Wars Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Wars - Essay Example tion of the US to Somali, though there is no clear evidence of the fact that the terrorist organizations responsible for the biggest world terrorist acts take their places in either of the countries. On the contrary, the intervention to these countries has caused chaos and disorder. This statement can possibly be denied by the explanation that the war was not the absolutely desirable way out to stabilize situation in the country, and was actually aimed at creating new society with democratic values, but the fact that presence of the terrorist organizations was only suspicion, and it is yet not understood, after so many years of war, whether this war was the best solution for the problems which existed between the two countries. It has caused deaths of thousands people of the common population but has not yet reached its goal of destroying terrorist groups. Thus, suspicion is not enough to start and hold wars. Thus, we come to another argument against wars – innocent people mos tly become the victims of the political games, which often turn into wars. Modern times represent us with the new kinds of wars, which countries and peoples can have against each other, starting from physical (military), and ending with the informational and oil (gas) wars. The issue of the innocent people is more related to the fact when one speaks about military actions. ‘While the image of bombers flying over Afghanistan and bombing a people whose average lifespan is about 45 years of age and who are suffering terrible deprivation already -- not least due to the Taliban, which the U.S. helped create and empower -- is horrifying enough, it is important to realize that death and deprivation come in many forms. Even without widespread bombing, if the threat to attack the civilian population or outright coercion of other countries leads to curtailment of food aid to Afghanistan, the ensuing starvation could kill a million or more Afghans by mid-winter. Is this the appropriate response to

Representational view of the simpsons Essay Example for Free

Representational view of the simpsons Essay The Simpson began as a short series of cartoons in the late eighties. It was in 1989, when the Fox Broadcasting Company employed Matt Groening, a cartoonist, to make the Simpsons into 13 half hour episodes that began its path to fame. No sooner had the show aired than the Simpsons became the highest rated show on Fox. However along with the high rating came huge criticism about the content of the show. The Simpsons seemed to satire the educational system, religious system, the American political system and all the American institutions that the American people believed strongly in. It seems to be one of the most controversial programs on TV today because of this. The Simpsons consists of a family of seven. Homer and Marge as the parents, Bart, Lisa and Maggie as the children, a cat Snowball II and one dog Santas Little Helper. The characters of the show were named after Matts real family. The Simpsons are a stereotypical view of an American family and this is another thing that the show has been criticised for. They live in a small town called Springfield. There are many similarities between the Simpsons family and a traditional sitcom family, however they are far from being an ideal family. The Simpsons have been called a dysfunctional family, for not sticking to the familiar family traits that other sitcom families do, for example, the Cosby show or the Waltons. The shows executive producer, Mike Scully, said critics have blamed the Simpsons for being dysfunctional family but they forgot the part that they are still a family and a lot of other families dont survive marriages. They have been called dysfunctional as the Simpsons are not always happy, they always seem to have money problems, Homer is a lazy father and Bart is always naughty. However to me the Simpsons show a more true-to-life family one that all people of any age can relate too. We all know that all children are not prefect or that not all families get on all the time but the Simpsons family sticks together whatever happens. HOMER. J. SIMPSON. Homer is one of the many characters in the show that is stereotyped. He is a stereotype of a typical male middle class, white, American man, as he has a beer belly, is not very bright and is always thinking of food. He is the father of the family, but has very little control over them. Homer works in a nuclear power plant as a safety inspector. His very rich boss, Mr. Burns, owns the plant that Homer works in. Mr. Burns does not think much of Homer, he thinks Homer is a stupid lay about because he does no work. Homer hardly ever thinks before he acts, for example, he bought Lisa a pony because she said she did not love him anymore, but ended up giving it up as they could not afford it. Compared with Ned Flanders, as a father, Homer is not the happiest of the kindest, but like Ned, Homer loves his family. Homer does not like Ned very much but Ned considers Homer as a friend. Ned is always happy and very religious; this is exaggerated a lot on the show. He is famous foe saying howdy-doddlely . Ned also out stages Homer, not on purpose, for example, in the episode called Simpsons Roosting on a Open Fire. Homer puts up Christmas lights but they are not very good then Ned put his on and they are excellent. The Flanders role is to highlight the negative points of the Simpsons family life. Each character has a particular characteristic for them, Homers is that he only has two strands of hair and he loves his food, especially donnuts, umm Donnuts. MARGE SIMPSON. Marge is the mother of the family. She too is a stereotyped as a housewife. Marge does not get out much but does most of the running around for the family and has hardly any time for herself. Marge is the more dominant one of the marriage. She is a very kind, loving mother. When you compare Marge with Mrs Lovejoy, the vicars wife, Marge is not a gossip or as religious as Mrs. Lovejoy but is a considerate and sensitive lady. She loves all her children very much no matter what they do. For example, when Bart ruined Thanksgiving by setting Lisas centrepiece on fire, Marge still forgave him afterwards. Marge keeps her family together, and although more tired and stressed out than usual sitcom mothers her role is actually quite similar. Marges main characteristics that all people associate with Marge is her tall, blue hair and she always says ummmm BART SIMPSON. Bart is the oldest son of the family and the most mischievous. Barts character was created to be a typical naughty schoolboy. He is constantly getting into trouble and is always playing pranks on people, especially Moe. Bart always rings up Moes Cabin asking to speak to someone, for example, Can I speak to Daily please? First initials, I. P. then Moe says hey everyone listen I. P Daily. and then everyone laughs at him. If you compare Bart to Tod Flanders, his neighbour, Bart looks like the devil. Tod is exactly the opposite to Bart, he is extremely religious, happy, constantly singing hymns in his sleep and he never says anything bad to his parents or friends. Overall Tod seems to be the prefect child. Barts main characteristic that all people associate with his character is his sayings. For example, Eat my shorts! or Dont have a cow man! but his most famous one is hay rumba! He is also well know for the comical lines he writes at the beginning of each episode, for example, I will not sell land in Florida. And I will not teach others to fly. As he writes this we know that these are all things he has done in school and has got into trouble for. This also further increases the shows satirisation of the educational system. LISA SIMPSON. Lisa is the most intelligent member of the family. She enjoys various sorts of activities to do in her spare time. One of which is to play the saxophone. She loves to play it even though Homer hates the noise it makes. Lisa also loves to read and write essays, she has written a number of competition essays and one of which won her and her family a free trip to Washington DC. As well as being an intelligent young girl, Lisa is an A grade student and she hates getting anything lower than an A. She also has a good sense of morals, for example, when Homer was stealing cable or as he put it getting free cable. Lisa was totally against it because it was unethical. Lisas character is not stereotyped as much as other characters in the show, for example, Apu; he is a typical Indian character in the show. He owns a Quickie-mart with an Indian accent. This is a one-dimensional view of an Indian man. Lisa is an eight-year-old girl who has the metal mind of a person twice her age. Lisa has been told that sometimes she is too clever for her own good. In some ways however Lisa plays the part of a typical sitcom daughter, well behaved, and more intelligent than her older brother. MAGGIE SIMPSON. Maggie is the baby of the family and loves them all very much. Even though Maggie is only one year old she has achieved so much. However in many ways she is a stereotypical view of a baby, always sucking on her dummy, and playing. However Maggie is one of the few clever Simpsons. She has learned how to spell her own name on an Etch-A-Sketch, she has wandered around town by herself, shot the richest man in Springfield, and has survived living with bears in the wilderness. However Maggie has still not said her first words. Her main characteristic is the noise she makes when she sucks her dummy, suck suck suck suck. Even though the whole family are very different they all love each other a great deal, which is what gets them though all the difficulties they have come across. The end of each episode has the family resolving their problems and although they are criticised for being dysfunctional I believe that they actually portray a more realistic family unit. A solid family that works through problems together is certainly not something to be criticised especially in this day and age.

International Hrm And Comparative Hrm Management Essay

International Hrm And Comparative Hrm Management Essay The growth in international trade and globalisation has encouraged firms to expand their operations worldwide, which has resulted in the emergence of new markets such as China, India, South East Asia and Latin America. This trend has also been accompanied by an increased level of competition amongst firms at both national and international level. The challenge of managing a workforce worldwide with different cross-cultural skills, competencies and demographic characteristics means that managers can no longer rely on traditional HRM models developed for Anglo-Saxon countries. Many firms underestimate the complexities involved in international operations, and there is some evidence to suggest that business failures in the international arena may often be linked to poor management of human resources (Desatnick Bennett, 1978). Western academics and practitioners have thus moved from traditional international HRM issues to the area of comparative HRM. In order to maximize cross-national management capabilities, there is need to understand how employees in different national settings respond to similar concepts within their particular functions. This essay has been structured as follows. In the next section, I will examine the difference between international and comparative HRM. I will then look at the way comparative HRM assist academics and practitioners appreciate the differences in the strategies and processes in MNCs. A conclusion is then presented. Difference between international and comparative HRM International HRM has been defined as HRM issues, functions, policies and practices that result from the strategic activities of MNEs (Scullion, 1995). IHRM deals principally with issues and problems associated with the globalisation of capitalism. It involves the same elements as domestic HRM but is more complex to manage, in terms of the diversity of national contexts and types of workers. The emphasis is on the MNCs ability to attract, develop and deploy talented employees in a multinational setting and to get them to work effectively despite differences in culture, language and locations. International HRM tends to mitigate the impact of national culture and national employment practice against corporate culture and practices. Comparative HRM, on the other hand, is a systematic method of investigation that seeks to explain the patterns and variations encountered in cross-national HRM rather than simply describe HRM institutions and practices in different societies. According to comparative HRM literature, different national business systems arise from differences in specific historical, cultural and institutional heritage in certain countries. Comparative differences occur due to decisive historical events such as the process of industrialisation or due to the legacy of pre-modern forms of social organisation. Hofstedes (1980) adopted the culturalist perspective where he argued that national business styles emerge due to ingrained cultural attitudes and mental schemas. He described culture under five dimensions which are power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation. Other researchers claim that HR management practices differ between nations due to the presence of specifically national institutions such as education, banking services or state/legal support. In what ways (if at all) does an understanding of comparative HRM assist academics and HR practitioners appreciate the difference in the strategies and processes in MNCs which are often termed as International HRM? The contrasted view to a divergence point mentioned above is that some academics claim that with HRM policies and practices are becoming universal (tending more towards the dominant American models) and that country-of-origin effects are no longer relevant. The pressure to build standardised operations internationally is strongest in sectors where competition is highly internationalised and where firms compete on the basis of a similar product or service across countries such as in cars and fast foods. They have put forward several reasons to explain this trend. Firstly, all MNCs operate in one global market and therefore have to respond to the same environmental pressures such as globalisation and technology, the growth in international trade and the move towards an internationally-integrated financial system. Secondly, the widespread practice of benchmarking best practice in terms of cost, quality and productivity may also have contributed to convergence of international HRM models for e.g. Japanese style lean-production system in the 1980s and 1990s. Moreover, these pressures towards convergence stem in part from the influence of MNCs themselves through their ability to transfer practices across borders and erode country-of-origin effects. Finally, the formation and development of like-minded international cadres mostly from American or European business schools may have contributed to homogenised international HRM policies and practices. Since the early 1990s, the international HRM literature has been dominated by models and typologies aimed at identifying how international HR fits with organisational strategy. Bartlett and Ghoshal (1998) argue that the main issue for all multinational companies is the need to trade-off the advantages global efficiency namely the coordination of its operations to achieve economies of scale and scope as opposed to the need to differentiate its products and services to meet the local demands. They also identified a third pressure, namely worldwide innovation and learning, whereby firms are encouraged to support innovation and learning across their network of subsidiaries rather than simply relying on research and development at the headquarters. MNEs then follow the appropriate HRM policies and practices according to the structure of the organisation, the competitive strategy chosen or stage of corporate evolution reached. Below, the Taylors (1996) model of strategic international HRM has been described. Exportive This is essentially a model where the HQ management takes home country management approach and try to implement them in their foreign subsidiaries in order to achieve economies of scale. In this model, there is a system of hierarchy and a centralised control. This is especially useful in instances of uncertain political environment and high risks demanding greater control from corporate parents. Given this pattern of centralisation, there is a considerable amount of forward policy transfer and less reverse transfer from subsidiaries to the HQ, i.e. they rely mainly on the technical know-how of the parent company. Global firms offer products or services that are standardised to enable production to be carried in a cost-efficient way. Their subsidiaries are not subject to rigid control except over the quality and the presentation of the product or service. This structure is normally associated with the American firms with their formalised, bureaucratic control and a dominant finance sy stem to internalise risks. Adaptive Differences in the host environment demands and conditions mean that overseas subsidiaries have to operate independently. This is common where departing from established practices in host environments is unlawful. For example, in some Germany, there is a legal obligation to negotiate with employee representatives concerning major organisational changes. In other cases, transferring practices may be legal but would go against traditional practices at the risk of losing goodwill from staff. Firms may decide to forgo HQ control if there is the possibility to exploit most efficiently the local labour markers. For example, MNCs which origin from high-cost highly regulated economies such as Germany may well choose not to transfer important elements of their HR systems such as collective bargaining or apprenticeship if they move to lower wage, lightly regulated economies such as China. Integrative It is also argued that the more management processes and activities can be integrated across geographical boundaries, the easier it is to share resources and knowledge. They can identify and best use the skill and management talent that exists across the MNC network allowing for both global integration and local differentiation. As mentioned previously, international HRM processes consist of the same activities as domestic HRM but applied in an international context. These include an accurate human resource planning to ensure that the MNCs have the right people at the right place around the world, good staffing policies that capitalise on the world-wide expertise of expatriates and locals, performance appraisals that fit with the competitive strategies of the HQ, adequate training and development to ensure that expatriates do not suffer from culture shock and compensation policies that are strategically and culturally relevant. The focus in international HRM strategy is how MNEs coordinate their geographically dispersed operations strengthening the organisational culture, promoting commitment and encouraging willingness in employees to act in the interests of the firm. Recruitment and selection of international managers Employees play a crucial role in sustaining and coordinating their geographically dispersed operations. The challenge is that of resourcing international operations with people of the right calibre. Traditionally, MNEs sent expatriates, i.e. a parent country national abroad to ensure that the policies and procedures set by the parent -company were being followed as well as to bring expertise to the local employees. However, the high number of expatriate failures has meant that more and more MNEs are turning to host country nationals to satisfy the international staffing needs. The prominent reason to explain international assignment failures was the inability of the expatriate or his family to cope with the culture shock. Researchers revealed that international business travellers faced problems in their personal lives and were victims of stress. Moreover, changes in legislative conditions affecting labour relations combined with security issues have made it more costly to use expatr iates at senior management positions at subsidiary level. The advantages of employing local nationals are that they are familiar with local markets, the local communities, the cultural setting and the local economy. They speak the local language and are culturally assimilated. They can take a long-view and contribute for a long period (as distinct from expatriates who are likely to take a short-term perspective). Expatriates are only used as technical troubleshooters and general management operatives. This means academics need to find the best ways to recruit and select local managers and help them cultivate a global perspective rather than a narrow outlook on how to conduct business in the local environment. International pay and reward and performance management The concept fair pay and reward is also subject to different interpretations depending on the national business system. Triandis (1998) differentiated between vertical cultures which accept hierarchy as given whereas horizontal cultures accept equality as given. In individualistic cultures, there are few rules and norms about correct behaviour and employees expect to be rewarded on their own merits and performance. Countries like US feature at the higher end of the individualistic spectrum. On the other hand, collectivism emerges in societies that have many rules and regulations about correct behaviour. In these societies, employees accept rewards or recognition on the basis of their seniority, efficiency and conformity with the organisational values rather than on the basis of their creativity or professionalism (Pascale and Athos, 1981). China is an example of a collectivist society. In such societies, rewards for individual performance or differentiating between employees are not acceptable. Indeed, the prevailing view is that it takes the contribution from everyone to achieve continuous improvement (kaizen) in Japanese enterprise. Singling one employee may cause him to lose face and consequently a loss of goodwill for the expatriate manager. Moreover, an understanding of the body language is vital for senior expatriate managers when providing feedbacks. While in individualistic society, it is perfectly acceptable for a subordinate to participate in a discussion with his senior, in collectivist societies such as India, disagreeing with ones supervisor is considered disrespectful. Furthermore, countries like Korea and Taiwan prefer more subtle ways of communicating feedbacks. Up-front reprimand or performance appraisal is likely to clash with the societys norms of harmony and the employees may view it as a personal affront. Understanding these local customs and mapping them across countries is an exciting field of study for researchers interested in global performance management systems. Training and development Training and development is vital to ensure that the workforce remains competent and flexible by developing the know-how thought necessary for success in the company and on the job. Scholars have highlighted the importance of national culture on training and development in terms of the hard and soft approach. The hard approach views employees in the organisation as a mere resource to achieve goals of the organisation while the soft approach views them more as valued assets capable of development (Tyson and Fell, 1986). This approach obviously influence the level amount of institutional (percentage GDP) spent on education. The German tradition adopts the soft approach and relies on formal apprenticeship, functional rotation and career path where technical expertise is gradually developed. UK which support the hard approach, believes that the individual is responsible for funding his own education and career advancement. This difference in national training and education systems will m ean that the skill and competence profile of the workers available on the labour market will vary from one country to another. Comparative studies have also shown that there are national differences in the way that managerial careers and management development are organised. Both Japan and France rely on elite recruitment, that is, future managers are decided at the point of entry based on their exceptional qualifications. This contrasts with the American belief of self-improvement where the philosophy is its never too late to change. Also, there are also noticeable differences in the teaching and learning style across countries. The idea of working in groups is more natural to Asian than individualist Anglo-Saxon managers. German and Swiss managers favour structured learning environments and coming to the right answers and are tolerant of confrontation. Asian countries, in contrast, are more concerned about status differences and may be unwilling to exchange ideas against their mentors. This will consequently impact on the format of delivering training for the practitioner, whereby the Asian employees might prefer lecture-type training and German and Swiss might prefer the seminar-type interpersonal interaction. Employment relations Finally, the type of employee relations pursued by the MNE depends principally on the national business systems characteristics of the both the home and host countries. According to Hall and Soskice (2001), there are two varieties of capitalism: Liberated market economies and coordinated market economies. In liberal market economies, firms coordinate their activities primarily via hierarchies and competitive market arrangements. Market relations are characterised by arms length exchange of goods and services and formal contracting. The demand and supply of goods and services are regulated though market mechanisms. There are comparatively fewer state controls. Nations like US and UK fall under this category of market. Consequently, US MNEs adopt a short-termist shareholder value mentality which means they are less willing to offer secure employment to their workers. Therefore, management of labour in the US mirrors the economic model of demand and supply, with market determined wages, hire-and-fire practice and many workers employed on a temporary basis. Employers in US are also more resistant to trade union organisations than in other developed industrial democracies and the legal support for trade union organisations and collective bargaining are relatively weak in the US compared to those in other countries. In contrast, in coordinated market economies, firms depend more heavily on non-market relationships to coordinate their activities with other economic actors. These non-market modes means there is greater reliance on private information inside networks and a greater reliance on collaborative relationships. Coordinated market economies are also characterised by a higher degree of government intervention. Countries such as France, Italy and China are examples of such economies. To illustrate, countries like Germany and Japan have adopted the long-termist approach whereby the interests of stakeholders are considered rather than simply of shareholders. This means these MNEs can offer its employees long-term employment. German trade unions are considered as a powerful stakeholder in the labour market and have the right of collective bargaining, i.e. employers need to so consult their workers before any major changes are carried out. To conclude, the basic purpose of examining human resource from a comparative and international perspective is that it contributes to an understanding of the extent to which there are differences between organisations and their subsidiaries located in different countries. The main difference between comparative and international HRM is comparative HRM seeks to explain the differences arising between different business systems while IHRM downplays the importance of host and home country differences. The greater cultural distance between home country and host country, the harder it will be for the MNCs to transfer home country philosophies and practices. This impact on the way HR practitioners have to implement their policies but opens up new avenues for research for the academics.

Globalisation and China’s Environmental Problems Essay -- Impact USA o

Is the lifestyle of people in Europe and the USA a major cause of China’s environmental problems? One of China’s best successes has in turn been one of its biggest downfalls. One of the main problems is China’s greatest success which has been its phenomenal economic growth. This is one of the main drivers of the current environmental problems that the country faces. Factories dump pollutants into the air and water. It is difficult to see the Chinese government making the significant sacrifices required to improve their environment if it means slowing down their economic growth. In order to understand why China is in such environmental difficulties we need to understand why the lifestyles of people in Europe and the US could be to blame. The first area to consider is the environmental issues that China is currently suffering with. Once this is established I can assert what impact the US and Europe has in relation to these issues and what actually causes them. In linking the events it will be easier to see the chain of events. To do this I am going to work backwards and understand the issues that exist within China and then secondly what they are a result of. This will give me the background of why China’s environmental issues have become so dire. According to the Worldwatch Institute the rapid industrialization has polluted many lakes and streams resulting in chemical pollution and increased algae blooms leaving the water undrinkable. These combined issues are then causing knock on effects to the aquatic life by staving them of oxygen. Many areas are also suffering with an increase in dust storms; these have been a cause of over agricultural use. These increased storms would not cause many problems but now they can ... ... U.S. Firms driving pollution in China. Web. 16 March 2015 http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0822-wsj.html (accessed 12th April 2011) The Open University (2009) U116 Environment: journeys through a changing world, Block 5, â€Å"Changing China†, Milton Keynes, The Open University China â€Å"Unfairly seen as eco-villain†. Web. 16 March 2015 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8100988.stm Member states of the EU. Web. 16 March 2015 http://europa.eu/abc/european_countries/index_en.htm The US-China business council, table 7: China’s top trade partners. Web. 16 March 2015 http://www.uschina.org/statistics/tradetable.html Fast food globalisation, available from http://schoolworkhelper.net/2011/02/fast-food-globalization/ (accessed 19th April 2011) List of countries by population. Web. 16 March 2015 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population

A Look at National Missile Defense :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In the late 1950s, due to the former Soviet Union successfully launching a satellite into space with the help of a multi-stage missile, the United States then began to address the idea of missile defenses. Soon, both offensive and defensive long-range ballistic missile development would be placed on our government’s agenda. The objective was simple, to develop a system that could track down any missiles launched at the United States, and eliminate them before they reached their designated targets. Nike-Zeus was one of the first U.S. efforts to mount a defense against ballistic missiles. Its concept called for a 400-kiloton nuclear warhead to be detonated when in range with incoming missiles. This design had numerous flaws, and after several decades of improvements, it was updated during Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidency. By this time in 1967, the United States realized it could never stop an all-out attach by the Soviets, and therefore shifted its effor ts to protecting major cities from attack. Following the 1969 election of Richard Nixon, the missile defense focus shifted once again, this time to guarding cities with vital military stations. The United States and Soviet Union we now in full-fledged competition to see whose systems would be completed fastest, and with the most efficiency. In 1972, to help curb excessive production of long-range defense systems, the U.S. and Soviet Union signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. This treaty limited both powers to having only two anti-ballistic missile sites. In a 1983 televised nationwide address, President Reagan relayed his thoughts on how the U.S. could take the lead in the missile systems race. He announced the initiation of the Strategic Defense Initiative, also known as Star Wars. This initiative remained intact well into the early 1990s, when after the collapse of the Soviet Union, President George Bush called a review where he changed the focus of the SDI to defending deplo yed American forces from missile threats. When the Clinton Administration came into power in 1993, the SDI became the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. The new organization projected that a defense system would be deployed by 2003, but due to technological defects, a foolproof system has not yet been constructed.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The attitudes of competing countries towards our development of a defense system seem to follow a specific pattern of opposition. China, for instance, who has highlighted their national interests as economic development, reunification with Taiwan, and strengthening their power globally, say they would feel compelled to counter any developments the U.

Talbos Ng Kamote Tea Recipe and It’s Advantages

This is how to make it: 1. Wash the camote tops (talbos ng camote) with water and vegetable and fruit liquid cleanser like that of Pigeon's cleanser for baby bottles and toys. (It's made of 100% food grade or edible ingredients and removes pesticide residues on fruits and vegetables. ) 2. Boil water in a pot. 3. Once the water is boiling, put the camote tops (leaves only) and let them boil for at least 5 minutes. 4. Steep some more for 5 minutes. 5. Remove the leaves (or talbos) using a strainer and set aside.You can make these leaves into a salad. It's delicious too! 6. Pour on glasses (or cups if you want hot tea). 7. Squeeze 1-2 calamansi to get the juice and mix into the tea. You can add some more if you want it to have a stronger calamansi flavor. 8. Add a teaspoon (or more if you have a sweet tooth) of honey and mix. 9. Add some ice cubes for a refreshing and nutritious iced tea! Now, while you're enjoying your glass/cup of camote tops tea, let share some of its medicinal quali ties.It's a remedy for constipation or aids in regular bowel movement. It's a remedy for stomach distress like those cause by indigestion. It helps maintain thyroid hormones that prevents the thyroid from getting big. It helps lower blood sugar and cholesterol of patients with type 2 diabetes. According to Wiki. answers. com: Sweet potato tops are excellent sources of antioxidative compounds, mainly polyphenolics, which may protect the human body from oxidative stress that is associated with many diseases including cancer and cardiovascular diseases.Sweet potato greens have the highest content of total polyphenolics among other commercial vegetables studied. Sweet potatoes contain protein, dietary fiber, lipid, and essential minerals and nutrients such as calcium, phosphorous, magnesium, sodium, potassium, sulfur, iron, copper, zinc, manganese, aluminum and boron. Sweet potatoes are also important sources of vitamin A, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin and ascorbic acid. In recent years, it has been reported as well that this tea can help Dengue patients recover.Read more about this on an article here. Below is the nutritional value that every 100g of camote tops contain as taken from First Vita Plus website : 30 calcium 24 magnesium 373 potassium 13 sodium 49 phosphorus 85 chlorine 26 sulphur 0. 8 mg/kg iodine traces of manganese, copper and zinc Were you surprised that this cheap vegetable can be this nutritious? In fact, some people plant this in their backyards and just harvest them when they want to have them for salad or tea.

Identifying Emerging Issues in Mobile Learning Essay

The workshop series was funded by the UK’s Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) as part of the Emerge Community within JISC’s own Users and Innovation research programme. This exploration focused on identifying emerging issues for the sector arising from the increasingly likely large scale use of Smartphones, PDAs and camera phones by learners in HE and FE, both on campus and in the workplace. This was carried out through scenario generation using three different futures prediction tools in three workshops. The following issues were identified as being the most likely to appear in the future of mobile learning five years from now: the increasing use of ‘just in time’ and ‘as and when necessary’ training. the need for always on affordable connectivity and power. increased support for an approach to teaching and learning that is more collaborative than didactic. concerns over scalability; learning communities are divided over whether there is a role for mobile devices in formal teaching, especially in large groups and lectures. oncerns over the merging of personal and vocational information and practice. The strong match between affordances of mobile devices and learning opportunities in work based and experiential learning across the board. increased peer to peer networking and collaboration. the need for design specifications for a secure online all-purpose data repository accessible by different browsers according to device at hand. Other emerging issues for mobile learning in HE and FE include both ethical and practical implications. These include cultural barriers and resistance to change amongst lecturers and associated teaching professionals. Examples are: fears for the erosion of lecturers’ personal time; concerns over security related to the increasing amount of information and number of images to be stored and privacy issues related to the ease with information can be captured in a range of locations. There is also the opportunity to reconsider assessment practices, recording the process of developing an assignment rather than simply marking the product. One last issue, one that is in need of urgent attention, is the need for the development by students and staff of agreed practice, establishing how mobile devices are to be used responsibly in institutions before inconsiderate use or ignorance of their potential to enhance learning results in banning a valuable learning tool. Acknowledgements The authors wish to gratefully acknowledge the contributions made by members of the Adding a Mobile Dimension to Teaching and Learning network who played a major part both in the scenario development activities at the workshops on which this paper is based and to the review of the scenarios generated. We are also grateful for the financial support from JISC via the Emerge community for this project. 1 Introduction This report details the scenarios developed in a series of discussion workshops exploring visions of how mobile technologies and devices will influence the practice of users in Higher Education (HE) and Further Education (FE) in the future five years hence. The workshop series was funded by the UK’s Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) as part of the Emerge Community within JISC’s own Users and Innovation research programme. This current exploration focuses on identifying emerging issues for the sector arising with the increasingly likely large scale use of Smartphones and mobile phones with the capability to record both video and audio by learners both on campus and in the workplace in HE and FE. These devices have become well established throughout the student community, a survey of 177 students at the University of Southampton found that 94% were regular users and owners of mobile phones (Davidson and Lutman 2007). This dovetails with data from Ofcom (2008) which shows that mobile phone ownership in the 15-24 age group of the UK population is stabilising at around 95% and students to come will be even more experienced in their use. For example, older students in schools that ostensibly ban mobile phones are now regularly being allowed to use the cameras on their ‘phones to record special events or experiments in lessons to help them revise. What is mobile learning? The field of mobile learning has been developing fast as a research topic over the past eight years and accordingly ideas of what exactly mobile learning is have also developed. Winters (2006) noted how various groups researching mobile learning have used definitions that fall into four categories: one – mobile learning as technocentric, where learning is seen as something that makes use of mobile devices, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and mobile phones; two – defined by its relationship to e-learning, where mobile learning is seen as an extension of elearning; three – as augmenting formal education and four – as learner centred, enabling the possibility of lifelong learning. These does not address the unique selling point of mobile learning which is closely linked to the capability of the mobile learner moving between traditionally separate contexts such as the work place and the teaching base supported by handheld technology that they can work with interactively to capture, access and store quantities of information in different multimedia formats. Thus mobile learning can be best described as â€Å"the processes (both personal and public) of coming to know through exploration and conversation across multiple contexts amongst people and interactive technologies† (Sharples, Arnedillo Sanchez, Milrad & Vavoula 2007). Mobile learning in post-compulsory education in the UK A presentation from Traxler & Sugden (2007) places the current state of mobile learning in the UK as consisting of considerable numbers of small scale trials and pilots taking place over fixed periods of time. Confirmation that the practice of using mobile technology to support learning in post-compulsory education is not yet embedded in current practice within institutions was demonstrated during the search for previous research for this paper, where no ongoing large scale uses were found. From currently available sources there is little or no indication as to the extent to which mobile devices are being used in Higher and Further Education. Findings from interviews conducted by Bird and Stubbs (2008) with mobile learning innovators in ten Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) were surprisingly consistent with most respondents reporting that they experienced or expect to experience the same kind of issues. These were mostly in the form of barriers to establishing and sustaining an m-learning innovation in a university 2 environment. Issues which dominated were: skills gaps (in IT support and especially academic staff and somewhat unexpectedly students who despite being heavy users ), lack of technical support (IT services provision), procurement and accounting policies based around PC usage, inclusion issues due to cost of devices and/or data, ethical and legal issues, quality assurance especially with respect to data ownership, sustainability (all projects were based on external funding), device limitations, standards churn, privacy and security, and lack of a ‘killer application’ for the context. Interviews with users trialling PDAs at the Open University (Pettit and Kukulska-Hulme, 2008) indicated that the wireless infrastructure was widely regarded as a critical factor in influencing adoption of the device. Most papers reviewed for the current investigation referred to theoretical speculation about future potential, others discussed projects outside of the UK in Europe or East Asia, however, in the remaining 20%, an impressive range of pilots with different handheld devices was described. These indicate that there is considerable potential for engaging and supporting learners via mobile technologies. These pilots point to greater use of context relevant information especially images and video in learning and to greater collaboration enabled by easily portable, handheld devices connected to the internet via wi-fi or broadband. The following examples indicate the range of activities tested and are included by sector. Higher education Lecturers have evaluated a range of devices from multi-function PDAs and Smartphones to simple texti messaging (SMS). In one of the first examples of the use of PDA’s in an undergraduate setting Ramsden (2005) successfully tested giving undergraduate Economics students at the University of Bristol access to VLE’s and course materials via internet-enabled PDAs. As well as enabling access to course resources any time, anywhere, having the PDA allowed the students to hold question and answer sessions via the online discussion board during lectures which they found this particularly helpful. The University of Birmingham has evaluated the use of PocketPC handheld computers to offer multiple mobile applications to university students in the form of a ‘mobile learning organiser’. The main uses were for issues of time and course management and access to course materials. Other functions included the ability to communicate via email and instant messaging and to organise notes. The participating students made good use of the calendar and timetable facilities as well as communication tools and were keen for more content to be delivered in this manner. (Corlett et al, 2005) At London Metropolitan University the Reusable Learning Objects (RLO) Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) works on the design, development and use of learning objects many of which run on mobile phones. Smith et al (2007) discuss the motivation they have seen in students (sports science in this case) to learn via subject specific learning objects (programs) such as Flash animations of muscle groupings and movements that run on their own or loaned mobile phones. Other animated tutorials, language learning for example, include multiple choice quizzes (Tschirhart et al, 2008). In another study Cook, Pachler and Bradley (2008) found that loaning postgraduate students Nokia N91 phones to make notes and take images for upload to web based media board such as Lifeblog and tribal’s Mediaboard led to blurring the boundaries between study, work, and personal time and between formal and informal practice. In the Spatial Literacy in Teaching (SPLINT) CETL at the Universities of Nottingham and Leicester applications aimed at Geography students are being developed for PDAs and tablet PCs where the PDA screen is held up towards the real scene to offer additional information about that scene, ‘augmenting’ reality for the user (Priestnall and Polmear, 2007). For example, trials of a PDA application designed to teach the geomorphology of the Lake District, NW England showed that students the students learned to appreciate the power of geocontextualised visualisation to support their understanding of landscape processes (Jarvis et al, 2008). The University of Nottingham has used mobile phones and similar software to enable group blogging as a tool to support Chinese students in the process of enculturation as they get used to a new society and to enter the local community. The â€Å"learners showed a obvious interest in flexibility of time and space that potentially extends ‘antennas’ of the group blog to deeper insight of local culture. † (Shao, Crook & Koleva, 2007). Other examples used simpler devices and text messaging. The Mobiles Enhancing Learning and Support (MELaS) project saw the University of Wolverhampton test using text messaging with first year undergraduates in five departments aiming to enhance the student learning experience. In all 27 staff successfully interacted with 938 different students through at least one of: one way (staff to learner) communication, formative assessment with feedback, and a collaborative learning discursive tool (Brett, 2008). In another study sports education students at the University of Bath reported that SMS messages to their mobile phones from faculty were found welcome in assisting them to learn time management skills and as an extension of the tutor’s voice beyond the traditional lecture environment. This helped to reduce the perceived psychological distance between students, their peers and tutors (Jones, Edwards & Reid, 2008). SMS messaging has been trialled in lecture theatres too. Elliman (2006) reports successfully using a system that allowed students to provide feedback by SMS on their level of comprehension during a lecture. The system displays a histogram showing understanding level which is continually updated during the lecture together with comments and question in a scrolling area of the screen. At Brunel University, first year undergraduate Information and Communications Technology (ICT) students found that revision podcasts, downloaded to their personal digital media players were popular and perceived as more effective than revising from traditional textbooks (Evans 2008). In a review of podcasting to support distance learning in the Open University, UK Minocha and Booth (2008) conclude that audio technologies such as podcasts can not only support mobile learning but also entice, motivate, inform and reinforce. Further Education Mobile technology has been used in a number of colleges as a means to bring new learning opportunities to students who might otherwise not have access to college education. Many of these projects have been funded by the Learning and Skills Council under the MoleNET initiative or by the JISC e-Learning Programme. At Pembrokeshire College, an mlearning trial project was carried out from 2005-7 to support NEET students (NEET – not in education, employment or training) with reentry to education, training or work. Giving students access to PDA’s helped to engage them and improve communication with a difficult to reach group. The use of SMS messaging enabled the teachers to keep in touch with this very transient group of learners and helped identify opportunities for learning as when they occurred. (Pembrokeshire College 2007). Similar projects working with NEET learners have also been carried out at Accrington and Rossendale College, Tower Hamlets College and Weston College (MoLeNET 2008). 4 Having the capability to learn anywhere by means of handheld PDAs allowed Dewsbury College and Bishop Burton College, West Yorkshire to provide learners in outreach centres and workplace learning environments with similar access to learning resources as their peers on the main college campus (JISC 2005a). Mobile phones have also been found useful to help in location based learning. The City of Southampton College has been assisting ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) students to improve their opportunities for meaningful language interactions. Visiting locations within the city to help get to know their locality, students were asked location specific questions answered through SMS messaging and posting images to an interactive website. The project found that such techniques enhanced the students’ literacy and numeracy skills and helped to engage hard to reach learners such as those from the multiethnic Southampton community where many students have English as a second language (JISC 2005b). As in Higher Education bulk text messaging services to support managing learning have proved popular with most students. There are those for whom this sort of service is particularly useful. Derwen College (JISC, 2008a) found that their students who have varying degrees of physical disabilities and learning difficulties responded well to reminders to students for things like surgery and other appointments, dinner times and class notifications. Simple text based interaction was also used at Lakes College West Cumbria (JISC, 2008b) who piloted the use of iPod nanos to provide multiple choice revision quizzes for Construction students, many of whom have learning difficulties and struggle with paper-based revision processes. The iPod quizzes proved popular with every student in the cohort making use of the iPods during the revision period. The use of handheld devices to record or view multimedia to support learning is also proving popular. At Southwark College students are using low-priced, pocket-sized camcorders to overcome some of the technical and organisational barriers to using video in the classroom and for recording evidence of learning (JISC, 2008c). Examples included recording students’ oral presentations in English which were then used by the students for practice and reviewing with each other and Level 2 students in Art and Design recording technique demos and talking about their work to inform Level 1 students hoping to progress. Other projects, such as My Podcast at New College, Swindon (Warren, 2008), involve podcasting with lecturers creating both audio and video podcasts that students can download and play on handheld PDA’s or MP3 players for revision or extra support with a topic wherever they happen to be, in the workplace, at home or in college or moving between the two. Work Based Learning Both HE and FE institutions place students training for professions, whether medicine, building, teaching or hairdressing etc. in the workplace for a significant proportion of their course. Students, often at considerable distance from their teaching bases, need online access to course materials and other context specific information, to communicate with their tutors and to produce records of their progress and assignments for assessment. Mentors in the workplace need to authenticate and support this student learning. A number of pilots have been set up to test how mobile technologies can successfully be used to support students on work placements. For instance, mobile devices have been used to give instant hands on access to information that would be difficult to carry around on the job. At the James Cook University Hospital in 5 Middlesborough, 5th year medical students tested the use of PDA’s providing access to formulae, clinical guidelines, electronic portfolios and other web-based materials. They found portable access to these facilities useful, as was the ability for supervisors to ‘sign-off’ log books using their normal signatures on the PDA. (Cotterill et al, 2008). Reynolds et al (2007) found that a PDA proved to be a convenient and versatile mode of access to online education for dentistry students at King’s College, London. The 12 students were most positive about being able to make notes for individual study, to keep a diary of their commitments to teaching sessions and to having on the spot access to online support materials, particularly videos. Teaching is another profession where students need access to a wealth of information. Wishart et al (2007) found that when student teachers trialled the use of PDA’s in school they deemed the calendar or diary to be articularly supportive. Email was also used, primarily to maintain contact with other students and the university tutor, and the web browser was used to access information both in class and for personal reasons. Some students used spreadsheets to record pupils’ attendance and grades and most, in this pilot involving 14 trainees, used the word processor to make notes from meetings and on lesson observations for essays. However, the prevailing sociocultural climate where mobile phones are often banned and PDA’s a rarity meant that trainees often felt uncomfortable using their device on school premises. In FE mobile technology has been used in the work place for just in time problem solving, such as through the Hairdressing Training programme developed by the University of Manchester’s data centre, Mimas, and now used by 500 students at Stockport College, which offers step-by step guides to hairdressing techniques for styling, colouring and cutting (Smith, 2008) Also PDA’s have been found to be useful in connecting work based learners in FE who may otherwise be isolated from learning opportunities. Such devices have been used to assist apprentices in remote rural locations in Lincolnshire to give flexible learning options and to build achievement and self-esteem (Lambourne, 2008) and to provide learning and social networking opportunities to care workers in schools and nursing establishments in the Bourneville area of Birmingham (Brown, 2008). Finally, one of the largest trials of mobile technology in the workplace, currently ongoing with around a 1000 students in five universities in Yorkshire, is that being run by the Assessment of Learning in Practice Settings (ALPS) CETL1, a Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning that focuses on assessment and learning in practice settings and involving nursing and allied health care practitioner trainees. Initial indications (Dearnley et al, 2008) showed that both students and lecturers were positive about a range of benefits having a PDA enables however, introducing mobile technology into the clinical setting will require a significant shift in culture and a significant level of training and support. 1 http://www. alps-cetl. ac. uk/ 6 Summary While the above mentioned projects demonstrate the range of learning activities that have been trialled in UK institutions, recent advances in the abilities of the mobile devices themselves offer the chance to deliver new services to learners that have not yet been tested. The 2009 Horizon Report notes how the adoption of novel interfaces (like the iPhone), the new ability of mobile devices to download applications and to be location aware through GPS signals, all offer new opportunities for learning. With the addition of broadband-like data connections, the boundary between what is a mobile phone and a portable computer are being ever more blurred (New Media Consortium 2009). It is in this technology context that the workshop participants came together to imagine future scenarios for the use of mobile technology in learning, drawing on their wide experiences of previous research projects and contemplating how developing mobile technologies could open up new opportunities for connecting learners and teachers. 7 Methods: Developing Future Scenarios In this project three different tools were used to support future predictions. The first used for the workshop focusing on the practice of users in Higher Education (HE) in the future five years from today was the Cognitive Foresight toolkit available from the UK Government Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (Office of Science and Technology, 2005). It was developed for strategic futures planning and provides guidance on different techniques that can be used in the different stages of developing future scenarios and the ways they can be combined. This first workshop employed driver analysis to build internally consistent future scenarios from an assessment of the way current trends and drivers are influencing the present use of mobile technologies in HE. First the workshop participants ‘brainstorm’ a range of drivers for the currently observable trends. Next scenarios are produced by taking the drivers identified as having the highest importance and highest impact as orthogonal pairs of axes and visualising up to four scenarios that match the chosen combinations. This method is illustrated in the example below. More of †¦ Scenario Decrease in †¦ Increase in †¦ Less of †¦ The second used the Futures Technology Workshop method (Vavoula and Sharples, 2007) to look at future scenarios in work based learning. This is a structured method whereby people, in this case with experience in the specific area of the use of mobile technologies in education, envision and design the interactions between current and future technologies and an activity. Through a series of structured workshop sessions they collaborate to envisage future activities related to technology design, build models of the contexts of use for future technologies, act out scenarios of use for their models, re-conceive their scenarios in relation to present-day technologies, list problems with implementing the scenarios exploring the gap between current and future technology and activity. The workshop method was edited slightly within the time constraints of the day so that the structured sessions comprised: i. i. Imagineering: brainstorm on desired future learning activities. Modelling: in groups, producing models that demonstrate the envisioned activities, complete with related props. 8 iii. iv. Retrofit: developing a role play for another group’s scenario using only current technologies. Futurefit Requirements: listing requirements for the future technologies that have to be in place for the scenario to be realised. The third workshop on future scenarios in Further Education (FE) followed a method devised by FutureLab, an educational thinktank aimed at transforming the way people learn that focuses on the potential offered by digital and other technologies. This method for developing scenarios uses non-specific images of people of different ages in different locations printed on cards as a stimulus to thinking. The workshop used cards such as these shown below from the Building Visions for Learning Spaces sequence of cards. The workshop participants are then asked to envision first a range of learning activities that could be happening within the image and the people involved in them, then the anticipated outcomes and the technological resources that will be needed. One of these activities is then chosen by each of the groups for fuller development into a future scenario. In each of the above three cases the workshop was set up to start with two initial keynote presentations designed to stimulate thought and discussion from recognised experts. These keynotes (found under workshops 8-10) are available from the Adding a Mobile Dimension to Teaching and Learning web site2. These were followed by a series of discussion activities informed by the futures prediction method being used and facilitated by the research team. A discussion workshop is a recognised method of collaborative knowledge construction through discussion and debate amongst peers or experts. The workshops were run as focus groups with the facilitator encouraging discussion and debate and following a qualitative, phenomenological research approach.