Simple Article Speed Reading Course

Over the past few days I have been taking a speed reading course online. I was amazed at how simple it was to learn. I wanted to share with you some of the main points that you need to know if you in order to improve your reading speed and your reading comprehension.

First: You do not need to read every single word when you are reading an article. Truly your subconscious is smarter and quicker than you are. When you read you don’t actually sound out the letters that make the words. Your mind makes assumptions and reads the words without the need to sound out every letter. The next step is to stop the sub vocalization in your mind where you read every word into a sound. You do not need to read every word in order to understand a sentence or even a paragraph. Like I said your subconscious is smarter that you are.

Second: Read continuously! Don’t stop along the way and go back and re-read, doing so will completely destroy the thread of though in your mind and you will have to start over again. What you should do is continue reading till the end of the chapter or the end of the main point that you are reading and then if you feel that you didn’t comprehend what you should have from the chapter then go back and read it again. Skipping backwards to points that you just read to try to better understand them done frequently can completely destroy your train of thought, comprehension and slows your reading down to a reverse.

Third: Measure your progress. The two above simple tips are all that you need in order to increase your reading speed immeasurably. Actually, it is measurable. Really to improve upon your reading skills you should measure your progress. There are many online courses today that can measure your progress by using a timer and then testing your comprehension at the end of the article. Using the correct tools can increase the rate at which you learn to speed read. Technology is a great thing you should learn to use it.

I know it doesn’t feel like the three above points isn’t much in the big scheme of things but they are the keys to learning to speed read. Removing sub vocalization and reading in blocks is the first step. Training yourself to concentrate and move forward rather than skipping backward when reading and trying to consciously understand everything on the first read is the second. If you can master those two skills then you are well on your way to reading faster. The last thing to do is to improve upon those skills using today’s high tech tools.

Kip D. Goldhammer owns and operates lightningspeedreading.com lightningspeedreading.com lightningspeedreading.com Lighting Speed Reading

The Internet Provides a Virtual Classroom

Do you have a passion for a certain subject? Maybe you want to know more about elephants or the computer code to create computer games. You can find information about any of your interests online. The Internet not only provides basic information on any subject, but also lesson plans, activities, and real world examples. It is a privilege and adventure to have such robust information at your fingertips.

The Internet is a virtual classroom. You can read about any topic you desire. You can take online tests and quizzes to track your progress. You can access free worksheets and lesson plans. The amount of information can be overwhelming. Let’s take a look at the advantages of different virtual classroom resources.

Online Reference Resources:
Reference resources include information from encyclopedias, dictionaries, and any scholarly journal or publication. The advantage of this information is that it is credible, well respected academic information. It is like having the entire library in your computer. Instead of flipping page and page trying to find your information in heavy, dusty books, you can easily search the electronic versions with keywords.

Online Activities:
Online activities can extend learning outside of the traditional classroom. You can check out websites for museums and places all over the world. Need information about England for your next geography report? You can search for British history in the reference resources and then experience England’s attractions through online travel adventures. You can view pictures of Britain’s landmarks and attractions.

Online activities in math and science involve puzzles and science projects. Have a blast solving logic or number puzzles. Learn more about science by checking out online science experiments. Many websites have step-by-step instructions for science experiments using items you can find in your own home. Become a mad scientist in no time flat.

Online Tutors:
Sometimes, no matter how much information you read, you still don’t understand a topic. For example, you have read about how to solve a long Algebra problem, but keep getting stuck on one step in the problem. You need one-on-one help with a live person. You’re in luck. Many homework help websites offer live tutors. You can connect through a website “whiteboard” and ask them your questions in real time. You can also submit questions to forums and have a tutor e-mail you an answer.

The Internet provides a virtual classroom that you can access from your own home, school, or library. The virtual classroom never sleeps, so you can find an answer to your question any time day or night. The Internet classroom is waiting. Are you ready to be its student?

Katie Robbins, independent author for Degreeclick.com, specializes in writing articles about online education. Some of the topics she covers include: degreeclick.com/ online universities and tips on getting an degreeclick.com/master-degree-education-online.html online masters degree.

Digital Photography Handbook – Find The Information That Suits You Best

If you are interested in digital photography like me, then you will be interested in buying a handbook to give you tips and pointers. After all, who doesn’t want a digital photography handbook giving them good advice that they could use for the rest of their life? It doesn’t matter what kind of digital camera you have, these tips should be readily available in any handbook that you decide to purchase.

Any good digital photography handbook will have an extensive section on lighting. Lighting, as we know is one of the most important parts of any type of photography, since without light we would be unable to see the subject of the picture we are taking. The handbook should include tips and pointers on what kind of flash you may need for the camera. Yes, you may need a separate flash for the camera, even if you are not a professional photographer. It would also tell you the right and wrong times to use that flash. Nobody wants to look at photos that look washed out or too dark, so knowing when to press that button can be very helpful.

A good digital photography handbook will also teach you about getting your pictures from the camera or digital card and onto a piece of paper. Going to one of those one hour quickie photo labs is not a viable option for anyone who really cares about their prints. Think about it: the people who work at one hour photo labs no longer even have to take classes or seminars on photography like they used to do in the old days. Today, they just briefly cover the basic while training someone to work the lab.

Are these the people whose hands you want to leave your pictures with? No. A digital photography handbook will tell you what kind of stores and labs are best suited for people like you and me, or where to buy materials for opening up your own little “mini-lab” in a closet or extra room in your house.
Listen, I could go on and on for days on end telling you what a digital photography handbook should have when you are about to purchase it. But, eventually you just have to go out and buy one. Keep an eye out for these things plus things other things that you may or may not find important.

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What Happens Inside the Atom – Electrons and the Quantum World

Our conception of the atom has undergone many changes since the day the idea that matter consisted of indivisible particles was first floated by the Indians and Greeks. However it is only in this century that we have come to know something of what truly goes on inside the atom. We are all by now familiar with the iconic picture of an atom – a circle with a couple of little circles whizzing around it, rather like the moon orbits the earth. In the case of the atom, the ‘earth’ is called the nucleus and the ‘moons’ are called electrons.

What keeps the electrons hanging around the nucleus? Well, if you remember the old adage ‘like charges repel, unlike attract’: electrons have a negative charge, and the nucleus has a positive charge. The flipside of this is that the electrons need energy if they are to avoid spiralling into the nucleus. This was one of the main questions at the beginning of the century: where does this energy come from? The answer turns out to be very counterintuitive: very tiny objects, like atoms, don’t behave like we would expect them to, and instead follow the rules of the quantum world. The word ‘quantum’ implies separateness, and in the case of the atom we find that electrons are actually restricted to be at certain separate energies – an electron could have an amount of energy X, or an amount of energy Y, but it can’t have an energy between X and Y. This rules out the electron from spiralling, because in order to spiral, the electron would have to go through the whole gamut of energies all the way down to zero, and that’s just not allowed.

That’s not all. For each separate energy level, there’s only a certain amount of electrons that are allowed to be at that energy. Suppose we give each of the energy levels a number, n, starting from the one with the least energy (and hence closest to the nucleus) n=1. It turns out that n is one of four quantum numbers that, between them, say everything there is to say about an electron. The others are called l, m, and s, and as we shall see, the values that these numbers can have are limited by the first number n. These four numbers determine why there can only be a certain amount of electrons at each energy level n: another major law of the quantum world is that no two electrons can exist in the same atom if they have the same four numbers. It’s a little like two ladies turning up at a high society ball with the identical same outfit; you just know somebody’s going to have to go home and change.

What do the other three numbers mean? The l and m numbers are ‘rotational’ quantum numbers and they determine how the electron moves around the nucleus. Before we explain further, we have to interject with another major law of the quantum world, or rather an admission: we can’t actually know where exactly the electron is. This is to do with the famous ‘uncertainty principle’ which I am sure you have heard about, even if you don’t know what it means. In fact, the best we can do is say ‘Well, there’s an x-percent chance it’s here, a y-percent chance it’s there, a z-percent chance it’s somewhere else, and so on…’. That’s all. When showing the location of an electron, a common method is to draw an electron ‘cloud’, shading the cloud thickly in the areas where the electron is more likely to be, and thinly in the areas where it is less likely to be.

The l quantum number tells us a lot about the shape of the cloud for a particular electron. An electron on energy level n can have any value of l from 0 to n-1. We find that the cloud is split into n-l concentric bands around the nucleus, and the shape of these bands is more complex the higher l is (it basically looks like it has been run through with a pizza slicer l times). For l=0 the cloud is just n spherical shells around the nucleus.

We can say that l gives the rotation strength and m gives the angle at which the rotation axis is tilted. m can have any value between -l and l, and the cloud for each value of m (keeping n and l the same) differs only in that it is rotated a little bit around the nucleus. The last number, s, is called spin – as well as going around the nucleus, the electrons also rotate on their own axis! However electrons can only spin like this in two ways (again another quantum law) and so there are only two possible values for the s number.

Now that we know about the four numbers we can now calculate how many electrons can stay at each energy level n. Well if n=1, l has to be 0 and so m has to be zero. The only number left is s and that means only 2 electrons are allowed. However if n=2, then l can be either 0 or 1. If l=0, then we have 2 electrons just like the n=1 case; if l=1 then m can be -1,0 or 1 and so we will have 6 electrons when we take s into account. That leaves 8 in total. In this way we can calculate the number of electrons at every energy level.

In order to save energy, the lower energy levels usually get filled up first – i.e. helium has its two electrons in the n=1 level whereas lithium, with three electrons, fills the n=1 level first and then puts the spare electron in the n=2 level. However as n gets bigger, things get a bit more complicated and you will see electrons being added to energy levels before the level below is completely full.

The author has a Ph.D in particle physics. This is the first in a series of articles exploring the concepts, structure and history of the atom. He is a member of the

Extraterrestrials

Have you ever wondered whether we are alone in the universe?What if we are not, that is to say, if we the Earth Dwellers or the HUMANS are only a member of a large civilivation spreading through out the Universe. If you still miss my point, what I’m going to tell you is about ALIENS or EXTRATERRESTRIALS, one of the most interesting but rather controvertial topic existing in today’s world.

The word ‘aliens’ might remind you at once of Sci-fi or stories like X-Files everybody loved to watch. But my intention is not to bring you a story about an alien abduction or a UFO crash. It’ll be more intersting to see the scientific aspect of Life Beyond Earth.

Our galaxy, The MilkyWay alone has about 100000 stars, one of which is our Sun. The are about 13.7 billion galaxies found in the visible universe which runs as far as 13000 billion light years in every direction. How many planets do you expect to revolve around total of the stars found in 13 billion galaxies! To bring out my first point. isn’t plausible to say that some of these planets can have conditond similar to Earth, at the very least capable of hosting some form of Life?

As Carl Segan defines Life, he says 3 fundamental requirements should be fulfilled for something to be called a Life.

1. Production of offspring

2. Ability to mutate

3. Ability to inherit such mutations to offspring.

Assuming it to be a common mechanism which operates through out the universe,scientists also expect Carbon, water, an atmosphere and a flavourable temperature fluctuation to be possessed by a certain planet to evolve and habor life just like our Earth does.
But is it compulsary for an alien life to be exactly like humans in shape and functioning?

No. For an example there are millions of different forms of life on Earth as birds, replites, humans, trees, bacteria, algae etc. with different patternd of life.

Likewise, any form of life on a far distant planet can evolve in favor of the conditions it has.

So you shouldn’t be suprised, if you ever would hear about an alien who dwells in air breathing carbon dioxide in and oxygen out!

A famous scientist, Frank Drak has introduced a mathematical expression which calculates the number of technological civilizations in the MilkyWay galaxy [N] .

N = R* fp ne fl fi fc fL
Answers ranging from 1- 100000 are being proposed by different scientists, but can not be considered as accurate since the ‘f’ terms are not directly measurable.

Seaveral projects have also been intiated by researchers to detect any trace of life beyond Earth. Some of them are SETI which stands for Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence and Ozma project. They use radio telescopes to capture radio signals coming from far reaches of the universe.

While people like Frank Drak merely suggest possibility of existence of extraterrestrial intelligence, some like Bob Lazors insist that such forms of alien life have somewhat control over our planet. At the sametime, another group strongly resist the very idea of possible exsistence of life in universe other than on Earth.

Who to believe is up to you. But one thing we all know for sure is that we arn’t technologically fit enough to find a real answer to the question of exsistence of extarterrestrials. Just that for the time being, we can’t deny everything about ALIENS. Coz’ the truth with a capital T is yet to be found.

5 Reasons You Should Teach Abroad at an International School Instead of a TEFL Language School

Teachers who are looking to move their teaching career overseas have two options, teach at an international school or teach at a private language school. I’ve done both and I think that teaching at an international school is the best option. I’d like to share 5 reasons why I think this is true.

Reason #1 – disposable income
When I taught at private language schools, it was a luxury to buy paperbacks, and to have my legs waxed. I had to think about where I was spending my salary because I simply didn’t have enough money to spend on non-essential items. Not if I wanted to go on any vacations or have any time off over the summer.

Now that I teach at an international school, I am able to spend my teaching salary as I choose, and still have money left at the end of the month to save. I’m not talking about saving for the summer holidays, or for a rainy day. I can save money just to have it in the bank. I’m now able to save towards a deposit on a house, and contribute to a pension scheme.

Reason #2 – regular paid vacations
When you are an EFL teacher, you will usually sign a contract for an academic year (9 months) or a calendar year. Generally your contract will include a few weeks holiday, but you will be expected to work a larger proportion of your contract’s length than if you were teaching at an international school.

At an international school, your teaching contract will be signed for a period of 12 months. Of which you will be expected to teach around 200 days. The rest of the year the school will be closed and you will be able to go on vacations.

I spent 4 years working in the TEFL sector of the teaching profession, and I worked each summer teaching residential summer school courses. Since I’ve been teaching at international schools, I have been able to take each summer off and travel. I also travel during the school year as there is only two months in the year when I do not get at least a three day weekend.

Reason #3 – normal teaching contact hours
Private language schools that specialise in TEFL are ‘cram schools’. The students mostly attend their English lessons around their other school or job commitments. This means that your working hours will be crazy. At my first language school my working day was any hours I was given between 10am and 10pm. I was lucky because the manager of the branch at which I taught was very considerate of her teachers. Not all the EFL teachers working for the same company were so well treated.

At another school I taught at, each week I had days when I worked a split shift. I would be teaching my first lesson at half past seven in the morning, have a few hours off in the middle of the day, then I would have to be back at work and teaching for another 4-5 hours in the evening and finish the day at 9:30pm.

International schools operate regular school hours. If you are teaching at a school that starts early in the morning, then you will be done with your working day in the early afternoon.

Reason #4 – planning time is ‘included’
TEFL teachers are employed for contact hours. This is the time you spend in front of students. However, lessons don’t just appear out of thin air, teachers need to prepare their lessons and organise resources. When you first start out teaching EFL you may spend as much time preparing for a lesson as you actually do teaching it. I remember when I began, this was the case on a good day, sometimes I’d spend a lot more time agonising over what I was going to do in the lesson than I actually spent in the classroom with my students. Of course, this is not true now, when I am teaching in a well resourced language school, I am able to plan a lesson much more quickly than when I started out.

One thing that TEFL teachers need to know is that while your contract says you must teach 20-35 hours a week, in reality this will mean they are working (between lesson preparation, teaching and marking) 50 hours a week. And the pay for all your extra time spent planning the lessons is ‘included’ in your hourly teaching rate. I can tell you, teachers become very efficient in planning their lessons quickly!

Teachers working overseas in international schools are employed as full-time teachers who teach a required number of contact hours. But overseas teachers are employed for the whole teaching day, and so their planning time is included in their salaries. I’ve taught in regular high schools in addition to international schools, and I have considerably more non-contact time in which to prepare my lessons when I teach abroad at international schools than when I’ve taught locally at state schools.

Reason #5 – professional development opportunities
I have a number of qualifications in EFL teaching. I have two Cambridge certificates and a Diploma in Second Language Teaching as well. I paid for all of the courses out of my teaching salary, when I didn’t have a lot to spare. I sought professional development opportunities to make me a better teacher, and the schools I’ve worked for have directly benefited from my efforts. But not one of the private language schools I’ve taught for in the past have ever helped me pay for my professional development.

Most international schools have a pool of money set aside for the professional development of their teaching staff. At my current school, there is a budget set per teacher annually. I went to a summit in Singapore this year, funded by the school. I’ve used a number of the techniques I learnt at the summit in my classes since I’ve been back.

In conclusion
I’ve taught overseas at both international schools and private language schools since I began my international teaching career, and I am happier and feel more valued now that I am teaching in an international school.

I found that many private language schools were run by people solely interested in their profit margin, and the quality of language education offered was hardly a consideration to them.

I now teach at a school where I’m treated like a teaching professional, the students’ education is the top priority of teachers and management alike, and I get regular vacations to satisfy my hunger for travel and new experiences.

Kelly has been teaching overseas for a decade and is an experienced TEFL and Technology teacher.