Cisco Announces New Training Programs for Partners

Cisco has announced three new architectural specializations as the prerequisite for maintaining the status of Cisco partners. These are , border less Networks, Collaboration and Data Centre. Cisco Management has decided that rather than selling the specific technologies Cisco will shift its focus towards architectural solutions.

Cisco Gold partners will now have to attain all the three specializations in order to maintain their status. For Silver partners the requirement is of obtain any of the two specializations and premier partners have to get Cisco Express Foundation specialization which they are already getting.

These architectural specializations, according to Cisco, will cost $ 50,000 less than the traditional CCIE specializations. The reason is these new specializations need less lab-work and certain parts of the course work that made Cisco specializations lengthy are also deleted. The registration in these programs will start from August 2011.

Cisco management is confident about the success of this new evolution, for they believe that their partners are going to adept themselves to this change, and so many partners are already into architectural work.

Furthermore, those who have traditional Cisco certifications will be given credit for their previous work if they opt for new specializations. However, partners have to complete these requirements by 2013. So, they have a time of around 16-28 months for completing this requirement.

Cisco has also announced two training curriculums for their 450 learning partners in 130 countries. These are Learning Partner associate and learning partner Specialized. Former revolves around core technology training and the later is based on the sales of Architectural specializations.

Cisco architectural specializations will enable the successful candidate to sell, design, install and support the new architectural products.  These specializations are different from previous CCIE in it that ne experts will also be able to make presentations to their clients for the sales. So these are two in one kind of specializations preparing people for both engineering and sales tasks.

 By: Khalid Jamil Rawat

American Civil War Celeberations

The 150^th anniversary of the American Civil War, the day when the whole American nation was divided into two rival groups who fought a bloody war with each other, is celebrated amidst the traditional confusions about its beginning and the role that the leaders of that time played in it.

On the one hand, to commemorate the 150^th anniversary of the civil war, the attack on Fort Sumter, bells rang in the New York schools and government buildings, a few have also fired cannons shots, and on the other, the national archives made public poet Whitman’s civil war documents. Whitman, while staying in Washington D.C., from 1863 to 1873, transcribed many documents related to civil war. This he did during his job as a clerk at different offices and his job responsibilities include transcription of letters and records.

Whitman was among those people who took sides with humanity and freedom during the civil, and as a humanist and freedom loving creative person, he did not discriminate between the wounded people on the two sides and served both.

On this 150^th anniversary of the civil war, politicians from both democratic and republican parties used civil war rhetoric, and vowed to rise again. This surge in the use of civil war language as an instrument of communication has to do a lot with the recent land sliding upheavals in the world politics, especially in the Middle East. With so many Middle Eastern Revolutions on the media scene, this anniversary of the civil war came as a reminder of revolution.

However, according to history professor from Kansas, American people have a diminished memory of the civil war and especially Kansas’ role in the war is not remembered properly. The said professor is going to lecture on the theme of Public Memory of the Civil.

People in Georgia are commemorating this anniversary as a reminder about the burning of Georgia, three and a half years after the bombardment of Fort Sumter, on Tuesday, April 12.   

The battle between southerners and Yankees that started from the bloodless sacking of Fort Sumter, according to Goodheart, the author of 1861: The Civil War Awakening, was actually the result of a misconception on the part of southerners who miscalculated the behavior of Yankees to fancy that Yankees would not fight a battle to include south in the union territory.

According to Goodheart the civil war, as most of the Americans think, was not about stats’ rights; it was about ceasing more authority over slaves; the right to carry slaves along with them if they chose to relocate from one state to the other.

Hunt for Long Island's Serial Killer

Amidst the efforts to comb the New York beach, and to scan it from truck roof tops and ladders, the statement given by the county police Commissioner, betrays that police has not found any decisive clues about the whereabouts of the unknown serial killer, who has allegedly murdered around 04 prostitutes in the city. According to Suffolk county police commissioner, Richard Dormer, they are still searching for additional remains and there is a chance that a new discovery may bring decisive clues with it. According to the sources, police has adopted a methodic approach to solve this case, and they are working on all possible options to identify the murderer.

According to a forensic expert, such investigations proceed slowly and no hasty conclusions are made. However, the investigation is right now directed towards establishing the fact that all the victims were killed by the same or different murderers. Furthermore, police is also trying to find out similarities and differences among the victims, to identify a pattern behind this heinous crime.

Most of the women, whose bodies are found, were prostitutes and were operating their business through Craigslist. This similarity has caused a security threat in other women who are in the same business. Among the prostitutes, the belief that the murderer only targets petite girls who are hardly 4 to 4.5 feet tall is a cause of relief for those who are above five. On the other hand those who are below five are curbing the anxiety through thinking that the victimized women committed security blunders, and they met this Dracula of a client all alone, at an insecure venue.

However, crime against prostitutes and street criminals is nothing new. Since street criminals and prostitute cannot contact police, neither to report violence nor to share any evidence, for snitching makes them a target of violence in their own community, and police never provides any protection to a snitch, therefore the chances that more prostitutes will fall victim to such crimes is greater than ever. Police should provide security to prostitutes to stop what is happening now. Police on the other hand, instead of providing security to prostitutes, is now raiding prostitute rings. Recently seven members of such a ring are arrested to double the feelings of insecurity among prostitutes.    

 A serial killer or any criminal is essentially a highly opportunistic person, who ceases every opportunity to avenge the misgivings he has faced in his life. So, there is no wonder that prostitutes, physically weak and socially out casted, who do not worth any protection from the law, even though they are also citizens of the state, are falling victim to this serial killer.  

 Long Island inhabitants who were preparing for the summer festivities and joys before the discovery of a serial killer in their area, are now feeling threatened. They are not in any sense concerned with the fact that all victims were prostitutes; for them the only important thing is that somebody is killing human beings, and this slaughter should be stopped by the law enforcing agencies.

Online Education: Its Value

Online education is growing like a giant weed, and the time when it would have completely replaced the brick and mortar schools is not far away. Already the signs of this shift in education system are visible in the form of extraordinary growth in the number of enrolments.
There are so many questions that are raised by the people at the threshold of this new era of education. However, it appears that among education experts the debate is already over in the favor of online education. The reason is that educationists preferred constructivism over behaviorism as philosophy of education. And there is no wonder in it that people automatically associate online education with constructivism. Every concept related to online education, the whole idea of online education, is actually based on constructivist understanding.
This concept of learning necessitates that there be mixed ability and mixed aged groups. For proper learning takes place in those situations in which one learn through interaction with elders and more capable people.

Constructivism says that learning is a social activity, and it is most efficiently acquired in a less formal, mixed ability group. Furthermore, constructivism also suggests that learning takes place in one's zone of proximal development, through peer intervention.
What is this zone of proximal development or zpd? Zpd is a concept that signifies that learning takes place when one attempts to learn those things which one can learn with the help of his or her more able peers. If a learner already knows something, then one cannot call it learning to learn these things again. If there is some content which a person cannot learn; neither through his own effort, nor through the help of those who know that content, then its teaching is a waste of time. So the only content that a person can learn is that which falls within his zone of proximal development; the content which one can learn with the help of others, through interaction.
Since online education, unlike traditional schools, forms mixed age group classes therefore; it is very likely that the interaction between students will be of more value. Students, besides their course requirements, will learn so many other things from the experiences of their seniors.

Furthermore, online education being more liberal in terms of schedules and time tables is more effective in keeping the motivation of students alive. These values in online education are worthy of making it a desirable mode of education for so many people, who are not finding traditional education interesting.


 

K-12 Online Education: Merits and Demerits

Even if one Keeps aside parents’ complaint that their children are not getting proper attention at brick and mortar schools and are left ill disposed towards the learning experience provided there, the need to establish online schools seems imperative. The reason is there are so many students who are not in a position to attend their school regularly because they are earning for their families, feel stranded and bullied at the school, are involved in parenting or are so ill that they just can’t go there. Then there are those who failed a course and want to get credit.

Furthermore, the advancement in the field of educational technology and with the availability of devices like mobile phones and lap tops, the idea of having online education system seems a dream actualized.  Now with the advancements in this field mobile learning is likely to become the choice mode of learning for the learners. One can imagine what kind of a boast this new trend will bestow upon portable learning technology venders and online course and learning experience developers.

According to the recent figures the number of those who are attending full time online school  has drastically increased, showing that students and parents are leaving the traditional brick and mortar schools, and opting online schools for k-12 education.

This changing trend will not only cut the costs but will also address the concerns of those parents who thought that their children were not motivated to attend the traditional school.

Although there are concerns over the efficacy of this new system in ensuring excellence for low achievers in traditional schools, it has successfully developed good dispositions in learners towards online learning experiences.

Recent buzz over Michigan State’s decision to cut K-12 budget due to the budgetary deficit is also being viewed in the light of this explosion of online learning. Even if the state budget for K-12 is drastically reduced, yet online education can take the place of affected educational institutions. Per student cost for online education is comparatively lower than that at brick and mortar schools. Some experts are viewing this increase in online schools as an attempt to save money that is spent each year on school districts.

Then there are people who think that online education can deteriorate the quality of education, because the chances that students will use tricks like plagiarism are great. Along with these demerits cited by certain experts, one obvious outcome of online schooling will surely be seen in the form of resistance from teachers’ community.

However, from a social constructivist point of view online education can provide a better experience to the learners. Unlike traditional schooling that relies on testing, online education is collaborative and favors group learning. Furthermore, in online learning students of different age group can become the members of a class, this surely helps in forming a mixed ability group. Furthermore, the basic ingredients of traditional educational experience like schedules, imposed discipline and teacher centeredness, will not be present in online education to make it a more desirable experience.