Xiaomi launches IHealth a control system of health that has nothing to do with Apple

Xiaomi launches IHealth, a control system of health that has nothing to do with Apple

The name seems to offer us a clue that consist the set of applications and gadgets that will launch the Chinese company Xiaomi, but nothing is further from reality. iHealth has just taken over the shape of the typical name and products for iPhone and iPad, taking advantage of the pull and perhaps, confusing buyers.

It is a company that has created Xiaomi after investing $ 25 million to buy a company called Andon Health, which allow to create a series of applications and gadgets designed to monitor and measure some health-related parameters such as blood pressure and heart rate .

To make it count with a bracelet like the one used by doctors and pharmacies to take the stress, plus a port that serves as the basis for connecting the bracelet and collect the data extracted from the measurements and send them to mobile.

It is expected that this device is easy to use, designed especially its use by seniors and people with little knowledge about the methods of use of smartphones. The distribution of this device is limited to China, although it says it is quite reliable and can be very useful.

The Chinese will be able to access it from about 33 dollars, a fairly low price that certainly makes it a very popular and useful device in the Asian country. The problem with this gadget is its name, which has wanted to introduce the idea that is designed by and for Apple item and created some discomfort.

The American platform also has a similar system, called HealthKit, curiously omitted from the initial in the name, which has taken Xiaomi for your device "i". As with Apple, they may share the results of measurements with family, friends and doctors, if the user wants so, improving communication with health centers.

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Making Flashcards A Question of Time

Many games and activities in the classroom require the use of flashcards, and even if you teach fairly small groups, making several sets of flashcards is extremely time consuming. How can you cut down as much as possible the time it takes to prepare them?

• Firstly, don’t re-invent the wheel. It’s far quicker to use ready-prepared materials than to prepare your own – especially if this involves searching for pictures. Many websites now offer a selection of flashcards for the classroom. Some charge a small fee but others are completely free. Check out ESLhq, mes.english.com, and ESL Flashcards.com
• Secondly, you’ll save time in the long-term if you spend more time in the short-term. Don’t produce the cards for a “one-off” lesson but build up a stock of activities which you can use again and again. “Cutting corners” doesn’t make sense in the long run –if you use good card, make sure corners are well stuck down etc, the cards will last much longer. If you have the chance to laminate the cards, then that’s even better. Laminators are not incredibly expensive – suggest your school invests in one.
• In any case, make sure your students know that they should never write or draw on flashcards unless explicitly asked to do so. I know some who’ve even managed to write on laminated cards.
• Next, don’t feel you have to do it all yourself. Get together with any other teachers in the school who teach the same levels/age groups as you do, and arrange to pool materials. If there are three of you, and each prepares one activity, you’ll have three activities available but will only have had to take the time to prepare one.
• Finally, once the cards are prepared, work out a good filing system. I usually put the cards themselves in a paper envelope on which is written what’s on the cards and the language points they practise; instructions for the activity or activities I use them for; the level, coursebook and unit I’ve used them with, etc. This envelope then goes into a plastic envelope which goes into a file in some sort of order – by level, by coursebook, by activity type etc – whatever fits best into your teaching situation. The important thing is that you can find them again even when you’ve forgotten all about making them.

Acknowledgement

Photo provided under Crative Commons Licence by Nemos great uncle via flickr

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Describing Famous People A Reading and Writing Activity

This is an activity which I’ve used successfully at both lower and mid-intermediate level.

Preparation

Choose a famous person who is likely to interest the students, and who they know something but not too much about already. Use the Internet to research their biography and then “condense” it into ten to fifteen sentences, using language that the students have already encountered. If you choose someone who is already dead, you’ll probably be able to do it using only the simple present and past (active and passive) but a description of a living person may need also the present perfect. The sentences should include two or three which are invented, and the task for the students is to decide which are the untrue sentences. It will work best if it’s not too obvious – try and choose someone who has done a couple of things which the students might not expect, to act as distractors. I often use this text, describing Condoleezza Rice :

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Look at the list of important events in Condoleezza Rice’s life. Three of them are not true. Read them and decide which three you don’t believe.

1. Condoleezza Rice was born in Alabama in 1954.
2. When she was a child, one of her friends was killed in a bomb attack by the Ku Klux Klan.
3. As a child, she wanted to be an astronaut.
4. She went to university at the age of 15 and at 19 she graduated with a degree in political science.
5. Her mother taught her to play the piano and at university she studied music. She is a concert level pianist and once performed with the violinist Yo Yo Ma.
6. She was appointed as Soviet Affairs Advisor in the government of George Bush Snr.
7. Before she became Secretary of State, she worked at Stanford University.
8. She is a close friend of George and Laura Bush and spends almost every weekend with them.
9. She is the first black American to become Secretary of State.
10. Her nickname in the White House is “the Iron Lady”.
11. She exercises every day with a personal trainer who is an ex-Marine.


Answers (not included on the handout): The untrue sentences are numbers 3, 9 (She’s the first black woman. Madeleine Albright was the first woman, and Colin Powell was the first black American), and 10 (The Iron Lady was the nickname of Margaret Thatcher. Rice is known as the Warrior Princess).

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In the Lesson

Start with a warm-up discussion. Show the students a picture of the person you have chosen and ask them if they recognise him/her. In groups ask them to brainstorm everything they know about that person, then after a few minutes go back into full class mode, ask the groups what they decided and write their points up on the board. Don’t tell them if they’re true or not. At the end of the phase, correct any mistakes you overheard during the discussion.

Give out the text and explain the activity. Let the students read and then vote on which statements they think are untrue. Put the number of votes for each on the board before you confirm. Then ask students if the ideas which they’d had in the warm-up discussion were confirmed by the text.


For Homework

For homework, ask them to choose another famous person and to write about ten sentences, including two or three which are false about that person. Emphasise that they should keep their sentences short and simple, similar to the ones in the example text, and discourage them from copying verbatim from the Internet. Give them a deadline, by which they should send you their descriptions by E-mail. Correct the descriptions (and send them back) and print out copies of the corrected versions.

In the Next Lesson

Divide the students into groups and circulate the descriptions around the groups one at a time. As the groups read each description, they tick the sentences which they think are incorrect. At the end the number of ticks are counted and the person who wrote the description confirms which were actually the incorrect sentences.


Acknowledgements

Picture provided under Creative Commons Licence by Matthew Weston via flickr

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Como escolher comprar seu novo PC Tablets are a luxury in Brazil Choosing your new computer

Como escolher, comprar seu novo PC / Tablets are a luxury in Brazil / Choosing your new computer Tube. Duration : 4.80 Mins.

See how absurd that is the price of a PC in Brazil. Please leave your comments below. Dicas para comprar seu novo computador pela Equipe do Olhar digital olhardigital.uol.com.br

Tags: computador, comprar, dicas, desktop, notbook, netbook, tablet, crysis, gameplay, intel, gaming, laptop, ipad, samsung, galaxy, tec, game, ubuntu, apple, google, chrome, ces, consumer, electronics, show, tech, search, engine, android, mobile, t-mobile, hardware, windows, operating, system, cellphones, open, source, cost, prices, specs, review, reviews, computer, screen, graphics, sound, media, viewing, games, zune, microsoft, battery, life, alienware, tyt, young, turks, cenk, uygur, luxury, tutorial, iniciante, informatica

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Apple MacBook Pro Mac MD101HN A Laptop Silver Configuration Review and Price

Model Price : Rs. 75676Sales Package :Magsafe 2 Power Adapter
Brand :Apple
Model Name :MacBook Pro
Series :Mac
Color :Silver
Part Number :MD101HN/A
Model ID :MD101HN/A
Processor :Core i5
Brand :Intel
Clock Speed :2.5 GHz
System Memory :4 GB DDR3
HDD Capacity :500 GB
Operating System :Mac OS X Lion
Screen Size :13 inch
Resolution :2560 x 1600 pixel
Screen Type :LED-backlit Display with IPS Technology
Graphic Processor :Intel HD Graphics 4000
Web Camera :720p FaceTime HD camera
Speakers :Stereo speakers
Ethernet :10/100/1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet
Wireless LAN :IEEE 802.11a/b/g
Bluetooth :v4.0
Battery Backup :Up to 7 hours
Power Supply :60W MagSafe Power Adapter
USB Port :2 x USB 3.0
Multi Card Slot :Yes
Weight :1.62 kg
Dimension :314 x 219 x 19 mm
Color :Silver

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Teaching Numbers and the Time A Game

Teaching numbers

Numbers are often problematic for both beginner and higher level learners, and students need regular and ample chance to practise them. Low numbers are generally brought into beginners courses quite early on, but even these create difficulties. They may have difficulty remembering the way three changes to thir- in thirteen and thirty, and similarly five to fif-. Or problems with pronunciation and stress patterns may lead to them confusing thirteen fourteen, thirty and forty. When high numbers are introduced, if they’re using British English, they’ll have problems remembering where to put the and : two thousand three hundred and twenty not two thousand and three hundred and twenty.

This activity aims to give students practice in pronouncing these numbers. You can adapt it to include only the numbers which the students have learnt up to that point, but I’ll describe it here using both low and very high numbers.

You need to make a series of cards with a number in figures (eg 10) on one side and in words (eg ten) on the other. The game can be played in pairs or in larger groups – six or seven is fine. The bigger the group the more cards you need on the table – aim for at at least ten per student.

The cards are laid out on the table number side up. In turn, each student chooses a card, says what s/he thinks will be on the other side, and then turns the card over. If s/he has said exactly what is written there, s/he keeps the card. If not, the card is turned back over and left on the table. The next student can’t choose the same card, but the student after that is free to do so if s/he wishes. At the end, the student with the most cards is the winner.

This seems simple, and with very low level students who are just learning the initial numbers it is best left like that. However, at a later stage it becomes more complex – what is written on the card is not always the exact number. For example, the student who sees 203 and says two hundred and three may turn the card over to find about two hundred. Some of the numbers will be exact, others approximations.

This has two advantages :

• Firstly, it extends the game. The student who says two hundred and three has had productive practice in pronouncing the exact number, but has also had receptive exposure to the approximation – which s/he or another student must later use. It may of course work the other way – the student who sees 4,999 and, thinking s/he has understood the trick, says about five thousand may turn the card over to find four thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine, or more or less five thousand.
• Secondly it helps the weaker students. Played the “straight” way, inevitably the weaker students make mistakes and have to turn the card back over while the stronger ones get it right first time. Introducing the element of chance means that, even if they have said something perfectly correct, the stronger students still may not win the card, and having already seen the correct version the weaker students have a better chance of being right when they pick it up.

A Variation : Telling the Time

The game can also be used to practise expressing the time. By far the simplest way of expressing the time is to use the hour/minutes system - It’s ten twenty five. This is the system which I teach immediately to beginners. However, by the late elementary level they also need to understand the ten past two/twenty to twelve system (or the American equivalent). Once this has been presented and practised in isolation, the game can be used to integrate the two.

In this version, the cards have a clock showing the time on one side, and the written time on the other. But for eg 9.20, the card may say either it’s nine twenty or it’s twenty past nine. Times like 10.24 may be expressed as its ten twenty four, it’s twenty four minutes past ten or as it’s almost ten twenty five, it’s about twenty five past ten etc. The amount of uncertainty makes it very unlikely that the cards will be guessed first time, and vastly increases the amount of both receptive exposure and productive practice which the students receive.

For both variations of the game there are more approximating expressions which could be used. For numbers -nearly, almost, just over, just under, around, around about, approximately, coming up for, a bit more/less than, and for times nearly, almost, just gone, around, approximately, coming up for etc. It goes without saying that the exact number of possibilities should be geared to the level and ability of the students : too simple and it’s boring, but too difficult and it’s demotivating. It’s up to the teacher to decide how many different expressions to include – perhaps none at all for complete beginners, but a lot if you want to use the game as a remedial activity at intermediate level.

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A Fluency Activity

Heres a fluency activity that Ive used for years and which I find works really well. I cant remember where I first heard of it, so if anyone knows the source please let me know so that I can acknowledge it. It works best with intermediate and upper intermediate students.

Divide the class into groups of three or four. Tell each group youre going to tell them an object, and they have to decide why they need or want it, and what they would do with it if they had it. Tell them that you will "give" the object to the group that comes up with the best reason. If possible have pictures of the objects so that you can physically "award" the prizes.

• Start with a fairly banal but desirable object - for example, a digital camera. Give the groups a few minutes to decide their reason for wanting it, and then ask one person from each group to report back to the group. Decide which group has the best reasons - the teacher can be the judge or the students can vote - and give the object to that group.
  
• Repeat the process some more fairly ordinary objects, but ones that stretch their imagination a bit further. For example - a mountain bike, a guitar, a plane ticket to London. Then, when you see that their answers are starting to get more imaginative, start using whackier objects - a baby elephant, a long piece of string, a bucket of mud.

Usually this activity takes off after the first couple of objects, as the groups realise that they need to be imaginative to beat the other groups, and that the weirder their ideas the better. If you want to, you can follow it up by naming a final object and asking them to write their reasons for wanting it for homework. Depending on the size of the class, they can either give these to you and you read out the best in a future lesson, or (with a small class) they can all explain their ideas in the next class and vote for the best.

Acknowledgement

Photo provided under Creative Commons Licence by pfly via flickr

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Simple Method to get a FREE Alienware Laptop STILL Working Method!

FREE Alienware Laptop

This is a method to get FREE Alienware laptops. With patience and effort its a no brainer and is easy to accomplish. This does not involve referrals or any of that nonsense. This has worked for many people and now Im passing it off to you for FREE! Why spend $1000 + on a gaming laptop when you can get an Alienware laptop for free!

With this method finally get the laptop youve always wanted. This guide is protected behind a survey, reason being is I dont want this method leeched overnight and then will no longer work. Has been stable for months and plan for it to stay that way. This method comes in a word doc with step by step instructions and tips. This works for ANY Alienware laptop. Enjoy!

How to get this Free Alienware Laptop method:

Download Here:

Now for some photo proof ;)

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