Harmony: The Story of Rock Our World

Five years ago, Southern California public school teacher Carol Anne McGuire, set out to bring a little bit of the world to her students. With music as her universal language, she created Rock Our World, where students from all over the globe, collaborated to build songs in Apple's music authoring program GarageBand. Through the music making process, schools would meet via video chats and learn about one another.

Five years out, she has brought together hundreds of kids from over 60 schools on seven continents. She has partnered with the American Film Institute, NASA and the Discovery Channel in bringing curriculum into the program. Rock Our World has been featured in education speeches at the United Nations. It is an unmitigated success. But it's future is uncertain.

Cisco Networking Academy - How It Changes Lives

Interviews with people from eight countries to see how Cisco Networking Academy has changed their lives.

Cisco Networking Academy is a global education program that teaches students how to design, build, troubleshoot, and secure computer networks for increased access to career and economic opportunities in communities around the world. Networking Academy provides online courses, interactive tools, and hands-on learning activities to help individuals prepare for ICT and networking careers in virtually every type of industry.

Created by Davis Elen.

Financial and Travel Assistance for Students in 2010 and 2011

Money!  As a famous advertising campaign says, every little helps!  There may be some sources of financial assistance that you have not yet considered.  Here are some links you may find useful in order to fund your studies for 2010 - 2011 if you are at Lewisham College.  In fact the links below will work if you are at any college in the UK. Find out now before your course begins.



EMA (Educational Maintenance Allowance)
If you received the EMA this year you may have to apply for it again.  Check out the site to find out if you are still eligible or whether you need to fill out more forms!

Family Action Grants
If you are over 20, check out this website to see if you are eligible for a Family Action Grant.  Grants are normally around the £200 mark, so it is well worth finding out if you are eligible.

For a postal service taking up to 6 weeks  you can send off a completed Educational Grants Search Form to EGAS, 501-505 Kingsland Road, London, E8 4AU.  However, if you are reading this it means that you are online so we would advise you to do it that way!

Adult Learning Grant
If you have just turned 19 and your EMA has disappeared, check out if you are eligible for an ALG instead.  Any new students for 2010-11 should check this out too.

Credit Unions
Credit Unions are a good way of saving money and once you are an established member can possibly offer you loans with very small interest rates.  If you are working towards a university place, starting out with a Credit Union now could save you a lot of money at Uni.  Note - this will only work if you can SAVE money rather than spend it!

Facts of 18+ Oyster Cards
Again, if you have finished with EMA or you are an adult on a College course, check out if you are eligible for discounts on your travel.

Bus and Tram Discount Scheme
If you are on Job Seekers or Income Support (JSA or IS) you may be eligible to take part in the discount scheme.  This could save you a lot of money on travel over the Academic Year!

This list will be updated whenever we come across more possible sources of income.  However, for further information about these and other sources of additional income, please contact Carmel in Guidance for further advice if you are 20+ using the College telephone number and asking for Guidance 20+.



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First Love

This is not your typical boy meets girl film - by any means. Made by Wide Angle Youth Media, follow a young man as he pursues and falls in love with a young woman.

There are butterflies in his stomach, the way she smiles at him, how they feel as they hold one another - you know the score. Such is the tale of two young lovers. However, this tale does not end with a happily ever after as you might hope or imagine.

This video explores love, and the sometimes tragedies it leads to, like suicide. negative peer influence, a bad school environment and relationships to her teachers have discouraged her to want to finish her high school education.

Whistleblower lawsuit

Your Best Interests At Heart?

You want the best deal on your eyeglasses, right?  Well, there is something going on out there that if you didn’t know better you might call a conspiracy – and yes, it’s all about information.

When you go to an optician they will give you an eye test which will enable you the optician to then prescribe the correct eyeglasses for you.  Unfortunately, what many opticians are trying to do these days is to lock you in, so that you have to buy your eyeglasses from them.

So, what that means is that great online offers, such as those from zennioptical.com become out of bounds.  Why?  It is because your optician will not give you information about yourself. 

When you have your eye test something called your PD is measured.  This is the Pupillary Distance which in every day terms means the distance between the pupils of the eyes, from the center of one to the center of the other.  This distance is important as it tells eyeglass vendors which measurement you need for your eyeglasses to fit properly.  Many opticians do not want to tell you your PD because then it means you can go away and get cheaper eyeglasses elsewhere.

Hardly seems fair in this day and age, does it?

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University of Redlands

Image Credit Wikimedia

You really shouldn't judge by appearances, but the above is the Admissions Building of the University of Redlands.  If that is what Admissions looks like, you know that you want to see the rest of the place, particularly as you have to pick your university wisely these days. Education is not exactly cheap!

What you need above and beyond an excellent education (at a top university) are two other things: credibility and value. Value, of course, means that you need to be able to say that you have invested wisely in your education and credibility is all about the reputation of the university. You need to know that the institution you are aiming to attend has good standing within, amongst other things, the business world.

The University of Redlands is one of those special places – and what’s more there is proof. Their graduates have an excellent earning potential and you don’t have to have rich parents to get there – over half their students receive some kind of financial assistance.

As an Inland Empire college, the University of Redlands has a fine history of raising the expectations of those who study there. Plus there it is so much more than a university – you can head in to the hills for skiing and hiking or go south to some of the world’s most stunning beaches. Culture is never far away either, as LA is just to the west, with Palm Springs and Joshua Tree to the east.

Image Credit Wkimedia

If you are looking for an excellent California business school then Redlands University has to be on your must see list – and once you see it you will probably want to sign up to one of their over 40 undergraduate programs, including a top notch business degree, straight away. There is also the superb option of customizing your own course with the help of the smart and caring facilitators who are expert in the field of continued education.

Redlands University was recently called one of higher education’s best kept secrets (by The Fiske Guide to Colleges no less) and once you take a look at it you will know exactly why. Go take a look!

Look At Yourself After Watching This

Nick Vujijic is by anyone's standards a remarkable person.  Born with only a single vestigial limb he has become an inspiration for many people.

As you come to the end of this Academic Year at Lewisham College there will be times when you might feel like giving up.

There may be other times when you seem to have so much work to do that you feel you will never get through it (that goes for staff as well as students!). Take a look at this short but moving video and perhaps you can take some inspiration - and find the will to carry on and succeed - from the wonderful example set by Nick Vujijic to us all.

A Short Love Story

A couple of pencil-outlined birds escape from a little girl´s drawing, leading us through the life of which she dreams.

This is a really sweet animation and is not done on a very high budget but is a great snapshot of one girl's imagination and how she can see a whole life ahead of her - even though her prospects don't look too great at the moment.

Sexy Dresses

Two Inches To The Right

Poet Mat Lloyd wrote the poem 2 Inches to the Right the morning after he was attacked in his local park. Fortunately he was near to friends and was rescued by them when they saw him being attacked.

He has performed this in his live sets since then. As violence by and among young people continues to rise it is as relevant now as when it was written.

Now, animator and designer Matt Frodsham has made the poem in to a short film. This amazing short really gives you food for thought.

Watch this, get your friends to watch this – and talk about what it means.

If it makes someone think twice before launching in to a mindless attack, job done.

This Is What Democracy Looks Like

It is not only the UK that is suffering large cuts in education.  Over in America public education continues to be as big an issue as it is here.  Last week the Governor of New Jersey announced some large cuts in education provision. 

Columbia High School students in Maplewood,  New Jersey decided to do something about it. They left their classes all day to protest Governor Chris Christie's budget cuts on public education programs. Take a look at this interesting video to see why they made this decision.

Take Care of your Hair!

Everyone knows that baseball caps are banned in College – for a variety of reasons, the main one being that it is difficult to recognise someone on CCTV if their head and hair is obscured by a cap.  Of course, an unwillingness to be recognised is not the main reason why most people don their caps in the morning.  Do you know why it is?

It is as simple as having a bad hair day.  Many people quickly stick a cap on their head when they have had a bad experience that morning with their hair.  You only have to swipe a cap off someone’s head to have the full horror revealed to you.  Then you really wish you hadn’t done it!

If they had looked properly in to Hair Care they would probably have used Wen by Chaz Dean instead of the products that left their hair looking as if they had been through several hedges backwards, forwards, left and right!

The Wen system is a new approach to how you cleanse and care for your hair and is altogether something you should take a look at.  Of course, you could just wear that baseball cap but remember, your hair can be your crowning glory.

Don’t hide your light under a cap!

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Drug Rehab With A Difference

If you heard the words drug rehab center, what images would come in to your head?  You may have some preconceptions about drug rehab, particularly for young people.  However, there is a new college model in California which is breaking new ground.

One of the major ideas behind Sober College is the fact that people are never too involved with substance abuse to think about college. In fact for the majority of young people it is vital that they have something to stimulate them while they are in the recovery process. 

At Sober College young people have the opportunity to do many different courses – some a little unusual.  If you think that things like trapeze, skydiving and surfing have no place in drug rehab, you will think again once you see their website.

The World's Best Universities

Research by Online Degrees.org
This is a question that is asked a lot at College.  So, here you are - sorted by subject - the best universities in the world.  Best Funded as well, to be honest!  As you might imagine there are a number of American universities who make it to the top - MIT, Princeton, Harvard and so on.  However, a number of British universities make it too - Oxford, Cambridge and here in London we have Imperial and the LSE making an appearance.  So, now you know!

The Future of Learning

An interesting video which shows you possible ways that learning will be done in the future.  One thing is for sure - if you haven't heard of the term Lifelong Learning yet, you soon will! 

Take a look at this very interesting video and have a think about where you might fit in here. 

The chances are the answer will be somewhere, because although your future will involve a lot of learning, there will be many different ways to do it.

IDrive Backup - Why Not Save Your Stuff Online?

How many times have you heard a not so muffled scream coming from the horrified lips of one of your friends?  If they haven’t been dumped by text or Facebook then the chances are quite possible that they have lost all their work.

You know what it is like.  They have worked for months on a project and then they have failed to do an Online Backup.  Those USBs are useful, of course for mobility, but they can go wrong and if you don’t do a backup of your work then they can prove your downfall (of course some people do a backup of their work on the same stick.  Let’s not even go there).

Help is at hand.  IDrive is an Online Backup that makes all the sweat and tears of losing your work just a bad dream.  You might have years of work and memories on your hard disk and you can so easily lose it all.  With IDrive you can use it for your Mac, IPhone or Blackberry too.  You do not have to be a computer whizz kid to get it right, either.  They have loads of online tutorials to help you set up and once you have you will find out that it is as easy as one two three!

Of course just about the best advantage of doing an online backup is that you can access your stuff anywhere in the world and you don't have to carry around little bits of hardware that can get lost or damaged easily.


Go and take a look at their website.

Inquiry - Short Film About Gun Crime

This is a short but very powerful film made by Justin Alder about gun crime. He directed it for Greenwich and Lewisham Young People's Theatre.

To be honest, we think it is a lot more powerful than many government sponsored anti gun campaigns, but cost a great deal less.

See what you think.

If you want to find out more about Greenwich and Lewisham Young People's Theatre, click HERE or on the picture above.  Plenty to do there, rest assured!

How To Qualify for a Short Sale

These are difficult times and – unfortunately – many people find themselves in a position where they have bad mortgage debt. When this happens it is often difficult to find out whether you qualify for a short sale or not. What you need to do is look for an experienced organisation that will help you out with finding out – simply and easily. You are probably stressed out enough without having to learn all the techno-speak that is probably involved.

Give Housing Assist a go if that is the situation you find yourself in. They can help you with a number of things, such as how to get your debt obligations down to the smallest size they can be and they can help you in making sure that your credit does not degrade any further. They can even present potential solutions to your lender and ensure that these terms are favourable to you. So, if you are looking at whether you qualify for a short sale, give Housing Assist a try.

Prejudice

This short film was made for Lewisham Council (South East London) by Wayne Campbell. It is designed to provoke thought about the nature of prejudice - and even begins with a definition of the term (some people through the word about without really knowing what it means!). Take a couple of minutes to think about your own, perhaps.

Wayne Campbell's journey into filmmaking began in 1998 with his first film Urban Romance. This film was produced against the odds and with next to no budget, but went on to win the ‘Best use of Cinematography’ award at the 1998 BFM film Awards. After the success of that, there was no turning back. In the years that followed he has tried his hand at Pop promos, training films, community films corporate videos, documentaries and viral advertisements and a whole host of other things too.

Football Academy Adventures in Texas

As you may know the Lewisham College Football Academy are at this very moment in Dallas, Texas to take part in a tournament. Everyone here has their fingers crossed for the lads - a few games have already been played and the team are doing really well.  You can follow their American Adventure by clicking on the picture above or the link below.

Football Academy in Texas

GCSE Revision

Are you looking to do some revision at home for your GCSE English and Maths?  One of the best sites you can go to is GCSE Bitesize (brought to you by the BBC).  As the name suggests it is chock full of bite size ideas for revision. 

As you probably know, revision is best done in small bursts and this site enables you to do just that. Click on the image to the left to take you right there!