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Is LinkedIn a Valuable Network for High School Students?
While Facebook is getting all the attention in teen social media, LinkedIn offers some serious benefits in networking and professional grooming. We look at how high school student can use this network to their advantage.

Many high school students document their school years on social networks like Facebook, where they fill pages with funny photos and funnier comments regarding their teen antics. However, some experts are now recommending that high school students take a more serious approach to their social networking, by hooking up with the professional network LinkedIn. Why should fun-loving high schoolers take a second look at a stuffed-shirt site like LinkedIn? It turns out there are many potential benefits from tuning into this established network at a younger age.

Job Searching Early

Even teens need to get a leg up on their job searches, whether they are on the hunt for a career right out of high school or a part-time job to help them pay the college bills. Globe and Mail recently reported that the days of the paper CV are out – now it’s all about selling yourself to prospective employers through digital mediums. Employers are now looking up applicants online, through social media, and even a personal website. Some employers even discount an applicant who restricts their resume or application to the paper variety, according to Jaigris Hodson, an instructor of digital literacy at Ryerson University.

This video offers a tutorial on LinkedIn for students.

“I advise my students to build an online portfolio that demonstrates the abilities they have to help employers solve their problems and portrays them as sources

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Foreign Language Study Abroad

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Foreign Language Study Abroad
We've put together this resource guide to help students, adults and professionals get the information they require to choose a good destination to study language abroad.

Studying language abroad is one of the best educational experiences you can have. There is no better way of learning a language than living in the country, being surrounded by native people daily, and using it daily. It works greatly towards achieving your language skills. You can meet new people and fellow international students, therefore, enhancing your experience as well as your professional network. If you are a foreign language major or want to make a career out of it, studying abroad is the best step you can take toward achieving it. It gives your resume the right amount of boost.

There are hundreds of destinations around the world that offer language study programs choosing from which can be an overwhelming task. So, we have listed some useful resources to help you find information related to language study abroad. We have divided the resources into three groups to help you find exactly what you are searching for.

General – Spanish Language Program – Italian Language Program

General

CIEE study abroad - This is a very useful website that offers great options for people who are interested in studying language abroad. This site provides a list of programs offered in several countries. It also offers a comprehensive idea about the local cultures and languages of several countries like Russia, Italy, Germany, China, and Spain.
SIT Study Abroad - This website offers summer and academic year language study programs in nearly 40 countries in Asia and the Pacific,

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Directory of Foreign Language Immersion Programs in U.S. Schools

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Directory of Foreign Language Immersion Programs in U.S. Schools
We've put together this resource guide to help students and adults get the help they require to choose a good language immersion program.

Our Directory of Foreign Language Immersion Programs, lists the elementary and secondary schools around the United States which have a curriculum to include teaching of a second language. We have used categories like Complete Immersion, Partial Immersion, and Two-way Immersion programs to prepare the directory. This article is aimed at students with English as their native language. It encourages bilingualism among students and works excellently towards developing progressive cognitive skills.

We have divided the resources into four groups to help you find exactly what you want.

General

General Foreign Language Immersion Programs - This is an article with the most comprehensive list of websites. Here you can learn everything about language immersion programs, prepared by a Director of Foreign Language Education Center for Applied Linguistics. The site has great information about the features and trends of immersion programs over the years.

Benefits of Language Immersion - This website contains useful information about academic, educational, economic and socio-cultural benefits of language immersion programs.

Language Immersion and Language Study Abroad Programs - Here you will find an excellent list and information about schools or institutions offering total immersion programs across the best destinations around the world.

Centre for Applied Linguistics - This website discusses various points about language immersion programs like: The goal of an immersion program, its effect on verbal English, keys to a successful immersion program, as well as its advantages and disadvantages.

Two-way immersion programs

Two-Way Immersion Kindergarten

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New York City Schools: A Vegetarian School - Wave Of The Future?

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New York City Schools: A Vegetarian School  - Wave Of The Future?
A NYC public school is now completely vegetarian! How have students reacted, and will other public schools follow suit?

School lunches have been getting a makeover in school districts across the country, but few have gone to the extraordinary step of Public School 244 in Flushing, New York. This school has done away with meat completely in its school lunch program, becoming the first vegetarian school cafeteria in the state and across the country. Surprisingly, students don’t seem to miss their chicken nuggets and “mystery meat Thursdays,” preferring the highly nutritious – and completely delicious – menu selections they can enjoy every school day.

Moving to a Meatless Menu

NBC News reports that P.S. 244 made the move to a meatless menu somewhat gradually. The school opened in 2008 and began serving a few vegetarian meals in the beginning, to see how students responded to the menu. School staff began noticing that many students were bringing vegetarian lunches, rather than purchasing the meaty fare at the cafeteria, and the move to meatless was born. Slowly, typical student lunches like chicken nuggets were replaced with entrees made up of tofu, beans and pasta.

P.S. 244 was the perfect school to begin such an experiment in Flushing. The large majority of students in the school are from either Asian or Hispanic descent, where rice and other vegetarian choices make up a large portion of the menu at home. The school’s head cook is also a vegetarian and parent at the school. To transition students to a similar menu at school was not exactly impossible.

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Michigan Schools: Buena Vista School Closures & Layoffs

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Michigan Schools: Buena Vista School Closures & Layoffs
For students in Buena Vista in Michigan, the district's closing has been devastating, with all of the teachers laid off and campuses shuttered.

Students have found themselves out of school in the small district of Buena Vista in Michigan. Unfortunately, the impromptu vacation in a district made up of mostly minority and low-income students had nothing to do with the up-and-coming summer vacation. Buena Vista students have found themselves without a school to go to because the district has run out of money. Now, teachers are without a job, income, or benefits, and students are left wondering whether they will be able to officially complete their current school year.

A Financial Emergency

According to mLive, parents and students received almost no advance notice that schools in the district would be closing. On May 6, district officials decided to close the schools and lay off all the teachers in the midst of what they called a “financial emergency” under Michigan law. A letter on the district website announced the district-wide closure to parents and students on the morning of May 7, the day the schools closed their doors.

The district states in the letter that it declares a financial emergency under Michigan Public Act 436 of 2012. That financial emergency stems partly from state money the district accepted for funding Wolverine Secure Treatment Center, an alternative high school that is no longer in operation. When the state required the district to pay back the $402,000, it was discovered district officials had already spent the money and did not have funds in the coffers to reimburse the state.

This video

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