U made us proud Appey Rowena!

I guess it's never too late for me to congratulate our very own ATI College student who was crowned as the new Miss Malaysia Earth 2010 recently held at the Royal Golf Club, Ipoh, Perak last July 18.  Appey had won the state Unduk Ngadau 2009 last year and receives scholarship to pursue her studies in Tourism field. She has fulfilled the ideas of the competition - that beauty queens can be strong and effective advocates for Mother Earth. 

We hope that she will be committed to playing a part in preserving and protecting the environment for future generations. She will represent Malaysia at the Miss Earth 2010 , the 10th edition of Miss Earth beauty pageant, to take place in Vinpearl Land, Nha Trang, Vietnam on December 4, 2010.

More than 80 contestants from various countries and territories will compete for the title in December 2010, where Miss Earth 2009, Larissa Ramos of Brazil will crown her successor at the end of the event that will be broadcast by VTV, ABS CBN and The Filipino Channel. The Miss Earth winner serves as the spokesperson for the Miss Earth Foundation, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and other environmental organizations.

Best of luck Appey and make us proud one again!

National pageant notes

Debuts

• Azerbaijan, Bonaire, Guyana, Moldova will compete at Miss Earth first time.

Returning countries and territories

• Mauritiuslast competed in 2005.
• Cayman Islands, Chile, Curacao, and Ireland last competed in 2006.
• Belize, Norway, Vietnam and Zambia last competed in 2007.
• Bhutan, Bolivia, Ethiopia, Germany, Nicaragua, Romania and Rwanda last competed in 2008.

Contestant notes

•  France: Morgane Valade represented Monaco in Miss Tourism Queen International 2008.
•  Germany: Reingard Hagemann replaced Miss Germany 2010 Anna Julia Hagen due to latter's academic schedule.
•  Puerto Rico: Yeidy Bosques previously compete in Miss Miss Universe Puerto Rico and placed 3rd runner up.

Expected contestants

As of July 21, 2010, 39 delegates have been selected.

Country	Contestant	Age	Height (cm)	Height (ft)	Hometown
Azerbaijan	Gulnara Alimuradova	21	170	5'7"	Baku
Belgium	Jessica van Moorleghem	17	170	5'7"	Evergem
Belize	Sherrylee Rodriguez	20	170	5'7"	Belize City
Brazil	Aline Bruch	25	174	5'8"	Balneário Camboriú
Chile	Pamela Soprani	23	177	5'10"	Santiago
Costa Rica	Alejandra Álvarez	24	168	5'6"	San José
Cuba	Viglis Viquillon	-	-	-	Tampa
Czech Republic	Carmen Justova	19	176	5'9"	Sokolov
Denmark	Ena Sandra	20	174	5'8"	Sønderborg
Ethiopia	Genet Ogeto	21	178	5'10"	Addis Ababa
France	Morgane Valade	26	180	5'10"	Le Vauclin
Georgia	Sofo Romanishvili	19	175	5'9"	Tbilisi
Germany	Reingard Hagemann	24	178	5'10"	Schwerin
Greece	Maria Tsagaraki	21	176	5'9"	Heraklion
Guadeloupe	Venise Taret	23	179	5'10"	Pointe à Pitre
Guam	Naiomie Jean Santos	18	173	5'8"	Maina
Guyana	Soyini Fraser	20	175	5'9"	Georgetown
Honduras	Alessa Games	24	170	5'7"	La Ceiba
Hungary	Jennifer Kaló	22	170	5'7"	Budapest
India	Nicole Faria	20	175	5'9"	New Delhi
Israel	Gal Erez	18	171	5'7"	Jerusalem
Kosovo	Dhurata Lipovica	22	180	5'10"	Pristina
Luxembourg	Laureta Bardoniqi	19	167	5'6"	Bettembourg
Malaysia	Appey Rowena	19	175	5'9"	Kota Kinabalu
Martinique	Christine Garçon	21	177	5'10"	Le Vauclin‎
Netherlands	Desiree van den Berg	23	176	5'9"	Santpoort
Peru	Silvana Vásquez	19	174	5'8"	Cajamarca
Philippines	Kris Psyche Resus	22	165	5'5"	Batangas
Poland	Beata Polakowska	23	172	5'7"	Ostrów Mazowiecka
Puerto Rico	Yeidy Bosques	22	182	5'11"	Mayagüez
Romania	Andreea Dorobantiu	23	178	5'10	Bucharest
Serbia	Tijana Rakic	22	182	5'11	Belgrade
Slovakia	Tímea Szaboová	20	183	6'0"	Bratislava
Slovenia	Ines Draganovič	18	-	-	Ljubljana
Switzerland	Liza Andrea Küster	22	168	5'6"	Bern
Tanzania	Rose Shayo	-	177	5'10"	Dodoma
Thailand	Watsaporn Wattanakoon	22	170	5'7"	Chiang Rai
Turkey	Döndü Şahin	24	183	6'0"	Nuremberg
Ukraine	Alexandra Nikitina	20	177	5'10"	Nova Kakhovka

Reading Strategies by Dr. Kathleen King

Many ideas in this handout are from a lecture by Dr. Lee Haugen, former Reading Specialist at the ISU Academic Skills Center
 

For many of you, reading at the college level is an entirely new experience.  You've been reading for 12 years or more in school and for pleasure, but academic reading can be overwhelmingly difficult for those whose skills are less than excellent.  In K-12  reading, the focus is often on the concrete aspects of the text, the facts, what is easily visible on the page, and writing about reading requires only that you regurgitate basic information. 

College reading, on the other hand, requires meta-cognition, the ability to orchestrate your own learning.  You need to think about how your learning style interacts with the text you are reading, and perhaps change your reading strategies to meet the challenges of that text. 

There are four variables to be considered when learning how to read more successfully: the reader, the text, the strategies, and the goal.  Characteristics of the reader include reading skills, interest in the topic, physical factors such as sleepiness or hunger.  The text varies in type (novel, science, play,psychology, etc.) and difficulty.  Some reading is easy and moves along quickly, while other reading is quite dense and perhaps even tedious, packed with information.  The next factor, strategies employed by the reader, makes all the difference.  The goal of this handout is to give you a larger repertoire of reading strategies, to help you read less and get more out of it.  The final consideration is the purpose.  Why are you reading this text, and what do you want to get out of it? 

Some students are good readers.  Perhaps their parents read to them when they were young, and as adults they read a great deal, read for pleasure, and find reading easy. They instinctively understand how to use reading strategies.  For instance, when reading a newspaper, these students have no difficulty scanning the pages quickly, then slowing down to focus on one interesting article. 

Others are lazy and inattentive about reading, or feel insecure and easily intimidated by complex material.  They have never had to read anything as difficult as their college textbooks and research materials.  Such students have not learned to use a variety of reading strategies, but they think of themselves as dumb rather than untrained. 

Every time you read, you're teaching yourself how to read.  For instance, if you read class materials in bed at night and fall asleep after a few minutes, you're teaching yourself to be uncaring and sleepy when you read.

Academic reading is not easy.  Part of learning to use reading strategies is to try out new and different ways of reading.  Even professors read, think, write, reread, puzzle over ideas.  No one gets it the first time.  Successful students learn how to read effectively and remember what they read.  You need to learn ways to leap into reading, keep going, finish up, summarize, and connect the new information to other knowledge you have acquired. 

Below is a list of reading strategies to try.   Keep in mind that any three strategies may be enough to make you a better reader.  Experiment with different methods and see what works for you.  The goal is to develop a reading system which will help you in the long term, not just for this class, but for life.

• Read sitting up, with a good light, at a desk or table. 
• Keep background noise to a minimum.  Loud rock and roll music will not make you a better reader.
• The same goes for screaming kids, talking roommates, television or radio.  Give yourself a quiet environment so that you can concentrate on the text.
• Keep paper and pen within reach.
• Before beginning to read, think about the purpose for the reading.  Why has the teacher made this assignment?  What are you supposed to get out of it?  Jot down your thoughts. 
• Survey the reading.  Look at the title of the piece, the subheadings.  What is in dark print or stands out?  Are there illustrations or graphs? 
• Read the introduction and conclusion, then go back and read the whole assignment.  Or read the first line in every paragraph to get an idea of how the ideas progress, then go back and read from the beginning. 
• Scan the entire reading, then focus on the most interesting or relevant parts to read in detail. 
• Pay attention to when you can skim and when you need to understand every word. 
• Write as you read.  Take notes and talk back to the text.  Explicate (explain in detail) and mark up the pages. 
• Write down what interests or bores you.  Speculate about why. 
• If you get stuck in the reading, think and write about where you got stuck.  Contemplate why that particular place was difficult and how you might break through the block. 
• Record and explore your confusion.  Confusion is important because it's the first stage in understanding.
• When the going gets difficult, and you don't understand the reading, slow down and reread  sections.
• Break long assignments into segments.  Read 10 pages, then do something else.  Later, read the next 10 pages and so on. 
• Read prefaces and summaries to learn important details about the book.  Look at the table of contents for information about the structure and movement of ideas.  Use the index to look up specific names, places, ideas. 
• Translate difficult material into your own words.  Create an alternative text. 
• Answer the questions at the end of the chapter.
• Answer these question in your own words: What's the author talking about?  What does the author want me to get out of this? 
• Read the entire piece, then write a one paragraph or one sentence summary. 
• Transcribe your notes in the book or handwritten notes into more formal notes on the computer.  Turn your first notes into a list of ideas or a short essay. 
• Review the ideas in the text after you finish reading.  Ask yourself questions to determine what you got out of the reading. 
• Mark up the text, bring it to class, and ask questions about what you don't understand. 
• Post an email to the class Mailing List and ask for responses from the teacher and fellow  students. 
• Consult another source.  What does another author have to say on the same topic? 
• Disagree with the author.  Become a devil's advocate.  Remember, you don't have to believe an idea to argue about it. 

Think about the text in three ways. 

1. Consider the text itself, the basic information right there on the page.  (This is the level of most high school readers and many college students.)

2.  Next think about what is between the lines, the conclusions and inferences the author means  you to draw from the text.

3. Finally, go beyond thinking about the text.  What creative, new,  and different thoughts occur as you combine your knowledge and experiences with the ideas in the reading?

Source: http://www.isu.edu/~kingkath/readstrt.html

The Twilight Saga E-Books

The Twilight Saga E-Books are now available for free download in PDF format at this URL:

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Classic E-Books

1. 1984
2. Around the World in 80 Days
3. Grimms Fairy Tales
4. Madame Bovary
5. Sons and Lovers
6. The Island of Doctor Moreau
7. The Odyssey
8. Wuthering Heights
9. A Christmas Carol
10. A Tale of Two Cities
11. Gulliver's Travel
12. Moby Dick
13. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
14. The Jungle Book
15. The Prince
16. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
17. Down and Out in Paris and London
18. Jane Eyre
19. Oliver Twist
20. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
21. The Last Mohicans
22. The Scarlet Pimpernel
23. Andersen's Fairy Tales
24. Frankenstein
25. Lady Chatterly's Lover
26. Pride and Prejudice
27. The Great Gatsby
28. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
29. The Three Musketeers
30. Anne of Green Gables
31. Great Expectations
32. Little Women
33. Robinson Crusoe
34. The Hound of the Baskervilles
35. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
36. Treasure Island
37. Jane Eyre

These books are available for free download at this site in PDF format:

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GUIDELINES ON CHAIRING COMMITTEES

1.        How to Chair a Meeting Effectively

Effective chairing will ensure that a meeting achieves its aims and objectives.  Chairs should facilitate, encourage, focus and clarify

 

2.       What Makes a Good Chair?

·             An understanding of the issues and topics being discussed and keenly listening to the discussions;

·             Being able to prevent discussions wandering, prevent those without anything new to add repeating the same point, being able to move on when a point is discussed as far as possible;

·             Ensuring that all members have an equal opportunity to express their point of view;

·             Showing respect for the views and actions of others

·             Encouraging all members to take equal responsibility for the meeting proceeding smoothly;

·             Being impartial;

·             Being able to sum-up the points made in discussions.

3.      Before the Meeting

Chairs should meet with the Officer to the Committee in good time to agree and order the agenda.  Any member can request an item to be put on the agenda and normally the Officer to the Committee will set deadlines for the receipt of an item and any accompanying papers.  Important business should not get put to the end of the agenda or there won’t be enough time to discuss it.

Please refer to paragraphs 23-28 of the University Committee Guidelines for further details.

4.      At the Meeting

Chairs need to lead the meeting so that all those involved can make useful contributions and unhelpful digressions and arguments are discouraged.  Chairs should present information and summaries clearly and at the most effective times. They need to ensure that the meeting’s objectives are achieved in the time available and that decisions are communicated to all those who need to know.  Discussion time should be allocated to each agenda item in a way which is consistent with their importance and complexity. 

Chairs should, through their own behaviour and body language, model good meeting behaviour and accept nothing less from colleagues.  They should be careful not to generate antagonism.  A healthy professional discussion where diversity of ideas and approaches are constructively used to create the best solution and not as personal attacks is the ideal.  If colleagues are going to give of their best they need to know that all contributions are valued, that they will get credit for their ideas and that the committee is strengthened by their collective success rather than scoring points off one another.  It is the Chair who sets the tone and manages the process.

Meetings should be run in ways that are as inclusive as possible.  You should always be aware that not all people are familiar or comfortable with formal meeting procedure and that it can alienate and intimidate people, creating barriers to participation.  People who do not know or understand what is going on around them are less likely to take the risk of speaking up.  Chairs must ensure that there is real democracy and that everyone is involved and encouraged to take part.

Other points to successful and effective chairing:

a)            Start the meeting on time.   This respects those who turned up on time and reminds late-comers that the scheduling is serious. Start late to accommodate late-comers and they will assume it is ok to come late.

b)           Introduce yourself and welcome all, especially new members and thank them for their time. If it is the first meeting of the committee (or the first of the academic year), it is good practice for all members to introduce themselves.

c)            At the start of the meeting, review the overall agenda briefly and involve members in committing to the agenda.  This will give participants a chance to understand all proposed major items and to indicate any adjustments you may need to make to the agenda for new problems or priorities.

d)           Review what has previously been done, congratulating members when things have been accomplished

e)            At the start of each major agenda item, there should be a short introduction to develop a common understanding and to encourage participation. Clarify at the outset the type of action needed, the outcome expected (decision, information point, action assigned to someone).

f)            Remind members what preparation was expected of them and if colleagues were expected to read papers before the meeting don't read them out. The next time you ask them to read beforehand they will assume it is not worth the effort.

g)           Keep the meeting focussed, on time and encourage equal participation and contribution from members.  Summarise key points afterwards if lengthy. If discussions are side-tracked, take appropriate action to get back on track.

h)           Ensure that all members understand any jargon, initials or acronyms – you should not assume that everyone has equal knowledge or understanding.

i)             Ensure that all the key points are agreed and minuted and actions assigned to individuals where appropriate with the proposed time-frame and feedback required.

j)             Ensure unresolved items or non agenda items raised during the meeting are parked for later attention and it is agreed how they will be followed-up, eg agenda item for next meeting, sub-group to address outside of meeting etc.

4.      Closing the Meeting

j)       Wherever possible, end the meeting on a positive, up-beat note;

k)      Clarify that minutes and actions will be reported back to members within the normal university timescale;

l)       End the meeting on time.  This shows respect for the participants and will encourage people to commit to staying to the end.

5.      After the Meeting:

m)    Confirm with the Officer that they have a record of all key discussions, outcomes and actions.

n)     Check carefully the draft minutes sent to you by the Officer, make any necessary amendments and return promptly.

o)     Arrange any follow-up discussions.

           

6.      Finally, a few dos and don’ts

Do

·     introduce yourself, maybe new members or others observing don't know who you are

·    make everyone feel comfortable

·    enjoy yourself

Don't

·     talk too much

·     assume everyone has the same knowledge or knows what you are talking about

·     take sides

·    become a participant of the discussion

·    manipulate the meeting towards your own agenda

·    criticise the values and ideas of others

·    force your own ideas on the meeting. If necessary have someone else chair the meeting so you can take part

·    make decisions for the members without asking them for agreement 

CS2 - Meeting (Chapter 8, 9, 10)

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CS3 Business Report Slide Presentation Sample

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Tips on summary writing

Tips on summary writing