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SEN FLYNN, Education Editor

The Leaving Cert exam and the CAO points system do not promote positive education values or personal development, university presidents have advised Minister for Education Ruair Quinn.

In a report presented to the Minister today, they conclude the selection process for higher education is having "disproportionate and undesirable effects on student learning . . . at second level."

The presidents back a new ranking system for Leaving Cert scores, common entry routes into college, a reduction in Leaving Cert grades and new efforts to "incentivise strategically important subjects".

However, they stress there is no perfect system and no perfect solution. A task force, chaired by NUI president Dr Philip Nolan will tease out the proposals and report back before the end of the year. The report states: We do not wish to be prescriptive in regard to the issues to be dressed by the task force."

The document backs moving away from awarding CAO points for absolute scores in the Leaving Cert and focusing on the relative performance in the subject. Essentially, it says, the highest points would be awarded to the cohort of students who perform best relative to their peers in the specific subject.

"The most obvious way to convert merit ranking into points is to use percentiles with those in the top 1 per cent getting 100 points, those in the next 1 per cent getting 99 points, and so on, with those in the bottom 1 per cent getting 1 point. . . . An advantage of this option is that it is independent of subject workload, marking differences, grade distribution, etc. It could therefore be considered a fairer system of rewarding student effort and performance. It could incentivise students to take what are currently regarded as the harder subjects."

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Universities call for changes to Leaving, points system

Five years ago, Ken Eklund turned online to tackle the issues raised by the future peak oil crisis with the alternate reality game World Without Oil. Now, Eklund has partnered up with Andi McDaniel and turned his attention on education with Ed Zed Omega, a game hoping to reimagine the educational system by following the stories of six fictional teens who choose to drop out of school.

By Brandie Minchew, originally posted at ARGNet

Theres this expression, zed omega. It means so over. When you go zed omega, you are done. -Ed Zed Omega Revealed

When it comes to public or private education, everyone has an experience, everyone has a story, and everyone has an opinion. The internet is rife with pointed discussions about the problems in education, and full of suggestions on how to solve them. While education issues vary broadly from state to state and nation to nation, they share at least one commonality: solutions tend to be easy to propose but difficult to implement. Education reform is an ongoing conversation amongst government officials, educators, and the public, and conversations between these groups are often politically charged and riddled with miscommunication and misunderstandings.

Andi McDaniel and Ken Eklund have brought something new to the conversation about education with their freshly-launched project, Ed Zed Omega. The project focuses on a set of voices that often gets lost in the cacophony that pervades the education discussion: the voices of those most directly affected by our education systems, the people currently subject to the state of being educated. Ed Zed Omega features the stories of six fictional teens who have decided that they are done with education, and that theyre not going back. Their guidance counselor, Mary Johnson, has convinced them to use the time they would have spent in school to complete one more assignment, exploring solutions to the problems they perceive in education.Ed Zed Omega launched on August 15, 2012 and will run through November 15, 2012 to follow their journey.

Several people and organizations are involved in the creation of Ed Zed Omega. The Association of Independents in Radio (AIR) put out a call to producers working on innovative storytelling through their Localoreinitiative. Ken Eklund and Andi McDaniel were matched up through Localore to create a proposal for one of ten projects to be featured by AIR/Localore. The project is funded through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPC) and presented by Twin Cities Public Television (TPT).

Eklund is no stranger to interactive narratives and serious games. In 2007, he created World Without Oil, the award-winning alternate reality game that jump-started a conversation about a near-future crisis where oil was in short supply. McDaniel is an interactive media producer for TPT, and her work in photography, print, radio and video span a wide range of topics and themes. When the pair first got together to start discussing their proposal, they didnt know that the focus would be education. However, TPT had historically done programming for kids and parents, as well as several documentaries on education. The subject of the high school dropout rate came up 1.2 million kids dropping out of school every year for myriad reasons and Eklund and McDaniel recognized the narrative power of teens who have disengaged with the education system. They envisioned the Zed Omegas, teens who feel let down by education and who want to try something different. They call it dropping out loud.

Ed Zed Omega focuses on the specific stories of six teens. Edwina, Nicole, Xavier, Lizabeth, Clare and Jeremy each have a different reason for wanting to drop out of high school and go their own way. They call themselves the Zed Omegas totally done with high school and reluctant to re-enter the education system as the summer draws to a close. Their guidance counselor, Mary Johnson, identified them as at risk teens and, rather than trying to convince them they are wrong to drop out, she is trying to re-engage them with a self-directed study on education. She is aided by homeschooled teen Nora Rose Melendy, along with Alan Greye and Zephyr Yilmaz who keep the Ed Zed Omega website up and running. August 15 is the day they dont return from their summer vacations, and when their exploration of education begins.

The Ed Zed Omega audience can interact with these teens and their support system through a wide variety of social media while following along with their progress in addressing the problems of education and as they deal with the consequences of dropping out of school. The audience is invited to influence and become part of the Ed Zed Omega story through sharing their thoughts, opinions, and experiences with the Zed Omegas. The games website makes it easy to follow the story using a Tumblr format with snapshots of character activity across the social media landscape.

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Reinventing Education for the Disaffected with Ed Zed Omega

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21 August 2012This study focuses on attitudes and practices related to all aspects of online education including views on the quality of learning outcomes, issues of institutional support, and institutional rewards. Even as online enrollments have grown exponentially, attitudes about online learning have remained conflicted.The study is based on the results of two related, but separate, surveys. The first is a nationally representative sample of higher education faculty members who are teaching at least one course during the current academic year. The second focused on academic administrators in particular those responsible for academic technology at their institutions.

Online learning has experienced consistent growth in the 10 years that the Babson Survey Research Group has been tracking and producing annual reports on the enterprise. The number of students enrolling in one or more online course has increased at rates far in excess of the growth of overall higher education enrollments. The proportion of students taking at least one online course has increased from fewer than 1 in 10 in 2002 to nearly one-third by 2010, with the number of online students growing from 1.6 million to over 6.1 million over the same period an 18.3 percent compound annual growth rate.

Originally posted here:
Faculty and online education, 2012

Yoga classes will be offered in Kilgore, Longview

Kilgore College will once again offer yoga as a kinesiology elective this fall.

Beginning yoga courses will be offered both in Kilgore and Longview, and the courses will count toward physical education requirements to graduate with an associates degree.

Kilgore yoga classes will be offered in Parks Fitness Center, and Longview classes will be offered at Good Shepherd Medical Centers Institute for Healthy Living on Hawkins Parkway.

Cecile Craft, KCs yoga instructor, said she is excited that the college has made yoga a part of its kinesiology curriculum.

Yoga is a true healing art, Craft said. It increases lung capacity, lengthens muscles and improves balance and coordination.

Kilgore yoga classes will be offered this fall from 9 to 10 a.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Longview yoga classes will be offered this fall from 3 to 4:30 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Also, at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesdays, a non-credit yoga class will be held at Parks Fitness Center called Yoga Stretch.

For more information, contact Craft at 903-315-8805 or e-mail her:ccraft@gsmc.org.

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Yoga classes will be offered in Kilgore, Longview

The 2012 season of Yoga at the Rivers Edge, sponsored by the North and South Rivers Watershed Association, began in June. This program is now in its 16th year.

Weekly classes, taught by certified yoga teachers Kezia Bacon, Claire Manganello, Jerry Mulhall, Mary Norton, Page Railsback, Kate Stone and Mary Whidden, will be held on Saturday mornings from 8:30 to 10 a.m., at various sites along the North and South Rivers. Each class will feature meditation, gentle stretching, breathing technique, hatha yoga postures, and guided relaxation. All classes are outdoors. The sites are not wheelchair accessible.

Classes on Sept. 15, will be held at Couch Beach on the North River, behind Couch Cemetery in North Marshfield.

The Sept. 1 and Sept. 8, classes will be held in the Rexhame Dunes, at Rexhame Beach in Marshfield.

The Aug. 18 and 25, classes will be held at the Indian Head River Conservation Area in Pembroke.

All proceeds benefit NSRWA. There is a suggested donation of $10 per class for NSRWA members, and $15 for the general public.

There is no need to sign up in advance. Bring a yoga mat, blanket or large towel with you. Classes are canceled on rainy days. For more information, including directions to class sites, contact Kezia Bacon at 781-837-7093, email yogariversedge@verizon.net or visit http://www.nsrwa.org or http://www.hellokezia.com.

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Yoga at the River’s Edge heads to Rexhame

By Kate Lundquist on 08/20/2012 05:00 AM

Some of the people in my class are just starting to learn how to live sober, and I see them take a huge, deep, full breath. I can see them at peace, even if just for that moment. There is a glimmer of respite, Del Priore says. When you are drinking or doing drugs it is because you are trying to escape a thought or feeling. Yoga works to control those thoughts by using the breath.

Del Priore also teaches at the Swannanoa Juvenile Detention Center. Suffering from past trauma, addictions and life choices that led to time behind bars, Del Priore says these 12-16-year-olds rarely have moments when someone believes in them.

I have them hold plank pose for a long time to watch the stress rise in the body, Del Priore says. It takes impulse control not to get out of the pose, and they learn that intolerable feelings, like the muscles working intensely in plank, will pass eventually.

And what happens when life is not strenuous or intolerable for a few minutes (like the final resting pose, Savasana)?

They love it! It is 10 minutes when no one is yelling at them or telling them what to do. Most of them fall asleep, she says.

Blending the Western therapeutic model for rehabilitation with yogic philosophy, Del Priore helps her students rediscover the peace that already exists within themselves, beginning with 10 minutes of Savasana, and followed by an hour-long yoga class. However, she also tries to help her students off the mat, telling them that suffering and hardships are a part of life, she says, and mental health is not something to be shoved away.

As Sufi poet Kahlil Gibran says, Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; characters are seared with scars.

Del Priore is currently seeking funding and grants to establish her yoga for substance abuse classes at recovery centers. She can be reached at liadelpriore@gmail.com. She also teaches Friday, 9 a.m.-10 a.m. at Asheville Yoga Donation Studio.

Kate Lundquist is a freelance writer and yoga teacher living in Asheville. Her website is http://www.lightonbalance.blogspot.com, and she teaches Saturdays, 2:15 p.m.-3:45 p.m., at Asheville Yoga Center.

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Yoga as healing

OUTGOING Melbourne Vixens coach Julie Hoornweg will "hide out in a vegie garden" in the state's north after announcing her retirement last week.

Hoornweg has not sought reappointment for next year's ANZ Championship campaign, despite coaching the Vixens to a flag and two grand finals during her five-year tenure.

Hoornweg, whose netball career spans almost 40 years, has elected to step away from the elite game to spend more time with her family.

She will move back to a goat farm near Violet Town, which she runs with her husband. "Of course it is (difficult). I've invested a lot of time, effort and emotion, like a lot of people have into this club," she said.

"But you need a lot of energy. I just feel that perhaps I don't have that same energy that I did a couple of years ago.

"It's time to give someone else a chance."

Hoornweg revealed she was "fairly clear" some time ago that this year would be her last.

"In my life at this point I need to spend some time with my family and get a balance," she said.

She did not rule out a return to elite netball in the future, but confirmed she would not be a part of the hunt for a new coach.

Hoornweg nominated assistants, Eloise Southby-Halbish and Simone McKinnis, as worthy successors.

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Hoornweg calls time on coaching career

March 25, 1924 - Aug. 17, 2012

Frank Basilone was such an outstanding football player, he was recruited by the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1945, but he was unable to sign with the team because he had to help support his family in the wake of his father's death.

That didn't stop Mr. Basilone, of Springdale, from devoting much of the rest of his life to playing and coaching sports and mentoring young baseball players and coaching his three sons into attaining sports scholarships to college.

Mr. Basilone, 88, died Friday at Family Hospice Canterbury Center from heart valve problems, said his son, Tim, of Springdale.

Mr. Basilone spent 35 years working for Duquesne Light, retiring as a supervisor.

But his avocation was playing semi-professional sports and then coaching and helping to coach American Legion baseball and high school football and affecting the lives of hundreds of young athletes from the 1960s until about 1995, according to his son.

Mr. Basilone was a fullback on the Duquesne University football team when he was called to serve in the Army during World War II. His military service was cut short because his father died, and as the eldest son, he returned home to help support the family.

But he continued to play sports, largely in semi-professional and community leagues.

Don "Simmy" Simoncic, who played for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1967 and 1968, was coached in American Legion baseball by Mr. Basilone, who he said taught him the skills that got him onto the Pirates farm team from which he was called up.

Mr. Simoncic said Mr. Basilone was a tough coach and that not all of his players liked to be pushed to limits that Mr. Basilone pushed.

More here:
Obituary: Frank J. Basilone | Coach devoted life to young players

Over the past two years, my wife and I have made a series of life decisions that have prevented us from settling in any one location. The traveling we've done has been great, but it's no substitute for feeling rooted within one's community. We're currently on our third city in as many years.

Since this semi-nomadic lifestyle began, investing has come to occupy more and more of my time -- in fact, it's been one of the few constants. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but without a physical community to call myself a part of, the life I've been living hasn't yielded what I've hoped for.

So after a decade away from the game, I decided this spring it was time to start coaching high school football, a sport I played through college. Two-a-days started two weeks ago and -- coupled with a wedding and a couple of family reunions -- I figured now was the perfect time to take a mini-sabbatical from all things investing.

Over that time, I've realized a couple lessons that other over-stimulated, investing-focused individuals like myself might benefit from hearing out loud.

Among them:

Invest? Why invest?I would like to believe that, for myself, the chief reason to invest is to allow my family to live the lives we desire without having financial anxiety impinge on our ability to appreciate our varied experiences. And for those who want to accomplish the same thing, I can only hope the Fool's advice helps in that regard.

Notice, though, that you need a "life" which has "varied experiences" to make investing worth it. Making money and investing alone isn't enough to qualify for either of these.

In fact, an Australian nurse who caters to those on their deathbeds made a list of the five greatest regrets she most commonly heard:

Notice that none of these deal with investing or even money. Clearly, if investing is to be a worthwhile pursuit, our lives need to be worthwhile as well.

In the end, I actually think Foolish colleague Jeff Fisher put it best when he said that finances are important, "only because you probably don't want your main focus during your time here to be money. You want your finances to be sensible, sustainable, provide for you and your family, and not worry you much (some worry is hard-wired in all of us). Period."

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What I Learned From an Investing Sabbatical

WESTLAKE, Ohio--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

The entire trucking industry is invited to join TravelCenters of America LLC (TravelCenters) and Trucking Solutions Group for the Health Awareness Walk to be held at the Great American Trucking Show in Dallas, Texas. The walk, sponsored by TA and Petro Stopping Centers branded travel centers, together with Trucking Solutions Group, will be held on Friday, August 24, 2012, at 9 a.m. at the Dallas Convention Center. Interested participants should meet in Room D168 at 8 a.m. the morning of the walk.

The Health Awareness Walk is a fitness event for the trucking industry. There is no cost to participate. Participants will receive free t-shirts and goodie bags, while supplies last, with health information and giveaways. Homer Hogg, host of Maintenance Matters radio program that airs on Dave Nemos show on RoadDog Trucking, Sirius/XM 106; long-time master technician; and senior technical maintenance trainer for TA and Petro, will participate in the walk.

The Health Awareness Walk is a fun, non-competitive 1.5-mile course for anyone in the trucking industry who is thinking about getting fit, wanting to stay healthy or looking for tips to enhance their workouts. Participants can choose to walk part or all of the 1.5-mile distance.

TA and Petro, together with Trucking Solutions Group, are innovators in the trucking industry, working towards making personal health and fitness easier for all truckers. TravelCenters rolled out its StayFit program in 2010, offering better-for-you restaurant menu options and travel store items, in addition to free fitness centers and mapped walking trails nationwide.

About TravelCenters of America LLC

TravelCenters of America LLC (TravelCenters), headquartered in Westlake, Ohio, is a leading travel center business in 41 states and Canada operating under the TA and Petro Stopping Centers brands. With 241 convenient locations off interstate highway exits, TA and Petro offer customers diesel and gasoline fueling services, nearly 500 full- and quick-service restaurants, 24-hour convenience stores, heavy truck maintenance services, RoadSquad Connect (24/7/365 emergency roadside service), electronic communication (WiFi), and many other services all within large, high traffic facilities. For more information on TravelCenters and TA, please visit http://www.tatravelcenters.com. For more information on Petro Stopping Centers, please visit http://www.petrotruckstops.com.

About Trucking Solutions Group

The Trucking Solutions Group began in 2008 for members to share best practices in the trucking industry and assist each other with improving their businesses. The Driver Health Council, a committee within the Group, is dedicated to raising awareness of health issues in the industry. The Council began Health Awareness Walks in 2010, and holds them at various trucking industry conferences and events.

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TravelCenters of America and the Trucking Solutions Group Sponsor Health Awareness Walk at Great American Trucking Show