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Hungarian Educational Research Journal
Debate as an educational method in Hungary: The policy environment and needs in teacher-training
Balázs Venkovits
Balázs Venkovits Faculty of Humanities, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary
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venkovits.balazs@arts.unideb.huhttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-9389-5525
Mariann Makay
Mariann Makay Faculty of Humanities, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary
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makay.marian@gmail.com
https://doi.org/10.1556/063.2022.00140
debating; debate method; National Core Curriculum; General Curricula; skills development; teacher training
The benefits of using formalized debates in the classroom are widely known as debating develops various skills that students need both inside and outside the modern educational system. Such competences range from communication and research skills, critical thinking, team work, public speaking, and self-confidence (Kennedy, 2007; Medina, 2020; Snider & Schnurer, 2006). However, while debating is frequently used both in regular classroom settings and as extra-curricular activities in various countries, it is still largely neglected as an educational tool in Hungary. This is true both in secondary and tertiary education with the teaching of debate mostly absent from teacher-training programs as well. After an overview of research findings on the key benefits of using debates in the classroom, the paper examines the educational policy environment in Hungary concerning the use of debates and based on various surveys argues that the manifold benefits of debating could also be exploited in Hungary as it is not only enabled by the core and general curricula but also caters for a clear need both in teacher training and daily educational practice.
Introduction – the benefits of debating in the classroom
Despite the widely-known benefits of formalized debating in an educational context, its international use in various levels of education, and the presence of the Hungarian debate movement (Disputa) already from the early 1990s, debating is still not commonly and extensively used in Hungarian educational settings. It is not part of the daily practice of most secondary school teachers and it is not an integral part of teacher-training in Hungary despite the fact that both the National Core Curriculum (Nemzeti alaptanterv, hereafter NCC) and the General or Framework Curricula (kerettanterv, hereafter GC) heavily rely on both the skills developed by debating and the use of debate as a teaching method specifically for various subjects. Based on surveys and experience with organizing debate competitions, there seems to be an interest on behalf of students, and those studying in teacher-training programs also express a need to learn more about the method. The skills associated and developed by debating are wide-ranging and comprise those sets of abilities that are often emphasized by educational documents and echoed by the labor market, also reflecting the expectations towards modern schools.
Besides the most often mentioned abilities that formalized debate can be used to improve, including critical thinking and communication, Gary Rybold argues that debating may also be used to develop public speaking and a great variety of other skills, including note taking, organizing, researching, writing, listening, and people skills (Rybold, 2006). Debating encourages active learning and strengthens oral communication competences among others (Kennedy, 2007; Kennedy, 2009), while besides these key areas, debates are also often praised for boosting student's confidence and self-esteem (Zare & Othman, 2013). While they help students improve numerous key soft skills, the use of debates in the classroom also contributes to the better understanding of the contents of classes, and debating may have a strong role in the entire learning process (Hunya, 1998) as it shifts the focus from the teacher to the students and encourages both individual (research) and team work. As Kennedy also notes, "students learn more effectively by actively analyzing, discussing, and applying content in meaningful ways rather than by passively absorbing information […] therefore, students benefit when instructors utilize instructional strategies that promote active engagement" (Kennedy, 2007, p. 183). Kassem (2021), when studying the effect of training English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners in debates, also found that debating enhanced "EFL learners' oral and written performance, as well as their ideal L2 self", while "it also seemed effective in reducing their communication apprehension" (p. 1). As we will see below, many of these key concepts and issues also appear in the official educational policy documents of Hungary.
Studying the impact of debate across the curriculum on pedagogy, Christopher Medina in his dissertation provides a thorough overview of scholarly findings and surveys on how debate improves academic skills, oral communication, critical thinking, increases self-confidence and student engagement, providing evidence of the often mentioned benefits of using this method in both tertiary and secondary education (see, for example, Aclan, Aziz, Hashima, & Valdez, 2016; Bellon, 2000; Healey, 2012; Indire, 2019; Oros, 2007; Ryan & College, 2006; Semlak & Shields, 1977; Yang & Rusli, 2012; Zare & Othman, 2013; etc.). Other professionals using debate as an educational tool have also confirmed such statements:
Academic tournament debate has a proven track record of teaching critical thinking at the middle school, high school, and college levels. Many have used debate in the non-speech classroom as an instructional tool that meets multiple educational objectives: interactive instruction, student-teacher partnership, democratic dialogue, student ownership of learning, experiential education, communication skills of listening and speaking, argument construction, cooperative learning, critical thinking, research (traditional and computer), strategic note taking, logical organization, critical reading, evaluation, and, not least, fun. Debate, both in and out of the classroom, is a profound example of cooperative learning that promotes critical thinking (Snider & Schnurer, 2006, p. x).
Debating may be used in a variety of classes and topics ranging from Hungarian language, history, foreign languages, etc. and also provides a range of opportunities for extracurricular activities and talent development because it teaches both content "as well as process and requires information acquisition and management" (Snider & Schnurer, 2006, p. 5). Debate clubs and competitions can be built on class experience that provide further outlets for students to practice their skills, increase student involvement, compete through cooperation, and prepare for 21st-century challenges they will need to face (an unprecedented amount of information reaching them, dealing with fake news, etc.).
In the past few years we have been organizing English-language debate competitions for Hungarian secondary school students and there seems to be a definite interest in the more extensive use of debating in Hungary as well. Although there are schools and teachers who have established debate clubs and use debates in both curricular and extra-curricular activities (participants of our debate competition also) and the benefits presented above are known and are also echoed by the key educational policy documents, further support for in-service teachers and changes in the training of future educators are needed for the more extensive use of debating in Hungarian classrooms. These should, first of all, reiterate the key benefits of the method on teaching practice and student learning, and provide resources and educational materials for teachers that they could rely on in their daily work.
The key scholarly aim of the paper is to explore why debates are not used more extensively in the Hungarian educational system at present despite the benefits associated with the method as outlined above. To do so, it first of all scrutinizes the key educational policy documents of Hungary to see if these actually encourage and enable the use of this method or not; thus whether they provide the necessary legal and methodological foundation for the more extensive use of debating in Hungarian classrooms. Second, with the help of our own surveys and studies conducted by others, it also aims to gauge the level of awareness of the method among Hungarian teacher trainees, assess feedback from students who have had the chance to engage in debating during their studies, and the needs and interests of teacher-trainees and in-service educators in this respect in terms of learning more about debate. These studies enable us to assess if Hungarian results are in line with international findings and if debating could be used more extensively in Hungary if there was more assistance and training provided.
In order to examine the regulatory environment, we scrutinized two key documents of Hungarian educational policy, the National Core Curriculum (NCC) and the General Curricula (GC). The former defines the basic content and key competences that every Hungarian school needs to focus on, while the latter applies the basic principles of the NCC to specific school types and grades, also touching upon methodological considerations. We examined both general statements about competences, skills, etc. that the documents aim to develop as well as specific methodological recommendations for various subjects to find out if these are in line with the skills developed by debating and to what extent the use of debates is encouraged or enabled by these key documents. Márta Hunya published her findings based on a similar survey in 2002 but with changes in the core curriculum in 2012 and 2020 a new study with similar goals is absolutely timely. We provide an overview of Hunya's findings and our results in our discussion.
To examine the awareness of and needs related to debating in the classroom, we also conducted two pilot surveys. The first was carried out to investigate the impact of debating mainly within secondary education and was based on self-assessment by students, while it also highlighted the key reasons why students might want to start debating as part of their curricular and extra-curricular activities. Makay asked respondents between 11 and 18 years of age and the survey consisted of several different types of tasks, such as describing one's own experience as part of short (open) answers, charts, multiple choice and true or false questions. The survey was shared in a closed Facebook group, where the only members are students (and teachers) practicing classroom debate (or ex-debaters), while contacts were also collected from debate teachers across Eastern Hungary (we were familiar with due to contacts during our debate competitions). Overall, 41 people answered the questionnaire (15 male and 26 female).
The second survey focused on teacher-trainees and was aimed at assessing their awareness of using debates in the classroom and their interest in learning more about it. Makay's study is based on an online survey taken in 2020 in the teacher-training program of the University of Debrecen. The participants were between 17 and 28 years old. Altogether 50 people took part in the survey (8 men (16%) and 42 women (84%)) that consisted of numerous task types, including multiple choice questions and short writing tasks. The survey was sent out to teacher trainees studying to become teachers of English at the University of Debrecen. Students from all years were present in the survey as 10 people (20%) were in their first year, 2 people (4%) in their second year, 30 people (60%) in their third year, 6 people (12%) in their fourth year, and 2 people (4%) in their fifth year. Respondents had the following majors besides English: 16 people (32%) were English language and Hungarian literature majors, 11 people (22%) were English language and history majors, 7 people (14%) were English language and German language majors, 4 people (8%) were English language and Biology majors, 3 people (6%) were English language and Mathematics majors, 3 people (6%) were English language and Russian language majors, 2 people (4%) were English language and Geography majors, 2 people (4%) were studying English language and Ethics, 1 person (2%) was an English language and Physical Education major, and 2 people (2%) were English language and Community Education majors.
In our conclusions, we also relied on surveys conducted by scholars and educators internationally as well as the feedback we have received over the years in connection with our debate competition and e-learning course developed for teachers interested in introducing debates in the classroom.
Our analysis of educational policy documents indicates that the use of debates in the classroom is in line with several of the key principles and objectives of the new NCC and GC, while these documents also specifically recommend the use of debates in such wide ranging subjects as foreign languages, civics, biology, and geography. Therefore, the regulatory framework provides the basis for a more widespread use of debates in Hungarian classrooms as well. This confirms Hunya's findings from 2002 but while the inclusion of debates was to a certain extent a surprise for Hunya at the time, by 2020 the absence of debating as an educational tool of modern pedagogy would have been more surprising. The problem, however, is similar to earlier times as although the NCC and GC provide both a theoretical background and specific examples for the use of debates, these offer no detailed methodological support and therefore it is hard for educators to actually integrate debates into their classroom practice.
Such methodological support would be needed to bridge the gap between the principles and objectives of the NCC and the GC and the needs and interests of students and teachers. Based on the surveys introduced in the main part of this paper, few of the in-practice educators and those participating in teacher training are adequately familiar with the use of debates in their teaching practice, while many would be interested in learning more about the method already during their training. Most of the barriers to using debates could be overcome by proper training and methodological support. The survey conducted by Makay among students who have been involved in debates during their secondary school years indicates that participants also feel the benefits of debating and that it has contributed to the improvement of their skills, which is in line with international surveys of the same type.
All these mean that the policy framework supports (even more, expects) the more extensive use of debates and the development of "debate culture" in the Hungarian educational system, there is a positive attitude from the part of students who have already had experience with debates, and teachers and teacher trainees are interested in learning more about the methods; yet the proper methodological support is absent that could bring together all these aspects and contribute to the more widespread use of debates.
Discussion – the regulatory framework and debate in Hungarian education
Hungary has a three-tier curriculum regulation system of which we examine the top two layers in this paper as these provide the general framework that needs to be followed by all schools in the country. 1 The top-level regulation is the National Core Curriculum, issued by the Hungarian Government in 2012 (Government Decree no. 110/2012 (VI.4.) on the issuance, introduction and implementation of the National Core Curriculum) and amended most recently in 2020 (Government Decree no. 5/2020 (I.31.)). Those specified in the NCC are compulsory for all educational institutions and provide the basis (both theoretical and ideological) for the key areas of knowledge and competences that need to be provided and developed (thus including both content and tasks for various phases of education). The second level is called the "framework" curricula (in this paper referred to as General Curricula) that adapts the abstract principles of the NCC and provides more practical support in terms of curriculum and methodology. These curricula are issued by the minister responsible for education (with the most recent version from 2020) with separate curricula developed for different grades. The third level (not studied here) is represented by the local curricula developed by school teachers (and subsequently approved) based on the above two levels. 2 Therefore, the NCC is the core document that serves as the basis of the GC and the local curricula, outlining the key principles and objectives, the content of subjects, examination requirements, etc. By studying the two upper-level documents, we may gain insights into the general objectives of educational policy in Hungary and in this particular case explore the extent to which debates are integrated within this framework.
Our survey of these documents is not without precedent as Hunya conducted a similar study in 2002. She examined the then effective NCC and GC, as well as the available textbooks, to see the extent to which these provide opportunities for using/teaching debate and argumentation in Hungarian schools. Contrary to the original supposition, Hunya concluded that these key documents did include several references to debate, indeed, it appears as a desirable method of teaching. She also argued that the use of debates helps the implementation of the core values and principles of the Hungarian core curriculum as well as the realization of common standards and requirements (Hunya, 2002a, 2002b). Debates may play a significant role in such subjects (educational areas) as the mother tongue and literature, living foreign languages, sociology, environmental studies, IT, etc., while it is only mathematics and physical education where its role might be negligible. Based on Hunya's findings, our expectation was that the newer versions and amendments to the NCC would contain references to debating at least to the same extent or would integrate the method even more than before.
Tibor Oláh, in his article on the role of debate in education, also studied this issue with reference to the newer version of the NCC, and concluded in 2017 that the National Core Curriculum also considers the use of debates to be important, however, he also called attention to the difficulties with implementing the key principles outlined by the two upper levels of educational regulation in Hungary as these provide no methodological help for such implementation. As there is no abundance of textbooks, handbooks, and trainings that could help teachers acquire the necessary knowledge for the use of debates in the classroom the teachers are left on their own: "The teachers either learn about argumentation techniques and debate formats on their own, or they will not be able to adequately develop the relevant skills of students" 3 (Oláh, 2017, para. 6). 4
After several years of preparatory work, on January 1, 2020 Government Decree no. 5/2020 (I.31.) on the amendment of Government Decree no. 110/2012. (VI.4.) on the issuance, introduction, and implementation of the National Core Curriculum was published in Magyar Közlöny (Hungarian Gazette). The NCC is still specified by the government decree from 2012 but the 2020 amendment introduced numerous substantial changes. Therefore, the re-examination of the questions outlined above is timely and necessary. This involves the scrutiny of the key principles of the NCC as well as their "practical" application in the GC.
Many of the central terms emphasized in our Introduction and often mentioned in connection with debates are now part of the educational objectives outlined by the NCC as well: it includes references to active learning, competence development, individualized learning options, learning based on student cooperation, multidisciplinary classes, etc. (p. 293). Skills development is even more emphatic in the new version of the NCC than before and it also communicates the significance of teaching argumentation (see, for example, pp. 313, 336, 349). Key competences outlined put a special emphasis on communication skills (both in the mother tongue and foreign languages) as well as personal and social competences, creativity, self-expression, etc. (p. 297) Thus several of the key principles echo those skills that debates have been shown to develop. The use of debate is also mentioned in terms of its significance in helping students differentiate between fact and interpretation, and also appears specifically in various sections of the core educational document as a method of teaching (see, for example, pp. 313, 343, 352–53).
Debates may be used to fulfil the basic methodological principles noted by the NCC, which emphasizes the need for redefining the learning process and student roles in learning, especially in terms of active learning and students' active participation. According to the NCC, the most important objective of active learning is to improve such learner competences that enable the creative application of knowledge in diverse situations (p. 293). 5 To achieve such goals and create a modern pedagogical environment, activity-centred learning that is based on active and well-organized pair and group work should be promoted, which is absolutely in line with the methodology applied in the case of debating. The key principles argue that such learning processes should be enabled that change not only teacher-student collaboration but as a result also significantly alter the ways of traditional learning, thus both the student and the teacher appear in a new type of role (p. 295). Besides these general statements about skills and competences that may clearly be developed by debating, the use of debates is specifically encouraged in the case of several subjects (not only those that may seem most obvious at first thought) and the method of debating appears in the outline of related basic principles and learning outcomes.
Just to mention a few examples from the NCC, when describing the teaching of civics, the emphasis is put on developing students' abilities to express their own opinion, understanding the ideas of others, and improving "debate culture" that contributes to the foundation of a democratic attitude (p. 352). The organization of debates and the discussion of various topics through formalized debate/debate days are present throughout the description. As stated in the NCC, through debate students realize that the community experience of debate serves as a model in later stages of life as well. Cooperation with others, expressing one's opinion, developing arguments and counter arguments, recognizing the value of debates in society are all mentioned among learning outcomes (p. 353).
Debating appears in connection with a great variety of other subjects, which indicates that the values and benefits of debating have been recognized even more widely. The development of "debate culture" based on a clashing of arguments is mentioned in the case of geography, film studies, history, Hungarian language and literature, etc. According to the NCC, debates support student learning about history, for example, by making the difference between historical fact and interpretation clear for the students (p. 343), while the need for developing proper arguments and learning about debate appears even in such subjects as biology (formulating scientifically-founded arguments in debates and discussions, p. 375) and physics (where students should be able to defend their scientific knowledge and formulate and articulate their opinion, arguments and counter arguments in debates, p. 387).
The examination of the general principles outlined in the NCC was followed by the analysis of the GC, which is supposed to adopt the NCC in a more subject and school-specific manner. The variety of examples introduced below clearly show how the GC also support (expect) the more widespread use of debate in Hungarian schools. Debating is mentioned specifically in the learning outcomes that should be achieved as well as among the recommended educational methods. The examples included here come from the GC specified for grades 9–12 as this is the age/grade group where the most extensive use of debates may be expected. 6
Debating is mentioned specifically in a great variety of subjects in the GC, including Hungarian language and literature where practicing debating, developing students' arguing skills, and their ability to support their opinion with proper arguments are mentioned as key objectives, while "constructive debates" are specifically included as a recommended teaching method (p. 56). Besides the specific references to debating, numerous skills that are developed by participation in debate are also listed, including public speaking, recognizing false arguments, rhetorical skills, developing competences needed for effective presentations, expressing one's opinion, etc. (e.g., pp. 4, 29–30, 43). Similar values are also mentioned in connection with the teaching of history, whereby by the end of secondary school the students are expected to possess those competences that enable their effective orientation and participation in social life (concerning the consumption and processing of information, arguing, expressing their opinion, etc.). Similarly to the previous case, the organization of debates (e.g., about the positive and negative sides of the French Revolution or the causes for the defeat of the Hungarian War of Independence, the advantages or disadvantages of globalization, etc.) is recommended specifically to achieve the desired learning outcomes (e.g., pp. 7–8, 20, 24).
It is not surprising that the use of debates and exercises promoting their use are present in the teaching of foreign languages, in this case "debate forums" are encouraged in a variety of topics to help students better understand and use complex content, improve problem-solving skills, creativity, while providing outlets for expressing their opinion (p. 6). Specific topics for debate are mentioned in the GC that may be used by educators in the classroom (e.g., on the role of reading in the 21st century, advantages and disadvantages of living in the countryside, social media, etc.). After the above overview, it is not surprising either that debates are mentioned specifically in civics with an emphasis on developing skills that enable students to differentiate between well-founded, scientific and false conclusions, participate in debates, while also learning to respect the opinion of others (p. 1).
It is probably more surprising that the GC emphasize the need for debates in such subjects also as biology (recommending debates, for example, when discussing theories about the beginning of life or climate change, p. 13), geography (the GC claiming that the teaching of geography also contributes to the development of debate culture built on the clashing of arguments, and in the process of interpreting geographical information the debating skills of students are also developed, p. 2). Thus such an overview of the NCC and the GC indicates that the core educational documents not only mention but also encourage and expect the more widespread use of debates. What is more, they do so not only with regard to those subjects where such an application is more straightforward (civics, Hungarian literature, foreign languages) but also more extensively in such areas as biology or geography.
As noted by Oláh, however, the problem arises because the educators have no access to proper methodological support and training in the use of debate, thus the benefits of debating probably cannot be exploited in full. In our surveys, we set out to gauge the awareness of and interest in the method, as well as surveyed the perceptions of those students who have experience with the use of debates in the secondary school to see if they can confirm the presence of benefits outlined above and also emphasized by the key educational documents.
Pilot surveys
Various international surveys and studies have gauged the impact of debate on the development of various skills of students, while we also conducted two pilot surveys at the University of Debrecen to gain more insights into the perceptions of debating. The aim of the surveys was twofold. On the one hand, we wished to assess if the benefits about skills development mentioned in connection with debates are also perceived by participating students, while on the other hand, we wished to gauge the level of awareness of debating as an educational method among teacher trainees, along with their openness to learning more about debates as a way of improving the skills of their future students.
Student perceptions of improving skills through debating
Medina (2020) provided a thorough overview of various quantitative and qualitative surveys that were conducted internationally with the aim of measuring the extent to which debates contribute to skills development and how much students themselves feel such an improvement. Among other studies,
"Catterall (2002) documents that speech and debate education, at the high school level, translates into higher academic achievement for all students who participate. Students who have debated improved their reading scores up to 25 percent more than their counterparts, regardless of their skill level. Debaters typically become independent learners, allowing them to take control of their educational experience and continue intentionally learning throughout their lives (Carroll, 2007)." (Medina, 2020, p. 28)
In their qualitative study with students who participated in classroom debates, Zare and Othman (2013) found "that because of the multitude of learned and developed skills, students who participated in classroom debates were three times more likely to finish high school and achieve the college-readiness scales on the English, Reading, and Science sections of the American College Test (ACT)" (Medina, 2020, p. 19). Moreover, "Semlak and Shields (1977) concluded that students with debate experience were significantly better at employing a variety of communication skills, including analysis, delivery, and organization" (Medina, 2020, p. 30).
To test if the improvement of these, and other, skills was actually present in the case of Hungarian students who have had experience with debate during their secondary school years, we also conducted our own studies. The survey presented was built on self-assessment and reflection and all the 41 participants claimed that they had felt that their skills had improved tremendously due to ability to debate through participation in curricular and extracurricular activities. This proved to be true for all participants irrespective of their gender, age and school type.
95.1% of the people practiced debate in the same school where they received their secondary education. 70.7% of the respondents claimed that they attended a debate club session on a weekly basis. Even though 31.7% of them stated that they had never won a debate tournament, they still enjoyed debating both in contests and in class. When focusing on the reason why respondents started to attend debate clubs in their secondary school many different reasons were mentioned (multiple answers were possible). Out of 41 participants 23 stated that they wanted to become more articulate, 40 people said that they were interested in debating as such, 7 people stated that they wanted to improve their presentation skills, 38 participants of the survey wanted to engage in more interesting and important topics with their peers. 5 participants were anxious when they had to deliver a speech or speak in front of others in a classroom environment or in public, so they wanted to conquer this fear by practicing debate. These suggestions indicate that students also associate debates with the development of such skills and actively participated in debating to improve their competences and various personal skills.
Participants were asked to assess if any of their skills improved due to their participation in debates. The results are the following: out of the 41 participants 41 claimed that they had become more confident, 39 people said that they dared to share their ideas even if others disagreed with their opinion. 39 participants considered themselves to be better speakers and 30 people admitted that their self-perception had improved a lot. 25 participants thought of themselves as more patient due to the ability of listening to others' opinions and feelings. 24 people think they considered themselves to be success-oriented and emerged as leaders in challenging situations. 36 people claimed that they had become more open and tolerant and 37 people were no longer afraid to deliver speeches in any situation. 34 participants felt they could react faster than non-debating students or adults and 36 people thought they could differentiate true information from false information better. 39 people felt they improved their ability of critical thinking, 24 people felt they had started to speak more nicely and more articulately than before debating and 37 claimed they had become more persuasive. 27 people claimed that they had a lower anxiety level when speaking with new people due to their participation in debates.
The results of the survey show that each and every participant felt some improvement in their confidence, patience, ability to identify accurate information, and reported better use of rhetorical skills and logic when discussing important issues in a group. This confirms the international research findings about the skills debating improves and also means that students themselves perceive and are aware of such improvement. The survey may also have pedagogical implications, as a well-trained mentor or teacher of debates can thus have a huge impact on the skills development of their students (along with students' self-perceptions), besides teaching the content of the subjects which is also in line with the expectations of the NCC and GC outlined above.
Debate and teacher training
As already noted, one of the key obstacles to the more widespread use of debates in Hungarian schools could be the lack of awareness of the method among teachers and the absence of proper methodological materials, textbooks, and trainings that they could rely on. It seems it is not that teachers are not interested in the method but the use of debates is not an integral part of teacher training and thus they are not familiar with the method itself (and probably had limited experience with debates as students also). Thus we wished to examine if current students of the teacher-training program were familiar with debating or not and if they would be interested in learning more about it.
Makay's pilot survey aims to gauge the level of familiarity with debate and the interest of teacher trainees in courses training them in the use of this method. From the perspective of this paper, the main objective of the survey was to find out if current teacher trainees were familiar with the use of debate as an educational tool and if they would be interested in learning (more) about it as part of their training. Based on the responses we can see that only 18% of the students claimed that they were familiar with debating (from another question it is revealed that 16% had extracurricular debate clubs in their secondary school) while 14% have never heard about it and the great majority (68%) although heard about it was not really familiar with it.
When assessing their interest in learning more about argumentation and debating as part of their training, they had to use a scale from 1 to 5. 1 meant that they were very unlikely to attend a course improving their argumentation skills and/or teaching them about the use of debates, while 5 meant they were very likely. 74% of the respondents gave a 4 or 5 when asked if they would be interested in improving their own argumentations skills (2% gave a 1), while 34% gave a 5 when asked if they would take an optional course on argumentation/debating (22% gave a 4, 16% a 3, 16% a 2, and 12% picked 1).
When asked about their openness to taking an optional course for teacher trainees about the use of debates in the classroom (to help their future students prepare for their exams) 50% gave a 5, thus claiming that it was very likely that they would take such a course if it was available (22% gave a 4, 14% a 3, 8% a 2, and only 6% marked 1, which means that only very few felt it was unlikely they would take such a course). The figures for the same question but concerning required-optional courses were the following: 46% gave a 5, 22% a 4, 16% a 3, 6% a 2, and 10% of them marked 1.
This survey shows the need for opportunities in forms of university courses, where future teachers have the possibility to improve their own knowledge and skills to become better teachers in an education system which requires students to take not only matriculation exams but also state accredited oral language exams that require the ability to provide arguments and form opinions alongside with reasoning in different situations and tasks.
Our research, as the next step, could be expanded to include local curricula nationwide in order to study how the general principles and objectives of the NCC and the GC are implemented on the level of schools and more extensive surveys should be conducted to assess the actual extent of using debates in Hungarian schools. It is clear, however, already from the review of the NCC and the GC, as well as the results of our pilot studies, that the regulatory environment in Hungary enables and encourages the use of debates in both primary and secondary education, and there is a need to learn more about this method, which also means that the teaching of debating as an educational tool should become an integral part of teacher training on the level of university education.
The more extensive use of the debate method, however, has two important prerequisites. The benefits of debating and its obvious link to the key competences and objectives of the NCC and GC should be made even more straightforward and proper training and methodological support should be made available for in-service teachers and teacher trainees as well. The e-learning material developed by Zsuzsanna Lénárt-Muszka and Balázs Venkovits in 2019 could cater for the second need (see its description in Venkovits, 2018; Lénárt-Muszka, 2020), while hopefully this article and our research contribute to the former as a result of which Hungarian educators will be able to integrate the use of debates into their daily teaching practice, while it may soon also become a part of teacher-training.
The publication is supported by the EFOP-3.6.1-16-2016-00022 project. The project is co-financed by the European Union and the European Social Fund.
Balázs Venkovits, Ph.D., dr. Habil, is Associate Professor in American Studies, Institute of English and American Studies, University of Debrecen. His broader academic interests include migration studies, travel writing studies related to Mexico, the United States, and Canada. He teaches courses on American civilization, history, travel writing, and translation, incorporating the use of debates into most of these classes. He has been organizing DEbate, an English-language debate competition for Hungarian high school students for years, and together with Zsuzsanna Lénárt-Muszka created an interactive e-learning course on the use of debates in education.
Mariann Makay is a student in the teacher-training program of the University of Debrecen, majoring in English language and culture and Russian language and culture. She is the member of Imre Bán College for Advanced Studies, a participant of numerous debate competitions and tournaments, also working as a judge. She is currently working on her thesis studying the use of debating in education.
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Catterall, J. S. (2002). Research on drama and theater in education. In Critical links: Learning in the arts and student academic and social development, 58–62.
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Healey, R. L. (2012). The power of debate: Reflections on the potential of debates for engaging students in critical thinking about controversial geographical topics. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 36(2), 239–257.
Healey, R. L. (2012). The power of debate: Reflections on the potential of debates for engaging students in critical thinking about controversial geographical topics. Journal of Geography in Higher Education , 36(2), 239–257.10.1080/03098265.2011.619522)| false
Hunya, M. (1998). A disputa program. Budapest: Soros Alapítvány.
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Hunya, M. (2002a). A vitakultúra és a magyar oktatás I., Új Pedagógiai Szemle, 52(9), 114−128.
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Indire, L. C. (2019). Debate as a teaching strategy for language learning. Lingue Linguaggi, 30, 107–125.
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Kassem, H. M. (2021). Training EFL learners on debating: Effects on their oral and written. MEXTESOL Journal, 45(4).
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Kennedy, R. (2007). In-class debates: Fertile ground for active learning and the cultivation of critical thinking and oral communication skills. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 19(2), 183–190.
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Kennedy, R. R. (2009). The power of in-class debates. Active Learning in Higher Education, 10(3), 225–236.
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Lénárt-Muszka, Zs . (2020). A vitamódszer alkalmazásának hatása a társadalmi innovációra: a vitázás elsajátításának és oktatásának összefüggései különböző kompetenciák és attitűdök fejlődésével. In E. Bihari , D. Molnár , & K. Szikszai-Németh (Eds.), Tavaszi Szél 2019 Konferenciakötet I (pp. 633–641). Doktoranduszok Országos Szövetsége.
Lénárt-Muszka, Zs . (2020). A vitamódszer alkalmazásának hatása a társadalmi innovációra: a vitázás elsajátításának és oktatásának összefüggései különböző kompetenciák és attitűdök fejlődésével. In E. Bihari , D. Molnár , & K. Szikszai-Németh (Eds.), Tavaszi Szél 2019 Konferenciakötet I (pp. 633–641). Doktoranduszok Országos Szövetsége.)| false
Lénárt-Muszka, Zs. , & Venkovits, B. (2019). Vita és innováció: Bevezetés a vitamódszer használatába a tanórán és azon kívül. Debrecen: University of Debrecen, e-learning material. Available at: https://elearning.unideb.hu/enrol/index.php?id=2040.
Lénárt-Muszka, Zs. , & Venkovits, B. (2019). Vita és innováció: Bevezetés a vitamódszer használatába a tanórán és azon kívül . Debrecen: University of Debrecen, e-learning material. Available at: https://elearning.unideb.hu/enrol/index.php?id=2040.)| false
Medina, C. (2020). The effect of debate across the curriculum pedagogy on critical thinking in higher education institutions (Order No. 28265326). Available from: ProQuest One Academic; Publicly Available Content Database. (2495643372). Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/effect-debate-across-curriculum-pedagogy-on/docview/2495643372/se-2.
Medina, C. (2020). The effect of debate across the curriculum pedagogy on critical thinking in higher education institutions (Order No. 28265326). Available from: ProQuest One Academic; Publicly Available Content Database. (2495643372). Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/effect-debate-across-curriculum-pedagogy-on/docview/2495643372/se-2.)| false
Oláh T. (2017). A vita szerepe az oktatásban https://moderniskola.hu/2017/04/vita-szerepe-az-oktatasban/.
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Oros, A. L. (2007). Let's debate: Active learning encourages student participation and critical thinking. Journal of Political Science Education, 3(3), 293–311.
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Ryan, S. , & College, B. (2006). Arguing toward a more active citizenry: Re-envisioning the introductory civics course via debate-centered pedagogy. Journal of Public Affairs Education, 12(3), 385–395.
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Takács, V. (Ed.) (2014). Dilemma, disputa, demokrácia: Kézikönyv a vitakultúra fejlesztéséhez .Budapest: Demokratikus Ifjúságért Alapítvány.
Takács, V. (Ed.) (2014). Dilemma, disputa, demokrácia: Kézikönyv a vitakultúra fejlesztéséhez . Budapest: Demokratikus Ifjúságért Alapítvány.)| false
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Zare, P. , & Othman, M. (2013). Classroom debate as a systematic teaching/learning approach. World Applied Sciences Journal , 28(11), 1506–1513.)| false
For an overview in English, see: https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/national-policies/eurydice/content/teaching-and-learning-general-secondary-education-2_en#:∼:text=The%20National%20Core%20Curriculum%20is%20%E2%80%9Ethe%20core%20document%20regulating%20Hungarian,textbooks%20and%20other%20teaching%20aids.&text=The%20National%20Core%20Curriculum%20is%20issued%20as%20a%20government%20decree.
The presence of debating in local curricula could also be studied as part of a nationwide survey but such a research project goes beyond the limits of this paper.
Translations of Hungarian texts are ours.
Let us add at this point that an online handbook titled Dilemma, Disputa, Demokrácia. Kézikönyv a vitakultúra fejlesztéséhez has been available online and it could provide a solid starting point for people interested in using debates (Takács, 2014).
Quotes from the NCC have been translated by the authors of the paper.
The General Curricula are available online. Retrieved from https://www.oktatas.hu/kozneveles/kerettantervek/2020_nat/kerettanterv_gimn_9_12_evf.
https://akjournals.com/view/journals/063/aop/article-10.1556-063.2022.00140/article-10.1556-063.2022.00140.xml
The author instruction is available in PDF. Please download the file from HERE.
The Submissions template is available in MS Word.
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Founding Editor: Tamás Kozma (Debrecen University)
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Tamas Bereczkei (University of Pécs)
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John Brennan (London School of Economics)
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Katalin R Forray (HERA Hungarian Educational Research Association)
Zsolt Demetrovics (Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest)
Csaba Jancsak (University of Szeged)
Gabor Halasz (Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest)
Stephen Heyneman (Vanderbilt University, Nashville)
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Marek Kwiek (Poznan University)
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Overview of early childhood care and education in Malaysia
Bahbibi Rahmatullah
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Barbara M. Kehm
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Learning from each other: Expanding and deepening international research on shadow education
János Gordon Győri
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Larry R. Suter
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Dafna Gan
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Réka Könczey
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Farhana Borg
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text:
Home > News Centre > Council to explore next steps in addressing crime and effects of illicit drug use
Council to explore next steps in addressing crime and effects of illicit drug use
Best practices, community engagement and evidence-based research are all part of how a proposed City Council task force will look at negating the issues surrounding illicit drug use in Lethbridge.
Mayor Chris Spearman brought forward an official business resolution during City Council which would explore how a focused task force could action solutions against drugs in the community.
"We have heard loud and clear that crime and personal safety continue to be top priorities for our community," says Spearman. "City Council understands that we need to continue the hard work we've been doing on how to address illicit drug use in our city and find new solutions to deal with the issues."
The task force would look to similar models which have been successful in negating crime and related issues in cities such as Vancouver and Winnipeg. The focused group would also look to the four pillars of addressing addiction; prevention, treatment, harm reduction and enforcement, to guide their solutions-based approach.
Passing six votes to two, the resolution directs City administration to draft a terms of reference and to report back to City Council on October 15 with a proposed budget and funding source for their consideration.
For Public Inquiries:
Call 311 | Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Meagan Williams
meagan.williams@lethbridge.ca

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Nimco Elmi Ali, better known by her stage name Nimco Happy, is a Somali singer known in her country for her numerous hits and has staged several plays in Somalia.

Life and career
Happy was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, but grew up in Hargeisa and Nairobi, and now lives in Mogadishu. She comes from an artistic family, mostly poets.

Happy started her career in 2015 but gained fame when she released "Isii Nafta" in 2017, the song become hit in Somalia. In 2021, Happy came to worldwide attention after "Isii Nafta", went viral on the video sharing platform TikTok. The song was noted for the fact that the singer sang in several languages, in particular, in addition to the main languages of Somali language, in English, Swahili and Arabic.  The success of the song led Happy to sign with record label Polydor and release the song officially on October 28 as "Isii Nafta (Love You More than My Life)" on Spotify and other music streaming service.

Personal life
48

Happy was married but later divorced her husband with whom she had children. On 17 November 2021, she married her boyfriend.

Discography

• Jab Iima Laabno · 2021

• Isii Nafta · 2021

References

Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)

so:Nimco Happy

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Press Release: Gov. Evers, State Business Leaders Depart Today for Trade Mission to Japan
State of Wisconsin sent this bulletin at 09/06/2019 10:32 AM CDT
Gov. Evers, State Business Leaders Depart Today for Trade Mission to Japan
Governor will focus on building relationships, increasing exports and attracting investments
MADISON – Governor Tony Evers will leave Wisconsin today for a nine-day trade mission to Japan where he will meet with Japanese leaders, visit the headquarters of Japanese-owned firms doing business in Wisconsin, and help promote state exports.
"Japan and Wisconsin have a longstanding relationship and deep ties," Governor Evers said. "I look forward to renewing those relationships, learning more about our Japanese partners, and increasing opportunities for Wisconsin businesses."
The governor will lead a 28-member delegation that includes First Lady Kathy Evers; Tricia Braun, chief operating officer of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC); Dennis Shields, Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Platteville and Rose Smyrski, Vice Chancellor for University Relations/Chief of Staff at UW-Platteville; David Brukardt, vice president of corporate relations and economic engagement for the University of Wisconsin System, and 13 executives from nine Wisconsin companies.
The delegation will head to Tokyo first, followed by meetings in Yokohama and Chiba City. In Tokyo, the governor will take part on Monday and Tuesday in the annual Midwest-Japan Association Conference, which runs from Sunday evening through Tuesday night. He will also meet with the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) and members of the Wisconsin Alumni Association and host the Opportunities in Wisconsin Breakfast during that portion of the trip.
Later in the week, the governor will meet with executives from several major Japanese corporations with business operations in Wisconsin, including Komatsu, which is building a major new facility along Milwaukee's riverfront; Kikkoman, which launched its first overseas manufacturing facility in Walworth more than 45 years ago; and Fujifilm, which owns Madison-based Cellular Dynamics. The governor is tentatively scheduled to meet with top officials of the Japanese government, including representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
The governor will also travel to Chiba City, located in Chiba Prefecture which is Wisconsin's sister state in Japan. He will meet with his counterpart, Governor Kensaku Morita, and the Chiba Board of Education to learn more about Japan's educational system.
WEDC staff will coordinate the trip and will assist participating businesses in forging relationships with their peers in Japan. WEDC prepares a customized Japan market assessment specific to each business, arranges business-to-business meetings, and provides transportation and translators for the session.
"Japan represents a market that cannot be ignored for Wisconsin," said Katy Sinnott, vice president of international business development for WEDC. "This is a mature market where opportunities come from developing and sustaining personal relationships, so face-to-face contacts are essential. Governor Evers' presence as head of the delegation adds to the prestige of the delegation."
Japan is the fourth-largest market for Wisconsin exports. Top exports include industrial machinery, which grew 44% in the first quarter of this year; medical and scientific instruments; electrical machinery; and prepared meat and seafood products. The state exported $735 million worth of goods to Japan in 2018; although exports declined from 2017 to 2018, they rose 11% in the first quarter of 2019 over the same period last year. Agricultural exports grew 21% last year.


SENSES OF CINEMA IS ONE OF THE LONGEST RUNNING FILM SITES IN THE WORLD.
Senses of Cinema is dedicated to the art and culture of cinema, from new cinema releases to classics to undiscovered gems. Publishing quarterly since 1999, there is no better place than Senses of Cinema to advertise to film lovers.
Senses of Cinema is a vitally important source of information and considered opinion and has made an invaluable contribution to film culture.
An archive of over 15 years' worth of film writing, which includes the extensive and unparalleled Great Directors collection, analysing the works of over 240 auteurs from the silent period to contemporary greats, and the extremely popular annual World Poll.
Each issue includes special features, reports from international film festivals, and book reviews.
Our modern, responsive design and enhanced navigational experience means that it's easy for readers to get stuck into an issue of Senses or any of our archived content while using their tablets or smartphones.
For further information about advertising, or for a copy of our Media Kit, please contact [email protected].


text:
The correlation between emotion and success
by Phil Townend
Chief Revenue Officer APMEA, Unruly
Modern marketers are obsessed with driving shortterm sales – their jobs depend on it. But long-term growth rarely comes from shorttermism. To grow consistently, you need to build an emotional connection with your brand – and that takes time, says Unruly's Chief Revenue Officer APMEA Phil Townend
The last 20 years have seen a seismic shift in the advertising industry: huge fragmentation in media channels, the explosion of mobile, search and social, the rise of consultancies and the disruption of traditional business models have all led to a Darwinistic race to stay alive and stay relevant.
In a world where digital has allowed for the measurement and scrutiny of almost any media metric, entire digital economy businesses have been built on SEO and CPC. But what about the role of brands? Has this addiction to instant gratification come at a cost of long-term brand health and even business outcomes?
In their market-defining white paper, The Long and Short of It, Binet and Field analysed 30 years of IPA marketing effectiveness data and concluded that the optimum mix of long-term brand building versus short-term sales activation to maximise B2C brand outcomes is 60/40.
"Emotional campaigns, and in particular, those that are highly creative and generate powerful fame/buzz effects, produce considerably more powerful long-term business effects than rational persuasion campaigns. Rational campaigns produce more powerful short-term sales effects and so are very seductive to organisations focused primarily on short-term results. They will not deliver maximum long-term success, however."
MEASURING EQ
The power of emotion cannot be understated in advertising. As Nobel Award winner, Daniel Kahnemann, explained in Thinking Fast and Slow, 'System 1', the subconscious, illogical, associative part of our brains, is responsible for 90% of our decision making, including the brands we choose.
At Unruly, we heavily research the role intense emotions and the human subconscious play in boosting consumer attention, memory and decision-making. Our proprietary content testing tool, UnrulyEQ, measures emotional responses to campaign creatives to help brands maximise the impact of their messages.
To see if there is a correlation between our UnrulyEQ testing and real-world business outcomes, we teamed up with Peter Field and the IPA.
We analysed the campaigns using UnrulyEQ to obtain scores for emotional and cognitive responses, purchase intent, favourability, brand values, social motivations/shareability and negative/primal responses.
The IPA provided scores for real-world outcomes, including market share, fame, esteem, differentiation, pricing and activation, and Peter Field examined the correlation between the two sets of data to identify the key triggers that are linked to real-world outcomes.
Together, we found that:
1. Unruly's pre-testing metrics are linked to real-world outcomes;
2. The Unruly metrics associated with long-term outcomes are very different from those linked to short term outcomes – video content should be designed with one mission in mind;
3. Negative triggers can be linked to short-term sales spikes, but this can be detrimental to the brand in the long run.
4. Positive psychological response, rather than function, acts as a differentiator for brands and is correlated with long-term business and brand outcomes.
5. The positive emotional triggers most closely correlated with long-term outcomes are amazement and exhilaration.
Ultimately, videos which play to the rational and are heavily product-focused may drive short-term sales but rarely drive long-term brand growth. Instead, emotion was a key success factor in almost every campaign which drove long-term gains.
This brings us onto an interesting subject: video copy length – one of the fundamental questions of our time. The narrative goes that 'consumers now have the attention spans of goldfish'. Yet the same person goes home and binge watches four hours of Netflix.
Using EQTrends (our own databank of eight years of video engagement data), we have been able to look at how metrics are impacted by the length of an ad. What is the optimal length of a video to drive humour, happiness or warmth? Is this different for a mom in the US versus Indonesia? What is the optimum length for recall, purchase intent, consideration and cognitive response? And how does this vary on a mar-ket-by-market, audience-by-audience basis?
The simple findings are that complex emotions, such as pride, warmth, happiness and inspiration (where mums over-index), peak at around 90 to 120 seconds. Other emotions, such as humour, exhilaration and amazement, can be delivered quite quickly, within six to 10 seconds. In other words, storytelling videos that drive emotions remain still critically important.
A challenge to these findings is that creativity is being increasingly informed by media platforms, which themselves may be challenged by shorter and shorter user-attention times. It is no coincidence that as investment into social feed video increases, we're seeing an explosion in six-second short-form videos, but they play just a small role – reminder and response. Six-second videos excel in reminding people of the more emotive long-form video they may have watched on another platform, or for the activation element of a brand-building campaign – but it doesn't build the long-term brand.
WORKING WITH THE DUOPOLY
When we interrogate the product portfolios of the duopoly, Facebook and Google, the lead propositions are search and social. In other words, cost-per-click (CPC) or split-second attention news-feeds and programmatic display ad networks largely drive direct response-focused KPIs.
Take YouTube and Instagram out of the mix and you're looking at two incredibly powerful lower-funnel marketing channels that are best suited to short-term sales activation and delivery of quick, rational, activation-focused ad messages. If 80% of your ad dollars are concentrated on these platforms, then that may in part explain the current rise of short-termism to the detriment of long-term brand growth.
What matters is understanding the role of the platform, the types of videos that are best suited to any given campaign goal and making the creative and media choices that are best aligned to a business's long-term and short-term goals.
YouTube, Instagram and premium media sites deliver dwell times and video completion rates that allow for emotion-powered and experiential ads to create connections and captivate the consumer's subconscious. Mean-while, TV and programmatic 15- or 30-second TV spots are still critically important for building attention and awareness of products or services. Search and social, on the other hand, are absolutely expert at response and reminder ads activation.
The big opportunity is to look at the data signals and harness them in the right way; to reignite our commitment to the human connection and drive long-term benefit for all. All we need to do it be brave enough to take it.


text:
Party America is a chain of stores that sell supplies for parties such as balloons, party favors, cards, seasonal items (e.g. fog machines for Halloween). There are 144 total Party America stores (not counting Paper Warehouse, the party store chain Party America owns) and they are located in 46 states (counting Paper Warehouse stores). Party America is not located in Maine, New Mexico, Hawaii, or Alaska.

History
Party America had 1,764 employees in 2005. For fiscal year 2015 its revenue was $160 million. In December 2005, Party America was acquired by Amscan along with Party City.

Party America was acquired by ABN AMRO in September 2006. Party America's CEO in 2005 was Marty Allen.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) lists Party America franchisees as eligible for "streamlined review" for SBA loans.

References

External links
DC Party Rental Supplies
Sound & Lighting For Events
Party Rental Equipment Vendors

Party stores of the United States
2005 mergers and acquisitions


> Another DIY FTDI cable question/help thread.
Re: Another DIY FTDI cable question/help thread.
what setting should I used on my meter to test/detect the DTR pad?
Set your multimeter to -Voltage- measuring, 0 to 10V or lower, if your multimeter has lower measuring, like 0 to 5V is also good.
when you say I'll see 'activity' on the multimeter when I hit the rest button..what reset button? where?
should I actually have my 'hacked' FTDI cable hooked up to my breadboard/Arduino.. and upload sketches to it..thats how I shoul dbe testing? when I actually upload sketches?
I didn't acctually say you have to hit the reset botton, I said you will see activity on the multimeter at the very same time that you use to push the reset botton, when you upload a sketch.
2- Set the multimeter to the Voltage measuing range and ground the multimeter to 'hacked cable' and breadboard/Arduino.
4- Now you have to upload a sketck, and look at your multimeter to see activity.
You have to repeat the 3 & 4, with all the pads on the 'hacked cable' little print board (PCB) one by one until you have find the DTR line.
To find the DTR pad at the 'hacked cable' look after the pad which is normally high (has voltag) and become low (for a few seconds) when you upload a sketch.
The Arduino reset pin is connected to the high (5V) thru a 10K resistor, and will be reset when connected to the ground(0V) That's why the DTR line is normally high and to reset the Arduino (when uploading a sketch) the DTR must become low (0V) for a few seconds at the right moment.
I hope that could help you and write back about your progress.
this was exactly how I had done it..
this is what I was missing.. I think I was checking for it to be 'backwards'..
I have prob'd MANY pins.. most are @ 0.00v or 0.01v fluxuating..
and when I uploaded a sketch..only sometimes Id see a slight increase..but when actually TESTED to be the DTR pin/pad..didnt work.
I'll go back and look for the correct behavior now.
Since there is many different cable version and PCB layout of PL-2303 chip, every cable hack depend on the very same kind cable and PCB layout of the different PL-2303 chip.
I am now confused.. if I am to be looking for a pad that by default is at 3.3v? or is at 0.0v when I meter for voltage output??
When I open the Arduino IDE.. and pick out a sketch to write.. I ground to my breadboard/Arduino.. and use the RED probe to check the open pads & vias on the pcb.
I can find 0.0v pads and anywhere from 1.6v to 5.0v on the PCB..
but when I try to hook up these pads/vias to the pin1/reset pin.. either my blinking LED (goes off..so something is wrong...and no sketches upload).. or it just doesnt reset the chip for the bootloader to accept the sketch.
I have had hit and miss with pin availability on the nokia data cables, but every sony erricsson one I have bought off deal extreme has had something that works for reset available on it, on the underside of the board on an unlabled pin.
I found it as described with probing and opening and closing the port to trigger it changing.
IMO the FTDI cables are better, they have a serial number in them so that you dont have the comport number change in windows depening on how things are enumerated. If you will only ever have the one device connected to the PC then the prolific ones may work for you, but I have several and I have to change things depending on when and where I plug it in on windows.
guys.... am a newbie here... sorry for the interruption.
so u guys are saying that the pl2303 can replace the ftdi right?
well will it be ok if use the pl2303 as the ftdi replacement in the arduino 0018?
m not sure i like the darkness in the avrdude!
If you are inexperianced, then no, get the FTDI one since its more known and suppoted. Once you have the hang of it then the cheap prolific ones are good for other things you want to do, but if you use one then you are basically trying to troubleshoot two things at once, and you wont know if its the cable or something else causing you problems.
I have 'only' used the Arduino 0018 IDE.
and then used a 'header pin' that plugs into my breadboard.
I throw my Atmel chip in the breadboard, (tons of links/tuts on how to set this up), with crystal, resistors..etc..
main thing is a RESET switch.
I open the IDE....open my sketch..
upload sketch to my chip.. as soon as I see the 'text' at bottom of IDE saying sketch size..etc..
I hit RESET button.. works every time.
first of all... thanx guys..
most of the writings on the pl2303 demonstrates much on the usage of avrdude... which i dont quite familiar.coz i thought avrdude is the only way to go with the pl2303... heh guess i was wrong. so lets tune up the pl2303... hope it my cheap dream will come true.
by the way... ive had experienced most of the 16 series PICs but not Atmels. i thought i was goin the cheapy way. ive just started on the Arduinos since theres so many experts in the line... so i guess it would be easy for me to learn from the best. looks like it... so far so good.


text:
Should VA Scrap VistA? CIO Evaluates Future of Home-Grown Health Records System
LaVerne Council, the assistant VA secretary for information and technology. Veteran Affairs Department
By Jack Moore
The assessment comes amid ongoing concerns about the multiple, failed attempts to develop interoperable electronic health records between VA and DOD.
The new top IT official at the Department of Veterans Affairs told lawmakers Tuesday she is meeting with her staff this week to discuss the future of a planned upgrade of the department's in-house electronic health record system.
The meeting comes after an independent report by MITRE Corp. concluded the homegrown system, first developed in the 1980s and still highly rated by clinicians, is "in danger of becoming obsolete."
Amid ongoing concerns about the multiple, failed attempts to develop interoperable electronic health records between VA and the Defense Department, the report recommended VA conduct a cost-analysis of upgrading the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture, known as VistA, compared to using open source EHRs and commercial off-the-shelf options.
LaVerne Council, the assistant VA secretary for information and technology and the agency's chief information officer, will review the business case for the VistA upgrade along with VA Undersecretary of Health Dr. David Shulkin and then "determine the next steps," Council told a joint congressional subcommittee hearing Tuesday.
VA, DOD Take Separate Paths on EHR Upgrades
In the two years since VA and DOD scrapped a plan to develop an integrated electronic health record, VA has been working on an incremental, multiyear replacement for its system, known as VistA Evolution.
DOD, meanwhile, has taken a completely different tack, awarding a $9 billion contract this summer to a team of contractors, including defense IT firm Leidos and Cerner, to implement commercial EHR technology.
Some lawmakers raised specific questions about VA's continued reliance on the VistA system.
"Are we at the point where we just can't keep trying to rejigger the technology?" said Rep. Anne McClane Kuster, D-N.H., who cited cited the independent MITRE report, first reported by Politico last week.
Council said no decisions would be made until she's reviewed the business case for the VistA Evolution upgrade.
"We wanted to have a fact-based conversation about the right next steps should be with VistA," Council said. "We didn't want to take it from the cuff. . . We really wanted to go into understanding where we are today, where we're hoping to go and will that take us where we need to go for the veteran in the future."
Reviewing the program "is the right thing to do," Council added. "It's the coherent thing to do. But we want to do it based on having real facts behind us and making sure that we're making the right decision for the veteran in the long term."
Council, who has said part of her strategy for leading VA's IT shop is a "buy-first" approach to IT, also defended the "clinical-focused" VistA system. The system, frequently rated more highly than commercial systems by doctors who use it, has "enabled that capability to really drive many breakthroughs," she testified.
"What we've got to figure out is: What opportunities do we have to continue with it as a backbone and should we be moving with different levels of technology that we haven't used before?" Council said.
'Inherent Duplication,' Missed Deadlines
Lawmakers during hearing Tuesday expressed frustration over the continued delays in full EHR interoperability between the agencies.
Both DOD and VA said in 2013 when they abandoned plans for a single EHR that pursuing separate but interoperable systems would achieve get results faster and more cheaply.
Pursuing separate paths, however, is full of "inherent duplication," said Valerie Melvin, director of information technology at the Government Accountability Office. Full interoperability between the two departments "is still years away," Melvin testified -- well beyond the 2017 goal set by the agencies when they were attempting to develop a single, integrated system.
"To this day, I harbor serious concerns about the decision to abandon a goal of a unified, single integrated system for DOD and VA," said Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., an Iraq War veteran elected in 2012. "If we're going to spend $11 billion of taxpayer money" -- the original cost estimate of DOD's massive EHR procurement -- "I don't understand why we wouldn't have invested this astronomical amount of money in a fully functional interoperable system."
In fact, Duckworth wanted to know why, in the wake of the 2013 decision to back away from developing a an integrated joint system, the Pentagon hadn't simply moved to adopt the existing VistA system.
"And then together, while we're using VistA, we can work toward something else," Duckworth told Christopher Miller, the program executive officer for the Defense Healthcare Management Systems. "That's how you get them a better system immediately."
Miller said DOD and VA have different health care missions. Even a joint, integrated system wouldn't necessarily be a cure-all, he said.
"You can go talk to any major national health care provider, and they will tell you that they struggle when you're talking about regions or they're talking about working across large geographic areas," he said.
It's not necessarily a technology problem, Miller said. It's that providers at the local level generate different processes for using even the same system.
"And so, for us to think that just adopting a single system is going to solve all that, I think is a little naive," he added.
NEXT STORY: Congress to Review FITARA Scorecards Next Week


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Baccarat, the game of nobility and James Bond movies, is becoming increasingly popular nowadays for several reasons. The advent of Mini-Baccarat, with its lower limits making the game accessible to a wider audience, is only adding to that popularity. Online casinos, which allow people to play from any location, at any time, are starting to increase their Baccarat offerings.
When looking at the many casino websites offering Baccarat, you might notice some sites advertising live dealers. It may seem like a small detail, but a live dealer (vs. a computer software based "dealer") can alter the game experience significantly. In this article, we'll be going over the differences between live vs. non-live dealers, and the advantages and disadvantages to both.
This is the traditional way games are dealt in online casinos. The "dealer" is software-based. There is no real interaction between the player and the dealer, although it's sometimes possible to interact with other players via a chat window.
The advantages to this setup include: no chance of a mistake being made, because the rules and variations are programmed directly into the software. And the minimal interaction allows you to focus completely on the game. Both are good for players who are new to the game and might not yet be comfortable with all the rules and strategies.
Disadvantages include a very sterile playing environment. It's cut and dry, and just about making the moves.
This is a fairly new development in the world of online gaming. Because you are playing from your computer, there is still a software interface that will look similar to a traditional game. However, this will be augmented with a live, streaming video feed with sound. This allows you to see, hear and interact with the dealer.
The advantage to this setup is that it feels more realistic than playing against a software-based "dealer." You can interact with the dealer in real time, just like you would in a land-based casino. Taking this concept even further is Dublin Bet. They've combined online gaming with land-based gaming. You can play a game online with the live video and audio, but you are also playing with people in a land based casino. Specifically, people playing at the Fitzwilliam Casino and CardClub in Dublin, Ireland. This is about as close as you can get to playing in a real casino, but from your computer. As you can imagine, the advantages to this setup are the combination of convenience with the immersive gaming experience.
The only disadvantage here would be if you didn't want this level of interaction so you could focus and concentrate on your own game.
There is no one Baccarat set up that is superior to any other. Both live and non-live dealer games have their own advantages and disadvantages. Whether one or the other is the right fit for you will depend on both your skill level, and what kind of game you wish to participate in.


High Quality Material-This Business Leather Briefcase Is Made Of High Genuine Cow Leather, Cotton Lining, High Quality Luxury Bronze Hardware, Durable and Smooth Brass Zipper. It's Very Well-Made, Nice Stitching, Wonderful Design. The Lining Is Thick Enough And Doesn't Feel As Though It Will Tear Or Stretch Easily.
Measurement-The Size Approximately(Without Handle) is 16.5″L X 6.3″ W X 12.2″H Inches,Weight:3.8 LB, Detachable Shoulder Strap.
Structure and Large Capacity- Two Main Sections With Zipper Closure, Inside Zip Pocket, Cross Pocket, Wallet Holder, Cell Phone Pocket & 2 Pen Pockets; Backside zipper pocket .The Leather Work Bag Has Large Capacity With Plenty Of Zippered Compartments, Perfect Fit For A4 Documents, Business Cards, Conference File, Notebook, Pens, etc. Files And Notebooks As Well As Your Daily Necessities Such As Laptop, Kindle, Smart Phone, Pen.
Size approximately (without handle) : 16.5″L X 6.3″ W X 12.2″H Inches. It Is Also Can Be As A Wonderful And Practical Families and Friends Gift Or Present For Valentine's Day, Father's Day, Teachers' Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Birthday Or Almost Any Other Occasion.
1.This product is made from top quality leather and has that wonderful new leather aroma. If you are not used to it, you could just open the package and put it in a ventilate place for a few hours, then the smell will fade away.
2.Because each piece is individually crafted, the color may vary slightly.
4.The distinguishing feature of Crazy Horse leather is that there are some wrinkles, scars, scratches on the surface. So it can present the style of retro and wildness. When you scrape it widely, the trace will be appeared. If the trace is not obvious, you can wipe it gently, then the trace will be less. Please pay attentions to this feature before you decide to purchase.
Multifunctional Carrying Options-Dual Handles For Use In Either Briefcase Or Tote Form. It Can Be Used As A School Backpack Or A Laptop Briefcase According To Different Occasions You Are In. Backpack Strap Can Be Stored Away When Not In Use, So It Can Be Used As A Shoulder Bag Or A Cross body Bag For Different Situations.
Stylish Design-This Bag Is Fashionable Enough To Take With You To Office/School, Yet Also Casual Enough To Wear For Everyday Use. Suitable For Short-distance Travel, Business Trip, Sports; It Is Also Can Be As A Wonderful And Practical Gift Or Present For Valentine's Day, Father's Day, Teachers' Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Birthday Or Almost Any Other Occasion.


The Central Florida road trips and scenic drives recommended by Florida Backroads Travel are generally off the beaten path to avoid the heavy traffic of the major theme parks.
I-4 is the east-west interstate in this region. It crosses the state of Florida from Daytona Beach through Orlando to Tampa.
The Florida Turnpike is a major north-south toll road in this region.
It starts in Wildwood south of Ocala and terminates in Miami.
A branch of the Turnpike splits off north of Miami and heads south and east to Homestead on the way to the Florida Keys.
The interstate exits are crowded with gas stations, fast food restaurants and motels. You can travel the state quickly and easily on these highways (except during rush hours), but not see much scenery or real towns as you will on my recommended Central Florida day trips.
The town signs you do see are usually a few miles from the downtown section. The fun begins when you get off the interstate and hookup with the less traveled roads.
There are many state and county highways off the interstate that offer better scenery and a look at real towns. In Florida, some backroads are even four-laned.
If you are more interested in destinations than driving routes, see Orlando Florida Day Trips or The Villages Florida Day Trips .
Park Avenue from US-17/US-92 in Maitland south through Winter Park to the beautiful campus of Rollins College on the shore of Lake Virginia. Then meander along the residential streets on the lake shores south into Orlando. Beautiful old homes, sparkling blue lakes and green tree canopies. Great shopping and dining on brick paved Park Avenue in downtown Winter Park. One of my favorite central Florida day trips.About 12 miles.
State Road 535 from Lake Buena Vista north to Chase Road, then east to Windermere. Old Florida houses, well maintained orange groves, crystal clear lakes and the pretty little tree shaded town of Windermere to enjoy lunch and strolling. Surrounded by gated communities that are home to the rich and famous. About 12 miles.
US-17 from Orlando to Winter Haven and Legoland through Kissimmee and Haines City. Orange groves, small towns, big oak trees as you enjoy your Central Florida day trips. Visit Legoland while you are in Winter Haven. About 47 miles.
US-441 from Orlando to Mount Dora through Apopka. Rolling country, great art galleries and shows in Mount Dora, and a large antique center at Renningers. Make sure to visit Mount Dora on at least one of your Central Florida day trips. About 27 miles.
US-27 from Clermont to Lake Wales through Haines City. Some congestion in the area where you cross I-4, but beautiful groves and rolling hills as you get south of the interstate. Southern central florida day trips are much less congested than the areas further north. About 50 miles.
US-27 from Lake Wales to Lake Placid through Avon Park and Sebring. Interesting small towns, a large observation tower in Lake Placid (closed as of September 2010), and dozens of colorful murals on the commercial buildings in downtown Lake Placid. About 50 miles.
SR-19 from Groveland to Mount Dora through Howey In The Hills, Tavares and Oakland Park. Take Old 441 from Tavares oninto Mount Dora. Rolling hills, old groves, little towns, art, antiques. Stop at Boondockers on Little Lake Harris in Howey In The Hills for a beer and good food. One of the nicest central Florida day trips. About 26 miles.
US-17 from Winter Haven to Wauchula through Bartow, Fort Meade and Bowling Green. Old Florida again, small towns, healthy little downtowns, many of them in the Florida Main Street program. About 36 miles.
Old Scenic Highway 17 from Lake Wales south to Frostproof through Highland Park and Babson Park . Rolling groveland, heart of citrus country. The smell of orange blossoms in the spring will make you want to live in Florida forever. At least that's what happened to me more than a half century ago. This is one of the central Florida day trips that convinced me to move to Florida many years ago. About 14 miles.
SR-557 from Polk City to SR-559 at I-4 to Auburndale. Rolling groveland and pretty little towns. Drive around the big lake in the heart of Auburndale and enjoy the old houses and the crystal clear waters. About 10 miles.
This trip starts from Mount Dora going west on Old US441 until it meets State Road 19. Take 19 through Eustis and Umatilla to Altoona, where you will turn west on State Road 42. Beautiful wooded rolling terrain along the south side of the Ocala National Forest. Take 42 all the way to US-27/441, then go south to The Villages. Stop in the main square for lunch, a drink, a concert, or all of those. Leave The Villages and continue south on US-441 all the way back to Mount Dora. About 60 miles.
Leave US-441 at Lady Lake, go east and meander left until you reach Lake Griffin Road. Follow it all the way to where it ends at the Harbor Hills development. Turn left on dead end Matthews Rd and take a peek at an old Florida fish camp. Then go back to Lake Griffin Road and turn right on Marion County Road. Go north to tee intersection, then turn left. Go to SE 155th Ave and turn right (north). Go to State Road 42, then left to Weirsdale, south on State Road 25 back to Lady Lake. Rolling fields and hills, sparse development, neat old houses, one of the quietest central Florida day trips yet so close to a rapidly urbanizing area. The way Florida used to be and still is here. Next door to The Villages Florida.
Start in downtown Howey-In-The-Hills. Go west on Number 2 Rd to Bloomfield Ave, then north across State Road 48 to Lakeshore Drive. Follow Lakeshore along shore of Lake Harris. Turn left at old church built in 1875, then continue to Lime Ave and back to State Road 48. Follow State Road 48 back to Howey or take State Road 19 across the lake to Tavares. Rolling farmland, old houses, beautiful lake shore, old houses.
Ocala National Forest Drive from Mount Dora to Melrose. Start in downtown Mount Dora and take Donnelly St north past US-441 until it becomes SR-44. Turn west at stoplight and turn right (north) in one block on Estes Road (CR44A). Stay on CR44A into Umatilla, then north on SR-19. Follow SR-19 north to past Salt Springs, then west on CR316 to Fort McCoy. Then north on CR315 to Orange Springs. Then north on CR21 to SR-20. Then west on SR-20 to SR-21. Then north to Melrose. No other central Florida day trips can match the quiet grandeur of the Ocala National Forest. About 90 miles one way.
Mount Dora to Cross Creek, Micanopy, Evinston and McIntosh via the Ocala National Forest. Take SR-44 north from Mount Dora. Turn west (left) at stoplight and turn right (north) in one block on Estes Road (CR44A). Stay on CR44A into Umatilla, then north on SR-19. Follow SR-19 north to past Salt Springs, then west on CR316 to Fort McCoy. Turn right about 5 miles west of Fort McCoy on NE 175th Street Road. Follow this road to US-301. Turn right on US-301 to Citra. At Citra, turn left on County Road 325 to Cross Creek. Stay on CR-325 through Cross Creek and turn left on CR-346 to Micanopy. From Micanopy, turn right on US-441 then turn left on NW 230th St to CR-225. Turn left and visit Wood and Swink Store and U.S. Post Office. Go south on CR-225 to US-441 and McIntosh. Go south on US-441 from McIntosh through Orange Lake to County Road 318. Turn left on CR-318 back to Citra. About 80 miles one way.
Mount Dora to Dade City and St. Leo. Take Old 441 from Mount Dora through Tavares to SR-19. Turn left on SR-19 and go south through Howey In The Hills to SR-50 in Groveland. Turn right on SR-50 and go west to U.S.-301/U.S.-98. Turn left and go south to Dade City. In Dade City turn right on SR-52 and follow it to St. Leo University and Abbey. About 65 miles.
This is the Lake Apopka Loop. The drive starts in Mount Dora and is a round trip on the toll free back roads. Take Clayton south from Mount Dora and follow it when it turns sharp right to Dora Drive. Stay on Dora Drive to Sadler Road. Turn left on Sadler to US-441. Turn right on US-441 and go under the 429 toll road bridge in Plymouth. Turn right immediately after the bridge and follow the road for several miles until it reaches SR-437A. Turn right and follow this road through Ocoee and past State Road 50 and all the way into Windermere. Go through Windermere and stay on Main St until it bends right and becomes Chase Road. Take Chase to Winter Garden-Vineland Road. Turn right and go north on that road to downtown Winter Garden. Plant Street is SR-438. Turn left on SR-438 and go through Oakland until the road becomes Old County Road 50 Stay on that until you can turn right on CR-455. Stay on CR-455 through Montverde and Ferndale until it hits CR-561. Turn right on CR-561 until CR-48 in Astatula. Stay on CR-48 until it becomes CR-448A. Follow it a short distance to CR-448 (Sadler Drive) and turn right to Dora Drive. Left on Dora Drive and follow the same path back into Mount Dora. About 65 miles round trip.
This drive is known as the Emeralda Island Scenic Loop and begins west of Eustis. From CR44, take Emerelda Avenue north to the fork in the road. Turn left and continue north on Emeralda Island Road past the Emeralda Marsh Conservation Area. After an easterly run, the road intersects CR452. Turn south and drive past Lake Yale Baptist Conference Center and then veer right on Felkins Road to Goose Prairie Road. Turn right on Goose Prarie Road and follow it until you are back on Emeralda Avenue. You will be in unspoiled Old Florida all the way with very few houses or other structures, and will enjoy many rolling hills and canopied roads along the way. About 15 miles.
Haines Creek lock is located at about the midpoint of the six mile long canal and creek that connect Lake Eustis to Lake Griffin. Access to the lock by car is from CR44 by Lock Road which is next to Bonfire Mobile Home Park. The lock is a quiet place to enjoy watching the pleasure and fishing boats that go through in both directions. There is room for two or three cars to park near the lock operator's booth, and it's fun to watch the machinery at work. The lock is usually in operation between 700 am to 700 pm with an hour off at noon when the operator takes off for lunch.
This is the Fort Gates Ferry drive. Take SR-19 north through Eustis to Salt Springs in the Ocala National Forest. Look for sign and turn right (east) onto FR-29, a U.S. Forest Service road. Go to the end and take the $10 ferry across the river. Drive from the fish camp to the paved road and turn (right) south to CR-308. Take it into Crescent City and explore. Then take US-17 south to SR-40 and go through Astor back to SR-19 and south to the beginning. About 140 miles.
This is an official Florida Scenic Highway that begins in Winter Garden and meanders along the south and west shores of Lake Apopka into Mount Dora. It is a favorite route for cyclists because the rolling hills present a challenge unlike anything else in the state.
The trip is about 45 miles.
The Sugarloaf Mountain Loop. Start on CR455 in Ferndale (north of Montverde) and turn west on CR561A. Less than one mile later turn right on Sugarloaf Mountain Road. Follow it to CR561, then north to CR455 at the traffic circle and go east back to Ferndale. Beautiful rolling countryside, views of Lake Apopka, and the second highest peak in the State of Florida. About 9.5 miles.
From On Top of the World take SR-200 northeast into Ocala to US-301. Stay on US-301until SR-20. Take SR-20 to SR-21. Take SR-21 north into Melrose.