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Let Us Help Credentialize Your Student

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ENGLISH .................... 4 CREDITSAny mix, includes such courses as Grammar & Composition, American Literature, British Literature, Ancient Literature, World Literature, Biblical Literature, Poetry, Creative Writing, Analysis of Literature, and more.

U S History ............. 1 CREDIT America before 1877, America since 1877, Political History, Economic History, Military History, Technological History, American Government, Religious History of America, and more.

Social Studies ........... 1 credit History (other than U.S. History) such as European, Economic, Ancient, Western Civilization, Military History of the World, History of the Western World, Old and New Testament Survey, Religion, Geography. May also include: Sociology, Economics, Management, Marketing, Law, Macro- Economics, Micro-Economics, etc.

State Studies ............. 1/2 credit (Grade 6-12) Each student must have a basic course in their state's history, growth, geography, products, climate, and relationship to other states. (Any such 1/2 year course taken in grades 6-12 qualifies.)

Science ........................... 2 credits Earth Science, Physical Science, Biology, Chemistry, Life Science, Physical Mechanics, General Technology and Mechanics, Anatomy, Physiology, Ecology, Nutrition, Psychology, Human Growth and Development, Maternal & Child Care, Home Economics, Human Behavior, Criminology, etc.

Math ............................... 2 credits Consumer/Career Math, Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Calculus, Drafting, Computer Aided Design (CAD), Accounting, Economics, General Math, Probability, Statistics, Business Math, Advanced Mathematics, and more.

Health ........................... 1/2 credit Anatomy, Physiology, Disease, Pathology, Interpersonal Relationships, Addictions, Nutrition, Growth and Development, First Aid, etc.

Fine Arts ....................... 1 credit Individualized, Visual Arts, Performing Arts, Art Appreciation. This can include formal instruction in music, art, or drama, Participation in choirs, musical ensembles, drama. Many activities may be combined to meet this requirement.

Physical Education .. 1 credit Participate in a physical fitness activity, such as, aerobics, biking, ball games, swimming, hiking, (or any combination of these), team sports and more. Earning formal certificates also qualifies (e.g., Red Cross Life Saving Certificates).

Computer Skills ...... 1/2 credit (Grade 7-12) Basic Computer skills should include keyboarding, opening programs, creating documents, backing up & storing documents, printing, copying documents, closing & storing documents, and the proper function & care of computer equipment. (Any 1/2 year course taken in grades 7-12 qualifies.)

Electives ...................... 4 credits Any qualifying courses, or additional courses selected from the above listings (once the required credit in these areas has been earned).

The Internet, Censorship and Your Kids

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by Ken Edelston

The Supreme Court just decided to stop funding libraries that do not install filters to keep porn off the library?s computers. Unfortunately, these filters don?t work very efficiently. They often filter out untargeted information and leave in the bad stuff. Most all of this controversy stems from the natural and normal parental desire to keep their kids safe from porn. This article is about porn, the internet, keeping kids safe, and the potential harmful consequences of censorship.

First of all, parents have been trying to keep porn out of sight and totally away from their kids ever since Eve put on her fig leaf. I imagine there must have been some parents who were successful, but only because the kid didn?t really try. My rule of thumb is, ?If a kid really wants to do something, I may be able to postpone that particular gratification, but only in inverse relation to the kid?s desire.? A simpler way of putting it is, ?If your kid works at it long and hard enough, he or she will get what they want.? Now, just because hard work and dedication to get something can pay off, it doesn?t mean that I agree with or like the prize attained by such efforts. All this is to say that if a kid wants to view porn these days, nothing except confining him to his room for life will stop him. (Girls just aren't all that interested in these kinds of images, but sometimes view them anyway.)

So here is the dilemma. I don?t want my kid to be exposed to porn and I don?t want to parent like a jailkeeper. I am a realist, so I know my kid will ultimately do what he or she wants to do. This is the same issue that parents confront around the use of alcohol and other drugs, sex, and raunchy music, not to mention high risk friends, etc. The truth is that we cannot exert enough external control over our children?s behavior to really control what they do, and when we do try to exert this kind of control, we drive our kids away from us, end the possibility of dialog, and encourage them to lead secretive lives- just the opposite of what we intended.

If you have read this far, you are still interested in the topic, but may be saying to yourself something to the effect, ?I?m not about to let my 3rd grader look at this stuff on the computer, even if I have to look over his shoulder.? I basically agree with you, maybe not about the looking over the shoulder part, but I would not want my 8 year old to have free access to smut. Nor would I allow them to view PG-13 or R rated movies.

I would install some kind of filter that would limit accessibility- just as the Supreme Court has ruled that libraries must do. (Remember, however, that the Supreme Court ruling affects all computers in libraries, not just the ones that kids use.) But? and this is a big but?, limits and filters are not totally effective. The point is that I want lines of communication open with my kids, no matter what. If I act like the thought and morality police, this will not happen. As a responsible parent, it is my job to teach my values to my kids. I want my kids to learn how to deal with the incredible amount and diversity of information available to everyone. Instead of putting energy into restricting access, I am more interested in being able and willing to talk with my child.

Here are two examples (both fictitious):
Even though we don?t allow unfiltered computer access in our house, my son?s friend does. I have a sense of who these folks are and that is good enough for me. I choose not to question his friend?s parents before allowing him to go over. So, my son is free to be with this friend. One day, he comes to me and asks me why our computer doesn?t work the way his friend?s does. I ask him what he is talking about. (knowing full well exactly what he is talking about. I remember what it was like being 10) He tells me that his friend?s computer has cool pictures on some pages. I ask him to tell me what he has been looking at. He replies with a bit of vagueness, but I get the picture. I ask him if he has ever been grossed out by stuff that he has seen on the computer. His face scrunches up and he tells me that there was some real gross stuff, that he and his friend looked at it for about a split second before they went back to better stuff? and then he looks at me and asks, ?Dad, what is that gross stuff that came out of that man?s dick?? ( My son is 10. He doesn?t say penis) So, we had a little talk about sex, but mind you, a little one that was appropriate for a 10 year old who has just discovered something about human sexuality. I don?t delve deep into morality or sexual exploitation of women issues, because he is not ready to understand these abstractions. The point is that even though I would prefer that my son ride bikes with his friend and not view porn, my preference has not won out. I have a choice. I can forbid my kid from playing with this friend, or I can take this as an opportunity to give my son a way to voice his thoughts and feelings after he has had a disturbing experience. I like this idea better.

(Note: In the next example, the child I describe is not nearly as verbal. Boys are often not as verbal as in the example above, and though girls are often more verbal than boys, in this next situation, I will portray a girl with a less verbal and open response.)

The same situation exists as above. My daughter visits a friend and comes home looking a bit upset. I ask her what she is feeling, and she just shrugs and says she doesn?t know. I give her a hug and invite her to help me prepare dinner, which she likes to do. We prepare dinner together without talking much. I don?t think much of this interchange, not even enough to mention it to my spouse. I may never know about that long face, because it may never come up again. I will not know in this example, that my daughter had viewed some pornographic images on the computer as a dare by her friend. I will not know that these images were deeply disturbing to my daughter even though she tried to brush it off. I will not know that she is still seeing these images as she enters our house. I may never know.

However, if I am a savvy parent, I will have prepared as much as possible for events such as this. At some point in the past, I will have talked to my children about disturbing images. It might have been when we were looking at pictures in a book, and my child got upset with some image. In this conversation I will talk about disturbing images and how they just enter into your head and stay there like they are etched in your brain. I will say that this happens to everyone sometimes. Some people are scared of this and some are scared of that, but for certain everyone is scared of something. I will inform my child that when she gets upset over something like this, it helps to talk about it, because if you just keep it inside, the image seems to take over and get bigger and bigger. This will have set the stage for a conversation in the future.

I am suggesting a balance of limiting accessibility with openness to discuss difficult and uncomfortable information. I realize that kids are exposed to stuff that most of us could not have dreamed about. It is everywhere, commercials, movies, magazines, schools, and computers. I want to protect my child, but I don?t want my protection efforts to ruin our relationship. That is why the Supreme Court ruling makes no sense. For the most part, censorship does not work. It just stops the discussion.

About the Author:
Ken Edelston may be contacted at www.edelstoncoachinggroup.citymax.com. Ken Edelston MS is a life and business coach. He has extensive experience in counseling teens, adults, and couples. For over 20 years, Ken has specialized in treating the effects of addictions, parenting adolescent issues, and conflict resolution. His coaching practice focuses on helping individuals, families, business persons, and couples identify ineffective patterns of behavior and then exploring and implementing real change.

How To Organize Your Email Without Losing It

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By Herman Drost

Do you often get bogged down with too much email to handle, chewing up your valuable time online? With email being one of the most popular forms of online marketing you can be sure you are going to receive much more email in the future, wanted and unwanted. Picture this scenario:

You receive 40 new emails in your inbox each day:
1. 10 are from personal friends.
2. 10 are requests for more information from potential clients.
3. 10 are new newsletters that must be read.
4. 10 are junk mail

So how do you deal with it?
1. Create different email addresses using domain forwarding. If you have your own web site, your web host allows you to forward all your email from your domain (domain forwarding) to an outside address (ie james@aol.com). This is called your "catch all" address ie set up your email aliases (info@yourdomain.com, sales@yourdomain.com etc) so when you receive email from any of these, they will be forwarded to your "catch all" address. The limitation of this method is that you can't send email from your alias addresses. It can only be sent form your "catch all" email address.

2. Set-up separate email accounts. To also send mail from each new email address, you need to set up a separate email account for each address. Usually your web host will give you a number of free email (called POP3) accounts that come with your hosting package. Create a new email account for different categories ie firstname@yourdomain.com - for emailing your personal friends. newsletters@yourdomain.com - for subscribing to newsletters. articles@yourdomain.com - for submitting articles. ads@yourdomain.com - for advertising information ads1@yourdomain.com - a public email address you use for forums, newsgroups and SPAM. If the spam gets too much you can dispose of this address and set-up a new one.

3. Create new inboxes for each of these separate email accounts. Set-up your corresponding email accounts (as above) in your email software (ie outlook express, eudora etc). You will need this information: incoming mail (POP3) = mail.yourdomain.com - incoming mail server (SMTP) = mail.yourdomain.com or your ISPs - outgoing mail server. account name = newsletters@yourdomain.com password = the password you select Do this for each of each of your email accounts.

4. Create folders and subfolders in your inbox. ie newsletters - marketing tips newsletter - web design newsletter - forum newsletter This allows you to immediately categorize your incoming email by dragging and dropping it into each of these subfolders. Now you know instantly where to retrieve your past correspondence.

5. Set-up filters (message rules) for receiving different emails. Most email clients have filters or message rules you can set-up to filter your incoming email. For example to make sure you don't ever receive emails from a specific email address again, you can block the sender. To do this in outlook express, highlight the email address you received, go to message - block sender. That's it! For a more extensive tutorial on setting up extensive message rules in outlook express, go to: http://familyinternet.about.com/library/weekly/aa020603a.htm

6. Periodically delete your received email. Soon you will get into the habit of automatically hitting the delete button as you recognize email that is obviously spam. This means your inbox will fill up very quickly with deleted email and will slow down your email software. Therefore clean out your inbox at the end of every day. In Part 2 of this article, I'll go more deeply into how you can effectively deal with spam. This will help you to be more organized, save time, frustration and enable you to be more efficient in your online marketing adventures.

About the author:
Herman Drost is the author of the NEW ebook "101 Highly Effective Strategies to Promote Your Web Site" a powerful guide for attracting 1000s of visitors to your web site. http://www.isitebuild.com/web-site-promotion Subscribe to his ?Marketing Tips? newsletter for more original articles.

Let Us Help Credentialize Your Student

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ENGLISH .................... 4 CREDITSAny mix, includes such courses as Grammar & Composition, American Literature, British Literature, Ancient Literature, World Literature, Biblical Literature, Poetry, Creative Writing, Analysis of Literature, and more.

U S History ............. 1 CREDIT America before 1877, America since 1877, Political History, Economic History, Military History, Technological History, American Government, Religious History of America, and more.

Social Studies ........... 1 credit History (other than U.S. History) such as European, Economic, Ancient, Western Civilization, Military History of the World, History of the Western World, Old and New Testament Survey, Religion, Geography. May also include: Sociology, Economics, Management, Marketing, Law, Macro- Economics, Micro-Economics, etc.

State Studies ............. 1/2 credit (Grade 6-12) Each student must have a basic course in their state's history, growth, geography, products, climate, and relationship to other states. (Any such 1/2 year course taken in grades 6-12 qualifies.)

Science ........................... 2 credits Earth Science, Physical Science, Biology, Chemistry, Life Science, Physical Mechanics, General Technology and Mechanics, Anatomy, Physiology, Ecology, Nutrition, Psychology, Human Growth and Development, Maternal & Child Care, Home Economics, Human Behavior, Criminology, etc.

Math ............................... 2 credits Consumer/Career Math, Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Calculus, Drafting, Computer Aided Design (CAD), Accounting, Economics, General Math, Probability, Statistics, Business Math, Advanced Mathematics, and more.

Health ........................... 1/2 credit Anatomy, Physiology, Disease, Pathology, Interpersonal Relationships, Addictions, Nutrition, Growth and Development, First Aid, etc.

Fine Arts ....................... 1 credit Individualized, Visual Arts, Performing Arts, Art Appreciation. This can include formal instruction in music, art, or drama, Participation in choirs, musical ensembles, drama. Many activities may be combined to meet this requirement.

Physical Education .. 1 credit Participate in a physical fitness activity, such as, aerobics, biking, ball games, swimming, hiking, (or any combination of these), team sports and more. Earning formal certificates also qualifies (e.g., Red Cross Life Saving Certificates).

Computer Skills ...... 1/2 credit (Grade 7-12) Basic Computer skills should include keyboarding, opening programs, creating documents, backing up & storing documents, printing, copying documents, closing & storing documents, and the proper function & care of computer equipment. (Any 1/2 year course taken in grades 7-12 qualifies.)

Electives ...................... 4 credits Any qualifying courses, or additional courses selected from the above listings (once the required credit in these areas has been earned).

Are users stupid?

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Issue 12

Are users stupid?

Six or seven years ago I designed a website for a large Seattle biotech firm. I was at a meeting presenting the design options I had carefully created for their site. The most senior staff member from the biotech firm – a highly educated and experienced VP – pointed to an icon of an envelope and asked “what’s that?” Somewhat surprised, I replied, “you click on that to send email.” “Oh,” She said, “I wasn’t sure. I thought maybe you clicked that to ‘put away’ the site – you know, like you’re folding it up and filing it away.”

It was an eye-opening moment. My first thought was, how could someone not know that an envelope icon is email? My second thought was, how out of touch with the real world am I?

Are you experienced?

Designers often complain that users in usability studies are “too stupid” and that “real users” can figure out complex sites. They claim that the people who run usability studies deliberately select people without experience. But every experienced user was inexperienced at one point. It’s a little arrogant to think that there’s something wrong with someone who doesn’t know the same things we do. Users have their own expertise. They negotiate contracts, treat patients, design buildings or electronic devices, raise families or food. Why should they waste their precious brain cells trying to figure out how to use your website? There needs to be a pretty big, known payoff if you’re asking them to think, decipher, download special plug-ins, wait or even read. For example, a motivated user might go through some effort to learn how to pay bills online or listen to favorite music.

It’s a tough, competitive world out there on the Web. The prize goes to the company that makes it obvious what they do and easy to do it.

It’s imperative to design for the “typical user.” Unfortunately, he’s busy right now and can’t come to the computer, so we’ll have to deal with the rest of the users. And they all use web sites in different ways.

Most scan, many just click on the first likely-looking link, some search, some poke around randomly, a few are systematic, a surprising number focus quickly on one or two areas and ignore the rest of the page - as if it weren't there. And so on. What’s a designer to do?

The rules are simple:

Don’t reinvent the wheel – Be kind to page scanners. They are legion. Use navigation and labels that are in wide use and likely to be familiar to users.Break pages into clearly defined areas - Even if the words on the page were in Martian, users should be able to tell at a glance what areas contain what types of information - site identification, navigation, news, specials, etc.Offer multiple ways to explore the site – it increases the odds that any given user will find a way that suits his style.

When people have trouble using a site, they tend to blame themselves - they feel stupid. If using your site makes them feel smart and in control, you're well on your way to a successful relationship.

And what happened with the biotech exec who didn’t understand the envelope icon? I thanked her sincerely for the lesson and we used icons paired with labels.

The REAL GOAL of Education

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The money's being spent, the reform is pending, the discussion is brewing, but have we lost sight of the real goal of educating a child ?

I believe the goal is the same as it's always been -- it's never changed, it never will -- and it's simple: to prepare a child to move from childhood to adulthood. That's it. Prepare my child for adulthood. Period.

Some would say, "I don't want my child to grow up so fast." I'm not suggesting fast preparation for adulthood, I'm suggesting a truth much simpler -- children grow up to be adults, and they will grow there with us or without us; they will grow up guided by their parents or guided by their peers.

Since the actual goal of educating a child is preparation for adulthood, let's ask a few questions. How is it done? Where is it done? By whom is it done? When is it done? When is it complete? These are fundamental questions often lost in the discussion, often never asked by the general population. Most folks just turn their children over to others for academic instruction (which they mistake for preparation for adulthood). Let's take a fresh look at some of these questions.

HOW IS "EDUCATION" ACCOMPLISHED ?

For years I have maintained that a child is prepared for adulthood by mastering five essentials: morals, values, ethics, problem-solving, and decision-making.

MORALS are the principles of right and wrong. Your family has determined that some things are right and some things are wrong. Maybe your family's "rights and wrongs" are different from mine, but you have established a set of morals for your family. (ASIDE: Most of the time our morals are influenced and conform to the standards of a larger community, although the current culture seems to be eroding this aspect.) For a real education, a child must learn the moral principles of right and wrong.

VALUES are the beliefs and feelings which your family has established as "important to this family" -- the things that you value. Again this may be different for each family, but your family does have a set of values. For a real education, the child must learn what he values.

ETHICS are the principles of behavior. Ethics determine how we behave and conduct ourselves. Children pattern behavior. In the absence of a responsive, responsible adult, they will pattern the behavior of their peers (which is contrary to the goal of preparing them for adulthood). For a real education, a child must learn how to conduct himself.

PROBLEM-SOLVING is the skill of resolving difficulties. These difficulties may be as simple as getting the cookie out of the cookie jar, or may be as complex as the wind/drag resistance on a non-aerodynamic 18-wheeler (or figuring out when to tell your dad that you had an accident with his car!). Problem-solving need not be complicated, but it does need to be learned. (ASIDE: A tremendous amount of traditional classroom time is spent on problem-solving, but it is only 1/5th of the map to adulthood.) As was once said to me, let me repeat, "When my children leave home they will not know everything they'll need to know; what I hope is that they know where to find everything they'll need to know." For a real education, a child must know where to find the appropriate information and how to use that information to solve problems.

DECISION-MAKING is the highest form of readiness for adulthood. Decision-making is the skill which combines morals, values, ethics, and problem-solving to determine the next step; to determine in which direction to go. Yes, to make good decisions a child (and an adult, too) needs to call on all the other four. Just as a car moves better with all 4 tires inflated, so our decisions are steered best with no "flats" in the areas of morals, values, ethics, or problem-solving. (ASIDE: When my son got his driver's license at age 16 and drove his own car out of the driveway ALONE, I was not concerned about his morals, values, ethics, or even his problem-solving -- because he can fix just about anything -- what I prayed for was his decision-making.) For a real education, a child must learn to make sound decisions.

So, having determined the goal of a real education and the five essentials needed for moving a child toward adulthood, where is this best accomplished?

WHERE IS THE BEST PLACE TO ACQUIRE A REAL EDUCATION ?

I believe the best place for a real education is in the real world with real people doing real things that really matter. Not in a place where the environment is actually controlled by manipulative age-mates and marginally monitored by an adult. Not a place where the child is exposed only to pre-planned and pre-canned issues. Not a fake place where the problems are made up and phony. Not a place where the right answer is buried in the teacher's manual.

The real world: real people doing real things that really matter.

The education of a child includes observing how mom & dad (& other adults) function in all the systems necessary to survive -- food, clothing, shelter, transportation, communication, health, employment, finance, government, religion, family, friends, community, interpersonal relationships, and more. Such learning observations do not occur in the classroom where the child is sheltered from the real world, where the child is forced to be confined long hours with age-mates. Better observations occur in the home and communities of responsive, responsible, adults who care for their children.

WHO SHOULD BE THE ONE TO DIRECT MY CHILD'S EDUCATION ?

Parents should be the ones directing their child's education. No exceptions. Parents should be the ones making the decisions. From time to time that may mean using professional teachers (or other professionals) as "consultants" for the child's educational plan, but parents should not use such professionals as "controllers" of their child's plan. Yes, professionals and schools should be used as consultants, not controllers. After working 13 years with parents looking for better answers for their child's education, I believe it is a serious mistake to relinquish parental control to others. Sometimes it means re-claiming complete control by homeschooling.

Homeschooling does not mean that Mom or Dad must teach the child everything. Just as parents are accustomed to hiring a piano teacher or an art teacher, so parents can also "hire" the school to teach that algebra course or chemistry lab. Depending on where a homeschooler lives, several options exist -- an arrangement with the local public school, classes at a local private school, public adult education courses (night school), the local community college, the state university system, private colleges, and don't forget just hiring a tutor to get the job done (sometimes this can be bartered), or even using a neighbor or a relative.

Parents are not restricted by their own limitations -- they can solicit or negotiate or hire others to carry out some areas of expertise. When my homeschooled daughter was 12 years old, she wanted to take a foreign language. She did not choose the usual French or Spanish, she chose Hebrew. After the shock wore off, we found she could join a basic Hebrew class at the local synagogue. She loved it, we were pleased, and we never abdicated our control over her education just because she took a Hebrew course from someone else. (Incidentally, when she successfully finished her Hebrew class, she decided she wanted to learn ASL, American Sign Language. She took evening classes at Maine's Baxter School for the Deaf.)

But quite apart from the academics, please remember that the broader base for a child's real education (preparing for adulthood) is to observe, model, and probe the activities of the parents in real life.

Conclusion? Parents should be the ones directing their child's education. No exceptions.

WHEN DOES A REAL EDUCATION TAKE PLACE ?

Not between the hours of 8:00 AM and 2:00 PM. Over the course of a day, education has no real beginning and no real ending, but in American society we have conditioned our children to believe that academic "stuff" is done during academic hours. Should we happen to ask our child a simple math question in the supermarket, too often we hear, "Dad, I get that in school all day, I shouldn't have to do that now, too!" Sad. Instead of being a chore (because it has been made "work" in the classroom), wouldn't it be great if the child saw this as a logical question for answering an actual real life question about the price of groceries?

Real education does not take place from just September to June each year. Yet educators lament about how much most children "lose" over the summer. Wouldn't it be great if a "teachable attitude" could be a continuum (albeit with ups and downs); but our communities have conditioned the children to shut it off for months at a time by declaring, "School's out!" "We've got the summer off!" "See you next year!" So the "teachable attitude" is shut off until they get back to school.

Real education does not take place between the ages of 5 and 18. You may have heard that approximately 1/3 of everything a child learns, he has already learned before he is 5 years old. What happens after the child begins school? He learns (at least by implication), "These are the things you need to know. And when you know these things, you're finished." Such implied messages are unfortunate, because much more is needed, even beyond the age of 18.

HOW WILL I KNOW WHEN MY CHILD'S EDUCATION IS COMPLETE ?

Homeschooling parents of high schoolers often ask, "How can I tell when my child has finished high school?" That's a great question.

The institutional way of thinking involves the milestones set by institutions -- elementary school graduation, secondary school (high school) graduation, post-secondary graduation, and post-graduate graduation. At each of these stages the institution bestows a "credential" on the graduate. The "credential" indicates that a certain level has been reached and recognized by an institution. Traditional thinking is "the higher the credential, the more complete the education".

But I have a different idea. Let's separate "learning" from "credentializing".

While credentializing can be "finished" or "done," learning is never finished, never done. You probably expected me to say that, so let me continue with something you might not expect. You could believe that your homeschooled high schooler is done with his high school career when he has received the credential you'd like. That may mean a public high school diploma from the local adult education department; it may mean a diploma from a homeschool-friendly private school; it may mean skipping the diploma altogether and enrolling in college course work; or it may mean being accepted and admitted to a university even without any high school diploma. All of which are done every day. And there are many more options, too, but most people don't think of these options. Most people have been "institutionalized" with institutional thinking imposed (inflicted) by the institutions they attended. They not only don't know the answers, they have never considered the questions!

The general public may not ask important questions such as "What is the goal of an education?" or "Where is the best place to acquire an education?" or "Who is best qualified to teach my child what's necessary for a real education?" or "When will I know when my child's education is complete?"

But somewhere along the line, most homeschoolers have asked these foundational questions. And they have come up with their own answers. In fact, in some parts of the country, people have stopped asking "How can we make homeschools more like public schools?" Instead, they ask, "How can we make public schools more like homeschools?" When the general population asks that question, we will be on the way to true educational reform. Congratulations, homeschoolers, you just might have it right!

SPAM How Much Will it Cost Your Business?

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According to a recent study conducted by Ferris Research, a market and technology research firm specializing in messaging and collaboration, Spam will cost U.S. businesses over $10 billion in 2003.

Spam not only clogs our servers and in-boxes, but it also costs us hours and hours of lost time in productivity.

Although the estimated cost of Spam focuses mainly on lost productivity, this picture may be much broader than you realize.

Some of the more popular email providers, such as AOL (America Online), Yahoo! and Hotmail, are now utilizing filters to cut down on Spam. These filters are dumping Spam and/or bulk mailings into a separate location. Although this may cut down on Spam in your in-box, these filters are also dumping some legitimate email messages.

What's more, some hosting services not only filter the email messages, but they're also blocking entire hosting companies. For example, the blocking host may have gotten some Spam complaints about a few marketers that host with ABC hosting company. (Keep in mind, ABC hosting company may host thousands of sites.) Rather than block the offending marketers, the blocking host decides to blacklist the entire ABC host.

What this means is if you try to contact someone and their hosting company has blacklisted your host, your email will not go through -- it will bounce right back to you.

If you suspect you may not be receiving all of your email, contact your host and ask them if they're using Spam filters or have blocked entire hosting companies.

How Much Will Spam Cost Your Business?

How much time do you spend sorting through the Spam in your email each day? Add it up sometime -- I'll bet you'll find you spend a lot more time than you even realized -- time that could have been spent on your business.

If you're publishing an ezine or sending out any form of opt-in mailings, how many subscribers are actually receiving your mailings? Most-likely, not nearly as many subscribers as you may think. How many lost sales has this cost you?

How many messages, such as information requests, customer support requests, etc., have you not received due to filtering?

How many messages have you replied to that your customers or potential customers have never received due to filtering?

As customer service says a lot about your business practices, how many customers will you lose?

The list goes on and on. But the point is this, Spam is costing you dearly.

So how can you defend yourself? Well, it depends on which side you're on -- how to protect yourself, and/or how to make sure your messages are getting through.

In order to protect yourself against Spam, you first need to understand how your email address is obtained.

There are many unethical businesses online that collect and sell email addresses. They use robots that travel from link to link in search of email addresses. Their customers are led to believe that these email addresses belong to individuals who want to receive mailings. However, much of the time, this isn't the case.

Never purchase a list of email addresses from anyone other than a reputable company. The only company I can recommend is Post Master Direct. http://www.postmasterdirect.com

To protect your email address from these robots, instead of displaying your address on your site, use a feedback form. Not just any type of form, but a form that doesn't display your email address within the hidden form fields. The only form I can recommend is Master Feedback. You can pick up a free copy here: http://willmaster.com/master/feedback/index.shtml

Anytime you're filling out a form online and you're asked to provide your email address, make sure you review the site's "Privacy Policy" to ensure that your email address will not be sold or shared with a third party.

To protect your in-box, you can use a Spam filtering software program. Although there are several available online, the best one I've found is Mail Washer. This program will enable you to view all the email on your server without actually downloading it into your email program. Once you've reviewed your messages, you can create filters and bounce the Spam messages back to the sender. Although you can pick up the program free, consider supporting the developer and register the software for a small fee. http://www.mailwasher.net

If you're sending out a mailing to an opt-in list, there are a few steps you can take to make sure your message won't trip the Spam filters:

1) Avoid using trigger words, such as Spam, fr*e, r*move, etc. Although the list is far too broad to list here, you can learn more by reading the following articles:
Spam Filters Run-Amuck by Timothy A. Gross http://www.iprofitsystems.com/articles/spamfilters.html

CLIP & SAVE guide to avoiding Spam filters by Debbie Weil http://www.imakenews.com/wordbiz/e_article000094161.cfm

2) Avoid using JavaScript within your messages.

3) Avoid using "bad" words. If you'd like to ensure your messages are getting through, consider opening email accounts with the popular providers. You can send your mailings to these accounts and monitor their reception.

If your mailings land in the dump, you can make some adjustments or even contact the company. If you would like to test your outgoing email messages to ensure they won't trigger a Spam filter, Ken Evoy offers a great service called SpamCheck. This free service will enable you to send a copy of your publication, or any email message, to a specific address and it will return a report of possible words that will trigger the Spam filters.

Send your publication including the subject and body to:
mailto:spamcheck-websource@sitesell.net

The Spam problem continues to get progressively worse. Although there isn't a simple solution to the problem, the information provided in this article should assist you in not only avoiding Spam, but also avoiding the filters for your legitimate mailings.

It's really a shame we're even in this position. However, we cannot allow Spam to continue to infiltrate our businesses. We must take the necessary steps to ensure our success.

Copyright ? Shelley Lowery 2003. All Rights Reserved

About the Author:
Shelley Lowery is the author of several successful ebooks including Web Design Mastery - An in-depth guide to professional web design. Ebook Starter - A Complete Ebook Design Kit, and eZines: A Complete Guide to Publishing for Profit. Subscribe to Etips and receive a free copy of her highly acclaimed ebook, "Killer Internet Marketing Strategies." http://www.web-source.net

Private Schools, Maine Law, and Parental CHOICE

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Parent's choice, Private Schools, and Maine Law (730 words)

From the Sun Journal to the Boston Globe to the Miami Herald, why all the media about our Lewiston private school? Because resourceful high school seniors in Florida found a way to avoid exit exams by transferring their credits to our Maine high school. Maine families can learn a lesson from this.

As flattered as we are, when news travels, the issues can become clouded. So, as the founder and administrator of the school, please allow me set the perspective.

Five things should be cited.

1. The North Atlantic Regional High School (NARHS) has been a state-authorized, state-recognized private school for 15 years. Our status is validated and verified every year by a letter from the Maine Department of Education?s School Approval Office. The letter and the law identify the 201 private schools similar to ours as a ?school providing equivalent instruction.? We are legal. We are equivalent. In addition, our school is fully accredited by the National Private Schools Association.

2. NARHS is a truly private school because we receive NO public funds. As truly private, our standards are adopted by our team of 12 certified teachers and administrators. A 1983 US Federal Court decision issued in Bangor, Maine, forbids the Maine Department of Education from interfering in the credits, teachers, curriculum, and detailed operations of private schools in Maine. (Bangor Baptist Church v. Maine, 576 F. Supp.1299 (D.Me.1983). Without beaurocratic or governmental interference, NARHS graduates have gone to Julliard, Harvard, West Point, Penn State, Cornell, and hundreds of other well-known colleges and universities.

3. Last fall, the Haitian Refugee Center in Miami approached NARHS and asked if we could help their high school students. These students had earned all of the necessary graduation credits from their local public high school; but they could not pass one reading portion of the mandatory Florida exit exams (FCAT). In Florida, if the student cannot pass all of the FCAT sections, they are denied a high school diploma, regardless of how many credits they have. These particular students had come from Haiti 2 to 4 years ago as legal refugees. English was their third language, and they failed one English comprehension portion of the FCAT.

NARHS administrators flew to Miami to review the situation, and found that most of these students had GPA?s over 3.0 and had far exceeded Maine?s graduation requirements. Therefore, the students simply registered with NARHS, transferred their public school credits, and 77 of them were awarded the high school diploma each had earned. Many of them went immediately into local colleges in Miami.

4. Education officials in Florida are not pleased that students have found a way to avoid Florida's FCAT exit exam requirements. But, since Maine does not yet require exit exams, the students who applied and fulfilled the Maine graduation requirements had earned their diplomas. Maine education officials may be a bit nervous about this. Because in 2007, Maine public schools will also require a successful exit exam score to earn a high school diploma. Students must pass every section of this one test, or they will not get a diploma -- regardless of how may credits they have. But, even in 2007, private schools will not be required to adopt this additional standard. Maine private schools will still be allowed to issue valid, legal diplomas to any student who has earned the required number of credits. No exit exams can be required in truly private schools or of homeschoolers. That gives parents and students another route, another choice. Maine education officials know it. They seem to be displeased that we know it, too.

5. This is a CHOICE issue. High school credits earned belong to the students. Students own their credits and can use them at any school that will accept them, including out of state schools. This has always been the practice of transferring credits between schools. If families do not like what is going on in public school, they can move their students (and their credits) to a private school.

Why all the media attention for our little Lewiston private school? Resourceful students have found a way to avoid single-test, high-stakes exit exams by transferring to our Maine high school. It?s simple. It?s legal. It?s clear. It?s their choice.

SATs: Are they still important?

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By RAY ROUTHIER, Portland Press Herald Writer

Are the SATs as important as they used to be? In this age of the Internet and Pentium processors, is a multiple choice test taken on a single Saturday morning still one of the best ways for colleges to weed out applicants?

It depends who is answering the question. Many colleges say SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) scores are maybe the fourth or fifth most important measure of a student's suitability for college, after course level, grades and class rank. Some 300 colleges nationwide don't even require applicants to submit standardized test results. The argument against SATs is that they can be biased toward certain types of students, and are generally not good indicators of how a student will do in college.

But talk to students and parents and you'll think SATs are crucial. Some youngsters pay $750 or so for intensive SAT prep courses. Others buy SAT study guides. Many high school students take the SATs twice (usually at the end of junior year and the beginning of senior year) plus one or two SAT II tests, which measure knowledge of certain subjects.

The pressure to do whatever it takes to get into the best college - including taking as many standardized tests as possible - seems more intense than ever before.

"I'm taking four tests this year (SAT, two SAT II tests and the ACT entrance test), and that's less than a lot of people I know," said Kate Caulfield, a Yarmouth High junior. "It's fairly ridiculous, but it's expected."

SATs, created in the 1920s, are caught in the middle of two conflicting movements. First, there's the 20-year-old movement among civil rights groups and education activists to put less emphasis on standardized tests. Those groups say tests like the SATs are unfair to women and to people who speak English as a second language, for example.

But colleges are also getting more applications than ever, thanks in large part to the ease of online applications. So there's more competition than ever to get into certain schools, and SAT scores can provide an edge for students and an additional measuring stick for colleges.

"When I started here 16 years ago, if someone applied to more than four or five colleges, that was a lot," said Gary Vines, a guidance counselor at Deering High School. "I had a young man who just applied to 10 colleges and got accepted at all but his first choice. With so many more applicants, it gets tougher for colleges to choose between students."

One of the pioneers in the movement away from SATs was Bates College in Lewiston. In 1984, Bates dropped the requirement that SAT scores be submitted with applications. Since then, the number of applicants to Bates each year has more than doubled and the college's administrators feel they have a more diverse and well-rounded student body because of it. The SAT tests only math and verbal skills.

Other Maine colleges that don't require SAT scores from all or some of their applicants include: Bowdoin College in Brunswick; College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor; Unity College in Unity; and the University of Maine System campuses in Augusta, Farmington, Fort Kent and Presque Isle.

"One of the reasons we dropped the requirement is that we wanted to give a strong signal about what Bates values - show us what you can do outside of a single test score," said Bill Hiss, vice president for external affairs at Bates. "The SATs predict the (college) success of some students reasonably well, but not well at all for others. We feel that human intelligence is more complex and subtle than can be measured with one test."

Jennifer Greenlaw, a Portland High School senior, is a good example of what Hiss describes. She has a 95.6 grade average, is in the National Honor Society and regularly makes the honor roll. Despite her high academic achievement over four years of high school, her SAT score was poor - 860 - well below the 1000 mark a lot of colleges use as a cut-off point. She did not take an SAT prep course or use an SAT study guide.

"The things that are on the SAT, you have to be taught them. I don't think you can study for them, you either know it or you don't," said Greenlaw. "I think it depends on the type of learning you're good at. I'm not good at tests, I do better with hands-on projects."

Greenlaw's first choice of a college was the University of Southern Maine, and she was accepted despite her score. But she says she didn't get a quick answer, and she fears that if she applied at other schools her score would have blocked her acceptance.

David Pirani, director of undergraduate admission at USM, said it's rare that high-performing students like Greenlaw get turned down because of a low SAT score. His department looks first at how many difficult courses an applicant takes - how challenged the student was. Then Pirani looks at grades and class rank.

After those are considered, Pirani said, SAT and other scores are considered. Then the subjective parts of the application, such as the interview, recommendations and essay, are weighed.

"I'd say that good SAT scores can never hurt an application, but it's rare they'd be considered above the other academic elements," said Pirani. "SATs are one more measure we can use."

Staff Writer Ray Routhier can be contacted at 791-6454 or at:

rrouthier@pressherald.com

Copyright ? 2003 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

Working hard or...

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Issue 19

Working hard or...

If your website were an employee, what kind of performance review would it get? Is it representing your company in a positive and productive way? Or is it shuffling papers, looking busy but accomplishing little or nothing? Companies plow thousands of dollars into websites and yet tolerate poor performance that would get any other worker the axe.

But a website, if properly managed, can be a valuable, contributing team member. And you can apply the same standards you would to any other worker.

You site should:

Be productive. It's one thing to look busy, it's another thing to contribute to the bottom line. We've all known employees who were good at looking busy and creating a lot of stir that looks like action. But it's the hard-working team members who, no matter how quietly, consistently complete the tasks that are most beneficial to the company.
Have a clear job description. You can't really know if your site is a productive worker if you don't know what it's supposed to be doing. If you have clear objectives then you will have some basis on which to judge performance.
Consume resources in proportion to its benefit to the company. If your site is productive and hard-working - bringing in new business leads, supporting to customers, aiding communication - then plowing more company resources into maintaining and upgrading makes sense. But if it's costing you more to keep it going than you're getting in return or if it's taking up space that would be better used by a go-getter, it's time to make a change.
Be held accountable to management for performance. Again, this goes back to having clear objectives - standards by which to judge performance. Like any other employee, your site should have periodic performance reviews so you can make informed decisions about its future.

Like an employee, sites vary a lot in their performance. Sometimes it's worth investing in a low-performing employee because they only need additional skills to achieve their potential. Some employees are less amenable to improvement and should be replaced. In either case, it's hard to know if you don't take a good, hard look.

DDoS attackers start targeting IPv6 networks

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Source: IT World - Posted by Dave Wreski    Intrusion Detection It had to happen: Criminals are trying to find holds in the IPv6 protocol by launching denial of service attacks. Cybercriminals have started launching distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against networks that transmit data over IPv6, according to a report published recently by DDoS mitigation vendor Arbor Networks. Even though 2011 was the first year when IPv6 DDoS attacks were recorded, such incidents remain rare because they are not economically relevant for Internet criminals, said Bill Cerveny, a senior software quality assurance engineer at Arbor.

Read this full article at IT World

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Tiki Announces 3.5 and 4.2 Releases

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By: Rick On: Sun 28 Feb. 2010 00:44 CET (903 Reads)
Coming Soon: Tiki 5
The next major release, Tiki 5, is planned for April 2010 and will include many new features including shopping cart and payment support, improved translation/multilingual support, an advanced rating and scoring system, workspaces, performance improvements, and much more. See http://doc.tikiwiki.org/Tiki5(external link) for additional information on this upcoming release. Early adopters can obtain pre-release versions of Tiki 5 directly from the SVN repository. http://dev.tikiwiki.org/Daily+Build(external link)

About Tiki
TikiWiki CMS/Groupware is a full-featured, web-based, multilingual (35+ languages), tightly integrated, all-in-one Wiki+CMS+Groupware, Free Source Software (GNU/LGPL), using PHP, MySQL, Zend Framework, jQuery and Smarty. Actively developed by a very large international community, Tiki can be used to create all kinds of Web applications, sites, portals, knowledge bases, intranets, and extranets. For more information, visit http://tikiwiki.org.(external link)

1. Special thanks to Mateusz Drygas(external link) for reporting a security issue. For all Tiki security issues, please use http://security.tikiwiki.org(external link).

Testing or Assessment?

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In Maine, if you have filed paperwork with the Department of Education to be an official homeschooler, you have agreed to provide the Dept. with an annual assessment at the end of each homeschooling year.

Assessment does not mean "testing," necessarily. Testing is among the options provided, but it is not your only choice. Some disagree with testing, some fear it, some were labeled by it, some do not believe in it. That's fine. Maine's homeschoolers are not required to be tested. Consider all the options:

1. Provision for a standardized achievement test through the local school unit or through other arrangements approved by the Commissioner. If administered through the local school unit, such provision must be agreed to by the local school unit prior to submission of the equivalent instruction application." Translation: this is a standardized achievement test. If you want the local school to do it and have them pay for it, you must make that arrangement before you file your paperwork with the Dept. of Education. Otherwise you may hire a qualified tester to administer a standardized achievement test.

2. Provision for a test developed by the local school unit appropriate to the student's education plan. This provision must be agreed to by the local school unit prior to the submission of the equivalent instruction application." Translation: You could ask the local public school to invent a test for your child to take at the end of the homeschool year. This option is rarely chosen.

3. Provision for a review and acceptance of the student's progress by an identified individual who holds a current Maine teacher's certificate." Translation: You can hire a certified Maine teacher to review your child's work. The teacher then writes a letter stating that the student has made acceptable progress. This is the most common form of Annual Assessment, and usually includes the review of a student?s written work, projects, tests, quizzes, papers, interviews, home-made videos, and any other work the child & parent want to present to the teacher.

4. Provision for a review and acceptance of the students progress through, but not limited to, a presentation of an educational portfolio on the student to a local area homeschooling support group whose membership for this purpose includes a currently certified Maine teacher or administrator." Translation: A local homeschooling support group may hire a certified teacher to join them at a meeting to review student portfolios. This is becoming more common as families try to share the cost of an Annual Assessment with other families.

5. Provision for a review and acceptance of the students progress by a local advisory board selected by the superintendent (of the public school) which shall include one administrative unit personnel and two home instruction tutors. This provision must be agreed to by the local school unit prior to the submission of the equivalent instruction application. Be sure to contact local school officials well enough in advance to permit all participants to gain sufficient knowledge of the home schooling program. Be advised that the local Superintendent of Schools will select the board members in this option (underlining added). Translation: The local public school officials will pick a group to review your child?s work if you want them to. This option is rarely chosen.

Annual Assessment -- yes, it's required. Who chooses it? You do. Pick one, call us, and we'll get it done -- by homeschoolers, for homeschoolers. We do it.

Call 800-882-2828 for details.

A Crash Course in Ezine Publishing

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An ezine, also know as an email magazine, online publication or electronic newsletter is simply a newsletter available via email and/or online. There are hundreds of thousands of ezines on various subjects available on the Internet free of charge.

Having your own publication will not only enable you to keep in touch with your visitors, but it will help you build a huge database of targeted customers. If you've been marketing on the Internet, then you know it may take several contacts with a prospective customer before closing a sale. What better way to make those contacts, without spamming... In addition, you can eventually make a nice income selling sponsor advertising and classified ads.

You can publish an ezine completely free. There are many list servers such as; Egroups (http://www.egroups.com), Onelist (http://www.onelist.com) & Listbot (http://www.listbot.com) that will host your list (ezine) free of charge. In addition, they take care of all your subscription requests so you won't have to. To use one of these list servers, simply sign up and instantly create your list. They will provide you with a subscribe and unsubscribe email address and even a list owner email address, all completely free. The only disadvantage is that each posting will contain an ad for their service. This is really a small price to pay for such a great service. If you're just starting out, utilizing one of these free services can simplify the process.

- CONTENT -

A quality ezine should contain at least some original content. Don't let the fear of writing intimidate you. If your ezine's focus is on an area of your expertise you shouldn't have any problems coming up with something to write about. If you've been out of school for a while, you might want to freshen up on your writing and grammar skills. Visit any of the sites listed below for a crash course.

Garbl's Writing Resources Online - http://pweb.netcom.com/~garbl1/writing.html

11 Rules of Writing - http://www.junketstudies.com/rulesofw/

Exploring English - http://www.shared-visions.com/explore/english/

Simpler Words And Phrases - http://www.smartbiz.com/sbs/arts/tpl5.htm

Here are some additional resources for obtaining free content for your publication. Before using any articles, make sure you review the author's copyrights and make certain the article may be published. If you're not sure, contact the author and request permission to publish their article. Most articles for publication can be used in your ezine free of charge as long as the authors credits or resource box is included.

- FREE CONTENT -

Article Announce - Writer & Publisher Exchange http://www.web-source.net/article-announce Subscribe: article_announce-subscribe@egroups.com

E-ZineZ.com - http://www.e-zinez.com/

Marketing & Advertising Supersite - http://drnunley.com/

BizWeb2000 - http://bizweb2000.com/articles.htm

Success Doctor - http://success-doctor.com/archive.htm

IdeaMarketers - http://www.ideamarketers.com/

- FOCUS -

Your ezine should focus on a subject in which you have a great deal of knowledge. If you have a web site, you should also take into consideration the focus of your web site; i.e., If your web site's focus is on Internet Marketing, you wouldn't want to have your ezines focus to be on "Animals & Pets," you would want it to be on "Internet Marketing."

- TITLE -

The title of your ezine is one of the most important decisions you can make. Many e-zine listing sites list their ezines in alphabetical order. By selecting a title such as, "Advertising Secrets" instead of "Working Online," your publication will be listed towards the top instead of the bottom. This will give your publication an advantage over the publications listed below yours. Potential subscribers will see your ezine first and be more apt to subscribe. Your title should sound intriguing and tell your potential subscriber exactly what your publication is all about.

- PUBLISHING SCHEDULE -

You can publish your ezine as often as you like. When you first begin you may want to only publish once a month until your subscriber base has grown. You can always increase your publication to bi-weekly or weekly whenever you'd like.

- SIZE -

There has been a great deal of controversy over the size of an ezine. In my humble opinion, size really doesn't matter. If you publish a quality e-zine with a great deal of content, I don't feel that your subscribers will care what size it is within reason. You should; however, take into consideration that your subscribers may not want to download it. If it is too large, America Online will automatically turn it into a file attachment. Consider either condensing it or separating it into "Part One" and "Part Two."

- WEB SITE -

It isn't imperative that your ezine have its own web site, however, it is HIGHLY recommended. Having your own site will enable you to give your visitors an in depths look at exactly what your publication is all about. You can include highlights of upcoming editions, polls, archives and a subscription box to allow your visitors to easily subscribe.

- ADVERTISING -

You should probably wait to begin selling advertising space until you have at least 1000 subscribers. You can sell ad space for $25 for every 1000 subscribers you have. There is a lot of advertising competition to take into consideration when selling ad space so, you may want to begin selling your ad space at a lower rate or offer special incentives; i.e., Buy two weeks of advertising for $20 get the third week free. Try to limit the number of ads per issue to ten and place them in the center of your publication. This will not only ensure adequate exposure for your advertisers, but your subscribers won't be overwhelmed with advertising as well.

- STYLE & FORMAT -

The appearance of your ezine is one of the most important factors in determining your e-zine's success. Getting subscribers is the easy part. Keeping them will entail a little work. A professionally written, well designed, content rich publication will ensure your ezines success.

When formatting your ezine, keep in mind there are many different types of email programs and they are not all created equal. As a general rule, to accommodate all of your subscribers and their different email programs, it is probably best to write your ezine in plain text. As with email programs, word processing programs are not all created equal as well. Your regular word processing programs are great for writing business letters, sales letters, etc., but not a good choice for writing your newsletter due to formatting issues. A good program to consider using is Notepad. This program should already be on your desktop.

Another consideration of great importance is your line length. If your text lines are too long, some email programs that aren't capable of viewing long text lines will force the last few words to the next line and your text will be viewed like this:

When formatting your publication your text
length is
one of the most important factors in
determining how professional your publication
will appear.

As a rule, a generally safe line-length is 65 characters (including spaces).

As you begin typing your text, when you reach 65 characters, use a hard carriage return. (Hit Enter)

If you'd rather not have to worry about hard carriage returns, you might want to use a program called "TextPad". http://www.textpad.com/. This program can be set to automatically insert a hard carriage return when your text has reached 65 characters.

When you're ready to begin, make an outline for the contents of your e-zine to enable you to create a template.

After you've written your publication and you're ready to copy & paste it into your email program, make certain your email preferences are set to allow at least 65 characters of text per line. If your preferences are set for less, when you paste your text to be mailed it will appear to be improperly formatted.

It is highly recommended that you send a sample copy of your publication to yourself prior to sending it to your subscribers. By viewing your publication in this manner you will get an idea of what your subscribers will see and it will enable you to correct any formatting problems.

Publishing your own ezine is one of the best marketing decisions you'll ever make. Take your time, research your subject and design a publication of quality, useful content.

For further information on publishing your own ezine, you may download the free ebook entitled, "Ezines: A Complete Guide to Publishing." This free e-book received a 4-star Editors Pick from ZDNet.
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About the Author:
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Testing or Assessment?

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In Maine, if you have filed paperwork with the Department of Education to be an official homeschooler, you have agreed to provide the Dept. with an annual assessment at the end of each homeschooling year.

Assessment does not mean "testing," necessarily. Testing is among the options provided, but it is not your only choice. Some disagree with testing, some fear it, some were labeled by it, some do not believe in it. That's fine. Maine's homeschoolers are not required to be tested. Consider all the options:

1. Provision for a standardized achievement test through the local school unit or through other arrangements approved by the Commissioner. If administered through the local school unit, such provision must be agreed to by the local school unit prior to submission of the equivalent instruction application." Translation: this is a standardized achievement test. If you want the local school to do it and have them pay for it, you must make that arrangement before you file your paperwork with the Dept. of Education. Otherwise you may hire a qualified tester to administer a standardized achievement test.

2. Provision for a test developed by the local school unit appropriate to the student's education plan. This provision must be agreed to by the local school unit prior to the submission of the equivalent instruction application." Translation: You could ask the local public school to invent a test for your child to take at the end of the homeschool year. This option is rarely chosen.

3. Provision for a review and acceptance of the student's progress by an identified individual who holds a current Maine teacher's certificate." Translation: You can hire a certified Maine teacher to review your child's work. The teacher then writes a letter stating that the student has made acceptable progress. This is the most common form of Annual Assessment, and usually includes the review of a student?s written work, projects, tests, quizzes, papers, interviews, home-made videos, and any other work the child & parent want to present to the teacher.

4. Provision for a review and acceptance of the students progress through, but not limited to, a presentation of an educational portfolio on the student to a local area homeschooling support group whose membership for this purpose includes a currently certified Maine teacher or administrator." Translation: A local homeschooling support group may hire a certified teacher to join them at a meeting to review student portfolios. This is becoming more common as families try to share the cost of an Annual Assessment with other families.

5. Provision for a review and acceptance of the students progress by a local advisory board selected by the superintendent (of the public school) which shall include one administrative unit personnel and two home instruction tutors. This provision must be agreed to by the local school unit prior to the submission of the equivalent instruction application. Be sure to contact local school officials well enough in advance to permit all participants to gain sufficient knowledge of the home schooling program. Be advised that the local Superintendent of Schools will select the board members in this option (underlining added). Translation: The local public school officials will pick a group to review your child?s work if you want them to. This option is rarely chosen.

Annual Assessment -- yes, it's required. Who chooses it? You do. Pick one, call us, and we'll get it done -- by homeschoolers, for homeschoolers. We do it.

Call 800-882-2828 for details.

Parental Controls And Blocking Software Are Only As Good As Your Password

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by Colin Gabriel Hatcher

Many parents use and indeed rely on the various technological measures used by internet companies to prevent children's access to adult materials. These include parental access controls, blocking and filtering software, and activity logs. But some parents can forget that since they have to use a password in order to access, edit or set-up these features on their internet service, that password is the only thing preventing their children from getting the same access!

There are two important issues when it comes to choosing a good password. Firstly, what word will you use? Secondly, will you write it down and if so where will you store it? Children are often very clever at guessing or working out what password you chose, and if they can't guess it, they might also be good at finding it where you hid it. Many parents keep their passwords in a nearby drawer, in their purse, or even written on the underside of the keyboard! Imagine how easy these are for children to find!

First then, what is a good password. A good password is at least 7 letters long and includes both letters and numbers. Try to avoid choosing obvious words like the names of your family, or your favorite food, and avoid using numbers of your family's birthdays and anniversaries, or your favorite number - these will be the first words and numbers your kids will try! Avoid also using one word - use two words that connect in some way, like a plural noun and an adjective, but pick word combinations that would not normally be used together, e.g. "redmoons", "peculiaroceans" or "bizarredolphins" (but not "bluemoons", "deepoceans" or "blackcats" - these are guessable!). You could even pick these words from a dictionary at random.

Now add some numbers (at least 2). Pick them truly at random - roll a dice! Now that you have your numbers (let's say 2 numbers for this example), use them at the beginning of the password and also again at the end, e.g., if you roll 6 and 2 on your dice, make your password "62peculiaroceans62", or "62redmoons62". If you are feeling enterprising you could even use them 3 times, like this: "62bizarre62dolphins62".

An alternative password making technique is to think of a sentence with words and numbers in it, and then reduce the words to their first letters. So for example: "66 chickens running over 7 hills dropping 6 eggs" becomes: "66cro7hd6e". These kinds of passwords are called "mnemonic" passwords. But be careful: if you forget the sentence you originally thought up you will forget the password!

Now what about writing it down? Well the best rule is don't! The idea is that if you create a memorable password you won't need to write it down, because it will stick in your mind. On the other hand if your password is complex and illogical, e.g., 6rtt577y8tu889, then it may be effective but you may need to write it down.

Remember, if it's written down someone can find it (Your child may not be able to find their socks, but be assured they will find your password!) If you really have to write it down in case you forget it, don't keep it at home where your child can find it, but instead give it to a friend you could telephone in a password emergency. (Don't give it to a friend whose house your child regularly visits. Remember, children like to search and they are very good at it!).

A final piece of advice. Even after all your efforts, your child might still crack your password. It is possible for example for your child to obtain software from the internet that assists a person to crack a password, by trying literally millions of combinations of letters and numbers. So the rule is: NO password is foolproof EVER. In other words, NEVER rely on your password alone to protect your child. You should also keep a careful eye on things. Remember, there really is no substitute for active parental involvement in what children are doing online.

About the Author:
Colin Gabriel Hatcher may be contacted at http://www.safetyed.org . Englishman Colin Gabriel Hatcher, a Silicon Valley California attorney and lifelong volunteer youth worker, is the innovative mastermind behind SafetyEd International. With 21 years experience in education, 12 years experience as a Martial Arts Instructor (he holds 5 black belts), 11 years of computer experience, and over 7 years working in internet related safety, child protection and child advocacy, Colin is an accomplished expert researcher and writer in the internet field, as well as being an expert in internet and cyberspace law.

Children Educated at Home Don't Become Social Misfits

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Ann Arbor: Teaching children at home won't make them social misfits, a University of Michigan study suggests.

The detailed study of 53 adults who were taught at home by their parents is one of the first to examine the long-term effects of homeschooling - a practice now followed by as many as 300,000 American families.

"One of the major arguments against home schooling is that it deprives children of the peer contacts needed for normal social development," says J. Gary Knowles, U-M assistant professor of education. "Public school educators and other critics also question whether home-educated children will be able to become productive, participating members of a diverse and democratic society.

"But I found no evidence that these adults were even moderately disadvantaged in either respect. Two-thirds of them were married - the norm for adults their age - and none were unemployed or on any form of welfare assistance. More than three-quarters felt that being taught at home had actually helped them interact with people from different levels of society."

For the study, presented recently at an educational conference in New Zealand, Knowles analyzed data from a mail questionnaire. He then conducted extensive interviews in person or by telephone with 10 individuals who agreed to the in-depth discussion and were geographically accessible.

The survey respondents were, on average, 32 years old, and nearly three-fourths were women. One respondent was Hispanic, another was Black and the rest were white. "Minority home-educated adults are extremely difficult to locate and identify," Knowles says.

More than 40 percent attended college, and 15 percent of those had completed a graduate degree. Nearly two-thirds of the individuals were self-employed; but only a few worked alone as crafts people or in other solitary occupations; while most either provided employment to others or worked along with family members.

"That so many of those surveyed were self-employed supports the contention that home schooling tends to enhance a person's self-reliance and independence, " Knowles says.

"The religious conservatives who operate home schools are strange bedfellows with the often liberal proponents of the practice who support home schooling for its superior pedagogical benefits," he notes. "What both groups share, though, is a feeling that public schools are not serving the best interests of their students, in one way or another. They're perceived as rundown, dirty, dangerous places filled with drugs, weapons, immorality and poor teaching. Whatever the reasons for being educated at home, the adults Knowles surveyed had many positive things to say about the experience. When asked whether they would want to be educated at home if they had their lives to live over again, 96 percent said, "Yes." "They had many warm memories about their home schooling," Knowles says. "Many mentioned the strong relationship it engendered with their parents while others talked about the self-directed curriculum and individualized pace that a flexible program of home schooling permitted."

"...this survey and the life history accounts that arose out of it clearly show that, done in an enlightened, broad-minded way, with plenty of flexibility in curriculum and methods, home schooling can be a positive experience for children with benefits that last for many years."

Textbooks as Tools

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Our family homeschooled for 11 years. Yes, all the way through high school. I conducted the BOOKMOBILE stops in 34 states, travelled over 80,000 miles of highways, and over 5 years, met face-to-face with over 25,000 families looking for textbooks. What have I learned?

PEOPLE HAVE "INSTITUTIONAL" IDEAS.

Most homeschooling parents use textbooks on their children the way textbooks were used on them!
Most parents were restricted to a classroom and each subject was shackled to a textbook. So when parents think of a textbook, they think of beginning in September at Chapter One and proceeding page by page until it's done, hopefully sometime on May or June. That works. But it's mostly tedious, not very customized to the student?s need, and certainly promotes "sameness."

MATH as a HAMMER. SCIENCE as a SCREWDRIVER.

People will take a book off the shelf and ask me, "Is this one a good math book?" Often I'll point to that book and respond, "That book is a hammer." I'll quickly point at one on the shelf and add, "And that one's a wrench, and that one's a screwdriver. Textbooks are only tools. And tools don't build anything. Who handles the tool makes the difference." I'll go on to explain that a hammer can be found at a yard sale for 25? or an expensive hammer can be purchased for $60.00. The 25? hammer in the hands of a skilled craftsman can do a magnificent job -- certainly better than the $60.00 hammer in the hands of a fool. Textbooks are no different. Any mainline publisher's 7th grade math book will do the job when used skillfully. Skillfully means knowing what motivates the student, knowing when to repeat or jump ahead.

WHO HAS THE BEST CURRICULUM?

One time my son was beginning a 7th grade math text, and on the first day he came to me and complained about how easy it was. I told him all books would start with review, so give it a chance. On the second day he came complaining again. I took a real look and agreed with him. So I made him this "deal." I told him to take the test at the end of chapter 1 tomorrow. If he passed that test with at least 80%, he could skip all the pages in chapter one. He agreed. He did. And we moved on to chapter two. Success. Day three, chapter 3. Day 4, chapter 4. He kept doing very well. Day 5, done. Day 6, oooops! Chapter six was apparently unfamiliar to him. But in those 5 glorious days he had proven he knew the material -- so why would I want him to do it over and over every day? He had also shown he didn't know the contents of chapter six and was very willing to tackle it now. After all, he had just completed 125 pages of that math book in 5 days! Was this any way to teach a child from a math text?! Well, I think so. (1) I was rewarding him for what he knew. (2) He didn?t have to do the same things over and over everyday. (3) He saw immediate results for his good work. (4) I was able to review the items he had missed over the previous 5 tests and discovered a pattern that told me what he was missing, where he needed help. We did similar in English, Science, History, and so on. Yes, we used textbooks. But we didn't let the textbooks use us.

With textbooks, you do not have to "do unto others" what was done to you.

How Secure is Your Email?

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Many years ago I was a consultant for a company who decided they wanted to perform a security audit of their computer systems. One of the components of their system that I was requested to check out was email. My client wanted to determine if their email was secure.

It took me all of a minute to determine that their email was totally and completely insecure. Fortunately for them, this was in the days before it was common for company computer systems to be directly connected to the internet, because their email messages were stored in plain text in a well known system location. In fact, not only were the email messages stored in a completely insecure manner, but deleted messages were not actually deleted until an administrator purged them - and since they didn't have anyone doing that there was a complete record of company emails going back years in the past.

I had spent about thirty minutes on this part of the audit so far and was ready to move on when one of the email messages caught my eye. It was a particularly juicy romantic message from one employee to another. Well, romantic is not the right word - highly x-rated would be more like it.

Curious, I continued looking through the emails (off the clock, of course, since I had already accomplished my mission as regards email) to see what else was stored in the single message file.

I stayed up all night long, highly amused at what I saw that day. Believe me, I read some serious blackmail material (if I was that kind of person). Lots of office romance, some flirting, X-rated messages and other similar things. I remember one particularly scandalous series of hundreds of emails going back and forth between one man and a woman (both single) recounting their relationship for years. Every date, every x-rated encounter was written up in long, detailed messages. This was very entertaining stuff indeed.

After a few hours I got bored and stopped reading. I was tempted to keep a copy of the email data but resisted. That was not part of my mission. Fortunately, it was also not part of my job to report on indiscretions committed by various employees. My job was to find and fix any insecurities, and that's exactly what I did ... I erased the file and set up an automatic purge to permanently delete old emails. At the time that was the best that I could do.

I learned a very important lesson that day - email is not private. Not by any means.

Not much has changed in the intervening years. In fact, email messages are generally not encrypted in any way. In fact, I have never received an encrypted email and I've only sent a few in my entire life.

Just so you completely understand, a normal email message is NOT the equivalent of a letter send through the normal mail. In that case, you write your note on a piece of paper, put it in an envelope and drop it into the mail. As far as email is concerned, a better analogy is of a postcard. Your messages are "written" on the electronic equivalent of postcards. What does this mean to you? Anyone can look at your message. Quite literally, anyone.

Let's look at the process to illustrate how and when an email message could be read by another person.

1) You write the email using your email client. The client may create that email as a text file in a temporary folder on your hard drive. If someone looked at your hard drive they could find the email. And it's not any better if you use a web based email client such as Hotmail. These leave files in the Temporary Internet Folder, which can easily be recovered. Remember that the next time you read your emails at work...

2) You do type in the email address to which an email is sent. You could accidentally type in the wrong address. Worse yet, if you have distribution or mailing lists, you could accidentally type in one of those, which may cause an email to inadvertently be sent to the wrong person or people. For example, if there was a "Joe S Smith" and a "Joe M Smith" at your company with very close email addresses, you could easily send to the wrong person.

3) The email gets sent to your SMTP server (this is the system which accepts your email message and forwards along towards the destination). At this point, the message could, in theory, be read by someone tapping your phone (or cable) connection. It's not likely (unless you are a spy or something) but it's possible (and not all that hard).

If you are at work, well, the email probably gets sent to your SMTP server through something called a proxy server (the computer which manages the connections to the internet).

If so, a copy of the email could be stored on the proxy server. In theory, this could be examined by someone who had access to that server. If you happen to send the email from your companies own email system, it is highly likely (especially in larger companies) that the email will be examined by context checking software. This is looking for curse words, sexual harassment, resumes and any other inappropriate content. Any emails found which violate company policy may be directly routed to personnel.

4) Okay, the email gets delivered to the SMTP server which it is stored, still as a simple plain text file, until it is sent to the next SMTP server. You see, emails never go directly from your outbox to someone's inbox. They move from server to server until they find their way to their destination. Each server keeps a copy of the email until it is forwarded to the next one.

5) SMTP servers are computer programs and they can be programmed to do malicious or unusual things. For example, a law enforcement agency could, in theory, program an SMTP server to make a copy of any emails directed to a particular person, and send those copies to their office. A hacker could, in theory, program an SMTP server (or examine messages coming across the wire) to look for series of characters that looked like credit card numbers (they are pretty obvious). These email messages could be directed to the hacker's own mailbox, thus giving him a steady supply of income.

6) At any of these SMTP servers, the email could be examined by anyone who has access to the email system. The internet "wire" could also be "tapped" and the email message captured on the fly (this is highly unlikely but it is possible).

7) Since software is simply a series of rules created by human beings, it is possible for an SMTP server to misunderstand how to route your email. Thus, a message could be sent to the wrong recipient (this has happened to me a few times) or to the wrong SMTP server.

8) There is no guarantee that the person who receives a message is actually the person who is the intended recipient. Someone else could be using their email client, for example, or an SMTP server may have misdirected the email to the wrong inbox. In this case it works exactly like the post office - the mailperson puts the mail in your mail slot, but he does not guarantee that you will be the one who picks up the mail. And since most emails are just text, they can be read by whoever happens to receive them without any problems.

9) Naturally, once an email is receive it is stored on the hard drive of the recipient. They are usually stored in text files (for normal emails) or in the Temporary Internet Folder (for web based emails).

10) Of course, once someone does receive an email he or she is free to forward that email onto just about anyone, starting the whole process over again.

11) At any point in this entire scenario, the email message can be backed up or archived. In this case, it can be recovered later and delivered to the wrong person.

So please, the next time you send those highly personal messages remember that they can be read by anyone. You have no way to know where these things wind up or how long they will last. The could pop up anywhere at anytime with a vengeance.

About the author:
Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets at http://www.internet-tips.net - Visit our website any time to read over 1,000 complete FREE articles about how to improve your internet profits, enjoyment and knowledge.

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