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Thus far we have spent some time “Rethinking our own leadership style” and “Discovering our informal leaders.” The next item on the agenda in the 25 Weeks to Building a Successful Organization series is “Creating explicit norms or protocols.”

Transformation in any organization has the potential to produce unwanted conflict, often leading to ineffective processes, reduced communication, and poor working relationships. It is inevitable and a fact of life. Change brings about tension and without managing the behaviors of individuals and the organization as a whole, you might see your organization’s ability to succeed plummet.

The impact is exponential. Again, we go back to the initial post “Rethinking our own leadership style“—in that, each employee’s actions, inactions, and interactions shape the environment of the organization, their cumulative effect can have much more dramatic results.

When it comes to the tensions hindering the progress of your organization, you can take two approaches. For one, you can take a BB gun line of attack by relentlessly documenting each employee demonstrating patterns of sub-par behavior, ultimately leading to disciplinary action. Word will get around that certain behaviors are not tolerated, and everyone else will get the hint. Yet, without a well-known set of “rules,” this approach might create more stress within, especially for you. It may even push many employees to stray away from working with their peers for fear of disciplinary action if things go badly in their own day-to-day dealings.

The second option, “Creating explicit norms or protocols,” can be linked to a shotgun approach. In effect, it is far-reaching and effective, yet it doesn’t dismiss those who are already doing things right. Creating explicit protocols is about you making a deliberate effort to engage your employees in the creation of shared and accepted expectations for employee behavior. In other words, you facilitate the proactive development and agreement of productive group norms. These norms serve as organization-wide commitments to act or behave in certain ways. Once these agreements are in place, your employees will have the capacity to turn conflict and tension into progress.

Spending the necessary time to eliminate any ambiguity in expected behaviors is far from wasteful when the aim is to provide a concise guide for individual and collective behavior. A systematic approach guarantees, above all, that everyone recognizes the values they share as a group. Explicitly developed productive norms have the advantage of helping employees deal consciously and conscientiously with any situation before it begins to impede progress.

Try this.

At your next meeting facilitate the creation of organization-wide norms or protocols. I offer you a simple nominal group technique.

1. Place everyone in groups of six to eight with the chairs arranged in a circular fashion.
2. Assign each group with a recorder to document the sharing of each employee’s desired norm on a large poster in the middle of the circle. (Note: You may want to assign the recorder. This has to be someone who is skilled in keeping conversations on track.)
3. Give everyone one index card and ask each employee to write one desired norm or protocol that will help create an organizational culture that is conducive to collegiality and group effort.
4. After each employee’s statement, the recorder asks the group if they understood the desired norm, agreed with the norm, or had some reservations about the norm.
5. Everyone continues to share their desired norms until all the cards within the group were read and clarified.
6. Once each group finishes, the meeting transitions back to whole-group where each recorder briefly summarizes their group’s dialogue and posted their respective poster for all to see.
7. Assign everyone a partner and give each group ten colored dots. Ask them to walk around the room (similar to a gallery walk), exchange ideas on the various norms, and vote on the ones they jointly felt would have the maximum influence on building a positive organizational climate and culture.
8. Count the number of dots for each desired norm, announce the top fifteen norms that would serve as the initial guideposts for accepted behavior, and ask if anyone would have difficulty committing to the newly established norms.

Now, as the leader, it is essential that you hold others accountable for the newly established ideal behaviors. Ultimately the aim is for each and every employee to begin holding one another accountable. That takes time, persistence, and modeling by you.

Try this.

If you observe an employee failing to adhere to the agreed upon protocols meet with them. During the meeting “describe the gap” by stating the following—almost word for word.

(Employee’s Name) on (date) we all agreed upon (the protocol for the behavior they failed to follow). On (date/time their uncooperative behavior was observed) I noticed that you (their specific negative behavior). What’s going on?

Now just sit and listen intently; trying to “hear” the root of the problem. Is it motivation or ability? Both require a different response. Oftentimes a failure to meet expectations surrounding agreed upon behaviors tends to be a motivation issue. If this is the case you want to make the invisible visible; in other words, explain any inherent consequences they may not see.

I always like to challenge their values. Check this out.

You know (Employee’s Name), we all agreed to (the protocol for the behavior they failed to follow). When you don’t follow through with this your colleagues might wonder if they can trust you. Everyone was there and agreed.

Ouch! You know how much employees yearn to keep the respect of their peers. It takes you out of the equation.

This approach stems from skills outlined in the book, Crucial Confrontations; a resource all leaders should explore. The book works to give people the tools to hold others accountable without damaging relationships. Check it out.

Final Thoughts

No doubt bringing all your employees together can help achieve a positive context. They can go a long way toward building a collaboration-filled culture when they put effective processes in place to draw the system as a whole into creating protocols agreement. With agreement comes the institutionalization of productive norms. This is an ongoing process, which takes persistence, time, and effort, because agreement is constantly changing as the organization faces new internal and external challenges of change.

Activities in a nutshell

1. Work with your employees to create, and agree upon, explicit norms or protocols.
2. Hold employees accountable for these expected behaviors.

Questions for you.

Please take the time to add any additional thoughts, ideas, or processes in the comment box. Have you had to deal with employee behaviors that were detrimental to the organization? How did you respond? What specific processes have you used to develop explicit norms or protocols to guide employee behavior?

Upcoming

The next post in the 25 Weeks to Building a Successful Organization is “Re-inventing organizational values, beliefs, and goals.” Everyone comes to the table with diverse experiences, worldviews, and beliefs. How can the leader tap into these individual ideals and translate them into organizational values, beliefs, and goals?

Cheers!

Perry Wiseman, author, Strong Schools, Strong Leaders: What matter most in times of change

Asbarez | November 13, 2009

Bland Leading the Bland

Newly appointed European Union President Herman Van Rompuy, left, poses with the newly appointed E.U.’s new foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, right, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, second right, and Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt at the European Council building in Brussels, Thursday, Nov. 19, 2009.

Remy de la Mauviniere / AP

Until Herman Van Rompuy became Belgium’s Prime Minister 11 months ago, he was barely known even in his home country. But on Thursday night, the self-effacing former economist, whose hobbies include caravanning and writing haiku, was named the European Union’s first permanent President.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1941155,00.html?xid=yahoo-feat#ixzz0XarsNuNj

Similarly, until she was appointed Britain’s European Commissioner last year, only hardened London politicos were familiar with Baroness Catherine Ashton’s name. But she is now the E.U.’s Foreign Minister-designate, with the unwieldy title of High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.(See the 10 greatest speeches of all time.)

The duo may yet become household names, but today, most Europeans will be scratching their heads at the decision by the E.U.’s 27 leaders to anoint Van Rompuy and Ashton to the organization’s top two jobs. After all, the positions, which were created by the E.U.’s newly ratified Lisbon Treaty, were supposed to give a voice and a face to Europe on the world stage.

The choice prompted accusations that the E.U. had gone for the lowest common denominator. Van Rompuy was “bland” and Aston “unremarkable,” said Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a German Member of the European Parliament who heads the Green group in that body. “E.U. leaders have continued the job of weakening the E.U. institutions,” he said. “Europe is sinking to a low.”

Van Rompuy recognized that the wider European public sees him as an unknown quantity, and he addressed it head-on after the summit. “There has been a great deal of talk and comment about the future profile and image of the President of the Council,” he said. “But the key things are dialogue, unity and action: the image of the Council resides in strength through results.”

Van Rompuy’s career has been mainly that of a behind-the-scenes fixer in Belgian politics. And he emphasized that his position was not that of chief executive but, as President of the European Council, the body that gathers the E.U.’s leaders for summits, he is more of a chairman, whose role is to mediate across the E.U. “My personal opinion is totally subservient to the Council,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what I think. My role is to find a consensus.”

Indeed, his shunning of the limelight is probably what landed him the job. Although he is recognized in Belgium for defusing tensions between the country’s Flemish and French speakers — a quality that could come in handy with the 27-member E.U. — his low profile appears to have endeared him to his initial sponsors, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The two leaders are thought to have balked at a big name like former British Prime Minister Tony Blair as E.U. President, because they feared he could become a strong rival for the spotlight. Van Rompuy, by contrast, might have lightweight political credentials, but he was seen as the least aggressive candidate.

There was more to the choice of Van Rompuy and Ashton than their individual qualities. In the classic European tradition of horse-trading, the E.U. tried to balance out the top jobs according to political background, geography and gender. Indeed, the Lisbon Treaty states that the two jobs — and that of the European Commission President — have to take account of “the geographical and demographic diversity of the Union.”

Van Rompuy is a Christian Democrat, from the family of center-right parties that dominate European governments and the European Parliament. The President of the Commission, Portugal’s José Manuel Barroso, is also from the center right. Ashton was a dark horse, but she was seen as a consolation prize for Britain’s center-left Prime Minister Gordon Brown, after his attempt to secure the presidency for Blair was rebuffed. For E.U. leaders struggling to meet the criteria — a task that one official likened to “three-dimensional chess” — they could at least claim that the Van Rompuy-Ashton duo hit most of their buttons.

But Ashton roundly rejected claims that she had been catapulted from obscurity to meet the E.U.’s demands for a token, center-left woman. “Am I an ego on legs? No, I’m not,” she said. “Judge me on what I do, and I think you’ll be proud of me.”

Nonetheless, the choice of Van Rompuy and Ashton was seen as exposing the gap between the E.U.’s ambition and its grandiose rhetoric. “They might both be very capable, but neither has any sort of international profile or experience,” says Marco Incerti, Head of Communications at the Center for European Policy Studies (CEPS), a Brussels-based think tank. “At the moment, it looks like two nobodies. But this is what comes of trying to please everyone when you choose these jobs.”

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1941155,00.html?xid=yahoo-feat#ixzz0XaqgEyUl

As I see it, there are two kinds of information that need to be formalized:

1. the type of transport, its time and destination

2. the kind of issue.

For instance, we need to agree to concise ways, abbreviations, to refer to:

For Amtrak trains:

• Acela –> ACL
• New York to Boston –> NYC BOS
• train number 123 –> #123

For Commuter rail lines

• Fairmount Line ->FAI
• Fitchburg Line -> FIT
• Framingham/Worcester Line ->FW
• Franklin Line -> FR
• Greenbush Line -> GR

Etc…

For the “T” / subway

• Red Line
  
• Alewife              – >TRA
• Matappan          ->TRM
• Braintree           ->TRB
• Orange Line
• Oak Grove       ->TOG
• Forest Hills     ->TFH
• Green Line
• B, C, D, E       ->TB, TC, TD, TE
• Blue Line
• Bowdoin        ->TBB
• Wonderland ->TBW
• Silver Line
• Dudley          ->TSD
• Design Center ->TSDC
• Airport         ->TSA

Issues:

Generally the most important issue would be a train being late.

This could be simply stated +5 for a 5 minutes delay.

Other issues could involve windows not closing properly, no AC or heat, wifi not working etc…

To sum-up, a tweet about a 5 minutes delay for the following Acela train

would be written:

ACL NYC BOS #123 +5

There was an SSL vulnerability revealed last week – a design flaw in the protocol itself. There are two very notable things in this news: the vulnerability being in the protocol itself (like DNS and SNMP before it), and the way news of the vulnerability was broken.

The flaw in the protocol was discovered in August by researchers at PhoneFactor, and the vulnerability was released confidentially to those who could fix its problems and produce fixes for the vulnerability.

This flaw was then discovered by an independent researcher, who likewise released the vulnerability confidentially to an IETF security mailing list.

The problem was that a reader of that mailing list did an irresponsible thing and let the news of the SSL protocol vulnerability loose by sending a tweet message about it on Twitter to all of their friends – which meant that the news was set to be released to everyone. Mark Twain said: “Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead.”. This problem of vulnerabilities and of when and how to release the news is not new; nor is the problem of the unknowing releasing confidential details.

The problem with security vulnerabilities and confidentiality is legend: it has become one of those arguments that never quits: do you release the details of a vulnerability as soon as they are known or do you wait for the fix to be released after confidentially notifying affected vendors? The uneasy answer most often reached is that a combination of both is necessary.

The problem of tweet messages releasing confidential information has happened before; one most notable incident was when Congressman Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) let slip news in Twitter about his trip to Baghdad. This news was then picked up by Wired, the New York Times, CNet, and – of course – the Congressional Quarterly.

In the security arena, confidentiality is much more critical – as is evidenced by the fact that Twitter itself was attacked with this vulnerability just in the last few days.

When you “speak” on the Internet, the world will hear: so be careful what you say.

- warm up the lamp using the power switch on the top, front, right.
- verify that the 600nm lamp is on and not the UV lamp
. – start the lambda 40 Bio software
. – Choose Application/Wave Prog…
. – Inst tab: Lamp UV off, Lamp vis on
- define sample types, names and number using the “sample” tab
- 2 cuvettes: one for DDW one for sample.
- to blank the spectrometer, use DDW in the sample cuvette for “blank” and the 1st sample.
- throw or pipette out the water and blow the cuvette dry using the N2 gun
- add 500uL sample. NOTE: OD>1 are not accurately measured with this machine. Dilute your sample so that the measurement is <1 and multiply that number by the dilution factor to determine the OD of your sample.
- when finished, rinse cuvettes with DDW, blow dry, and leave upside-down on spectrometer.

This week was all about protocols. What I am doing right now could be considered a protocol; I am following guidelines set by a facilitator to properly reflect on my learning from the week. But really, I cannot say I’ve ever participated in a protocol in my work as a teacher. We had staff meetings, but we never sat down and discussed the “rules.” Perhaps the principal I worked with didn’t feel like it was necessary to remind everyone because the staff all worked very well together and we all trusted and appreciated each other. The type of protocols we discussed this week sounded very promising as far as helping each teachers and schools goes.

Like I mentioned in the class blogs, I wish I would have know about these last year when I had a classroom; I like the idea of getting together with a group of professional teachers who are there to help you. One of my classmates did ask the question whether it is beneficial to the other teachers involved. That is a great question; I can see the problem of feeling like these meetings would be a waste of the other teacher’s time. But ultimately, if you work in a school, you are working for the kids, no matter what grade you are assigned to. Teachers need to collaborate for the benefit of the students, whether they are theirs or not.

I Guess this should suffice for a fair understanding of the routing protocols mentioned.

In the midst of discussions with others about web development in general, I realized that many developers do not have a firm grasp of how redirection on the web really works. My hope is that individuals who want to learn, but are afraid to ask will read this post and come away with a better understanding of the HTTP protocol and redirection.

Protocols

A protocol is nothing but a set of rules that are followed by two independent parties. For example, if I walk by you in the hallway, and we’ve met before, I might say, “Hello.” At that point, you might say the same thing in return, or possibly, “Hi.” You interpreted my initial input “hello,” and responded with “hi.” That exchange could be described as a protocol.

With regard to technology, a protocol is used to communicate between computers across a network. There are many established protocols already in existence. Many of them are documented in detail by the Internet Engineering Task Force. These documents are called RFCs. Examples of protocol RFCs are:

• HTTP
• FTP
• SSH
• TELNET

We make extensive use of these protocols every day — most of the time using 3 or 4 at once. On most systems, when you enter a URL in a web browser you make use of HTTP, which uses TCP, which uses IP, which uses Ethernet.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol

Browsers send and receive data from web servers. The HTTP protocol is an application-layer language that helps browsers and web servers transfer data across the Internet. Two important components of this language are request methods and status codes.

Request Methods

Request methods are verbs for client/server communication over HTTP. They dictate what action is going to be imposed on a given resource. Most people are familiar with GET and POST. There are several others too:

• HEAD — Like GET but only returns headers, not the resource.
• PUT — Uploads a representation of the resource.
• DELETE — Deletes the resource.
• TRACE — Echos back the received request.
• OPTIONS — Returns HTTP methods the server supports.
• CONNECT — Converts the request connection to a transparent TCP/IP tunnel.

Of these, HEAD, GET, and POST are probably the most important and are implemented by almost all web servers.

Status Codes

Status codes are adjectives for client/server communication over HTTP. They give us additional information about a given resource. There are more status codes than methods, but they can be categorized into five categories:

• 1xx — Informational
• 2xx — Success
• 3xx — Redirection
• 4xx — Client error
• 5xx — Server error

When things are going well, 200 is common. When things are not going to great, we usually see 404 or 500. With regard to redirection, special attention must be paid to 301 vs. 302. 301 implies Moved Permanently, while 302 translates into Found, or a temporary redirect.

Redirection

In general, a common goal for web content providers is to get users the resource they requested, and if that is not available, provide them with some meaningful information so that they can adjust accordingly. There are several redirection techniques available to make web pages accessible via multiple URLs. Server-side techniques typically prevail because they allow us to make use of the HTTP status codes addressed above. Additionally, they give us the ability to make redirection completely transparent to the requestor.

Server-side Scripting

Most server-side scripting languages allow you to append HTTP headers to a response before the response body. In raw PHP, this looks something like:

The code above redirects users to the absolute URL http://www.google.com with a HTTP status code of 301. Most of the time, if you don’t specify a status code to the server-side language, it will default to a temporary redirect, 302.

mod_rewrite

mod_rewrite is an Apache web server module that includes a regular expression based rewriting engine to modify requested URLs on the fly. A de facto standard, it is used primarily by web site maintainers when they are trying to create persistent or preserve existing URLs. mod_rewrite can generate HTTP redirects and produce completely transparent server-side redirection. The directive below listens for requests containing puppy.cfm and executes smalldog.aspx, while preserving puppy.cfm in the user’s address bar. This is done completely on the server-side, and uses no HTTP status codes.

The directive below reaches a similar end result, except that redirection is done via a HTTP 301 status code and smalldog.aspx replaces puppy.cfm in the address bar:

Refresh Meta Tag, JavaScript, Frames

These methods are client-side workarounds put in place to get around not having control over status codes. Along with not being as full-featured, client-side redirection solutions can distort browser navigation history, and have a negative impact on how search engines view and index your web site. A sound redirection strategy is aware of client-side techniques, but makes use of server-side scripting languages or URL rewriting engines whenever possible.

Implications of  Legislation to the Ag Sector

www.25×25.org just released a study for the Analysis of the Implications of Climate Change and Energy Legislation to the Ag Sector.  According to the University of Tennessee Study, the impacts of cap‐and‐trade policies upon the agricultural sector could have dramatically different outcomes depending upon how the policy is constructed.

However, a well‐constructed cap‐and‐trade program that allows multiple offsets for agriculture (including bioenergy crop production) and manages residue removal to be carbon neutral, can generate positive net returns to agriculture while yielding carbon benefits. Such a policy is projected to provide nearly $209 billion more in net returns by 2025 than the baseline. Such a policy also is projected to provide over $364 billion more net returns than a policy where EPA regulates carbon without the benefit of multiple offsets. The net returns under our optimized cap‐and‐trade scenario are positive for most major crops (eight out of nine analyzed). Afforestation of cropland does not occur at projected carbon prices of $27 per MtCO2, a reasonable price assumption and within the “price collar” recently proposed by the Senate. READ FULL REPORT

Rodger Foster, our senior Cisco instructor, reviews how multiple gateways are used to provide redundancy in the network. 

Abstract classes in C++, Interfaces in Java, @protocols in Objective C.. They all serve the same purpose

What are protocols??

As described in the title, they define Set of Rules

When do we use them??

“When two strangers (In our OOPs world, they refer to two objects whose identity is not known to each other) need to establish a communication, we use protocols to bridge the communication gap between them”

Let us see the usage of protocols with a real world example

Let us say two members from a different smuggling gang say GangA and GangB needs to exchange the commodities between them. Then in order to prove their identities they follow certain rules, in other words Protocols,described below

Gang A to Gang B : tell me the secret code

Gang A to Gang B : secret code accepted

Gang B to Gang A : share your secret code

Gang B to Gang A : your secret code is accepted

If the conversation happens to be in order above, then we can say the Gang A and Gang B members are valid persons

So, Let us transform this whole example into our Programming world using Objective C language by Defining two classes for Gang A and Gang B

GangA.h

@interface GangA:NSObject<GangAProtocol>

{

NSObject<GangBProtocol> * gangBMember;

}

@property(nonatomic,assign)NSObject<GangBProcotol>* gangBMember

@end

/* Defines what conversation is expected in order to speak with GangB member.. So The Gang B members should implement these methods to prove  */

@protocol GangBProtocol

-(NSString*)tellMeTheSecretCode;//Request the GangB member for secret code

-(void)secretCodeAccepted:(BOOL)isAccepted;//Inform whether they are Authenticated or not

@end

GangB.h

@interface GangB:NSObject<GangBProtocol>

{

NSObject<GangAProtocol> gangAMember;

}

@property(nonatomic,assign)NSObject<GangAProtocol> gangAMember;

@end

/* Defines what conversation is expected in order to speak with GangA member.. So The Gang A members should implement these methods to prove their identity  */

@protocol GangBProtocol

-(NSString*)shareYourSecretCode;//Request the GangB member for secret code

-(void)yourCodeIsAccepted:(BOOL)isAccepted;//Inform whether they are Authenticated or not

@end

Most of the code is self-explatory. To summarize

* GangA class would have access to a GangB member which implements GangBProtocol which helps GangA member to establish communication and check their identity and the same holds for GangB class

* Each class would declare a Protocol on how the other gang members would be expected to respond to their queries and implement the methods in the protocol defined by other gang class i.e. GangA class declares GangB protocol on how it expects to communicate with GangB while implementing the GangA protocol defined in GangB class

[Although the protocols in the two classes in the example means the same, i have just added them to illustrate the situation where two objects of unknown identity communicates by aggreeing on to some common terms]

To Summarize, Protocols are used

* When we want to establish communication between two object whose identity or Class type is not required to be known to each other

* When we want to establish communication between two objects, where one object knows the class type to which it is communicating while other Objects need not know the identity of the object at the other end. Eg: Delegate mechanism

The use of protocols in Professional Learning Community meetings is essential to the continued growth and evolution of  a school.  Gains in student achievement depend on the learning and learning processes of the adults in a building.  If we expect our teachers to differentiate for students we, as instructional leaders, had better differentiate for their learning styles.  I believe that the appropriate use of protocols in PLC meetings do many things but most importantly they:

1. reduce the threat of exposing yourself to the group and allow you to become vulnerable with colleagues
2. increase risk taking behaviour and sharing through structured and formal practises
3. allow for shared leadership as the facilitator is not the “Sage on the Stage” but simply the choreographer (there is nothing simple about it of course)
4. engage all learners
5. can be adapted by participants to be used with students of all ages

I refer to brainstorming  in light of a recent Blog post on Education Innovation that I read weekly.  The spoof “demotivation”  poster (that I was sent years ago-prior to PLCs in our setting) below depicts the concepts behind ineffective PLC time the best I think.  I am reminded of meetings my significant other would describe in one of her career settings.  She laughs every time she views this poster and states, “It’s so true!”  If we know this as educators and we know what makes the difference in PLCs why do we still revert back to old, less effective habits? 

None of us is as dumb as all of us.

Recently I engaged a staff of Early Years and Primary teachers from 4 neighbourhood schools in the Interview Design and Dialogue Protocol to elicit as many consistent and common ideas around a battery of questions about the current state of balanced literacy in schools  (I adapted a protocol form from Jon Saphier of Research for Better Teaching).   More importantly was the form in which this process was done.  There was chart paper, stickies and markers but this was secondary to the fact gathering phase which was done far more precisely and structured than traditional “brainstorming.”  Using the design process we essentially eliminated any risk by engaging in one on one dialogue to start.   The only stuff that made it to the chart paper (dialogue: the second to last phase) had been consistently communicated across the length of the interview phase. 

Teachers in 4 groups of 8 heard 4 responses plus their own to the one question they asked.  They then met in “like question groups” to discuss and chart the most common and consistent responses to the questions.  An example of one question was: “What evidence of a balanced literacy approach exists in a classroom in our District?”  8 individuals asked this question 4 times and recorded the responses.  8 response pages with responses from 32 individuals became one side of a piece of chart paper.  Talk about precision.  Essential to the protocol was that once the question was asked all you were “allowed” to do was record.  This was an interview and not a conversation.  

I immediately thought of the above poster when I read the title (Dumber Together) off the Education Innovation RSS feed on my Netvibes page.   While the intent of its inclusion is humour it has been true for me in limited instances.  My goal as an instructional leader is to make this “demotivation poster” irrelevant.   A reader @Education Innovation comments that the information presented is unsourced.  Maybe . . . but haven’t we all been there before?  If the answer is yes than why, when we take over the reigns, do we seem to perpetuate this form of Professional Learning.  Brainstorming sessions can be effective.  There must be a sound protocol to make them work for everyone however.  I continue to work through the many protocols presented by the National School Reform Faculty in an effort to engage with adults in meaningful and unthreatening ways.  As I stated earlier, gains in student achievement depend on the learning and learning processes of the adults in a building.  I am dedicated to the use of protocols to make sure that each of us is as smart as all of us.

InterviewDesign from Jon Saphier at Research to Better Teaching

So Ive started with the Lu.crin injections. After putting all the important dates on a calendar I noticed that my donor and I are only 1 day apart (it takes me 4 full days to get AF after stopping the pill). I was concerned as I don’t want to run the risk of not growing my lining sufficiently so I requested that I start the Lu.crin earlier and stop the pill earlier than suggested, that and I was impatient aswell

So now I stop the pill on the 11/11 ( sign of twins maybe?, pathetic… I know), my day 2 should be next week Tuesday and my Intra.lipid drip will be Friday 20th Nov. My donor then starts stims the very next day. Shoo what co-ordination!

Yesterday I felt very, very down just about everything. Starting all of this again, trying to remain positive and up-beat. Wondering if this will be THE cycle, basically just over analysing everything. My dreams are ridiculous at the moment. I dreamt the other day that I was given a tiny, tiny baby boy to look after and if I passed the test then I could have a baby of my own. I looked after the baby so well but it kept on getting smaller and smaller and I was getting worried but I finally passed the test and was allowed my own baby, it was such a relief and I was so happy in my dream.

Im taking Bi.ral for my anxiety at the moment and I think its helping, Ive stopped my wine (boo hoo ) and Ive booked my first acupuncture session with a guy who seems very clued up on IVF acupuncture which pleased me because I aint explaning to one more acupuncturist what IVF is and why I cant use herbs to try and conceive. Id rather do acupuncture on myself thankyouverymuch.

Im not doing hypnotherapy, castor oil packs, drinking fish oil, holding a fertility statue, counting backwards from 10 billion, standing on my head chanting or any other famous fertility tricks, just trying to be healthy, stay calm and remind myself what the end goal is.

We just had a presentation on our medical aid benefits for 2010 and I must say that the maternity benefits, I think are the best Ive seen in a medical aid – 12 gynae visits, free scans, full payment of theatre fees, hospital stays and delivery. I mean who wouldn’t want to be pregnant? Now I just need to get there.

“A lot of the contemporary writers outside of the SF world who interest me seem to be moving more and more away from the metaphorical tendencies that literary criticism has encouraged and fed off of for so long — a writer like Aimee Bender, to take just one example, writes stories that can feel, at times, like parables, and yet they just don’t work when interpreted that way; they fall apart and dissolve. This is a strength, not a weakness — they shatter any one meaning and can only give pleasure to a reader willing either to suspend the interpretive impulse altogether and take the story literally, or to a reader who is comfortable holding multiple possible interpretations in mind at once. SF readers tend to be very good at the former, and it’s a perfectly acceptable and justifiable position — indeed, one that most authors, I’d guess, would endorse: close attention to what the words, sentences, and paragraphs actually say.”

-Matthew Cheney, “The Inadequacies of Allegory“

“I realized that good reading is a matter of learning the protocols and applying them with understanding and sensitivity to a particular genre…If one doesn’t know the correct protocol or misidentifies the genre, one is likely to misread something—in the sense, at least, that there is a “best” or even a “good” reading based upon the author’s intention or a consensus of experienced readers…If one should try to read Alice in Wonderland as if it were a science-fiction novel, one would ask skeptical questions about how Alice could fall down a rabbit hole without hurting herself or where the mass came from to make her grow so tall (or how her bones could support her) or where the mass went when she shrank. All these are inappropriate questions, of course, but if fantasy is approached skeptically, it evaporates; one cannot read it. On the other hand, if one should read hard science fiction without asking skeptical questions, as if it were fantasy (a much more common event), the reader would miss the most important aspect of hard SF, the fact that it creates a functional world that is different from but consistent with the world in which the reader lives.”

-James Gunn, “The Protocols of Science Fiction“

“The subjunctivity level for a series of words labeled naturalistic fiction is defined by: could have happened…     Fantasy takes the subjunctivity of naturalistic fiction and throws it in reverse…the level of subjunctivity becomes: could not have happened…
But when…any correction of images that indicates the future appears in a series of words and marks it as s-f, the subjunctivity level is changed once more: These objects, these convocations of objects into situations and events, are blanketly defined by: have not happened…
In naturalistic fiction our corrections in our images must be made in accordance with what we know of the personally observable…
[T]he corrective process in fantasy is limited too: when we are given a correction that is not meaningful in terms of the personally observable world, we must accept any pseudo-explanation we are given. If there is no pseudo-explanation, it must remain mysterious…
The subjunctive level of s-f says that we must make our correction process in accord with what we know of the physically explainable universe. And the physically explainable has a much wider range than the personally observable.”

-Samuel Delany, “About Five Thousand Seven Hundred Fifty Words” (The Jewel Hinged Jaw)

Everyone who use Internet in Malaysia now keep on talk about “Eh, potong good or not?”
This picture below will tell you the answer if you have this question.

I have Streamyx, Celcom & P1 Wimax now.
But I will not talk about Celcom here, since this topic is about potong or not.

For Streamyx, I have very bad experience with their customer service. When got problem, I always call to their call center. Their customer used to make me heart attack. But now, the quality of their customer service had improved a lot. Those voice that used to make me heart attack is no longer there anymore, a lot of new voice and with better quality. The most important thing, these new people won’t make you piss off until heart attack.

While for speed and stability, undeniable, it is much more better than P1 Wimax.

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