CyberclassroomTV Online Education Network: April 2012

If you always wanted to get a university education but life got in the way, it may not be too late. Several Toronto universities will waive all or part of your tuition fees if you are over 60 and want to go back to school.

York University’s deal applies to Canadian citizens or permanent residents whether they are registered in a degree course, as a visiting student or simply auditing a program. The fee waiver is capped for senior students to the level of tuition fees assigned to domestic (as opposed to international), non-professional undergraduate or graduate arts, science and other programs.

That means if you want to get a York Bachelor of Arts (basic annual domestic tuition: $7,500) or a Bachelor of Science (basic annual domestic tuition: $6,300) you will get a free ride for the full four years of your program. Similarly, tuition for a two-term graduate degree in a variety of disciplines (basic annual domestic tuition: $3,700) will be fully waived.

Related: Part-time school is a great solution
The deal is not quite as good if you want to go to law school (tuition of $20,000/yr. for each of three years) or get an MBA ($28,000 for two terms) because fees for these professional programs have been deregulated.
The fee waiver will be limited to tuition for regulated undergraduate and graduate programs (i.e. about $6,000-$7,000 /year for law school and $4,000 for an MBA.) Similarly, tuition for Osgoode Hall's part-time LLM. programs is $20,153. The waiver is $4,785 and you would pay fees of $15,368.
You can only complete one York degree without paying all or part of the fees, but it’s still a great opportunity. After all, $25,000 or more over four years in free tuition is nothing to sneeze at. And as tuition increases, it will be even more of a bargain.

Related: How to use your RRSP to go back to school

Ryerson also offers free tuition students over 60 for four-year undergraduate programs and McMaster University in Hamilton has a similar program for undergraduates over 65. In addition, McMaster reduces fees by 50 per cent for seniors registered in Continuing Education courses. However, you are out of luck if the program you want is at University of Toronto, as only nominal ancillary fees are waived for older students.

I got an LLM.in the mid-90s, 20 years after I was called to the Bar, so embarking on another rigorous degree program at this stage is not at the top of my “To Do list.” But if I ever get around to retiring and have some time on my hands, I will definitely be tempted to audit opera, music, theatre and other general interest courses.

Other colleges and universities in Ontario and across country also offer seniors a tuition break. For more information, contact the school of your choice.

Related: 7 ways adult students can pay for school

Contact Toronto lawyer and writer Sheryl Smolkin through her website.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

CREATING THE FUTURE: Ryerson's Digital Media Zone: Meet Canada's future tech superstars

Perched over the heart of Toronto lies a room where the future is being created. From here, high above Yonge and Dundas, some of Canada’s most well-known buildings can be seen: the Scotiabank, TD Trust, Manulife, and CN towers, as well as the Eaton Centre.

Every day, thousands of people walk by Dundas Square below, looking up at the massive jumbo screens above the mall. They watch the flashy Absolute vodka ads, and romantic getaways to Mont Tremblant. But these screens only show regular, 2D ads. Inside this little room, a much more advanced form of advertising is being developed using interactive technology.

For example, Adrian Bulzacki (left), one of the many innovators in this futuristic lab, has leased his technology to condominium sales offices, so that as people walk by the company’s display, it will track their movement to create a 3D view that moves in whichever direction the observer moves.
And this is just a taste of what’s being created at Ryerson’s Digital Media Zone.
Some of these ideas could completely revolutionize society — from an online platform that gets the public’s most supported ideas into the hands of politicians, to Bulzacki’s virtual 3D technology which could one day form an entire market of virtual goods (to be explained in detail further on).
The Digital Media Zone (DMZ), launched in April 2010, provides innovative young entrepreneurs with the space and resources to start a company. It’s a unique learning hub where students — undergraduates, grad students, or alumni — can “incubate” their ideas.
“We began by working with students and alumni who needed a collaborative space and mentorship to take their start up to a stage where they had a greater chance of success,” explained Valerie Fox, DMZ Director, in an email to Jobpostings.
The Zone was created with the help of StartMeUp, a student run program from Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) Ryerson. To apply to the DMZ, one must pitch their idea to a StartMeUp Ryerson "Idea Consultation," a Dragons' Den style pitch infront of a panel of industry professionals. They look for unique and innovative ideas, enabled by digital media, that have commercial or social value, and a solid business plan and prototype. Fox says they look for entrepreneurs who are passionate, creative, collaborative, and knowledgeable.
And after touring the DMZ space, that much is evident. The following are profiles of some exciting Zoneteams. Jobpostings looks into how they came up with their ideas, grew their business, and their plans for making their startups a success.

ARB Labs

Adrian Bulzacki (left), founder of ARB Labs, came up with his innovative technology through a game of virtual charades. It begins by using a Kinect camera, which projects a grid of infrared light onto you, and then calculates how far away you are based on the grid.
A computer creates a virtual representation of you, which can be used to play charades over the internet with people from all corners of the world. But Bulzacki had more in mind than just a video game.
They used a priority crowd-sourcing algorithm to gather data from the game.
“If you got that gesture really fast, the learning algorithm knows to prioritize that as a better quality gesture. We kept sucking in all this data. And we in turn, have an algorithm that recognized the occurrence of those gestures anywhere,” explains Bulzacki, 29.
ARB Labs can sell that data to gaming studios hoping to make their games better, or to the oil industry, which needs it to interact with 3D samples of oil. This technology is even applicable to security companies. For example, ARB Labs can sell an aggressive gesture pack, which analyzes a bunch of gestures that shouldn’t occur in public areas, such as punches and kicks.
But Bulzacki has more in mind than selling off bits of accumulated data from his learning algorithm to security companies and gaming corporations.
All of these bits of technology — 3D interactive displays and gesture identifying algorithms — were developed for one ultimate goal. “If we pitched this product line first, nobody would give us money,” said Bulzacki, with a grin.
He hopes to create one device that you place in the centre of your living room, or a low-cost wallpaper, which will create an immersive environment. “Just like buying apps today, you’d be able to buy virtual items for the home.”
Artists or designers could post their virtual goods on the internet. You could buy a “lamp” for a low price, download it, and put it in the corner. It would still give off light, but there’s no physical object. You could have multiple versions of your living room.
“And when you’re done with it, you can save it, archive it, delete it, whatever,” Bulzacki said. “If you wanted to, you could have a window overlooking Paris in your basement apartment. It would make living environments extremely reconfigurable, very fast, at a low cost. So that’s what we’re trying to get to, and it’s all built off of this technology.”
For all you Trekkies out there, think of this as an early version of the holodeck.
For example, while Bulzacki has always had this ultimate goal, he didn’t expect ARB Labs to make it this far. “I thought somebody would just buy up our technology in a year or two, I’d make a few million dollars and go from there. I don’t see that anymore. I see it now as, I’m building the foundation to a company that could be — and I say this in all seriousness — could be the next Facebook, could be the next super company. A lot of people have that feeling in the DMZ. And I really hope it works out. But I’ve seen more and more evidence to my hypothesis.”
Bulzacki has no formal training in business. He’s currently finishing up his PhD in computer and electrical engineering at Ryerson. While he has had some experience starting up mini businesses of his own in the past, he didn’t truly delve into business until he joined the DMZ, about two years ago. The DMZ’s collaborative environment has helped him in several ways.
While conducting a demonstration of his technology at the DMZ, a businessperson approached Bulzacki and told him his ideas were great, really unique, but his profit margin was terrible. The technology was expensive to develop, and yet he was selling it individually to companies. This person pointed out that Bulzacki already had patents on the technology, and there was no competition in terms of 3D displays – why not license the technology out?
“And since I started doing that, it really changed how my business operated. I would charge a monthly fee, a yearly fee, or a daily fee, to have the technology at a specific location.”
And so, the Digital Media Zone entrepreneurs learn the ropes of running a real company. As Bulzacki points out, this is the real deal. In the DMZ, you’re not looking at a theoretical situation. “Every choice you make has a ramification, and that’s the challenge. But it’s a learning process. That’s the only way you’re going to learn.”
The bonus is you get to work with your own idea. Bulzacki says during his previous jobs, he used to hate getting up in the morning, and felt like a zombie or drone doing work someone else created for him. But that’s not the case at the DMZ. “If I’m waking up early, I’m waking up differently. I’m working for myself. I’m a slave to myself, but I’m a slave to my dreams. So it pays off in the end.”

HitSend

The story of HitSend’s innovative idea, despite the ground-breaking activism feel of it, actually has its origins from about 200 years ago.
Back then, people used take these wooden boxes, called soap boxes, to Hyde Park in London. They’d flip them upside down, hop on top, then make a speech about their ideas or passions. Usually it had to do with politics or economics. The people in the park would stop and cheer them on if they liked the idea, and if they didn't, they would boo, while throwing lettuce and tomatoes at them. But every once in a while, there would be an idea that really resonated within the community. If a lot of people supported the idea, they'd stop merely talking about it and actually march from the park to Parliament, rallying for change.
This is the idea behind HitSend. The company produces an online platform that allows anyone to submit ideas on a topic. People can vote, yay or nay, on the issue. The ideas that gather the most support are then automatically sent to the person who can bring about change.
The platform is applicable to a wide range of scenarios. It could be used internally by a company to get feedback from employees to improve working conditions. Or it could be used externally by customers to direct the attention of CEOs to customer service issues.
Only the ideas that gather a lot of approval are sent to the person who can bring about change, and the platform even allows that person to respond to the idea.
“A lot of times, people have these really great ideas, but they don’t get them out of their mind. They don’t take them anywhere,” said Brennan McEachran, founder of HitSend (above). “The goal was to build something that could take their idea and put it somewhere useful, as simply as possible.”
McEachran came up with the idea of the Hitsend platform when he was given an unusual opportunity. He was discussing ways to improve Ryerson with his friends, but that night he couldn’t sleep. So he emailed the school’s president, and was shocked to receive a response — he had a meeting in two weeks with Sheldon Levy, the president of Ryerson University.
“So for about a week and a half, two weeks, I was trying to think up better ideas instead of these little crappy ones. I asked my friends over Facebook, Twitter, and real life, on paper, in class. It was super ineffective,” he explained. “I was hoping of a better way of doing that.”
And so HitSend was born.
He pitched his idea of the platform to the DMZ, and on the one-year anniversary of joining, HitSend signed a contract with Indigo-Chapters, which now uses HitSend’s platform for customer feedback. To optimize their product, HitSend makes sure the platform stays brandable, so companies can easily upload their colours and logos. The Facebook and Twitter apps can easily be turned on or off.
McEachran, a fourth-year business student, says that while parts of the project have been challenging, the DMZ’s environment has helped him in many ways, such as connecting with the other members of HitSend. “Hanging out with (people who have) PhDs in computer science is never a bad thing when you're an app developer.”
As well, potential customers come through the DMZ on tours, making it easier to connect with people who might be interested in the platform. Like Indigo representatives.
In the future, McEachran says he hopes to continue working towards giving the silent majority a voice, and getting those great ideas that people think about on their commute home, to the people at the top who can bring about positive change.

Finizi

A really great combination at the DMZ is when someone already has an insider’s knowledge of an industry and an innovative idea. Take Daniel Shain (left), who worked at a bank for several years before a lightbulb went off above his head, leading him to quit his job to work at the DMZ.
“It’s interesting,” said Shain. “When it comes to GICs, mortgages, and other discretionary priced products, banks have quite a lot of discretion. So even if you see advertised in the paper, let's say, a GIC that’s usually at one percent. That's just the posted rate. The banks can usually do much better.”
While Shain knows this, many banking customers don’t. He says there are two kinds of banking customers. One who doesn’t realize that banks can often negotiate a better interest rate, and the one who shops around, then goes to a bank saying they’ve found a better interest rate at another institution. With the latter type, banks might offer a better interest rate.
Using this financial knowledge, Shain created Finizi, a reverse-auction platform where financial institutions bid against each other for customers' business. A customer entering the live auction will state the amount of money they have and how long they wish to invest it for. Customers can be individuals or businesses, and there’s a minimum investment of $1,000. The financial institutions then bid on the money by offering the highest interest rate.
It’s clearly a good deal for the customer, but at this point you can probably guess what was the hardest aspect of initiating Finizi.
“The issue with getting banking institutions on board is that they're really big organizations. There's a lot of red tape. There's a lot of regulation. There's a lot of reputation risk,” said Shain. “Even getting in front of CEO-level people can take weeks, not to mention all the legal paperwork.”
Things got easier after the first two financial institutions signed on, because then Shain could tell the remaining financial institutions that their competitors were on board. Finizi was launched last September, but getting there wasn’t a simple task for this entrepreneur. He did extensive research before quitting his comfortable banking job, speaking with bankers and potential customers. “I wanted to make sure I wasn’t overlooking anything. The worst thing you can do is quit your job and then realize that, due to regulation, you're not allowed to launch it.”
It’s been a long road for Shain, but while he says it’s good to get a job for the corporate experience, he’s sticking to entrepreneurship, where every day is different. At his old job, he knew when he was going to finish work, knew what was expected of him, and could do his job with his eyes closed. “That’s when you get comfortable, when you get lazy, and the creative juices stop flowing. So I'd say getting out of my comfort zone is what I enjoy.”

The Digital Media Zone
The lab at the DMZ is one floor, crammed with more than 50 computers in clusters. A whiteboard covers the length of the longest wall, coated with company names and brainstorming lists. It’s a room for business meetings and development, but it still has that student feel.
Coffee cups are on every table. There’s a box of cereal and a bunch of tea bags next to a computer, along with a bottle of cough syrup. Beanbag chairs make a nice seating area near the entrance. It’s a mix of the student and business life here.
While some companies in this space have already reached an incredible amount of success and have “graduated,” other newbie groups are just beginning to contribute as innovative entrepreneurs.
Here students find support and networks. Shain said, “It’s great to combine resources and leverage each others' experiences. For instance, when I started fundraising, I reached out to a few companies here that have been through the process, and asked them to introduce me to some potential investors.”

Hossein Rahnama (left), Research Director of Digital Media Zone describes the incubator as an ecosystem. It’s not only about university or just entrepreneurship, or merely teamwork, but about everything. He’s seen cases where good computer programmers come in but don’t have the communications skills necessary to start a business, yet they can do so anyways. “This is possible because there are people from business school, engineering, people from arts and humanities. They are all working together. So you can use your skills sets, you can be great at it, but you can also work with people as a team to move your ideas further.”

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

UNO News Net: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso: Pablo Picasso at the AGO

UNO News Net: Eurocopa 2012: Los nuevos uniformes de Nike

UNO News Net: London Olympics 2012: Sponsor companies get set for 100 days of protest; El panorama de Londres a 100 días de los Juegos Olímpicos

Latest Pew Research Center poll: Romney’s immigration stance may soften to appeal to Latino voters

Mitt Romney may adopt a softer tone on illegal immigration now that the long and divisive primary is all but over and he gears up for a head-to-head battle with President Barack Obama.

Obama leads Romney among Hispanic voters by 40 points, according to the latest Pew Research Center poll, confirming the candidate's weakness with the fastest-growing demographic in the country. Meanwhile, the Obama campaign made a push on Wednesday to reach out to Hispanic voters by launching Spanish-language ads in battleground states like Colorado.

On Sunday, in comments overheard by reporters from NBC and other outlets, Romney seemed worried about the chasm.

"We have to get Hispanic voters to vote for our party," he told donors, according to NBC. Latinos' overwhelming support for Democrats and Obama "spells doom for us," he said.

Though it's still unclear exactly how Romney plans to avoid this "doom," the campaign appeared to distance itself from Kris Kobach, a Yale-trained lawyer and Kansas state politician who crafted most of the recent state and local laws that crack down on illegal immigration.

A few months ago, Romney said in a press release that he was happy to have Kobach "on the team" and was looking forward to working with him to combat illegal immigration. Kobach told reporters that he was advising the governor on immigration issues. But a Romney spokesperson told Politico's Glenn Thrush on Tuesday that Kobach is a "supporter," not an adviser. Kobach told National Review Online later Tuesday that his role hasn't changed and he's still an informal adviser, and blamed Democrats for making it appear as if his job had been modified.

More...But is the "adviser" versus "supporter" difference just semantics? Maybe, but the distinction is likely important for some Hispanic voters who associate Kobach with policies that they believe scapegoat illegal immigrants and their children—many of whom are U.S. citizens—for the nation's economic and national security problems.

"I think he better bury [Kobach] deep underground between now and November," Miami-based Republican strategist Ana Navarro told Yahoo News. "I'd tell him to get a one-way ticket to Finland for the next six months."

Whatever his next move on Kobach, Romney signaled in his overheard comments that he may embrace a Republican version of the DREAM Act, which would legalize some immigrant young people who were brought to the U.S. as children. (Sen. Marco Rubio, a rumored vice presidential pick for Romney, has been working on a version of the DREAM Act that would legalize but not give citizenship to some young people who grew up in the country.) Romney also said Republicans should criticize Obama for falsely promising Latinos that he would pass immigration reform in his first year in office.

Latino voters are by no means a homogenous or single-issue group, and polls show that on aggregate, they care most about the economy and jobs, with immigration issues trailing behind. But Republican strategists stress that a hostile-sounding tone on immigration issues alienates many Hispanic voters, no matter the candidate's economic platform.

During the long and heated Republican primary, Romney has occasionally used a harsh tone against illegal immigrants. In a memorable debate exchange with Gov. Rick Perry, Romney said he fired a lawn company after he found out that it hired "illegals" to work on his lawn. "I'm running for office, for Pete's sake, I can't have illegals," he said he told the company. He also brought the phrase "self deport" into the lexicon, explaining his theory that illegal immigrants will leave the country voluntarily and en masse when employers are made to check immigration status before hiring.

Navarro said that Romney can adopt a softer tone without flip-flopping on his earlier statement that he wouldn't support a path to legalization. "He can show some heart and sympathy towards the immigrants, the situation of these immigrant kids in particular, and at the same time show anger towards the failures of Obama and how he's used the Latino community as pawns," she said.

Florida Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, who endorsed Romney and helped him win the Florida primary despite their disagreement over immigration reform, credited Romney for not "pandering" to Latinos, but said he hasn't done the best possible job of reaching out to them. "I think he's got a long way to go," he said.

Diaz-Balart agreed that tone is crucial, and blamed some Republicans for using a "nasty" tone on illegal immigration in the past. "I think frankly it sounded to Latinos as if Hispanics were not welcome," he said. "Governor Romney is not like that, he never has been."

Jennifer Korn, the director of the center-right Hispanic Leadership Network and a former Hispanic-affairs aide in the George W. Bush White House, said that it wouldn't hurt for Romney to talk about how he cares about immigrants and their contributions to the country. "I think Romney is a decent man and believes immigration is a wonderful thing for this country, so it would only benefit him if he were to extend those remarks and say the Hispanic community and other immigrant communities make up the fabric of our country and add to it," she said. Korn says Bush—who said in a 2006 immigration reform speech that "the vast majority of illegal immigrants are decent people who work hard, support their families, practice their faith, and lead responsible lives"—had "the language down," and meant it.

Bush won 44 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004, compared to Sen. John McCain's 31 percent four years later, Navarro points out. She believes Romney will have to amass at least 37 percent of the vote to win, though the percentage depends on turnout. In the latest Pew poll, 27 percent of Hispanic voters said they backed Romney.

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Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in St. Louis. (Michael Conroy/AP)

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

UNO News Net: At least 20 women brought to Colombia hotel in U.S. Secret Service prostitution probe

MIT OPENCOURSEWARE 2012: Educational materials that matter and supporting OCW

Several weeks ago I traveled to Port-au-Prince, Haiti with several MIT colleagues as part of workshops on technology-enhanced and open education. The workshops were organized by MIT professor Michel DeGraff, the Faculté des Sciences at the Université d'État d'Haïti, and the Foundation for Knowledge and Liberty. I wasn't sure what to expect because I knew the country was still recovering from the 2010 earthquake.
What I saw was inspiring and moving. I was amazed by the dedication and passion of the Haitian educators and students to improve teaching and learning in sometimes stark conditions. Some university classes are held in open spaces -- three walls with a roof, with little protection from the elements. This is especially difficult during the rainy season.
Most of the universities and schools were heavily damaged in the earthquake but where some buildings and computer labs and internal networks have been rebuilt, Internet connectivity remains limited. We provided two local universities copies of the OCW site, through the OCW mirror site program. The program is designed to offer access to our courses without the need to connect to the internet.
Mr. Jean Henri Vernet, Rector of the Université d'État d'Haïti, said: "This initiative will open a new gate for our students. Through this gate, they will find a comprehensive range of materials from the classrooms of one of the most prestigious universities in the world. These materials cover almost all areas of knowledge. Higher education is going to greatly benefit from this initiative. We will also benefit from exchanges among educators in Haiti and at MIT -- exchanges both in person and online. These exchanges will add a human touch that will enhance the technology."

I gave a brief demonstration of the OCW site and our OCW Scholar courses. The completeness of the Scholar course materials and the linear progression of these subjects in many ways offer guided learning and diminish the need for textbooks. Although Haiti still has quite a long road of recovery ahead of them, the resilience and optimism of these educators and others I met was extraordinary.

Educational materials that matter
My visit showed me in a concrete way how valuable OCW's free resources can be, especially in resource-scarce environments where there is overwhelming demand for learning opportunities. This experience, in addition to the helpful feedback from our users, reinforces our goals to continue to provide free MIT educational materials to anyone seeking knowledge.
We recently published five new OCW Scholar courses. These courses are incredibly in-depth in the way the subject matter is presented, explained and detailed. Although we are proud of our entire publication, the level of effort to produce these courses is equivalent to about five OCW courses. We have begun work on our next set of OCW Scholar courses which will include subjects in electrical engineering and computer science and mechanical engineering, and so please stay tuned. In the meantime, if you haven't already, I encourage you to visit OCW Scholar courses.

OCW materials (syllabi, lecture notes, assignments and exams) support a wide range of use by educators, students and independent learners, but we recognize the particular value of video lectures to our users. We strive to keep in step with that need and now have 58 courses available with audio and video content. We'll continue to increase the availability of these resources as well as update and publish new courses and provide exceptional supplemental resources that are also educational gems.

Supporting open education

Over the last ten years, the open educational landscape has changed dramatically. Where OCW was once the only institution providing free educational materials, now users have the opportunity to access thousands of courses from hundreds of organizations in a plethora of languages. The OpenCourseWare Consortium alone has more than 250 member institutions who are dedicated to making their own courses freely available.

Still, the global demand for knowledge is great but the on-going costs of producing MIT's vast repository of knowledge are significant. Each course we publish requires an investment of $10,000 -- $15,000 to collect course materials from faculty, ensure proper licensing for open sharing, and format materials for global distribution. Courses with video content cost about twice as much. We must also sustain a considerable technical infrastructure that manages content and distributes it through a worldwide network to a global audience and to mirror sites in bandwidth constrained regions.
We are grateful for the funding we receive from MIT, foundations and institutions that provide significant support for our work but donations from individuals like you have become increasingly important. Your support is vital to keeping MIT OpenCourseWare growing and vibrant, and demonstrates to our other funders the value you place on OCW.
In the upcoming weeks, we will launch our spring fundraising campaign. There are a number of ways you can help support OCW:

Make a donation to support our work
Ask your company to match your gift to OCW
Invite your company to make a corporate gift or become an OCW underwriter
Help regularly build OCW's future one course at a time through the OCW Course Champions Program
Shop via our Amazon.com links
Tell your friends and colleagues about OCW.
With your help, we can ensure that OCW continues to share MIT's wealth of knowledge, providing the educational opportunity for motivated people everywhere to improve their lives and change the world.
Sincerely,
Cecilia d'Oliveira
Executive Director
MIT OpenCourseWare

Friday, April 27, 2012

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Monday, April 23, 2012

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Friday, April 20, 2012

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Friday, April 13, 2012

Thursday, April 5, 2012