Blackboard Student Orientation Essay Example for Free

Blackboard Student Orientation Essay The Blackboard Learning System is the wide-ranging and adaptable electronic-learning software platform built up for educationalists to improve their instruction and learning experience by means of the Internet. Blackboard operates using either Netscape or Internet Explorer. The browser must accommodate both JavaScript and Java. Institutions around the world are now using Blackboard to enhance conventional classroom education and convey superior distance training (Jafari and Sheehan, 2003). The platform has been refined through three years of continual innovation and feedback from its user base. Students can access their courses remotely if they do not have computers at home through their institution’s computer center or at pubic libraries that have a web connection. To access the course, a student must have a university email account. This is usually set up automatically after the student registers for the course in which Blackboard is used. From the orientation, it became clear to me the concept of Blackboard. I know now that the Blackboard Inc. is a company that markets and sells software designed to optimize use of the Internet as a tool for advancing education and learning. It also increases institutions’, faculties’ and students’ right of entry to applicable educational content as well as offer instructive information services. In this way, Blackboard reaches a more extensive base of students, graduates and groups of people. I also learned that Blackboard is an education portal that can pull data from campus information systems (student information system, human resource management system, etc. ) and from the Internet, and unify their presentation to end users following information standards. This way, the Blackboard Learning System positively influences the online education program of educationalists by allowing the customization of their courses using only the needed features that are suitable to their educational needs. The use of the system likewise helps facilitate a shift in the mode of assessment, from summative to formative evaluation. WORK CITED Jafari, A. Sheehan. (2003). Designing Portals: Opportunities and Challenges. Hershey, Pennsylvania: Idea Group, Inc.

Narrative Essay: I am Japanese American :: Personal Narrative Essays

I am Japanese American    I am glad I am Japanese American, even though I feel JA men are some of America's best kept secrets. There is a story of a vertically challenged man who was in the midst of some tall men. One of the taller men said to him, "You must feel pretty small right now." The man replied, "Yes, I feel like a dime in the midst of a bunch of nickels."    Being a JA male is not easy in America. We get no respect, it seems. Often, the image of the JA male is the nerd, the quiet invisible man, or somehow one devoid of sexuality. JA women have been elevated by American society to a somewhat higher level of acceptance, or so it seems from the mainstream media.    I noticed recently that there are more JA (or Asian American) men doing the news on TV; Rob Fukuzaki and others on local news are a welcome sight because it seems we Asian men have joined the rest of society at least in terms of representation on the news (although pioneers like Ken Kashiwahara and Sam Chu Lin helped give early visibility for Asian men on camera).    My parents experienced the Depression years in America; my father having arrived in this country in 1920, and my mother coming to join him in 1932. They experienced being forced into concentration camps, then having to start over again after the war, facing social discrimination and then overcoming it to a large extent through hard work, economic success and good citizenship. They taught me values like working hard, being faithful to your family, the importance of a good name and being honorable, the importance of community and supporting community groups, remembering your ancestors and your cultural heritage, respecting your elders and your parents, and many other important values and virtues that help me to be a man of substance and strength. And yes, I can say it, I am a man of substance and strength, perhaps even a dime among a lot of nickels. A part of my JA upbringing also taught me to be reserved and modest, unassuming and uncomplaining. And even though I picked up a trace of racist attitudes from my parents--that Japanese are superior to other people, and that others, especially African American, Mexican and Pilipinos, were inferior. But still, I was dominated by a sense of being inferior myself to the general society around me.

Research Paper on Langston Hughes

Name English 1302. FE1 April 19, 2013 Research project: Langston Hughes Anybody can be philosopher, and come up with wonderful ideas and thoughts in their head. How many of those people can actually get those ideas and thoughts on to paper. For others to cherish or criticize, to love or hate. Only a select few can achieve such a task and it doesn't come easy; to be able to relate to a great amount of people and know that they have the same ideas. It is almost as if you are talking for a group of people when you write a poem cause those feelings you have when you are writing it transcends to those that are reading the poem.Creating feelings with just a group of words and bringing back past emotions or new emotions to the reader. Langston Hughes is one of those incredible people. The way his poems bring a sensation to them that some other poets can’t even process. â€Å"Hughes was a very complex person, split between a sophisticated consciousness and a fierce determination to c reate a popular and simplified poetic art† (Bloom 10). Langston Hughes had a way of reaching his people by speaking to the black people and putting down everyday life for them. He helped form a new kind of poetry with more rhythm style. Hughes was an established figure in the Harlem Renaissance, a cultural movement characterized by an explosion of black literature, theater, music, painting, and political and racial consciousness†(Meyers 908). Jazz was growing during the Harlem Renaissance and Langston captured that in jazz poetry. â€Å"Jazz poetry is a literary genre defined as poetry necessarily informed by jazz music†¦ Jazz poetry, like the music itself, encompasses a variety of forms, rhythms, and sounds. † (A Brief Guide to Jazz Poetry). Jazz poetry can be seen as a thread that runs through the Harlem Renaissance, the Beat movement, and the Black Arts Movement.Jazz poems are supposed to bring a vivid imagery in your head. To which Langston could write po ems that could almost make you feel like you were there dancing and galloping in joy. Langston Hughes was born in a regular black family. The talent of Langston Hughes really emerged in high school where he participated on the yearbook staff, wrote for the school newspaper, and began his short stories. He found that he loved writing. He brought black culture into books and poetry. â€Å"Hughes’s poems, populist and expressionistic, rarely demand, or receive, ‘close reading’† (Bloom 8). He died a great poet, activist, and novelist.His â€Å"impressive body of work makes him an important literary artist and a leading African American voice of the twentieth century. † (Meyers 913). Poetry is such a strong and magical force that is too hard not to be ignored. Poems can come from great depths from death to dreams. Theme in poems are endless, they can be anything. Many poets play off of one theme their whole careers, because they have so much meaning that they felt yet haven’t seen the light of many people. Langston Hughes has a broad amount of themes in his poems, such as uplifting the black people and to help them not be ashamed of whom they are.He kept that one of his major themes for most of his poems. I believe that can also be a broad theme for all his poems. All of Hughes’ poems helped with getting the black culture up and rising and fighting cause things would get better. He gave blacks a sense of optimism. He brought many of his followers to a better place every time they read his poems. Langston Hughes wrote many great poems, I have chosen a select few to write about and try to dig deep inside of them to know where he was coming from. Langston Hughes, a great poet has presented many themes in his works. A theme is the overall process of a poem and gives it life.I will be discovering and understanding the themes Langston Hughes uses in four chosen poems. â€Å"Mother to Son,† by Langston Hughes, is a po em about a mother telling her son about all the hardships that she had to go through in her life. Then she tells her son not to give up no matter how hard it is to keep going on. The stairs and everything on or not on it are a metaphor for her life. This poem is about never giving up. â€Å"So boy, don’t you turn back. Don’t you set down on the steps. † (Mother to Son lines 14-15) Sometimes everything just feels like nothing is going right and you feel like there is no point in even trying anymore.Life â€Å"ain’t been no crystal stair† (Mother to Son line 20) but its essential to press on. You can overcome anything. There are always ups, and downs in life and you have to endure whatever life throws at you and push through it. â€Å"Park Bench,† Is a story of two different lives and how ambitions of one lead to the same status as his counterpart. Park Bench has an undertone of being an underdog and coming from nothing, a â€Å"rags to riche s† story. We all look at people within a higher class and desire to have that lifestyle. Everybody wants to be the wealthiest or part of the higher class, but how many of them actually go out and do that? That I might, just maybe, in a year or two, Move on over To Park Avenue? † (Park Bench lines 9-12) is a good line to represent the ambitions people have; to move up in the world and to have the dream to be able to afford living in high status. Just having the strength to have the ambition to set a goal with so much meaning and fulfilling it. It plays on the American Dream of coming from a next to nothing situation and having the will power to show the world that you aren't just â€Å"anybody† but a â€Å"somebody†. Hughes has a way of making it seem as if anything is possible.If he can do it, I can too. This poem really brings out something that lies deep inside of me and I want to make it. I could see this poem inspiring the black man wanting to strive fo r more. â€Å"I, Too,† is an excellent poem. It is about the life of a black person who grows up mentally and believes that he can achieve a lot by just standing up for himself. It is almost as if he decided to go against the grain and start a revolution. â€Å"Besides, they’ll see how beautiful I am and be ashamed. † (I, Too Lines 15-17). By being a gentlemen and being nice, the people had nothing to do, but like him.This poem shows you don’t have to have violence to be a bigger man. Also he is saying that everyone in this country is equal and we are all American, so why are we degraded people just because of the color of their skin. â€Å"I, Too Am American. † â€Å"(I, Too Lines 18). We are all created the same, so he was saying the world itself is fucked up enough, so why are we here disgracing others and believing some are better than others. This was a strong poem and painted a great picture of how life was back then. â€Å"Frederick Dougla ss,† is a poem about a man who strived to be free.The theme of this poem shows drive and perseverance to freedom. â€Å"On which he set his feet, to route each path toward freedom’s goal† (Frederick Douglass lines 10-13). Douglass’ strength of character is so great, Hughes says, that he cannot die. Though he has been formally dead since 1895, his spirit's vitality remains as strong as ever. His strength came not from sheer will but from his will to liberate the enslaved. â€Å"From the beginning of his career to the end of it, Hughes spoke out clearly and courageously for racial justice. † (Taylor). Hughes poetry reveals his hearty appetite for all humanity, his insistence on justice for all, and his faith in the transcendent possibilities of joy and hope that make room for everyone at Americas table. † (Meyers 916). Langston Hughes brought a new view to many people and let many people in on the life of a regular black lifestyle. He was a true activist and brought hope and inspiration to many black people. â€Å"Langston Hughes is one of the essential figures in American literature. His career is much larger than the body of his poetry alone.By his work and his example, he has enriched our lives† (Taylor). What makes a poet great is that they can paint a picture in your head as well as give you a new view of things and make you feel what they are saying. You can basically see the poet writing down the words for the first time, as your mind starts painting the picture word by word stroke by stroke. As soon as a word comes out a new stroke emerges and brings you to new depths. You can feel the life and feel the pain and triumph in many of Hughes’ poems. Langston Hughes, a great poet has presented many themes in his works and gives them life.Works Cited Author Unknown. â€Å"A Brief Guide to Jazz Poetry. †Academy of American Poets. n. d. Web. 2 April. 2013. ;www. poets. org/viewmedia. php/prmMID/5660;. Bloom, Harold, ed. Langston Hughes: Comprehensive Research and Study Guide. Broomall: Chelsea House Publishers, 1998. Web. Hughes, Langston: â€Å"Frederick Douglas. † The Compact Bedford Introduction toLiterature. Ed. Michael Meyer. 8thed. Boston. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009. 931-932. Print. —. â€Å"I, Too. †The Compact Bedford Introduction toLiterature. Ed. Michael Meyer. 8thed. Boston. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009. 15. Print. —. â€Å"Mother to Son. † The Compact Bedford Introduction toLiterature. Ed. Michael Meyer. 8thed. Boston. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009. 917. Print. —. â€Å"Park Bench. †The Compact Bedford Introduction toLiterature. Ed. Michael Meyer. 8th ed. Boston. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009. 924. Print. Meyer, Michael. â€Å"A Study of Langston Hughes. †The Compact Bedford Introductionto Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. 8thed. Boston. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009. 907-936. Print. Taylor, Henry. â€Å"He Heard America Jiving. † The New York Times. December 25, 1994. Web. 3 Apr. 2013.

The Mass Hysteria Of Salem Witch Trials Essay - 2129 Words

It began in 1692, over an exceptionally raw Massachusetts winter, when a minister s daughter began to scream and convulse, while other girls manifested the same symptoms. Their doctor suggested one cause, witchcraft. That grim diagnosis launched a Puritan inquisition that took 24 lives, filled prisons with innocent people, and frayed the soul of a Massachusetts community called Salem. It ended less than a year later, but not before the hanging of 20 men and women, including an elderly man who was crushed to death. The hysteria spread quickly, involving the most educated men and prominent politicians in Salem. Aside from suffrage, the Salem witch trials represent the only moment when women played a central role in American history. There are many theories as to what caused the mass hysteria of the Salem witch trials and the bewitchment of several young girls including the lack of freedom and want of attention from young girls, the role of religion and Satan in Salem, lack of verif iable evidence, economic and social divisions within the community, and the possibility of ergotism. In 1692, children were expected to behave under the same strict code as the adults doing chores, attending church services, and repressing individual differences. Any show of emotion, such as excitement, fear, or anger, was discouraged and disobedience was severely punished. Children rarely played, as toys and games were scarce, since Puritans saw these activities as sinful distractions.Show MoreRelatedThe Salem Witch Trials : The Biggest Faults Of Mass Hysteria By Fear772 Words   |  4 PagesCrucible Essay Many say the Salem Witch Trials was one of the biggest faults of mass hysteria by fear. 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This quote represents the knowledge that a single human being may have, but may not wish to use in situations. Numerous Historians have marked The Salem Witch Trials and The Red Scare as both Era’s of Hysteria among the people of the U.S, this research will explain the makingsRead MoreEssay on Ergotism, Hysteria, and Disorders Detected in Salem889 Words   |  4 PagesMany people believe the Salem Witch Trials were caused by Ergotism, while others believe it to be just a form of hysteria, but what if I told you it could have been all of those combined together with another theory added in? In the story, The Crucible, mass hysteria broke out all through Salem being caused by the witch trials. The witch trials, however, may not have been the only thing causing the hysteria. Argot poisoning in the water along with puritan pressure causing the little girls to actRead MoreThe Cause And Effects Of Mass Hysteria And Its Causes767 Words   |  4 Pagesover our minds when were under pressure? 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The initial wave of panic when rumors of witchcraft arose gave way to compete hysteria when accusations began. Salem massachusetts was the perfect