Exercise assignments Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 4

Exercise assignments - Coursework Example It asserts that if possible then an action should be morally sufficient if it maximizes one’s self interests. Ethical egoism might also apply to things other than acts, such as rules or character traits. Psychological egoism has to components, strong and weak component. The strong part of egoism alludes that human beings ever act in their own self-interest. That is to say that they are forced to do so by their own psychology. On other side the weak form part of it argues that human beings always and occasionally act in their own self-interest. None of the two forms of Psychological egoism can stand its own to define what egoism is. For example if the strong form would be accepted, then it means that people should not be told on the right thing to do since they are controlled by their instinct. On the other hand if the weak form of it is to be used, that would mean that people should continue behaving the way they are behaving which cannot be proved. Psychological egoism fails to refute morality or to provide a foundation for ethical egoism because everyone always does what they do and it cannot be justifiable by information about their human conduct. Psychological egoism in its stro ng form alone would destroy all morality and is lacking both in evidence and in logic. â€Å"Individual ethical egoism†, states that people should always act for my â€Å"own† best self-interest while â€Å"Personal ethical egoism†, states that I should behave in â€Å"my own† self-interest, but be mindless about what everyone does. The problem with these forms is that it acts towards one individual and cannot be applied for all humanity in general. Universal ethical egoism is the most commonly held form of ethical egoism because it considers all humanity. It does not only talk about what an individual should consider doing but also is concerned with what all human beings should do for morality principles. However the

The Virtual Learning Environment Education Essay

The Virtual Learning Environment Education Essay Is the Internet only about social networking sites. How does it relate to a whole new dimension of E-learning, what are its effects on traditional teaching methods? Virtual learning environments (VLEs) are prevailing in education nowadays and are effectively used to deliver training materials and assist the progress of communication within a module. There has been a comprehensive study which aimed at exploring the task- technology for two main groups namely trainers and students with the help of VLE WebCT. It has been apparent that students task technology usage, user satisfaction, perspective towards the usage and expected consequences of use were higher than trainers. Trainers had higher perceptions of social rules and regulations with higher perceptions of promoting conditions than students. However, there has been no difference in the level of practice of the VLE between the trainers and students. VLE had more impact on the learning of students rather than trainers in the whole learning process. These outcomes suggest that in spite of high levels of support approved by the tutors, they may still be confused about the benefaction of VLEs to their teaching. Introduction Higher education has been increasingly influenced by the progress of information and technology. The core training requirements in Universities and other institutes involve e-learning processes. Distance education has been possible with the introduction to new innovative courses due to the World Wide Web and online education is now available to in numerous students and lecturers for their training purposes (Peffers and Bloom 1999; Alexander 2001; Chen and Dwyer 2003). Information Technology has introduced new terms and forms which are further categorized into different segments. Some of these are e- learning, distributed learning and technology- mediated learning. The term e- learning has been extensively used to define education and training which is supported by the Internet. A virtual learning environment (VLE) simplifies e-learning by supporting an information system. Teaching and learning is carried out through communication support, broadcasting educational material, storage and processing of the VLEs. In spite of the omnipresence of VLEs in teaching, much of the proof to support their use is unreliable or inefficiently established. The usage of VLEs by instructors and how they signify student learning has been a topic of debate for many researchers. They believe that an extensive theory should be available which is reliable and rigorous in order to authorize the usage and its complexities (Alavi and leidner 2001; Poccoli et al 2001). This dissertation will mainly focus on the difference between Knowledge which has become more accessible on the Internet and the process of teaching and learning which has changed, but not always improved due to Information Communication Technologies (ICTs). Furthermore, it will also discuss about the information society in a wider context. The title global auction warns that the info society anticipated in the 1980s has failed to generate jobs, instead computer programs are used to substitute for skilled workers (in accountancy, education, law, manufacturing and other occupations) who become unemployed. This is partly because the internet facilitates outsourcing of jobs from the West to China and India, so globalization is another issue which will be discussed. Virtual learning Environment Virtual learning environment (VLEs) are defined as computer based environments that are relatively open systems, allowing interactions and encounters with other participants and delivering a huge database (Wilson 1996, p 8). Furthermore, he suggests that VLEs differ from computer micro-worlds and classroom based learning environments where we use technologies as tools or in micro-worlds where students help themselves by entering a self- contained computer based learning environment. Computer aided instruction (CAI) or computer micro-worlds have many similarities with VLEs. For instance, materials can be fetched or accessed individually by learners; different paths can be followed through them and can be utilized in material displays discrepantly. Although we see, that the VLE concept is much different and broader than the CAI as it adds new dimensions to individual learning. Electronic interaction and discussion, building up new infrastructure for widely available network are some of the things encouraged by the VLEs (Wilson 1996). In a broader context, VLEs augment the progress of an individual not only in the corporate sector but also enable him or her to connect and share experiences with a larger learner-learner and instructors group. Chapter 2 Introduction It has been observed that e-learning or VLEs had been the central supporting system for the formal countenance of learning by enhancing predefined formats and learning objectives. Although, it has been in the human nature to learn informally on the unconscious level which is essentially not based on traditional exams or curricula, as a part of education to some extent. The learning outcome can largely be depended upon VLEs which support and guide the learning system. E-learning and technology enhanced learning are provided with support and recognition with the growth of Social media with their probabilities to communicate to a larger group, reflect, relate and collaborate. Research Review On a global frame, it has been examined that social media have excessive potential influence on e-learning and technology- enhancing learning, mostly within the framework of contemporary learning methods (Baird and Fisher, 2006). This impact is however partly technologically derived. The whole truth is, with the concept of web 2.0, learning is influenced technically as well as socially. They encircle the strong alliance of informal environments, the desire to engage with the learning groups beyond the classroom environment. Technologies like instant messaging (chat), wikis and weblogs are considered to be social media which enable users to publish and be a part of online communities as well as manage them in a broader scale (Schaffert, 2006). The publication and exercising of content is cheaper and more flexible unlike traditional media. Precisely, social media aims to connect with a broader mass by forming and supporting user groups and communities. This dissertation focuses on the usage of social media in teaching and acquiring knowledge in higher education. The promotional culture of social media highlighted the shift of contents from producer generated to user generated content within the Web 2.0 framework. The standard change in the context of technology-enhanced learning symbolized the shift from traditional e-learning, established upon courses and the phenomenal of learning module to an active cooperation of the learners and their support as a community for general interest. So much so, social media is predestined to augment traditional learning and also e-learning environments. In a typical university curriculum, promotion or cultivation of informal learning with formal one is not done but Social media makes this possible. Informal learning has had a parallel shift from pedagogical standards from behaviourism to constructivism. It has been suggested that informal learning was held valuable due to its characteristics of be ing passively progressive outside the so-called traditional teaching. For example, Workplace coordinated learning, where the amount of information is sought in a permanent basis. (Tochermann and Granitzer, 2008) Research Questionnaires and Outcomes I had taken an online survey which was responded by 100 people from different countries for this thesis which focuses on the articulation, development, application and evaluation of implemented situations for social media in the background of higher education. These implemented situations are designed to answer the most crucial questions listed below for my research questions. Subsequently, the outcomes for each are precisely summarized under the respective questions. Are you familiar with the applications and technologies under Web 2.0 i.e Social Networking sites, Blogging, Web content Voting, Tagging, and Bookmarking? Can you tell me which of these do you use or used for your education? This research question drew the fact that most of the students were familiar with the applications of Web 2.0 but had little knowledge about their impact on the society as a whole and how social media trends keep changing in a profound way. Most of them used Social Networking sites, completely unaware of publishing data. Moreover, this was used as the base to confirm their intent to use the internet. Were you introduced to E-learning during your education? Library Catalogues, E-books, E-journals? Do you communicate with your lecturers via mail? This question was also conducted for research amongst students to test their attitude towards e-learning. Except Wikipedia most of them had little or no interest in other user contents for education. How do you think the concepts of E-learning 2.0 be applied to your education, if you are a software development or software engineering student? While from the above answer it is apparent that most of them used Wikipedia as their learning source, weblogs also counted as the second application crucial to the implementation of e-learning 2.0. Weblogs had been newly introduced in the software development education as learning logs dated back in the 1990s when it was used as blogs only. HTML and FTP was used to publish web content. How do you think Peer Review or Self Reflection helps you when you get feedback online about your assessment or work? The concept of Peer Review has been augmented to provide better assessment of software development students for themselves as well as their peers. In this way, a new adaptation meant better work as they now became familiar to faster feedbacks and more collaborative online components. How do you think the concept of Social media can be used to refer to a larger audience globally? Can we think of distance learning without social media? If no then why? Use examples to support your answer. These questions aim to externalize knowledge and were used as an online mind mapping tool. Probing how they use visualization of information to their maximum abilities. This is the traditional way of new features in the social media education arena which enhances students to determine the possible outcomes of e-learning. Possible use of situations for education have been improvised and evaluated. What do you think about mobile learning in higher education? Does scrolling down a map while youre outside help you? You can explain what you think about location based services. Mapping materials provided possible mashups for location based services as it has been seen as the renaissance in the previous years. To support successful expedition in higher education, a collaborative system essentially location based and lightweight had been developed. Structure and Methodology The methodology applied to the analysis presented in this thesis is constructed on the notions of situations and services denoted to itemize the crucial topic of social media to clarify concrete problems and enable learning in definite situations. Situations or Plots Situations or schemes are the devices for improving our perception. A problem becomes insightfully manageable and can be better mastered by putting a composite set of events and relationships into a story. (Van der Heijden, 1997) A plot is an idealized but detailed description of a specific scenario (Young and Barnard, 1987). Furthermore, a plot is an informal approach widely used in provisional engineering (Alspaugh and Anton, 2008). One of the critical advantages is the comfort of the designer to predict outcomes before trying to specify them, making necessities more proactive in the advancement. (Carroll et al., 1998) These situations can be used to define and identify details of individual research investigation. Furthermore, developing evaluation situations for individual investigative goals can be used efficiently after research. In the scenario of education, the OECD puts forth the definition of situations for the research of expected education in order to administer a basis for stakeholders from different fields to establish long-term strategies. (OECD Publishing, 2006) In technology- enhanced learning, situations or schemes are used in the parameter of an activity-based instructive theory. In this instructive model, learning situations are described as a series of activities, a list of associated user roles, system tools which are applied, and the tutorial content (Helic, 2005). These schemes provide the fundamental assembly of the learning process within this methodology. In the background of this research, situations were used firstly to define the individual issue domains for specific aspects of social media to be adapted to education and thus, by providing concrete scenarios, simplify the possible influence on the learning process. Secondly, these situations describe a test of cases with the help of which the suggested solution can be evaluated to examine the validity of the access.

My Philosophy of Education :: Educational Teaching Teachers Essays

My Philosophy of Education A few years ago I happened to witness a teacher touching the life a student. The teacher gave him praise and self-confidence; in return the student began to work harder towards his goals in life. He realized the meaning of inspiration and strived towards his goals, the teacher had turned around a student’s life. That student’s life happened to be mine. One of the main reasons why I want to become a teacher is to touch the lives of students. I will use my philosophical view to tell you why I chose to become a teacher. I will discuss the nature of students, the nature of knowledge, the purpose of public education, teaching method, and my curriculum to state my philosophy. First, I will discuss the nature of students. Most students are basically similar. Students are motivated to gain an education, to pass; they want to gain certification weather as a high school diploma or a college degree. Unfortunately there are students who stray from this path because of no inspiration to better themselves. A student must be motivated to succeed into today’s society and most students want to succeed in life, therefore they should have learned the basic morals and skills to survive. However, most students who are motivated are basically good morally. For instance, good student that misbehave do so because they want to gain attention. If each student is paid attention to then the majority of the students will turn out as inspired decision makers. Let’s move on to a different point. Secondly, I will discuss the nature of knowledge. I believe that the nature of knowledge is absolute and it is discovered. In my education 210 class my teacher ask us Questions. Therefore to gain the answer to these questions we must either look the questions up or she will give us hints to discover them. This type of learning is called discovery learning. All through out history knowledge has been discovered, take for example archaeologist. Archaeologists discover new things everyday dealing from ancient civilizations to dinosaur bones.

Educational Planning Essay

The University has recognized the significance of each unit producing and maintaining Disaster Recovery Plans (also known as business continuity or contingency plans) in order to prepare and address how each unit will continue doing business in the event of a severe disruption or disaster. The Disaster Recovery Planning Team, coordinated by the Client Advocacy Office (CAO) will be the primary resource for assisting each unit with the DRP initiative, by providing education, awareness and tools. The team will work to identify, collect, and organize information and tools for disaster recovery planning and documentation, and disseminate all information to University units in an effective and easily understood manner, so that unit plans may aggressively be developed, tested, distributed, and a copy provided to the CAO for central tracking purposes. After the initial endeavor, the responsibility for providing support will transition from the DRP Team to the Client Advocacy Office. Definitions: Business Continuity is an all-encompassing term covering both disaster recovery planning and business resumption planning. Disaster Recovery is the ability to respond to an interruption in services by implementing a plan to restore an organization’s critical business functions. Both are differentiated from Loss Prevention Planning, which comprises regularly scheduled activities such as system back-ups, system authentication and authorization (security), virus scanning, and system usage monitoring (primarily for capacity indications). The primary focus of this effort is on Disaster Recovery Planning. Developing the Plan: The following ten steps, more thoroughly described in the document that follows, generally characterize disaster Recovery Plans: Purpose and Scope for a Unit Disaster Recovery Plan The primary reason for a unit to engage in business continuity and contingency planning (also known as â€Å"disaster recovery† planning) is to ensure the ability of the unit to function effectively in the event of a severe disruption to normal operations. Severe disruptions can arise from several sources: natural disasters (tornadoes, fire, flood, etc. , equipment failures, process failures, from mistakes or errors in judgment, as well as from malicious acts (such as denial of service attacks, hacking, viruses, and arson, among others). While the unit may not be able to prevent any of these from occurring, planning enables the unit to resume essential operations more rapidly than if no plan existed. Before proceeding further, it is important to distinguish between loss preventi on planning and disaster recovery planning. The focus of Loss prevention planning is on minimizing a unit’s exposure to the elements of risk that can threaten normal operations. In the technology realm, unit loss prevention planning includes such activities as providing for system back-ups, making sure that passwords remain confidential and are changed regularly, and for ensuring operating systems remain secure and free of viruses. Disaster recovery planning focuses on the set of actions a unit must take to restore service and normal (or as nearly normal as practical) operations in the event that a significant loss has occurred. A systematic disaster recovery plan does not focus unit efforts and planning on each type of possible disruption. Rather it looks for the common elements in any disaster: i. . , loss of information, loss of personnel, loss of equipment, loss of access to information and facilities, and seeks to design the contingency program around all main activities the unit performs. The plan will specify the set of actions for implementation for each activity in the event of any of these disruptions in order for the unit to resume doing business in the minimum amount of time. Disaster Recovery Planning consists of three principal sets of activities. 1. Identifying the common elements of plausible disruptions that might severely disrupt critical or important unit operations. . Anticipating the impacts and effects that might result from these operational disruptions. 3. Developing and documenting contingent responses so that recovery from these interruptions can occur as quickly as possible. The major outcome of a Unit Disaster Recovery Planning Project is the development of a unit plan. The plan benefits the unit in that it: †¢ Establishes the criteria and severity of a disruption based on the impact the disruption will cause to the unit’s critical functions. †¢ Determines critical functions and systems, and the associated durations required for recovery. Determines the resources required to support those critical functions and systems, and defines the requirements for a recovery site. †¢ Identifies the people, skills, resources and suppliers needed to assist in the recovery process. †¢ Identifies the vital records, which must be stored offsite to support resumptions of unit operations. †¢ Documents the appropriate procedures and the information required to recover from a disaster or severe disruption. †¢ Addresses the need to maintain the currency of the plan’s information over time. Addresses testing the documented procedure s to ensure their completeness and accuracy. Objective and Goals for a Disaster Recovery Planning Project The primary objective of any contingency plan is to ensure the ability of the unit to function effectively in the event of an interruption due to the loss of information, loss of personnel, or loss of access to information and facilities. The goals for contingency planning are to provide for: †¢ The continuation of critical and important unit operations in the event of an interruption. †¢ The recovery of normal operations in the event of an interruption. The timely notification of appropriate unit and university officials in a predetermined manner as interruption severity or duration escalates. †¢ The offline backup and availability, or alternative availability, of critical components, including: Data files, Software, Hardware, Voice and Data Communications, Documentation, Supplies and forms, People, Inventory Lists. †¢ An alternate method for performing activities electronically and/or manually. †¢ Any required changes in user methods necessary to accomplish such alternate means of processing. †¢ The periodic testing of the plan to ensure its continuing effectiveness. Documentation on the business unit’s plan for response, recovery, resumption, restoration, and return after severe disruption. Contingency planning seeks to accomplish the goals above, while minimizing certain exposures to risks that may impact the recovery and business resumption process, including: †¢ The number of decisions that must be made following a disaster or severe disruption. †¢ Single point of failure conditions in the unit infrastructure. †¢ Dependence on the par ticipation of any specific person or group of people in the recovery process. †¢ The lack of available staff with suitable skills to affect the recovery. The needs to develop, test, or debug new procedures, programs or systems during recovery. †¢ The adverse impact of lost data, recognizing that the loss of some transactions may be inevitable. Conducting the Business Disaster Planning Project There are three phases of a Disaster Recovery Planning Project. †¢ The information needed to identify critical systems, potential impacts and risks, resources, and recovery procedures are gathered in Phase I. †¢ Phase II is the actual writing and testing of the Disaster Recovery Plan. †¢ Phase III is ongoing and consists of plan maintenance and audits. I. Information Gathering Step One – Organize the Project The scope and objectives of the plan and the planning process are determined, a coordinator appointed, the project team is assembled, and a work plan and schedule for completing the initial phases of the project are developed. Step Two – Conduct Business Impact Analysis Critical systems, applications, and business processes are identified and prioritized. Interruption impacts are evaluated and planning assumptions, including the physical scope and duration of the outage, are made. Step Three – Conduct Risk Assessment The physical risks to the unit are defined and quantified. The risks identify the vulnerability of the critical systems, by identifying physical security, backup procedures and/or systems, data security, and the likelihood of a disaster occurring. By definition Risk Assessment is the process of not only identifying, but also minimizing the exposures to certain threats, which an organization may experience. While gathering information for the DRP, system vulnerability is reviewed and a determination made to either accept the risk or make modifications to reduce it. Step Four – Develop Strategic Outline for Recovery Recovery strategies are developed to minimize the impact of an outage. Recovery strategies address how the critical functions, identified in the Business Impact Analysis (step 2), will be recovered and to what level resources will be required, the period in which they will be recovered, and the role central University resources will play in augmenting or assisting unit resources in affecting timely recovery. The recovery process normally consists of these stages: 1. Immediate response 2. Environmental restoration 3. Functional restoration 4. Data synchronization 5. Restoration of business functions . Interim site 7. Return home Step Five – Review Onsite and Offsite Backup and Recovery Procedures Vital records required for supporting the critical systems, data center operations, and other priority functions as identified in the Business Impact Analysis, are verified and procedures needed to recover them and to reconstruct lost data are developed. In addition, the review of the procedures to establish and maintain offsite backup are completed. Vital records include everything from the libraries, files, and code to forms and documentation. Step Six – Select Alternate Facility This item addresses determining recovery center requirements, identifying alternatives and making an alternative facility, site recommendation/selection. Consideration should be given to the use of University resources (e. g. , Administrative Information Services, Computer Lab, or another unit) as alternative sites before seeking outside solutions For further information on alternative University sites please contact the Client Advocacy Office at 517-353-4856. II. Writing and Testing the Plan Step Seven – Develop Recovery Plan This phase centers on documenting the actual recovery plan. This includes documenting the current environment as well as the recovery environment and action plans to follow at the time of a disaster or severe disruption, specifically describing how recovery (as defined in the strategies) for each system and application is accomplished. Step Eight – Test the Plan A test plan/strategy for each recovery application as well as the operating environment is developed. Testing occurs on the plans and assumptions made for completeness and accuracy. Modifications occur as necessary following the results of the testing. This portion of the project is perpetual for the life of the plan.

Effects of Hormones in Our Food

In 2006 our world’s human population was approximately 6. 7 billion. It is projected to increase to 9. 2 billion by 2050. With this many people in the world you need a substantial amount of food to feed them. But, this leads to a problem in the food industry. Animals do not grow fast enough in order to meet these high demands. In order to compensate for the lack of supply of food the farmers need to somehow make their animals grow faster. For the solution they introduced the use of hormones. These hormones include estradiol, progesterone, testosterone, zeranol, trenbolone acetate and melengesterol acestate. Some of these hormones are found naturally in humans and some are synthetic growth promoters. But, is it safe for these foods to be consumed by people; and do they have any effects on our bodies? First, let’s define the term hormone. Hormones are chemicals that are produced naturally by our bodies and in the bodies of animals. They are released into our blood by the organs that produce them and they travel to different parts of the body. They affect body functions such as growth, development and reproduction. So how are these hormones beneficial to food producers? Well, they improve the meat quality, increase feed efficiency, reduce costs for producers, increase slaughter time and increase animal growth cycles; to name a few. Let’s take a closer look at the specific hormones used in this industry. Estradiol, in the human body, is a form of estrogen, a female sex hormone produced by the ovaries. Estradiol is used to treat symptoms of menopause, prevention of osteoporosis, replacement of estrogen in women with ovarian failure and sometimes used as a cancer treatment. Progesterone is used to cause menstrual periods in women. It is also used to prevent overgrowth in the lining of the uterus. Testosterone is a sex hormone that is produced in male testicles. It is used to treat conditions in males such as delayed puberty, impotence, or other hormonal imbalances. Is it also used in women to treat breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body. Zeranol is a potent nonsteroidal growth promoter that mimics many of the effects of estradiol. It is used extensively in the United States and Canada to promote rapid and more efficient growth rates in animals. Trenbolone Acetate is a potent androgen that produces very strong anabolic activity. It is primarily used to buildup muscle mass. Melengestrol acetate is a synthetic progestin used primarily for the suppression of estrus in heifers; it also helps animals to gain weight faster and limit the amount of feed eaten. Yes, all these hormones prove to be beneficial to producers in many ways. But, our society today is focused on eating at fast food restaurants and eating lots of meat products. These hormones used are usually still detectable in the meat that we consume. Now ask yourself; how much meat do you eat in a week? A month? A year? Think about how much of those hormones you are ingesting into your body. Yes, they are at low levels but if you eat these products constantly on a regular basis your body is being exposed to a high amount of these hormones which can alter your body functions. For example, according to the National Toxicology Program at the National Institutes of Health, estradiol and progesterone are considered probable carcinogens. Estrogen has been linked to breast cancer in women and testosterone with prostate cancer in men. Progesterone has been found to increase the growth of ovarian, breast and uterine tumors. Expert D. Lindsey Berkson, author of Hormone Deception, worry that hormones in food could be at least partly responsible for early puberty. The average age for a girl’s fist period is now between 12. 5 to 12. 9 for Caucasian girls and around 12. 2 for African American girls; which are significantly younger than previous years.