, there will be 78 CorePower Yoga Studios nationwide, including Hawaii. Learn more at http://www.corepoweryoga.com.

About GAIAMGaiam, Inc. (GAIA) is a leading producer and marketer of lifestyle media and fitness accessories. With a wide distribution network that consists of 62,000 retail doors, 14,400 store within stores, 5,600 media category management locations, a digital distribution platform and more than 10 million direct customers, Gaiam is dedicated to providing solutions for healthy and eco-conscious living. The company dominates the health and wellness category and releases non-theatrical programming focused on family entertainment and conscious media. In addition, Gaiam has an exclusive licensing agreement with Discovery Communications and other licensing partners. For more information about Gaiam, please visit http://www.gaiam.com or call 1.800.869.3603.

Media Contact:Lauren Aboulessan Krupp Kommunications (212) 886-6710 LAboulessan@kruppnyc.com

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Gaiam Partners With Leading Yoga Studio Chain To Launch Intro To CorePower Yoga DVD

NEW YORK, Sept. 4, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --Gaiam, Inc., the leading distributor of lifestyle media, announced today the release of Maya Fiennes' Yoga for Real Life. Fiennes' yoga is based on the discipline, Kundalini Yoga, which is a practice that fully engages the mind, body, and spirit, focusing on health and healing to improve the body through the use of its own energy.

In Yoga for Real Life, Fiennes guides viewers through a series of exercises to stimulate the chakras, the powerful spiritual centers of the body. Through breathing techniques, movements and mantras, she demonstrates how to clear the mind and body, preparing users to manifest anything they desire in life. In addition, the DVD provides visuals for all the positions and movements defined in her previously published book, Yoga for Real Life

Fiennes combined her talents as a successful classical pianist and performer, as she composed all the music featured on the DVD, which is designed to connect each body position with specific emotions. This provides a sense of release, as well as a journey from beginning to end, welcoming the unknown.

"From the first time I began practicing Kundalini, I felt such a strong connection as it fully incorporates the mind, body, and spirit in one workout, providing a truly emotional experience," says Fiennes. "I also love how Kundalini is accessible to anyone, whether a beginner or someone familiar with another style of yoga."

"We are excited to work with Maya Fiennes to offer our consumers the opportunity to experience a different yoga practice," says Bill Sondheim, president of Gaiam. "As the Kundalini practice has found a growing audience in the US, this DVD reflects our mission at Gaiam to provide a diversity of options, so that everyone can explore and discover all that yoga has to offer, enabling them to find a practice that is right for them."

Maya Fiennes' Yoga for Real Life has an approximate runtime of 60 minutes and a suggested retail price of $14.98. The DVD will be available beginning September 4, 2012 in stores and online at Amazon.com.

About Maya FiennesMaya Fiennes is one of the most in-demand yoga instructors in London today, offering fun, uplifting, inspirational practices. After trying a variety of different yoga practices she felt a strong connection to Kundalini yoga and in 2003 began training to be a teacher under Shiv Charan Singh at the Karam Kriya School in London. Incorporating her background as a classic pianist and performer, Fiennes uses her own original music in her classes, which she also performs live in concert. Since 2007 she has released a variety of DVDs, including a Journey through the Chakras, The Mantras of Kundalini Yoga, and a Detox DVD. Maya has also released a series of musical CDs to accompany her yoga. After writing Yoga For Real Life, she created this DVD, which will be the first in a set of three. Throughout the year, Fiennes leads workshops, retreats, and tours worldwide.

About GAIAMGaiam, Inc. (GAIA) is a leading producer and marketer of lifestyle media and fitness accessories. With a wide distribution network that consists of 62,000 retail doors, 14,400 store within stores, 5,600 media category management locations, a digital distribution platform and more than 10 million direct customers, Gaiam is dedicated to providing solutions for healthy and eco-conscious living. The company dominates the health and wellness category and releases non-theatrical programming focused on family entertainment and conscious media. In addition, Gaiam has an exclusive licensing agreement with Discovery Communications and other licensing partners. For more information about Gaiam, please visit http://www.gaiam.com or call 1.800.869.3603.

Media Contact:Lauren Aboulessan Krupp Kommunications (212) 886-6710 LAboulessan@kruppnyc.com

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Gaiam Launches Maya Fiennes' Yoga for Real Life - An Innovative Kundalini Yoga DVD

Yoga can loosen up your muscles and increase your body's longevity, John Farah says.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Editor's note: John Farah is the co-author of "Let's Pick it up a Bit," a memoir and a guide to help people lead an active life. He has run more than 430 races, including 123 marathons.

(CNN) -- My friend Christine was into yoga long before it went mainstream, and she was good at it.

She attended yoga camps, went on a yearly trek to India and even ritually cleansed her sinuses with warm saltwater -- literally sucked it up through her nose. She claimed it possessed a healing value and kept her from getting a cold.

That was the '70s.

She tried to convince me back then that yoga would be good for me, that it would loosen up my muscles and increase my body's longevity. I wanted nothing to do with it.

"Are you kidding?" I said. "I can't stand still for two minutes, and you want me to do yoga?"

Yoga: Tap into the many health benefits

I loved running and playing sports like soccer and volleyball, things that kept me moving all the time. The idea of stretching didn't really appeal to me. Neither, for that matter, did sucking saltwater into my nose.

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Hurry up and stand still: Why runners need yoga

Yoga can loosen up your muscles and increase your body's longevity, John Farah says.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Editor's note: John Farah is the co-author of "Let's Pick it up a Bit," a memoir and a guide to help people lead an active life. He has run more than 430 races, including 123 marathons.

(CNN) -- My friend Christine was into yoga long before it went mainstream, and she was good at it.

She attended yoga camps, went on a yearly trek to India and even ritually cleansed her sinuses with warm saltwater -- literally sucked it up through her nose. She claimed it possessed a healing value and kept her from getting a cold.

That was the '70s.

She tried to convince me back then that yoga would be good for me, that it would loosen up my muscles and increase my body's longevity. I wanted nothing to do with it.

"Are you kidding?" I said. "I can't stand still for two minutes, and you want me to do yoga?"

Yoga: Tap into the many health benefits

I loved running and playing sports like soccer and volleyball, things that kept me moving all the time. The idea of stretching didn't really appeal to me. Neither, for that matter, did sucking saltwater into my nose.

See the original post:
Why runners need yoga

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkHMrQsqLPA

03-09-2012 19:18 Shirts featured in Video - Yoga Paddleboard Workout How To Perform Balancing Cat Pose with Sara Tiefenthaler will teach you how to accomplish this basic move. Yogaqua Lessons - Suplove Paddle Boards - Supconnect Shirts - http Supconnect http Suplove http Yogaqua

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Yoga Paddleboard Workout - Balancing Cat with Sarah Tiefenthaler - Video

Henry David Thoreau said: Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined.

Are you living the life you've imagined? What would it take to walk the path of your dreams? Life coaches can help you realize your goals and actualize your ambitions. No one reaches their pinnacle alone. Professional athletes utilize the expertise of coaches. Highly successful business executives have coaches to aid in their effective and efficient day-to-day task handling. So why shouldn't you enlist the help of a life coach? You deserve it. We all are worthy of having someone on our team helping us to objectively assess what is working and what isn't and to come up with a plan to get us moving in the right direction.

Juxtaposed with traditional therapy, which often helps individuals look into their past to create a better present, life coaching looks into the future and helps clients develop a plan to reach their goals. Specifically, life coaching, or integrative counseling, offers clients an opportunity to take a closer look at their goals, whether physical, mental, emotional, professional or financial. With the help of an objective and highly educated professional, clients learn how to evaluate the ways in which each goal can work more synergistically through the implementation of goal setting, organized scheduling, monitoring and measuring progress, support and accountability. Too often we compartmentalize our lives and isolate segments of ourselves, and in so doing, we are unable to reach our ultimate goals in fitness, life and beyond. For example, working to reach financial success may mean looking deeply at emotional and physical health, while working toward a weight-loss goal may mean taking a close look at effective coping skills. Integrative counseling takes a comprehensive approach to help clients map out the most effective ways to accomplish their ambitions in a holistic way.

Life coaches help clients clarify their goals and identify barriers oftentimes past issues and negative beliefs that keep them from achieving these goals. A life coach also can guide clients, helping them evaluate life plans and monitor behavioral and thought patterns that support and/or detract from stated goals. Together, the life coach and the client develop a strategic plan a road map that integrates fitness, nutrition, healthy coping skills and intermediate goals to assure a positive outcome.

Working toward actualizing your potential necessitates a closer examination of the body/mind/spirit as a whole being. Holding mind/body/spirit at the forefront of everything enacts the most rapid and sustainable change a person can make in life. Integrative counseling provides clients with a road map to identify their goals in many facets of their lives. The process works toward actualizing those goals as an integrative whole.

Abby Ruby, Ph.D., is a senior coach for Carmichael Training Systems, a USA Triathlon Level II coach, a NATA-BOC certified athletic trainer, a CISSN sport nutritionist, a RYT certified yoga instructor and an author (In Sickness and In Health: Exercise Addiction in Endurance Athletes). Ruby offers group and one-on-one coaching options, including nutrition counseling, optimal performance strategy, life coaching and sports psychology. Call 970-476-7721.

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Living with Vitality: What is a life coach; do I need one?

Seairra Nemecek used to put too much pressure on herself to excel at school. The overachiever, whos in the gifted program, would stay awake into the wee hours perfecting assignments, bury her head in books while her friends played, and be crestfallen if she scored 100 per cent on a test, but got the bonus question wrong. Her parents feared her growing anxiety would result in a nervous breakdown.

But teachers at Donview Middle School organized an intervention of sorts and made her understand the importance of achieving balance in her life. It worked. She started hanging around her friends again, got more shuteye and learned to manage the time spent on school work. And her grades didnt suffer.

Its a philosophy the school is expanding this year as it becomes one of two health and wellness academies launched by the Toronto District School Board. The new focus of the schools will be on healthy living, physical activity, and social, emotional, mental and personal wellness.

The schools will still follow the provincial education curriculum, but teachers will infuse health and wellness themes into their lessons. For instance, journal writing may be about food choices and the different food groups. Math class may involve studying the sugar content of different juices. Novel studies may delve into mental health issues, such as anxiety, depression and self-harm.

These students really need to focus on health and wellness to be successful, says principal Sue Brown of what is now the Donview Middle Health and Wellness Academy. If they are not eating breakfast, physically fit, getting enough sleep or have anxiety and mental health issues, they have difficulty learning and cant be truly successful until these issues are addressed.

Weaving these issues into the curriculum is a way to sort of trick kids into getting the pumped about their health and the benefits, she says.

The health and wellness academies the other health-focused school is the Rene Gordon Elementary Health and Wellness Academy, also located near the Don Valley Parkway and York Mills Rd. are among the five different types of specialty schools the TDSB is starting this year. The other themed schools are: a girls leadership academy, a boys leadership academy, two vocal music academies, and three sports and wellness academies.

Details about the new specialty schools.

While many schools place importance on the health and well-being of their students, Donview now has a mandate and vision centred on the belief that a student whos healthy and well is better prepared for lifes challenges. To that end, staff developed five key areas of wellness to boost the students health: academic, physical, social, career and emotional/mental.

You do want to promote academic excellence, says Grade 8 teacher Audra Morgan. But at the same time, if youre teaching the whole child, you have to address the other issues.

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TDSB Health and Wellness academies open in Toronto and focus on students’ wellbeing