Lesson | - NYTimes.com

Overview | Does the emphasis on reading ?informational text? in the new Common Core State Standards set up a ?fiction versus nonfiction smackdown? in English classes? If so, is that good or bad?

In this lesson, students will reflect on their reading experiences in and out of school and discuss the roles that both nonfiction and fiction have played. Then, they will become familiar with what the Common Core standards say about reading, and what critics and supporters have written in reaction, in order to discuss and write about the question ?What Should Children Read??

Materials | Our Reading Questionnaire handout

Warm-Up | Ask students to complete our Reading Questionnaire (PDF) to begin thinking about their own reading histories, habits and preferences ? and about the roles of fiction and nonfiction in their lives.

Next, have students work in small groups to discuss what they wrote. (Though the questionnaire itself can remain private, they can use their answers to contribute to the conversation.) Then, as a whole class, hear observations and conclusions from each group. You might then go on to talk about any of the following questions, or save them for later in the lesson:

• In general, how much of what you read now would be considered nonfiction or informational text?
• What kinds of things do you read outside of English class, in science, history and math?
• Do videos and graphs and photographs count as ?texts? one can ?read??
• Is reading informational text, or nonfiction, easier or harder than reading fiction?
• Have you been taught explicitly how to read informational text, as you have been taught to read literature in English?
• What do you get from reading fiction that you can?t from nonfiction? What do you get from reading nonfiction that you can?t from fiction?
• Do students need to read more nonfiction to be ready for college and careers? Why or why not?

Finally, ask students if they have heard of the Common Core State Standards, and what they know, or think they know, about what the standards say. According to the overview, from the C.C.S.S. Web site, ?The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers.?

Explain that 45 states and three United States territories have adopted the standards, so they will shape what students learn, what they read, and what they will be tested on.

One of the most significant ?instructional shifts? in these standards is the demand that schools teach more nonfiction or ?informational text? across subject areas. Because most of what students will read in college and in the workplace is not fiction, but texts that are ?informational in structure,? the standards say that that by fourth grade, half of what students read should be informational text, while by 12th grade, students should be reading nonfiction 70 percent of the time.

Here is the chart from the Standards document that shows the NAEP Reading Framework on which the authors of the C.C.S.S. base their recommendations:

(Note that this does not mean that 70 percent of the reading in 12th grade English classes should be informational, but, instead, that nonfiction should make up 70 percent of the reading 12th graders should do in school in all subjects.)

Ask students if this seems like a big shift to them given what they already read in school. Do they think that this shift is necessary in order to be ?college and career-ready?? Why? What would be lost, and what would be gained, for students with such a shift?

Tell them that, as the nation transitions to these new standards, there has been a great debate about the fiction vs. nonfiction requirement. They are about to read an essay on the topic that recently appeared in The New York Times, then will read other points of view, discuss them, and decide what they think themselves.

Related | In her Opinionator blog post What Children Should Read,? Sara Mosle writes:

Malcolm Gladwell, author of ?The Tipping Point? and a New Yorker staff writer, told me how he prepared, years ago, to write his first ?Talk of the Town? story. ?Talk? articles have a distinct style, and he wanted to make sure he got the voice straight in his head before he began writing. His approach was simple. He sat down and read 100 ?Talk? pieces, one after the other.

The story nicely illustrates how careful reading can advance great writing. As a schoolteacher, I offer Mr. Gladwell?s story to students struggling with expository writing as evidence that they need not labor alone. There are models out there ? if only they?ll read them.

Mr. Gladwell?s tale provides a good lesson for English teachers across the country as they begin to implement the Common Core State Standards, a set of national benchmarks, adopted by nearly every state, for the skills public school students should master in language arts and mathematics in grades K-12.
The standards won?t take effect until 2014, but many public school systems have begun adjusting their curriculums to satisfy the new mandates. Depending on your point of view, the now contentious guidelines prescribe a healthy ? or lethal ? dose of nonfiction.

For example, the Common Core dictates that by fourth grade, public school students devote half of their reading time in class to historical documents, scientific tracts, maps and other ?informational texts? ? like recipes and train schedules. Per the guidelines, 70 percent of the 12th grade curriculum will consist of nonfiction titles. Alarmed English teachers worry we?re about to toss Shakespeare so students can study, in the words of one former educator, ?memos, technical manuals and menus.?

Questions | For discussion and reading comprehension:

1. What does Ms. Mosle illustrate in her opening anecdote?
2. What are the advantages to teaching and reading nonfiction?
3. Why are English teachers concerned about the new nonfiction requirements?
4. What do you think education researcher Diane Ravitch means by writing, ?I can?t imagine a well-developed mind that has not read novels, poems and short stories.?
5. What is narrative nonfiction? Can you think of any examples?
6. Overall, what is Ms. Mosle arguing about the role of nonfiction in schools? What sentences make that clear?

RELATED RESOURCES

From The Learning Network

From NYTimes.com

Around the Web

Activity | Note: Given the lengthy warm-up, some teachers may choose at this point to go straight to the writing exercise in which students state and support their own point of view on the topic. For classes that would like to consider other points of view and have a discussion or debate, we provide the following.

Tell students they will engage in a circle-within-a-circle discussion around the question at the heart of this article: ?What Should Children Read??

Before they begin to prepare for the discussion, project or distribute the Common Core anchor standards for reading literature and informational texts and ask students to look at the specifics for their grade level. Ask them note what seem to be the most important expectations for student readers at their grade level and to keep these in mind as they explore the discussion questions.

Give students this list of discussion questions with related readings (all nonfiction) and ask them to read and take notes in preparation for a discussion. You might assign groups or pairs of students to each question, and then jigsaw them to create an inner circle for discussion.

1. Does an increased emphasis on reading nonfiction threaten the place of fiction, poetry and drama in English classrooms? Some English teachers think so. According to the English newspaper The Telegraph, ?American literature classics are to be replaced by insulation manuals and plant inventories in United States classrooms by 2014.? Is this true? If so, is it a good idea? To decide for yourself, look at this post critiquing the focus on nonfiction by The Concord Review?s Will Fitzhugh; the Room for Debate post ?Reading More But Learning Less??; the Washington Post?s ?Fiction vs. Nonfiction Smackdown?; and National Review?s?Goodbye, Liberal Arts?? You can also read what two architects of the Common Core have to say in response about the role of fiction in E.L.A. classrooms, and what advice education researcher Diane Ravitch offers them about revising the 70 percent/30 percent requirements of the standards.
2. What does reading fiction teach us that reading nonfiction does not?

Fiction is generally the centerpiece of English language arts curriculums, and with reason. Fiction is good for you?for example, it can help you become more empathetic, and neuroscience says it?s good for our brains. What would happen if we removed a significant amount of literature from the classroom and replaced it with nonfiction? Why?

3. What does reading nonfiction teach us that fiction can?t? In her article, Sara Mosle makes a strong case that reading nonfiction can help students become better writers. Another study found that reading nonfiction also enhances reading skills. What other advantages can you think of for reading nonfiction texts in the classroom?
4. How can schools find engaging reading ? both fiction and nonfiction ? to engage all students in meeting the Common Core Standards?

How can schools go about finding pieces that connect to all students? lives so that students care about reading and learning from them? Should schools ensure that growing populations of minorities, like Latinos, are well represented in the books students read? Are there classics that should be taken off your school?s reading list to make room for more contemporary favorites? And, finally, how might schools make classics (many of which, fiction or not, are part of the Common Core) less stodgy and more relevant?

5. Exactly what works should children read and why? For a long time, experts have been weighing in on what educated people should read, and college reading lists have been built around ideas like Harold?s Bloom?s ?western canon? For almost as long, people have challenged notions of what makes a work canonical and sought to expand the canon to make it more inclusive of women and minorities. Take a look at these lists and, if possible, the official list for your school?s English Language Arts program. Now here?s the list of what the common core authors think you should read. What do you think? What would an ideal list consist of, in your opinion?

Once students have completed the reading and had time to thoughtfully consider the discussion questions and related readings, divide them into two groups. One group becomes the inner circle, and responsible for leading and sustaining the conversation, while the second group becomes the outer circle. The outer circle is responsible for taking notes, but may also contribute to the discussion. (An outer circle member might tap one of the inner circle on the shoulder and replace him or her, or the class could set up a microblogging backchannel for comments.)

Following discussion, ask students to craft persuasive letters citing evidence from the discussion to their school?s administration to share their ideas about how to best approach implementing the Common Core reading standards.

Going Further | As Ms. Mosle notes, ?What schools really need isn?t more nonfiction but better nonfiction, especially that which provides good models for student writing. Most students could use greater familiarity with what newspaper, magazine and book editors call ?narrative nonfiction?: writing that tells a factual story, sometimes even a personal one, but also makes an argument and conveys information in vivid, effective ways.?

Show (or play) students an example of narrative nonfiction (select an essay from those Web sites curated below or from your own collection) and discuss it together. Use this piece to explore how good narrative nonfiction can both feed academic success and nourish the soul. Then, tell students that you?d like each of them to find a piece of narrative nonfiction that they think would enrich the curriculum (in English or any other discipline) by reflecting who they are and what perspective they bring to the canon (and the classroom).

Ms. Mosle mentions these places to find nonfiction:

Here are some more sources:

And here are some places to find great nonfiction (and ideas for what to do with it) on The Learning Network:

Have students choose a piece, then answer these questions: What interests you about this work? What might you gain from it that is different from what you might gain by reading a work of fiction ? even one on the same topic? What perspective does it bring that might otherwise be missing in the classroom? What do you hope to gain from reading it? Finally, students should write persuasive letters advocating for their piece?s inclusion in the curriculum.

Other ways to broaden the canon with nonfiction (reprinted from a 2010 lesson on nonfiction created before the era of the Common Core):

1. Complement curriculum in any subject with related New York Times articles to engage readers, offer models for writing and put ideas into historical or current context.
2. Students play with the idea of genre by adapting a work of nonfiction as fiction. The adaptation by Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze of Susan Orlean?s nonfiction book ?The Orchid Thief? into the fictional film ?Adaptation? is one example. Encourage students to think creatively about how to craft such an adaptation and make it work, including choosing an appropriate fiction genre. They append to their finished work a note about the differences between the genres and the artistic decisions they made.
3. Create book clubs around a theme in the curriculum, say coming of age or cultural identity, and offer students a choice of nonfiction texts to read. This can be done as a self-contained unit or in conjunction with a work of fiction related to the same theme.
4. Begin a ?book in common? program at your school. Create a rotation of disciplines and invite teachers in each to suggest a nonfiction title each year to serve as the book in common. Every member of the school community reads the book and shares a common experience. This approach helps students see that reading goes beyond English class and offers possibilities for readers whose passions might lie outside the canon.
5. Involve teachers from across the curriculum in planning summer reading experiences and creating summer reading lists to ensure they offer students nonfiction options and reflect the breadth of your school?s curriculum.

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Common Core ELA Anchor Standards, 6-12

Reading
1. Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.
8. Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence.
9. Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.
10. Read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently.

Writing
1. Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
4. Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization and style are appropriate to task, purpose and audience.
5. Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting or trying a new approach.

Speaking and Listening
1. Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others? ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
2. Integrate and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively and orally.
4. Present information, findings, and supporting evidence such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning and the organization, development and style are appropriate to task, purpose and audience.

Language
1. Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

Source: http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/13/fiction-or-nonfiction-considering-the-common-cores-emphasis-on-informational-text/

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Police arrest Serbia's richest man in anti-graft probe

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Billionaire retail tycoon Miroslav Miskovic, one of Serbia's most influential figures, was arrested with his son and seven other people on Wednesday as part of an anti-graft probe, a government official said.

"They are suspected of siphoning funds and property from privatized road maintenance companies and making financial gains of as much as 30 million euros ($39 million)," the official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.

Estimated to be Serbia's richest man, Miskovic has interests in retail, agribusiness, real estate and insurance in Serbia and the Balkan region.

He created his Delta Holding empire under late strongman Slobodan Milosevic during Yugoslavia's bloody collapse in the 1990s and expanded it after his ouster in 2000.

Miskovic, 67, was worth a billion dollars in 2007, according to Forbes, wealth which at the time placed him among the richest 1,000 people in the world.

In 2011 he sold his Delta Maxi supermarket chain to Delhaize, a Belgium-based retailer, for 932.5 million euros ($1.3 billion), one of the largest foreign investments ever in the European Union applicant country.

Miskovic has twice been questioned by police in the past 10 days. Delta Holding, on behalf of Miskovic, has repeatedly denied any irregularities in its business dealings.

The company employs 7,200 people and turned over 1.42 billion euros ($1.85 billion) last year, according to its website.

Among those arrested are Miskovic's son Marko, who police last week prevented from leaving the country, and Milo Djuraskovic, the owner of a now-bankrupt group of road maintenance companies called Nibens.

The government official said they would be remanded in custody for 48 hours and questioned by organized crime prosecutors.

Over the past several months, police in Serbia have arrested more than a dozen businessmen, including two ex-cabinet ministers from the former ruling Democratic Party, on charges of corruption, fraud and abuse of office.

Serbia's six-month-old government, an alliance of socialists and nationalists last in power at the tail end of Milosevic's 13-year-rule, says it is serious about rooting out organized crime and corruption as the country seeks membership of the European Union.

Following Miskovic's arrest, police stepped up security of Aleksandar Vucic, the deputy prime minister tasked with fighting organized crime and corruption, the government official said.

In 2003, Serbia's then pro-Western Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic was assassinated in a plot by nationalists, an organized crime gang and disgruntled members of a now-disbanded special police unit.

Some Western diplomats, however, fear the government is motivated more by political score-settling than genuine reform. ($1 = 0.7693 euros)

(Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic; Editing by)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/police-arrest-serbias-richest-man-anti-graft-probe-095008014.html

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Internet Marketing Search Engine Optimization SEM SEO service ...

The affiliate marketing world is very large. It is also very profitable, and you can definitely start a career in it. There is a wealth of affiliate marketing information and tips available that can help you to succeed. Listed below you will find some tips that you can use to get started with affiliate marketing.

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Give user reviews and provide screenshots or product images. Give potential buyers every reason to see value in your products.

You have to understand that the products you choose are directly linked to the niche you will be working with and the methods you will be using. You can get away with using indirect high-volume methods with low click-through rates for inexpensive products. You need to be more aggressive and focused when selling more expensive products.

Content for your affiliate marketing efforts should be centered around a positive use of language. Any clauses or phrases that have even a minor negative connotation must be excluded and replaced with concepts brimming with positivity and action. g.

Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular and effective ways to get results from your online business. The advertising benefits of a good affiliate program are superior to alternatives like contextual networks or banner ads. When you are ready to pick your affiliate program, look at the payment that you will get for giving a referral, how popular the directory is, and how easy it is to navigate.

Affiliate programs differ greatly. The different vendors offer a variety of products and levels of flexibility to the marketer.

Even though affiliate marketing can be an excellent method of making some extra cash, you must have some basic knowledge before you can truly make great money. You should have the goal in mind that your website or blog rank highest when Internet audiences perform a search for content via search engines. You will get more cash and better affiliate links this way.

Keep your ear to the ground to current industry trends so you can stay ahead of the curve. If your clients get the impression that your competitors are more up to date than you are, there?s a good chance they?ll give their business to them instead of you.

An affiliate marketer should be honest about the business he is engaged in. Inform your readers about affiliate programs you promote, especially if you are writing articles, reviews or blog entries that include your affiliate links. When the visitors feel you are not honest about your affiliations to the retailer, they can easily bypass your site and go directly to the merchant to buy the product they want.

Always have confidence in the products that you are promoting. When you make suggestions to customers it will reflect on you. The kinds of products you offer will help or harm your ability to gain the respect and trust of your customers. If you want to keep good customers, you have to promote excellent, fairly priced products.

You can improve the effectiveness of your affiliate marketing program by holding a sweepstakes or contest on your site. You will find this to be a great method of generating repeat visitors and helping those individuals communicate information about the incentive to others if they find it particularly appealing.

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Although most users react positively or not at all, full disclosure of the fact that you are posting affiliate links is usually required. Being honest will give you an advantage, even with affiliate marketing. When users know that you are doing this they will see you in a better light.

Create an e-book that is very short in length, and place it on various document sharing sites. This will help you show off your knowledge on the topic and also attract those that are searching for information that is similar to content on your website. Always place links that lead straight to your website into the document.

Have a plan in place for your accounting. It is not necessary to have a physical person available as your accountant, you can use any one of the many programs that are designed to do your accounting for you. Having accounting skills lets you see if there?s anything amiss with your payments. Before starting your business, have an accounting plan in place.

Use many different venues to promote your affiliate products. Some customers want to find their products online. Other customers may respond better to brochures and fliers. Others may be persuaded to make a purchase if you offer a coupon. Broadening your advertising approach can get the word out to a greater number of potential customers.

It is key to see real time statistics. This is because these statistics show you the traffic through your site and the number of sales conversions.

When you are ready to choose prospective affiliates, make sure you already have a good feel of who the target audience will be. This will show consumers you are in tune with their needs and understand them.

Don?t count on just one or two affiliate product companies to provide you with an ongoing source of good products to promote. Have a large variety of vendors and products. A spread out group of affiliates will prevent you from experiencing big losses when you cut out one that is unprofitable. If you?re not promoting as many items as you can handle, find a few more.

Now you know that affiliate marketing can serve you well in promoting your services or products. Following these tips leads you on the road to becoming an expert in affiliate marketing.

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1. Here Are A Few Tips To Help You Improve Your Affiliate Marketing Skills
2. Success Meets Business: Effective Affiliate Marketing Tips
3. Improve Your Success In Affiliate Marketing
4. Hot Tips For Your Affiliate Marketing Business
5. Useful Techniques For Affiliate Marketing To Boost Your Bottom Line

Source: http://www.websitehostdirect.com/affiliate-marketing-tips-to-improve-your-business/

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Revealing How To Be A Home Business Coach ... - Self Improvement

Becoming a ?Home Business Coach takes skills. Oliver Wendell Holmes when said, ?The most significant misfortune is just not the waste of purely natural resources, but the waste products of human sources.? He pointed out that the Normal particular person goes to his grave with his music even now in him.

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When you have a chunk of direct and gold every single lying in a garbage dump, then equally hold the identical benefit. The main difference in price may be brought out provided that the gold is brought out and utilized for its meant intent.

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A human staying who?s got not nonetheless brought out his accurate possible is comparable to gold within the garbage. Each one of you is exceptional in its development. God developed you completely unique from a neighbor. Take into account this, no person can seem specifically such as you, nobody may have the precise very same features as you and no person can have exactly the same infants as you. Therefore you possess one thing exceptional, which no one else in the world does. You?ve got skills and wants deep inside you that no person else does. This specific present is God-given and it waits being expressed and disclosed for the whole environment.

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But you should enable it. And that is the most significant trouble. You don?t know the way.

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You may be wherever you are today, or your effectiveness is exactly what it can be right now because of every one of the information you?ve gathered while in the a long time foremost about it. You could be struggling financially, sulking in a negative partnership, underneath undertaking at do the job or bombing in your home organization as a result of the influences you will have had before. Say you will be driving from London to Paris and you simply get misplaced halfway through. And you simply come about to pull right into a gas station and ask for directions for the attendant. He guides you as for every his finest judgment only for you to see right after two far more hrs which you are even farther away for that location.

?

Now, did you intend to be in that location? Needless to say, not! It can be just that you just occurred to listen on the incorrect directions. In the same way, where you might be these days is due to what instructions were being offered to you personally in the past. But if you can get the right directions right now, you?re going to get to the proper spot tomorrow. Jim Rohn puts it across nicely, ?If an individual is going down the incorrect highway, he doesn?t will need determination to pace him up. What he requires is training to turn him all around.? That sums it up.

?

Les Brown the moment claimed anything pretty exceptional.

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He explained, ?The two most critical times of your respective lifestyle are, 1st; the day you had been born, and 2nd, the day you already know the main reason why you have been born.? Just about every human features a creative force within him that wants to stake its existence on earth, but it really is about the individual to discover what it can be. It really is like God wanting down at us and smiling, ?Its for me to grasp and for yourself to discover out?. But after you find out what it really is you have been born for; what it is actually you possess inside you; you may be like a cheetah unleashed into the wild. You?ll collect pace like you?ve hardly ever recognised. You won?t stop right until you have got fulfilled you function. Now that?s what greatness is focused on.

?

The obstacle that faces many us is we never know how to faucet into this large source inside us. We?re not aware that just letting our guard down, and inviting an individual that can help you while in the practice can draw out our goal. And these people that help you in revealing oneself to you are termed as success coaches or mentors.

?

There?s two strategies to obtain along with an oak tree; possibly you could climb it or you can sit on an acorn. Coaching and mentoring is for the former. ?No matter what endeavor you happen to be associated with; whether its common small business, a occupation or even a home business, a coach will help you dig within just your self to find out your function and after that systematically split the focus on down into bite-sized chunks for devouring within a step-by-step method. That?s what a mentor does. The expressing goes, ?Professionals have coaches, Amateurs don?t.? Why does one assume is that? Do you consider Tiger Woods will not know golfing? How about Michael Jordan; won?t he learn how to perform basketball? Then why do they will need coaches?

?

For the reason that an ?mlm coach retains them about the proper track every one of the time, especially when temptations and lethargy creeps in. ? As being a home business owner and mentor myself, I?m sure what it seems like to several of my fellow business owners who?re having difficulties to search out the appropriate course. You recognize the place you should go, however , you will not know exactly how you can get there.

?

All you?ll need is always that extra assist to hold both hands and lift you up. And that is exactly what a mentor does. So decide now to have by yourself a coach and find that ?umph? while in the triumph which you so are entitled to. ?Try to remember, ?Professionals have coaches, Amateurs don?t? ?God bless ?John Bino ParentsINCorporated.com ?Empowering men and women to become more worthwhile to society?

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Tags: business coach, home business coach, mlm coach, success coaching

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 11th, 2012 at 3:33 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Source: http://selfimprovement.emilie.org/uncategorized/revealing-how-to-be-a-home-business-coach-and-mentoring/

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CCH Payroll for Large Firms First | - - The Progressive Accountant

Written by Bob Scott ?? Tuesday, 11 December 2012 10:05

CCH is moving into the payroll business through an alliance with its plans to reach large firms first. The company's Small Firm Business Services unit is leading the effort via its contract with iSystems, but CCH will not go after its small firm customers until it can come up with a package with the right features and price for the part of the market.

"We are initially rolling it out to the larger firms," says product manager Michael Smith. The product is CCH's first offering to accounting firms of a wholesale product that they can use to deliver payroll and HR services to clients. But the first effort comes with a one-time license fee that ranges from about $25,000 to $70,000. There are also optional modules, along with transaction charges.

The iSystems product can be run on the desktop or as an Internet application that can be hosted by iSystems. Large firms may also choose to host the application in? their offices. A version for smaller firms appears to be several months away as CCH works to retool the offering for those operations. "We are looking down the road, trying to identify how to take the best parts for the smaller accounting firmer and roll out the solution for them," says Smith.

Firms can choose to completely outsource the payroll process, or they can select the portions they would like to handle.

Source: http://www.theprogressiveaccountant.com/news/cch-payroll-for-large-firms-first.html

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felike haziness: Lonely Man of Fantasy: Fantasy Sports Culture in ...

By Harry Scheiner

It began in Ancient Greece. ?A chubby kin of an athlete, although amazed by his father?s portrayal of majesty and masculinity, was somehow tormented. He could not perform at the same level as his father, so rather than marvel at his father and other mens? athletic prowess, he decided to objectify them with statistical aspirations. The young lad turned to his friend and voiced words that would forever dominate the lens through which we watch sports: ?I bet you Abaddon and Barnabas can combine to throw the stone disk more times (they were playing PPR) and for a further total of daktylos (Ancient Greek measuring unit) than any two athletes you can choose.?

The sweeping phenomenon of fantasy sports has managed to work its way into SAR culture, past the new gates that Rabbi Hain so eloquently remarked were put in place to ?Keep the riff raff out.? This shouldn?t surprise anyone; with a large population of males, all with the desire to prove they are better than their friends (by strategically maneuvering the weakest link in their league out of his first round draft pickup), a fantasy league culture was inevitable.

How strong is this force of fantasy sports? Believe it or not, the sensation has proven to be visited more than email nowadays. More importantly, an entire show is set around a group of friends obsessed with their fantasy football league. Its this show, called ?The League,? that inspired the actions of the seniors? fantasy basketball league. In the show, the members of the fantasy football league used their kid?s birthday party to stage the order of their draft. They each chose a random number which corresponded to a four year old kid, and all the kids had a bean bag race. The kids received draft seeds based on where they placed in the race. ?Naturally, the senior fantasy basketball league decided to mimic this concept, replacing the five year olds with freshmen. Despite exuberant excitement over the idea from the freshmen, the administration saw it as bullying by the seniors.

Regardless of whether or not that particular event was wrong, it represented a common theme found among fantasy sports: bonding. The freshmen felt honored to be included in the senior?s recreation. The seniors saw it as a great way to express their approval of the ?coolness? of this year?s freshmen class, while having a fun time. The bonding doesn?t stop there. Every Tuesday morning at breakfast, fantasy leagues sit down arguing and bragging about the outcomes of last weeks matchup. Perhaps the most essential of the bonding is the trash talking; while some of it may be crude, the inside jokes will forever remain between a group that knows one of its friends traded away Doug Martin right before his consecutive 18, 32, and 51 point weeks.

However there are sports enthusiasts in the school who are opposed to what fantasy sports bring to the table. Rabbi Hain detests the organism of fantasy sports. He states: ?It ruins families, it ruins friends and it ruins sports. I can?t stand to listen to people?s fantasy stories.? The argument he touches upon is a common concern among fans that love football and fantasy football. Among them, Dvir Ofer is in a must win situation against a team made up of Ahmad Bradshaw, Hakeem Nicks, and Victor Cruz. Statistical analysis show that 82% of the time the Giants and the team Dvir is playing have the same result, and Dvir is a huge Giants fan. Therein lies the question of who you are more loyal to, your fantasy team, or the NFL team you affiliate with. Luckily for me, I?m a Giants fan, and said team is mine.

Some guys, however, can be slightly bashful about their obsession with fantasy, fearing that girls may be indignant towards it, and therefore consider them to be ?losers?. I did some investigating into the matter, and found that Jordyn Wasserman thinks that ?Its cute how guys can be so passionate about it. I don?t get it at all, but its funny how much they care.? Helen Berman notes: ?They can actually learn valuable skills from it.? When I asked if either of them thought we were ?losers? because of our obsession, they said ?no.? So there it is, from the girls themselves, we are not losers. So boys, be intuitive, be aggressive, and be proud fantasy owners.

Source: http://thesarbuzz.org/2012/12/09/lonely-man-of-fantasy-fantasy-sports-culture-in-sar/

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Source: http://batyomvup.posterous.com/lonely-man-of-fantasy-fantasy-sports-culture

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Source: http://felike-haziness.blogspot.com/2012/12/lonely-man-of-fantasy-fantasy-sports.html

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Nook Video UK launch announced with UltraViolet support

Good news for Nook HD and HD+ early adopters in the UK -- Barnes & Noble has announced the launch of its Nook Video service for British Nook owners. The move brings B&N's tablets up to speed with the latest Amazon, Google and Apple tablets, all of which offer their own on-board video services.

The move is made possible through new, expanded UK licensing deals with content owners such as BBC Worldwide, HBO, NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, STARZ, and Warner Bros. Entertainment, Barnes & Noble says. Individual TV shows and movies highlighted by B&N in today's press release include --

Sherlock, Call the Midwife, Game of Thrones®, True Blood®, Ted, The Bourne Legacy, The Amazing Spider-Man™, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Men in Black 3, Spartacus, Party Down, The Dark Knight Rises, Inception, Happy Feet Two.

Both high and standard-definition video content is available through Nook Video, with streaming and downloading supported on the service. Downloads are linked to the Nook Cloud service, allowing them to be played on other supporting devices.

What's more, Nook Video will also tie into the UltraViolet video system, allowing those who've purchased Blu-ray or DVD versions of titles to view a digital copy of this content on their Nook tablets.

You'll find more details in the presser after the break. If you've picked up a Nook HD or HD+ tablet in the UK recently, let us know how you're getting on in the comments.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/tVpO0fvJNLs/story01.htm

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