Free Textbook Market

Free Textbook Market Scott G. McNealy, the co-founder and former CEO of Sun Microsystems one of the largest sellers of server computers is launching an online hub for free textbooks and other course materials called Curriki, according to an article in The New York Times. Sun Microsystems was purchased by Oracle, a software manufacturer, in 2010. Curriki, a nonprofit organization, and many other organizations are building a trend of creating open-source, online versions of many existing textbooks. These online versions are much cheaper and sometimes free. Many traditional textbook publishers have been slightly modifying existing editions of textbooks and reselling basically the same version to increase profits. Textbook publishers have been doing so for years; however, this will soon end. We are spending $8 billion to $15 billion per year on textbooks in the United States, McNealy told The New York Times. It seems to me we could put that all online for free. Many of these open-source, online textbooks are written by retired, or groups of, retired teachers and professors. These retired teachers allow anyone to distribute these open-source textbooks in digital, printed, or audio format. Many schools and organizations are opening up to these textbooks. However, the process is not as simple as it may appear. The states of California and Texas are the two biggest consumers of textbooks because of their large student populations. Therefore, these open-source textbook creators are pushing to meet the requirements of these states. Most states have separate regulations for textbook usage. Both Texas and California have recently adjusted their textbook regulations to grant these open-source textbooks a fighting chance against the states arduous approval processes. The states are currently considering permitting these books. Other companies like Flat World Knowledge are competing against traditional textbook publishers at the college level. Flat World Knowledge has been giving select colleges free online versions of textbooks. Students can then buy a black-and-white version of the textbook for $30 or $60 for a color version, which is significantly cheaper than around the $200 mark that most traditional textbooks would cost. McNealy and other open-source textbook aficionados are still trying to garner enough support and money to bolster free or discounted open-source textbooks. However, these programs are becoming more credible, and it is expected that textbooks will become cheaper, and possibly free, eventually.

A Comprehensive Guide to Russian Language and Culture

A Comprehensive Guide to Russian Language and Culture All You Need to Know About Russian Language and Culture! ChaptersIs it Difficult to Learn the Russian Language?Reasons to Learn RussianGetting to Russia - FormalitiesRussia fascinates as much as it intrigues: the largest country on the planet, it spans two continents. The Russian Federation  gifts  its literature, its Russian architecture and its incomprehensible language to the interested Anglophone.However, deciphering Russian writing or Russian culture is not so complicated as it may seem: the Nordic country also wants to encourage Anglo-Russian friendship!By immersing yourself in Russian culture, you will be able to increase your language skills, organize a language study trip or even have an experience abroad with an international career.So, let's try and find the answers to your questions about Russia!Moscow and St. Petersburg have become major tourist destinations in Russia.Official language of the Russian Federation, Belarus or Kazakhstan, Russian will be a major asset if you want to travel to Asian and Eastern European countries!A natural barrier between Europe and Asia, Russia is currently experiencing a boom in tourism. Whether to see the Bolshoi ballet or admire the winter landscapes of the country, American and international tourists rush to discover Russian culture and architecture recognized in the land of the Tsars.With a good command of Russian, the anglophone can visit cities such as:Moscow,Saint Petersberg,Novosibirsk,Yekaterinburg,Nizhny Novgorod,KazanSamara,MKO ...So many good reasons to learn Russian!Once in Russia, the anglophone  can take the famous Trans-Siberian Railway, which connects Moscow to Vladivostok and whose journey lasts at least a week. By taking this mythical path, the Russian language learner will discover the natural wonders of Siberia while practicing Pushkin's language with the natives.To visit a Russian-speaking country in an optimal way, master  the conversational bases of the Tolstoy language!Prepositions, Russian grammar or greetings, the basic vocabulary will allow you t o interact directly with the natives to benefit from their advice. In just a few months of lessons  with a Russian teacher, you can easily have a conversation with a Moscovite. Why not search for Russian classes London wide, or in any UK city with Superprof. Just enter your postcode!Get started!To Travel and Work in RussiaDo you want to participate in an international exchange program?  Why not choose Russia for your academic adventure?Come as a visitor or as a student and see what the country has to offer.Renowned for its irreproachable education, Russia offers Russian, English, French or even bilingual courses to help its youth become multilingual. Students are exempted from entrance examinations, which are deemed to be particularly strict.Among the most famous higher institutions in Russia are:Kazan University,Moscow State University,Moscow Aviation Institute,The second cadet corps of Moscow,The Polytechnic University of St. Petersburg,The University of Finance of the Russian Gov ernment of Moscow ...Military discipline, arts or finance, Russia offers high quality programs at a lower cost!Indeed, state universities are free, as in other parts of Europe.Once the studies are completed, Anglophones can remain on site to take advantage of the booming economic sectors. Expats are also particularly well paid in the Motherland, which seeks the Anglo know-how.Of course, it will be necessary to know the Russian language in order to benefit from the advantages of expatriation in Russia!So, why not take a Russian course on Superprof for $23 on average?Getting to Russia - FormalitiesWhatever your country of heart, it is always difficult to immigrate to a foreign country, especially when it does not benefit from European free movement agreements!Parts of Russia are the coldest on earth, prepare yourself both physically and mentally!The fact is, going to Russia is not to be taken lightly: to avoid having a culture shock, it is necessary to be well prepared and to anticipa te any possible problems.Before leaving, it is advisable to:Learn the Russian language (self-taught or with a Russian teacher),Get a good score on the TORFL, TEOU or TBOU test,Learn about Russian culture,Have a complete medical examinationBuy winter clothes,Find employment beforehand,Find a university beforehand,Apply for a visa adapted to your situation,Define the length of the language course or travel to Russia,Start the administrative steps between 6 and 4 months before leaving.The administrative procedures for going to Russia are particularly complex: some anglophones underestimate the length of the process and the time to obtain a visa and must therefore cancel their expatriation at the last moment.To obtain a visa for Russia more quickly, anglophones may be able to go through online visa agencies that take care of papers and speed up the process.The most requested expatriation permit is the residence permit, which requires:Two attached identity photos in 3.5x4.5 formatComplet ed application for a temporary resident permit,A medical certificate,A certificate of knowledge of the history of Russia, the Russian language and the Russian jurisdiction,A marriage certificate and / or a birth certificate for children,An extract No. 3 of your criminal record,A copy of your immigration card,A copy of your recording,A notarized translation of your passport and visa.However, you will also need a sponsor, so it is advisable to find a job in the country of Dostoevsky. Indeed, the welcoming company can provide you with a letter of invitation to obtain a work permit, a faster and more practical way to obtain a residence permit.What's more, the company takes care of providing certain documents, which will make your job easier!Students can also obtain a student visa: Russia announced in 2016 its intention to welcome 15,000 students from all over the world for free. By taking advantage of the attractiveness of Russia for foreign students, you can facilitate your visa applic ation and be quickly accepted into one of the prestigious universities of the country.So, why not take on the adventure!

Managing yourself - Private Tutoring

Managing yourself BobbiM Mar 26, 2014 Are you hard for yourself to manage? Well you better learn fast if you want to succeed. Yeah, Im calling you out. Before you can manage your time effectively, you have to be able to manage yourself. We believe that the key to self-management is being able to organize and keep track of all the things that you have to do. College life is very hectic(what are we talking about! Life in General is very hectic). You may also have a job to help pay your way through college or you may have daily family obligations. The secret to getting organized is to create a balance among school, home, work, and social life. In order to create a balance between all the things you have to do and all the things you want to do, consider the following points: Treat college like a full time job. If you are a full-time student, academic work should take up about 40 hours each week. So for the next several years, consider college your full-time job. You might be in class only 15 hours per week, but the other 25 hours should be spent studying and preparing for class. If you break it down, it is really not so bad. You will spend 3-4 hours in class and 4-5 hours reading, studying, and preparing for your assignments each day. The rest of the time is left for other activities that you want to participate in or a part-time job. The good news is that unlike a full-time job, in college you have more control over when you want to schedule your classes and your study time. No one says that your studying must take place between 9:00-5:00 Monday through Friday-you are free to study whenever you want. Schedule your classes for your most alert times. Are you a morning person? A late afternoon person? An evening person? Are you up with the sun or are you lucky to be awake by noon? If you know you will never make it to an 8:00 AM class, dont schedule a class for that time if possible. Likewise, if you are totally useless in the afternoon, try to schedule your courses before lunchtime. Many students dont consider their class times as an issue to think about when making their course schedule, but because you have the luxury of creating your own schedule, you should try to tailor it to your needs as much as possible. Go to class. Although many professors dont take attendance, most still believe that going to class is a very important part of learning. Students who skip a lot of classes miss out on the important part of learning. Students who skip a lot of classes miss our on the important information that they can only get in class. Dont procrastinate. Procrastination is intentionally putting off work that needs to be done. This problem may actually be the toughest part of self-management for some students. Because you are in control of your own time, it is tempting to put off work until later. Its just human nature. But you can quickly become overwhelmed by all you need to do when you continually neglect your work.  Procrastination tends to become a bad habit and a way of life for some students. Excerpt from  College Success Strategies  by Sherrie L. Nist and Jodi Patrick Holschuh.

Grammar Checker Poem

Grammar Checker Poem William Shakespeare, famous English poet and playwright For help finding the contextual spelling errors and eggcorns in this poem, copy and paste it into the  VirtualWritingTutor.com  and hit Check Grammar. Poem Eye halve a spelling chequer, It came with my pea sea, It plainly marks for my  revue Miss Steaks I kin knot sea. Eye strike a quay and type a word, And weight four it two say, Weather  aye  am wrong oar write, It shows me strait a weigh. As soon as a mist ache is  maid, It nose bee  for  two  long, And I can put the error  rite. Its  rarely ever wrong. Aye have run this poem threw it Iamb shore yore pleased to no, Its letter perfect in its weigh. My chequer tolled me sew. Anonymous Practice Activity Click to Find Grammar Checker Poem Errors Please follow and like us:

Vocabulary Deficiency - Tutor Hunt Blog

Vocabulary Deficiency Vocabulary Deficiency Vocabulary DeficiencySchoolsStudents afflicted by a `Vocabulary deficiency` say UK teachers A report commissioned by the Oxford University Press has found that many schoolchildren possess a severely deficient vocabulary. These findings have been confirmed by teachers in both primary and secondary schools, who report that many pupils are afflicted with a `vocabulary deficiency.` The report questioned 1300 primary and secondary teachers across the UK, and found that more than 60% had noticed a substandard vocabulary in pupils of varied ages. The teachers were concerned that this linguistic deficit will restrict their overall education and social skills, and will impact their self-esteem, and even fuel negative behaviour. At secondary schools the vocabulary deficiency was `stubbornly high,` according to the report - with teachers saying that they were unfortunately lacking both the time and resources to adequately deal with the problem. While there are an abundance of studies concerning the importance of language stimulation in young children - especially those under 3 years of age - there is a relative paucity of research regarding the significance language development for adolescents. The report made this point: `This is significant because while language development is a key focus in early years education, relatively little research has been conducted into language deficit as children progress through secondary education.` Many teachers have pointed out that a poor vocabulary has a negative impact across a broad range of subjects; not just in English, but also geography and history, where pupils will be required to read large amounts of literature. It is certainly possible that a student with a poor vocabulary might struggle with exams, not through lack of knowledge, but by being unable to fully comprehend the questions being asked of them. I have always considered a wide vocabulary to be of paramount importance - a well populated lexicon can lead to wider ranging, more nuanced thoughts. George Orwell was well aware of this when he wrote his despotic masterpiece 1984, which has a totalitarian government systematically thinning out the dictionaries every year, reducing words from circulation, with the intention to reduce the range of thought (and thereby sedition) amongst the population. The famous Sapir-Whorf hypothesis states that an individual`s thoughts and actions are both constrained and facilitated by the language (or languages) that individual is able to speak. Without a complex language with a substantial vocabulary, there are thoughts that an individual simply cannot have. An example of this would be the language of the Aborigines, which contains a multitude of geocentric navigational terms, themselves concerning such things as the position of certain stars in the sky. This feature of their language enables them to navigate, and think, in an extremely precise and efficient way, and thereby traverse the plains of central Australia. Our language has ego centric navigational terms: left and right, and is ill suited for complex navigational reasoning. A more prosaic example might be to imagine two people engaged in a civilised debate - one possesses a rich and abundant vocabulary, while the other`s is meagre by comparison. The speaker with the larger vocabulary will certainly be able deliver their points with greater clarity, while deconstructing their opponent`s with more incisive counterarguments and barbed wit. It seems perhaps too easy to place the blame of a shrinking adolescent vocabulary to the ubiquity of smartphones. These devices (useful though they may be) are a pet hate of mine - and knowing what counts for messages these days - the skeletal, laconic nature of `text speak` with its lol`s and lmao`s - I find it hard to believe that that this new technology is not having a negative impact on students` literacy. Reading habits must of course be mentioned here - the current generation, in my opinion, does not spend as much time reading for pleasure as did previous generations. The classics are rarely taught in schools anymore, being considered too long, too dated, and too difficult. At the risk of sounding like an old curmudgeon I`ll just mention that television, movies, and other mainstream media forms, in my opinion, have also contributed to the decline of literacy. Kate Nation, professor of experimental psychology at Oxford university, has cautioned anyone positing a single cause to the complex issue of differing language abilities amongst children: `Regardless of the causes, low levels of vocabulary set limits on literacy, understanding, learning the curriculum and can create a downward spiral of poor language which begins to affect all aspects of life.` The problem is certainly a serious one, and it doesn`t just have academic implications - more than 80% of teachers questioned in the report said that those children possessing a deficient vocabulary were very likely to suffer from lower self-esteem. So much to do with linguistic ability seems to be correlated to those early years in life - the so called `critical window`, which closes off at about the age of 6. Children below this age can pick up new languages simply by hearing them spoken by those around the home. How this happens is a complete mystery, despite extensive work by Noam Chomsky, and other leading linguists. After a certain age though, it is incredibly difficult to acquire a foreign tongue - something every adult who has struggled to lean another language knows. The same may very well be true of vocabulary - If you don`t acquire a broad range of synonyms (and antonyms) by a certain age, it may be incredibly difficult to do so later on. 22 months ago0Add a Comment

THE BRITISH SCHOOL OF CASALE

THE BRITISH SCHOOL OF CASALE THE BRITISH SCHOOL OF CASALE The British School of Casale is part of the British Schools Group (AIBSE) . It prides itself for its excellence in English Language Teaching. It is a reference point for students and state schools who want to learn English and for career advancements. The town of Casale Monferrato isin Piedmont, North West Italy, an hour from Turin to the West and Milan to the East.It has a population of 38,000 people circa and it was a runner up for the title of Italian Capital of Culture for 2020 The British School of Casale is a Cambridge Assessment English Authorised Centre (IT050) for the entire suite of Cambridge Exams and has currently 8 Speaking Examiners.The school courses offer learning outcomes linked to the Common European Framework in order to provide its students with skills and competences that can be profitably utilised and recognised across Europe and elsewhere. It is legally recognised to operate as a private language school by the Ministry of Public Education, Universities and Research (MUIR). It is also fully accredited by the said ministry to be a centre for vocational training courses for public school teachers. It is fully iso9001:2015 compliant. Our courses range from General English, Academic English to Business English and includes the whole range of Cambridge English Exams from YLE to Proficiency, as well as the Business English Certificates and IELTS. It also offers vocational and non-vocational training for adults using European Social Funds. Our children and teenage courses are a strongpoint. We believe in an active and dynamic methodology applied to childrens classes. This is why we work a lot with state schools in Casale and in the nearby towns. Our teachers work throughout the year in classes starting from kindergarten straight through to higher secondary school. We also teach courses in state schools financed by the PON European funds. Company courses and Business English courses are organised throughout the year. View our Brochure

Happy International Student Day 2014

Happy International Student Day 2014 Today, November 17, 2014 is International Student Day. The date commemorates the anniversary of the 1939 Nazi storming of the University of Prague and subsequent sending of students to concentration camps. Today, November 17 is more a nonpolitical celebration of the multiculturalism of their international students. TutorZ is proof that international diversity works and benefits students. The proof is found in the many tutors working remotely from India and that highly educated tutors from around the word now living in the US offer tutoring to American students. Moreover, the founder of TutorZ itself Dirk Wagner is originally from Germany and came as student to Santa Barbara, California. Therefore, the International Student Day is especially dear to TutorZ. Happy International Student Day 2014!