The need for Financial Education

Not long after the start of the global financial crisis I became aware of a material difference between the so-called wealthy and the wannabe wealthy. Apart from the obvious difference in fortunes held, I have observed there is a difference in the financial education levels and approach to life.
In the years I have spent as a financial adviser I have met only a handful of people I would consider to be in the 'wealthy' group or true 'entrepreneurs'. None of them were my clients, and in fact I don't believe any of them used the services of a financial adviser.
Not only did they have an advantage in material assets but they also had a different outlook on life which encompassed enjoying a healthy life.
On the whole financial advisers do not advise these entrepreneurs because these people already understand the importance of acquiring their own knowledge, skills and information about financial education. They take responsibility for their own investment decisions and do not let others (financial advisers) make decisions for them.
There are some other key differences between these entrepreneurs and the wannabe's which I think points to why investors need financial education if they want to become a true entrepreneur.
Some of these differences are:
* Wannabe's mostly believe what they're told. Entrepreneurs will do their own research and make their own decisions. Do your own due diligence and follow your instincts. It will rarely lead you astray.
* Wannabe's will seek a perfect plan and wait for the perfect time. Entrepreneurs will accept educated risk and take action quickly once they have compiled all the information.
* Wannabe's get distracted by focusing on positive thinking without taking appropriate action. Entrepreneurs understand the importance of positive thinking but also know that it only gets you so far. They will combine positive thinking with a specific plan for action.
* Wannabe's do not share their ideas for fear of looking stupid in front of their friends or family. Entrepreneurs will openly share their ideas with like minded people. It's important to not listen to family and friends as in most cases they have no credibility. Entrepreneurs seek out financial education.
* Wannabe's generally believe they can do anything, but have no plan or falter at the first sight of a problem. Entrepreneurs on the other hand will use all available resources to put a plan into place and find solutions to wannabe's problems.
* Wannabe's are focused on 'making money' and quite often lead lifestyles with no focus on their health. Entrepreneurs are focused on combining all elements of being wealthy, healthy and wise.
Financial education is available to everyone, particularly with the aid of the internet but also through excellent courses, publications and conferences which the true entrepreneurs seek out.

Educational Deals and Products



Education is a sector that is constantly evolving. In India, it is a field that has been under constant criticism and scrutiny for many decades now.
The system that is held responsible for educating our children, which is run by the education ministry of the central and state governments and various private institutions, have been criticized for lacking a clear vision for the future of the sector in India and the inability to find solutions for the many deep rooted flaws in the way the education sector in this country works. But one among all these negative reports there are a lot of commendable steps that have been taken but do not get as much media attention as all the criticisms do. One of them is the gradual growth of online learning in India schools and colleges.

E-learning comprises of all forms of electronic learning including all computer based and internet based learning solutions. E-learning is a way of utilizing technology to present knowledge in a form that is easier to access, understand and store. A USB drive can store as many pages as tens of textbooks, a video presentation van helps you understand a science experiment that would otherwise require you to be in a lab or watch the experiment being conducted. Teachers need not take the same classes again for different batches of students. The students have an option of learning something when they want it, where they want it.

E-learning is very cost effective too. A lot of the paper work that is required by traditional methods of schooling can be eliminated. The technological resources if used to their optimum potential can drastically alter the cost of education in our schools. Considering the sky rocketingexpenses that students are forced to accrue just for acquiring their basic right to education; this is an immensely attractive aspect of e-learning.
Synchronous training or real time training is in fact not too different from the traditional training because all the students are involved in the process at the same time. The course material could be on the students individual systems or a projector screen or the students could be in different places via teleconferencing or web meetings. Asynchronous training doesn̢۪t demand the presence of all the students and each student can learn the course at his/her home at a time they find convenient and could take the help of the instructor through internet or other tools. This is especially beneficial for senior students who work during the day or have any other need that prevents them from attending regular classes.

E-learning focuses on the learner more than traditional methods of learning because the information present is available for the student to use according to their preference of subject matter or personal preference. Every student has his/her own method and pace for learning. In class roomsituations, where students who require more time than their peers to grasp new ideas, could feel left out because they cannot keep up with the flow of the class. The students take personal responsibility for their own learning and this is could be advantageous because it gives them a sense of responsibility.
Audio-visual aids, interactive course presentations and application based questions are tremendously effective as study tools because they enable better retention of the subject matter by stimulating the brain. Also, students have the option of redoing a particular section in case they couldn grasp it completely the first time around. Also, when different teachers teach the same subject, there are chances ofundue fluctuations in the kind of information passed on. With an e-learning tool, this problem is eliminated as the material is the same for all the students.

Although e-learning has tremendous factors working towards its advantage, it needs to be seen how well our educational institutions implement it. The initial investment is considerably high and the resistance from those who are yet to see the advantage of such a system and thus doubting its effectiveness are major challenges. Anything less than full commitment on part of the elders would lead to our kids being deprived of the positives that could be derived from the implementation of e-learning in our schools. This is where the government needs to step in to ensure that something so important for the future of education in this country is not overlooked or allowed to be neglected. A combined and earnest effort from all the concerned people would do wonders for the coming generations of this country.

Online Computer Education Degree Options

Computer technology has spread through practically every part of today's society from individual use to corporate use. This creates a need for skilled computer professionals who are educated in the numerous fields of computer technology. Many online schools offer education in a wide range of degrees connected to computers.


The degree options range from computer science to computer engineering. Because technology continues to advance at a fast rate education in the field is continuing to grow. With computers in almost every home, company, and organization educated skilled professionals are needed to manage computer software, engineer a computer, set up system security, and more. This fact is making the occupational growth within the industry well over the national average compared to all other careers.


Accredited online schools offer diverse programs with the advantage of earning an education while staying at home. Students will be able to take courses that fit into their commitments and job responsibilities. This allows students to earn an education at their own pace. However, many online programs and courses have a time limit and extensions on a course may result in a fee.


Computer science is the study of computers and their languages, applications, and designs. Students gaining a degree in this area will also study the mathematical structures that make up a computers computation. Students wanting to work in the computer industry have many different educational paths to choose from. Some colleges online offer degree distinctions as high as a doctorate in computer science.


An example of a computer science program is a computer systems security master's degree. This concentration will train students to become computer security specialists that implement security measures and protect organizations from attack. Courses will educate students on computer systems security, security policies, formulation, design, and more. A program at this level may require 44 credit hours or more to complete depending on the program a student is enrolled in. Cost per course may be around $630. Some schools include the price for textbooks and required material in that price, but many online schools list these materials as a separate expense.


Computer engineering is a discipline that involves design in many different avenues related to computers and the Internet. Students interested in this field of the industry can find themselves working with online media and web 2.0 websites. Some schools offer degree concentrations in this area called emerging or new media. A degree program in this concentration may offer courses that teach a student how to integrate content and communication into strategies for businesses, entertainment, education, and more.


Degree options will continue to grow as computer technology is incorporated into more houses, businesses, and organizations. Students seeking an online computer education will find numerous courses and degree programs that will properly prepare them for success in the computer industry. Make sure to properly research all available programs. Verify the program is accredited and will provide you with not only the necessary skills but a quality education that meets or exceeds industry standards. Search out online computer education schools today and you'll be on the right path to a rewarding career.



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What's Wrong With Forex Education and Training?



There are three models of education that dominate the Forex Market today. They all claim to have the magic formula, exclusive knowledge about the market, or some hyped up set of proprietary indicators. Their promise to the ever re-generating gaggle of hopeful FX traders is the easiest road possible to the promised land of Forex Enlightenment.

Understanding the realities of what's out there on the market as far as education is an important thing for someone who is out there trying to become a Forex trader. This article addresses some of the more common paradigms of the current Forex Education Market.

The Seminar

This is, perhaps, the most common form taken in the FX Education Market, because it usually leverages the notoriety or charisma of a supposed master trader to convince their potential devotees to plunk down anywhere from $3,000 to $8,000 for the privilege of spending a short weekend "learning how to trade".

Starting at nine in the morning, usually a 9:00 AM, the host of the seminar will begin. After a lunch and several breaks you might get a total of 6 hours per day a Forex education.

This type of education is marginal at best because you are only exposed to the information for a short and inefficient weekend - after that you're on your own. If you're lucky, you were able to take notes and make scattered "next level" observations that might carry you through until you're able to retake the course - if they allow that!

You're only one of maybe 100 people in the room who are all vying for the attention of the supposed master trader or trading celebrity who is running room. So, you have to wait in line in the chat to get your questions answered, and what's worse, you have to wait behind the questions of the slowest people in the room who, no matter how many times the material is explained still have questions that are very basic, and range from repetitive to astoundingly pedestrian, As a result, the presenter must spend enormous amounts of time trying to remedially educate the slower members of the room while you wait, minute after minute watching your very expensive Forex education be wasted.

So the bottom line is that it's a very expensive way to obtain what is usually only a rudimentary Forex education, simply because there's not enough time to train the group in the basics of trading, much less the advanced topics that are necessary in order to profit in the Forex market.

The Chat Room

The other type of education that is very popular among the online Forex education web sites is the ubiquitous chat room. This is where a group of moderators spend the morning or just a part of the morning attempting to disseminate educational tidbits to a large group of hundreds of people. If your lucky enough not to be completely annoyed by the voices that are coming through your computer speakers, you may be able to collect enough information over the course of the next few months to construct some semblance of a proper education. There is never an organized lesson or consistent pre-scheduled teaching, and the moderators, because they are distracted from trading by the continuous questions from novice traders, become less effective as traders themselves.

Any nuggets of trading wisdom that are doled out in these chat rooms comes in sporadic bursts that are unpredictable and varying in quality. So the trader that hopes to receive a proper Forex education by participating in one of these chat rooms must do several things in order to succeed #1. He must be able to spend every available hour in the chat room to avoid missing valuable information as it is discussed, and #2 He must be able to efficiently and effectively collect all of these various data points into one organized structure, which clearly presents even the most precise thinkers a difficult challenge.

Another issue associated with chat rooms is that novice traders often use them as a crutch to avoid the difficult work of writing a trading plan, testing a training plan, and learning to read the market on their own. They often blindly follow the trades and advise of the moderators or other senior members of the room, who post loudly of their numerous winning trades (this assumes that they are honest, wink wink). And so the trader's development is slowed for years as they just limp along, trying to follow trades of other people, trying to figure out who in the room is the best trader, so that they can mimic their style. This process retards the development of the trader for years and sometimes forever if the trader never figure is out the cause of their desperate gyrations.

The social aspect of the chat room paradigm is tempting, but there are a great many successful traders out there today who will tell you that their true success in the markets did not begin until they turned all the chat rooms off.

The PDF Course

The third main category of Forex education comes in the form of the downloadable course. Almost always delivered in PDF format these courses promise to show you proven strategies that let you easily take profits out of the Forex market.

The worst offenders out there are those who simply copy and paste volumes of information from all over the web that the unsuspecting buyer could have easily found on his own. Many a trader has been disappointed by this newly downloaded Forex course, when he or she realizes that the sum total of unique information in the course consists of nine or 10 pages, while the other 99 or so pages contain standard definitions of Forex trading and explanations that answer the eternal question " what is a pip"?

Slightly more honest but equally ineffective are the outfits who tout their unbelievably reliable, proprietary setups which usually consist of a collection of bar patterns or moving average crosses that are corroborated by chart after chart that the authors handpicked from the market. They fail to tell you that in a sideways market, that these types of setups often lead to a series of damaging losses and a devastated psychological profile. As a result, the trader gives up on these newly learned methods, and continues his search for the next Holy Grail.

Conclusions

The common thread that runs through each of these educational methods, is that they're quite expensive and leave the blossoming Forex trader with much less of the one commodity that he must value the most, trading capital. While it's difficult to argue that a Forex trader would be better off entering the market with no education at all, it's quite possible that there is a better paradigm out there at a fraction of the cost.

Academic knowledge of how the market moves and how technical analysis works is something that must be taught over an extended period. The concepts, in many cases are counter-intuitive, and therefore require a continuing education that allows the apprentice trader the opportunity to repetitively access the educational material, and be able to post questions and receive answers about its content.

As the technical side of trading is being developed under this educational model, the aspiring trader also needs some method of psychological support. We've already established that the moderated chat room model is an impediment to true trading mastery but surely there is another way for traders to interact, while still retaining their integrity of mind.

The current belief by our team of professionals, is that a Forex course consisting of dynamically illustrated and logically explained high quality videos is the best and most efficient way to train a novice or intermediate trader. This allows the student to repetitively access the information as many times as they deem necessary, and eliminates the negative issues associated with the other types of education mentioned above.

The trader that is able to learn with the assistance of professionally taught high definition videos has an edge, and if that trader is then supported with the latest in continuing education, then that trader has the best possible chance of success.

Price, of course, is another issue. If the trader is able to spend far less money to acquire a top quality Forex education, then that trader would be in the best possible position for success when first entering the market.

Tertiary Education - E-content design and management

Introduction
Allaire (1996) stated that countries that first establish an information infrastructure and effective e-content will enjoy enormous competitive advantage. The learners and the society requirements are very clear. The analytical capacity and thinking levels of the current generations are high. Their inherent ease in usage of modern gadgets is not only to be harnessed but that makes them to learn and retain more. But the older generation are left far behind. Thus the content providers and the technocrats should provide quick and novel solutions for managing, packaging and delivering the solutions to satisfy the requirements of the academia, society and the market in the coming years. This paper deals with areas such as e-content design and planning, governance models, internet adoption issues, infrastructure requirements, effective content management, hierarchy and evaluation in the use of ICT in tertiary education.
Advantages of e- (virtual) learning
* It is not limited by the classroom walls;
* It is does not know or care what the learner's socioeconomic status is;
* It provides equal opportunity for everyone to learn;
* It is more in tune with the way our past students learn today;
Benefits of e-learning
e- learning is the use of new multimedia technologies and internet to improve the quality of learning by facilitating access to resources and services, as well as remote exchanges and collaboration. The benefits are;

* 60% faster learning curve
* 25%-60% higher content retention
* 56% greater learning gains
* 50%-60% better consistency of learning
* 38%-70% faster training comprehension
* Cost is 50%-70% less than instructor-led training
Supplementary nature of e-learning
It is important to note however that ICT should be used when it contributes to the interactive teaching. The use of ICT supplements other academic tools - investigations, scientific enquiry outside the classroom, collecting and recording evidence and many other traditional methods.
Developmental Goals for the new Milleneenium
Universal enrollment in primary education and elimination of gender disparities in primary and secondary education is the United Nations Millennium Development Goal. Whether the developing and transition countries have achieved that is doubtful But tertiary education can support the other education system passively.
ICT in Tertiary Education
In every society, the tertiary institution is the most dependable source of human resource capital for socio-political and economic development. Since the government is the prime mover of development in apart from funding, problems of Computer Hardware and Software, and Shortage of Technical Manpower has to be met by the government.
Benefits of ICT in Tertiary Education
1. Hardware and Networking
Institutions that provide a link between local researchers, teachers and scholars and their counterparts in other parts of the country will have to have improved the Internet connectivity. This benefits everyone in the project / team.
2. Provision of Teaching and Research Facilities
Provision of access to the best of teaching and research materials available on par with the world class cost, tertiary institutions.
Develeping ICT policy for Tertiary Education
Any IT policy must benefit all of a country's population by combined private-public services, and so forth. Another important policy element will be linking IT with education. This means using IT for education, aggressively expanding its coverage with quality and relevance, and educating and training for IT as a must for social and individual progress.
Design and Planning
The following assertions have to be made before incorporating ICT in Tertiary Education.
* The level of knowledge that students already have.
* The use of technology for the entire curriculum of those who left school or college.
* Establishing a foundation upon primary and secondary education upon which to build the tertiary education.
* How faculty can expertise in using technology throughout the learning experience of the students ?
* How much infrastructure is to be built upon in which students routinely use technology with ease ?
e- Content Implementation Models
Several universities and higher education systems have created distinct distance education or e-learning delivery structures and governance model.

Three ways in which to organize an e-learning governance model are;
1) Technical service model In whereby institutional autonomy for all e-learning functions, while technical resources are supplied
2) Development and delivery model whereby the development and delivery of courses and programs is in all institutions.
3) Service center delivery model provides a seamless interface of e-learning support services to the institutions.
Infrastructure requirements
The infrastructure should supplied to handle the huge amount of data, intelligently and to deliver it efficiently and quickly. It should also avoid the delay even during heavy traffic times and without any loss of data.

Implementation of ICT In Tertiary Education
The biggest challenges to adopt appropriate development policies and implementing corresponding programmes of tertiary education is keeping in mind the existing local conditions and standards of the nascent learner.

Evaluating ICT in Tertiary Education
For any policy to be successfully implemented there is the need for constant evaluation of the policy especially for new and fast growing technologies like ICT. Dewey and Bentley (1949) in their book, Knowing and the Known, mentioned the importance of transaction. Rather than considering technology as a discrete object we have to see how the technology participates in an working relationship in the social practices such as Tertiary Education.
Instead of being rigid technology the different levels of the user has to be kept in mind while designing the e-content.
Pedagogical content Management
This system should support the content acquisition and archival, file conversions and transformation, version control, meta-tagging, workflow, integration with multiple repositories/delivery networks, platform independency, security, permission and rights management, conversions to any formats and channels, meta-data generation, non dependency of platforms etc.,.

High-level steps while entering e-content for Tertiary education
Review of prior e-learning reports, identification of key market segments, e-learning areas, selecting branding approach, developing e-learning governance model, consideration of funding issues including revenues and costs, developments of partnership with content providers and academics are the steps to be followed before actually entering into the production
Conclusion

Should ask what courses are learners starting from and what are their expectations and assessments? This should be followed by how do people learn and how do you facilitate learning. The answers to these two questions can be obtained if principles from Learning theories and Pedagogical theories are applied to the current reality for tertiary education.
REFERENCES
Allaire, P., Young, J., & Vest, C. (1996). Breaking the Barriers to the National Information Infrastructure, quoted by E. Talero and P. Gaudette, Harnessing Information for Development. A proposal for a World Bank group strategy, World Bank Discussion Papers no. 313, World

Learn and Speak Spanish CD Materials - Education And Training Audios

There are probably hundreds of Learn and Speak Spanish CD instruction aids available commercially. If you are looking for a way to learn without having to be present at classroom sessions, these materials are some of the choices that will be best for you. Programs for intermediate learners, or those who are neither beginners nor experts, are also available.
The length of the training material will depend on the level of learning for which it was designed. Usually though, these Compact discs can include from 4 to 10 CDs and can encompass a total of four to even 12 hours of teaching.
Advantages of Compact Disc Teaching Aids
Instruction aids offered in the form of Compact discs allow students to select the most convenient time for them to take the lessons. They can carry the materials anywhere with them and just plug them in and put on their headphones which is like working with a companion tutor.
Another benefit of these tutorial training materials is that you only have to pay for them once and you can keep them as long as you would like. You can even share them with other people who also would like to master the Spanish language.
Most CD packages are presented with additional resources, like dictionaries and guides. Although a number of them can cost over two hundred dollars, they can be really worth the money if you are serious about learning the spanish language.
Possible limitations
The only thing which could stop you from learning is if you do not have the patience to go through every one of the lessons and listen to them frequently. The truth is, most of these materials won't teach you the spanish language just by listening to them once.
Another potential problem is that you can only read the product description and will not be able to determine whether the tutorial is what you're looking for until you've bought it. The smartest thing to do before you make any purchase is to check out product reviews and ask others that have taken such courses.
Using Learn and Speak Spanish CD courses can work on some while not on others. Before you choose to purchase a CD tutorial package, just be sure you possess the perseverance to go through all the lessons contained in this format.