Intense Armin

Born in Leiden, The Netherlands (December 25, 1976) to a musical family, Armin van Buuren indulged his passion for music from a young age. He spent all the money he earned with his paper round on records. His mum won a computer when he was 10, gaining Armin’s interest. “So as a little nerdy kid I was writing my own basic programs, and learnt about the technology from there.” He progressed from making low-profile mix tapes for friends to higher profile mixes when he discovered experimenting with different sequences on his computer through his uncle. “I was so stunned by what I saw him doing on the computer, that I got addicted to creating music right there and then!”

Armin:”It’s not just love for music, it’s my passion. It goes beyond liking, and beyond a hobby, it’s about a way of living. Music is essential to my life.” For more than 15 years, the Dutchman has been living to the rhythm of his own, international success. A 5 times number one position in the critically acclaimed DJ Mag’s Top 100 poll is the result of his loyalty to fans, his creativity in the studio, the perseverance with which he hosts his weekly radio show A State of Trance and the energy he transcends to the crowds in front of him. Despite the heavy pressure that comes along with being the world’s most popular DJ, Armin has always kept his focus on the music. And that’s exactly what keeps him going.

Anger Management

Every single individual has an enormous potential to accomplish more than what he can imagine but an incredibly damaging force can put limits to what he is trying to accomplish in your personal and professional life. Anger is a common experience between all people. How many times you lost control on the situation because you were unable to manage your anger??

Anger must be managed efectively and this force must be directed employed for a constructive not a distructive thing.

Here are some tips to control your anger:

1) Before you respond to a certain tense situation, take a time out and count to 10. This time will give you a chance to defuse your temper.

2) Don't express your feeling until you are calm. keep ypu feelings inside you until you can express them in an effective way

3) Physical activities can help you control your anger, whenever you feel frustrated go for a walk or do any king of exercises.

4) Think before you speak. Collect your thoughts, rationalize them, then say what you want. In this way you will make sure that you will not regret later.

5) Look for the possible solutions. When you find the propper solution for your situation, you will automatically feel better.

The Sound of the Stars!!

How many nights you spent under the stars watching them? Did you ever wonder if these sparkles in the clear sky are quit or have sounds? Well somebody thought about that and recently the NASA recorded the sound of stars. It is surprising how these shiny stars can make you feel relaxed and calm while they can make great noise in our world without affecting us. What is not surprising is that we always read this information but we never understood it before, this information is clear in our book "Quran" where all the knowledge of the world exists, it is our gift from our God to guide us but we left it behind and know the west is discovering the knowledge and we are watching. We really must give a great concern for our religion and try to understand it.  

Each star has a specific sound related to its size and its shape. I would like you all to hear the sound of the stars and tell me what you feel?

http://cutt.us/PIN-2A445590-rwa

Sobhan allah

Real or Fake Smile?

  

Facial expressions greatly touch us and affect our decision about someone. A smile is the most powerful facial expression, a smile makes people see things more positively, and it has a great ability to change a boring topic into an interesting one. But be careful we shouldn’t believe every smile we see. A recent study revealed that liars have automated smile. However, liars don’t smile more than people that are telling the truth, they use their smile to direct the attention from what they are saying.

One might think that the facial expression translates person's feelings, but to some people these facial expressions are just tools to hide what they really feel. So, behind a smile there might be anger and pain as if a smile is a control button. The main question is to what extent we can trust a smile??

Recently, I read a study where a group of students were asked to imagine that they are members of a Disciplinary Counsel, their mission is to determine whether the students cheated or not. They received reports about students who cheated with their pictures. Some students were smiling in the picture while others we showing neutral expressions. All the participants thought that those that are smiling in the picture may not have cheated. So, for them the smile meant that they are reliable.

Not all the smiles that you see are real smiles that express what people really feel, some smiles are fake. A true smile always includes changes around the mouth and around the eyes as well. We have to be smart enough and never allow a fake smile to affect our decisions.

Education and assessment

 Education is not a word, it is a world by itself, and each point that can be listed under this word is a field where you can spend your life trying to cover all its part and never reach that point. It is not something that you can learn in several years and stop. In education there is always something to know, something to improve, something to advocate, work for, and reach it like any other science or domain.

        Some people think that as long as they have knowledge about a certain substance, they can enter any class and be teachers. Teaching is much more than that and they need to improve themselves as teacher in each step and each part of it. One important part of teaching is assessment. We may not be aware that an assessment tool may or may not reflect the real level of the students but it certainly reflects the level of the teacher who crafted or used the assessment tool.

         If you search for the meaning of educational assessment in different sources, you will find that it is defined as documenting students according to their knowledge, skills, altitudes, and their beliefs in measurable terms. Students usually give a great concern for the results of educational assessment, they evaluate themselves based on the results of the assessment, and these results in sometimes may decide the life path of the students. All these points explain clearly the responsibilities that the teachers should be aware of while crafting an assessment tool and while interpreting the results. Here comes the word validity, which is defined as the soundness of the interpretation and the uses of student’s assessment results. In order to assign grades fairly for the students based on a classroom assessment the validity of the scores, must be improved depending on clear criteria and evidences.

Determination and Hard Work

 

 

 

 

"Things turnout to be the best for those who make the best way of the way things turnout"

It is a complicated quote but it is valuable. Never wait things to be good for you, instead you should work hard and do your best to get the best of everything. Have a clear goal, use your determination, work hard, and never lose hope.

Things will not be done spontaneously, things are waiting your efforts, and problems will not be fixed alone, problems are waiting your solutions.

Don't under estimate any opportunity in your life; you never know where you may end up after any simple experience. It is about making something out of nothing, or even making something good out of something bad.

Bad things will keep happening but this shouldn’t stop you, obstacles are not signs to stop working, they are signs to work harder. Failure is not the end, it is the beginning of the change in your life No matter how bad something is, there is always something good behind it. So, never regret something that happened or might happen with you because it always turn out to be good for something.

Look for the filled part of the glass but don’t ignore the empty part and use your determination to fill it, and make use of it. It is amazing what determination can do, and how it can change your life.

Childhood Dreams

                 

                              Ambition or Future Disappointments?

Every one of us had a childhood dream, maybe we didn't achieve these dreams, maybe we are still working on them, and maybe we will never achieve them, because these dreams are really impossible and we realized that long time ago and gave up on them and got disappointed. Even if these childhood dreams were silly and impossible they certainly had a great effect on our path in life. What do these dreams represent? Our ambition or our disappointments? Should we encourage our children to dream or inhibit them from dreaming?

We might be allowed to put limits to our dream now and rationalize them because we are mature enough but, as teachers and parents are we mature enough to put limits for our children's dreams? Well, I don't think so, we can't decide which dream is achievable and which one is not, we can't put limits to their abilities and to their imagination. It is their mind and their ambition whether they can achieve it or not. Whatever these dreams are, they will give them a push to work and become a better person and achieve something even if they didn't achieve their real dream.

Unfortunately, in our homes and schools we still can find parents and teachers making fun of the children's dreams, without realizing that they are stealing their rights, and suppressing their abilities. They think that they are protecting them from future disappointments, don't they know that these are the best kind of disappointments?! The kind that can make you laugh proudly in case that these dreams became disappointments.

Hope is all we have and hope is what we should give to our students and we should give them a chance to dream and encourage them to work for it. We don't have the right to steal the joy of dreaming from their eyes. Their dreams today may become our reality tomorrow.

     

Computer Aided-Assessment in Our Education

    Computer-aided assessment is a form of assessment that is based on using the computer whether summative or formative assessment (a type of exam used for learning and not for grading). The computer can be integrated to assessment to deliver, to prepare, or even to correct it. Computer-aided assessment is widely spread in our education without being aware of it. Technically, a computer typed assignment and an online research are forms of computer-aided assessment, in addition to online quizzes and exams which are greatly applied recently due to the fact that this kind of assessment can save time and allow learning and assessing from a distance.

    With all the advantages and the facilities provided by technology, you can still find educators arguing about integrating technology education while they are extensively relying on at least one form of the computer-aided assessment for example, they don’t accept hand written assignments.

    Technology is a part of our education whether we are aware of that or not, and if it’s not present in the teaching method, it will be clear in the assessment in one way or another.

NEVER DROP OUT!

It is not a choice! 

Even though the importance of education in our world is clear and the benefits of education are clearer, one can still find high percentage of the youth who dropout school and never reach the college. I will try to introduce you to some good reasons to continue your education at least to the college level.

Better life skills:

Staying in the high school will definitely provide you with better life skills. In addition to better reading, writing, and analyzing, you will have a better problem solving skills. A high school graduate is always characterized by discipline, motivation, and ambition. All of these are qualities that will help you to live a more successful and intellectually fulfilling life.

Higher earning potential:

Those who only think and plan for the short time will find that dropping out school and getting a job is better and will put some money in their pocket in a short time. But, in the long term dropping out school is a huge loss; this is statistically proved where the earning average of graduates is much higher than the earning average of school dropouts. This isn’t all; people with high school diploma have a great chance to keep their jobs and to be promoted.

Further educational opportunities:

Most interesting careers require a college diploma and most colleges require one to have high school diploma. So, it’s really worth working for.

All these advantages are for high school graduates, but we shouldn’t forget about college that is a continuation for a high school and the way for a better life.

Going to college will open you many doors of career paths that grantee you a better income, and you will find out that in some cases the college degree is the lower requirement for the best jobs. In college the best social skills are acquired and practiced in order to be used in the future career and future life in general. College graduates have a great ability to succeed in whatever path they take, and can deal with problems rationally that’s what makes them qualified to be in any career in all fields and gives them a chance to be a better future parent for a better family based on education.

Try to get educated as much as you can, it’s never a waste.

BLOOD DIAMOND

Maybe where your diamonds come from is a reasonable question!!!!!!! 

It is beauty mixed with blood, a stolen sparkle from an eye of someone craving a descent life, very valuable yet not as valuable as two hands to whom lost it, or maybe a life to whom doesn’t exist anymore... It is Blood diamonds. Diamonds are the most valuable gift, weather to express love, to start a relationship, or just to admire the beauty of it, but when the beauty causes loss of a life, a civil war, slavery and violence like someone losing his hands.. Where is the beauty?

Blood diamonds also known as Conflict diamonds are diamonds that originate from areas controlled by forces or factions opposed to legitimate and internationally recognized governments, and are used to fund military action in opposition to those governments, or in contravention of the decisions of the Security Council.

Blood Diamonds are often produced through the forced labor of men, women and children. They are also stolen during shipment or seized by attacking the mining operations of legitimate producers. These attacks can be on the scale of a large military operation. The stones are then smuggled into the international diamond trade and sold as legitimate gems. These diamonds are often the main source of funding for the rebels, however, arms merchants, smugglers and dishonest diamond traders enable their actions. Enormous amounts of money are at stake and bribes, threats, torture, and murder are modes of operation. This is why the term "blood diamonds" is used.

According to the UN conflict diamonds can no longer be identified once polished so that means that blood diamonds might be among our hands and in our homes, yet we have no clue.

The United Nations and other groups are working to block the entry of conflict diamonds into the worldwide diamond trade. Their approach has been to develop a government certification procedure known as the “Kimberly Process”. This procedure requires each nation to certify that all rough diamond exports are produced through legitimate mining and sales activity. All rough diamonds exported from these nations are to be accompanied by certificates. These certificates state that the diamonds were produced, sold and exported through legitimate channels. The certification process accounts for all rough diamonds, through every step of their movement, from mine to retail sale. Retail customers buying a cut diamond are encouraged to insist upon a sales receipt that documents that their diamond originated from a conflict free source.

The legitimate diamond trade provides jobs for over 10 million workers and brings prosperity to areas where this activity occurs. Support of the Kimberly Process by all nations and consumers can convert slavery into jobs and smuggling into respected commerce. The efforts are working. Today, due to these efforts, the majority of all diamonds produced come from conflict free sources. Despite of the Kimberly process and the awareness that didn’t exist before, blood diamonds still exist, yet with a much smaller percentage

The most beautiful things can turn out to be so ugly, and blood diamonds are a very good example. Awareness is the key, people should be aware of blood diamonds, and close monitoring on the countries of origin should be constant to stop this crime against humanity and nature.

note: There's a movie titled "Blood Diamond" explains the whole story and visualize the tragedy, this movie directed me to search and find out whether these stories are true or not.