Corkd Essays

Corkd Essays Corkd Paper Corkd Paper Gaining traction with wineries was an integral part of Ronas core strategy, but the finances of the company made getting signing even more vital. Start-up funds were delighting, and Corked was shorthanded on developers; the demands of the new site placed a heavy burden on the lone developer on the payroll. It was encouraging that despite the work needed on the site, users loved it, quickly became loyal, and were growing in number. But the $999 winery sign-up fees were the companys primary source of revenue, so Rona knew that to hire another developer, let alone cover the current payroll, Corked needed more wineries to join?and soon. Background In February 2006, entrepreneurs Dan Benjamin and Dan Stockholder launched Corks, a website dedicated to wine lovers. Corks was Initially Intended to provide people with a place to rate and review wines, and Benjamin and Stockholder envisioned ultimately expanding the site Into a fulfilled wine social network. In this early version, Corks used an ad-based business model and featured a limited relationship with wine. Com whereby users could shop for selected wines from wine-com. The most loyal Corks advertiser was Gary Evanescence, a brick-and-mortar and online wine retailer based in New Jersey. In May 2007, Benjamin and Cathedral felt that Corked had grown large enough that it needed a more suitable home, and they sold the site to Evanescence. Evanescence had developed a passion for wine at a very young age, since wine was his familys business. By the time he was 30, Evanescence had grown the familys local liquor shop into a national brand, renamed Wine Library, by becoming one of the first retailers to sell wine on the Internet. As Wine Library expanded, Evanescence pursued several parallel business ventures that complemented wine retail. In addition to purchasing Corks, Evanescence created a ally wine video blob (a flog) he called Wine Library TV. Wine Library TV aimed to demystify the often Intimidating world of wine, offering viewers an accessible approach. Evanescences humorous, hyperactive style (e. G. , spitting wine into a metal New York Jets Ducked, Ana s Eng Lord Ana rocks on alarm to demonstrate Tailor) struck a chord with web-surfing wine aficionados. Evanescence and Wine Library TV quickly Professor Peter Coles prepared this case. Research Associate Matthew Chaos provided excellent assistance. HOBS cases are developed solely as the basis for class discussion. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management. Copyright 2010, 2011, 2012 President and Fellows of Harvard College. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, call 1800-545-7685, write Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA 02163, or go to www. Hobs. Harvard. Deed/educators. This publication may not be digitized, photocopied, or otherwise reproduced, posted, or transmitted, without the permission of Harvard Business School. This document is authorized for use only by Pretests Nair in Understanding the Customer VIM Alamo Square at , 2014. 91 1-026 Corked: Building a Social Network for Wine Lovers developed a dedicated following, eventually reaching over 90,000 daily viewers (self- described as Maniacs). Evanescence activities led some in the media to dub him a wine social media guru and the first wine guru of the Youth era. Evanescence built on his success through consulting, speaking engagements, appearing on talk shows (notably getting Cowan OBrien to put a dirty sock in his mouth), and publishing two books, the second of which, Crush It! , became a New York Times Business Best Seller in 2009. While business ventures and traveling engagements were keeping Evanescence busy, Corked received less attention. Not wanting to go halfway with a project, Evanescence let Corked stagnate almost as soon as he bought it. Meanwhile, Rona was getting her MBA at Harvard Business School. Prior to business school, Rona had spent four years in investment banking and private equity, but her real passion lay in wine and technology. In the summer of 2008, Rona worked for Charmer Sunbelt, a large wine distributor in Brooklyn, N. Y. , where she studied the wine supply chain, measuring the value added in its various stages. That summer, Evanescence and Rona met over beers and instantly connected, talking about wine, social media, business, and family. The next year at Harvard, Rona became president of the HOBS Wine Cuisine Society. She invited Evanescence to visit HOBS and shake things up at the schools sometimes pretentious wine tasting. Evanescence agreed to come that fall. During the visit, Evanescence and Rona talked some more and realized they shared a passion for making wine less intimidating. Evanescence agreed to supervise Rona on an independent field study of Corked. Over the year, the woo hired an outside developer and design team, and put together a plan to overhaul ten Wesley. Six months into the field study, Rona decided that after HOBS, she wanted to work for Corked full time. She put together a proposal for a role and a compensation package, and went to New York City to discuss the idea in person with Evanescence. Rona was nervous; she had never proposed anything like this before, worried that her requests were too aggressive, and didnt know how Evanescence would react. Rona met with Evanescence at an event where he was an invited speaker, which added to her fears of appearing too presumptuous. He stepped outside the event to meet with Rona for, as she described it, as long as it took. She put her offer on the table. Evanescence looked away and thought for about 15 seconds. Then he said, Okay, but then I want you to be CEO. Under the arrangement, Evanescence would provide the initial funding for the company?enough to hire Rona and a full-time developer. Rona would receive equity in addition to her salary. Any additional capital would come from revenue generated from the site itself. Rona accepted the offer, and after she graduated in May 2009, the wheels at Corked started to turn. Evanescence and Ronas first hire was a chief technical officer, Kyle Bragger; subsequently, Rona hired five interns for the summer. Since Evanescence purchase of Corked the site had received no development attention and, at one point, was even hacked and redirected to a pornographic website for a day. Despite the stagnation, the user base had continued to grow. But the lack of maintenance, combined with a flaw in the early site design, created an unusual problem. Corked relied heavily on user-generated content, but the site lacked functionality to check for errors. As a result, the Corked team was faced tit an extensive wine-review database, but one filled with misspelled wines, duplicate listings, and incorrect information. Convinced this data was worth salvaging, Rona spent several weeks correcting errors herself. And to partially address these problems going forward, Bragger developed a wine-input system that made it nearly impossible to add a duplicate wine and let users flag duplicates that slipped through. 2 Envisioning the Corked Community The new version of Corked accommodated two types of users: individuals and wineries (see Exhibit 1 for a screens). For individual users, Corked offered several eaters shared by social networks like Faceable and review sites like Yelp, but with dedicated functionality for wine. Corked users could upload profiles, interact with other users, and choose friends (aka drinking buddies). Users could also review and rate wines, maintain a wine cellar, create wine shopping lists, and, importantly, actively engage Walt wellness. Slice well coeducation was a primary Touch, users could easily navigate to learn about grapes, producers, and wines. Users generated much of this information themselves. Corked directed users to an external, third-party site o purchase wines, and it received commissions for outbound clicks. Individuals could also link their Corked profiles to their Faceable and Twitter accounts. At the same time, wineries could maintain profile pages where they could post information, provide links to their own websites (where, among other things, they could presumably make wine sales), and interact directly with devotees of their wines. Corked hoped that these features would help wineries establish engaging, direct-to-consumer relationships. Accounts for individuals were free, and there were no paid, premium features anywhere on Corked. Only after exiting the site to purchase wine would individuals make any payment. In contrast, a winery account required a $999 annual fee. For this fee, in addition to having access to a profile page, wineries were identified as and were occasionally featured on the sites home page. Corked also featured wines from verified wineries in promotional tasting (during which tasters used Corked to review and comment on the wines), and interviewed verified winery owners for publication in Corks weekly e-mail newsletter. For each winery in the database that did not have a paid account, Corked created a bare-bones page. Wineries could click on a link to claim their page, go through a verification process, and upgrade to full membership. In theory, this could be a means to attract paid accounts, but as of January 2010, no wineries had signed up this way. Rather, direct interaction with Rona and Evanescence accounted for all winery sign-ups. Unlike the original version of Corked under Benjamin and Stockholder, the new version was free of advertisements. Rona reasoned that by creating an ad-free site, she could offer users the best possible experience, which would attract the greatest number of users?those who would remain loyal for the long term. Wineries in turn would respond to a large and active community, and would recognize the value of marketing to such a dedicated group of customers. The marketing that wineries might in engage in?responding to fans and posting detailed information about their wines and vineyards?would itself be valuable content, Rona believed. In developing this ad-free, higher-for-wineries approach, Rona drew from a model used by Sermons, a social network designed for doctors, which let pharmaceutical companies offer information about their drugs if they paid a fee to Sermons. (For information about Sermons, see HOBS case No. 809-142. )1 Competitive Landscape As of January 2010, several websites offered wine social networks, although the most popular of these were somewhat distinct in emphasis and appealed to different kinds of users. (See Exhibit 2 for a floggers perceived positioning of several wine sites. ) 3 For ten exclusive use AT P Snoots. Mom Snoots. Com, launched in June 2007, described itself as the worlds largest and most comprehensive online wine destination. After creating a free account, users could browse wine scores and reviews, and could interact with fellow users, wineries, and other merchants. Shopping was an important part of Snoots offering: users could reach for specific wine varieties, compare pric es across merchants, and make purchases via links to third-party vendors. Snoots also allowed users to track their own inventories online, link their accounts to Twitter and Faceable, and use a free phone application. Online traffic comparisons suggested that Snoots consistently outpaced other wine sites with social networking features (see Exhibit 3 for user trends). In November 2009, Snoots reached 250,000 registered users, which represented a 500% growth rate over a 12-month period. In 2008, Snoots. Com won the Enforcement Group Model of Excellence Award. 2 Accelerated. Mom In 2003, former Microsoft manager Eric Levine designed an online system to track his own extensive wine inventory and document his experiences at wine tasting. Impressed with his work, Olivines friends encouraged him to expand the system so they too could manage their wine collections and record reviews. On April 25, 2004, Levine opened Accelerated. Com to the public, letting users register free. By integrating wine reviews with their own inventories, users could better understand whether to open a particular bottle or to hold it until it matured, which was often a critical question for wine collectors. In January 2010, Cellar Tracker reported 93,374 users with a total of 1 5,922,545 bottles in their collective inventories. Though registered use was free, Levine solicited voluntary payments of $30 per year for users with fewer than 500 bottles, $60 per year for those with 500 to 1,000 bottles, and $100 per year for those with larger collections. Paid users could access the sites premium features, which included automatic valuation of ones collection using data from Wined. Com. 4 In January 2010, Cellar Tracker announced and demonstrated a site redesign that further emphasized social networking features. Over the 12 months preceding January 2010, Cellar Tracker ranked Just behind Snoots in traffic, but had a large lead over its competitors in time spent per user visit. Venire. Com Founded in 2005, Venire. Com was primarily a wine search engine that offered limited social networking features. Venire had a database of over 1 million wines and used proprietary crawl technology to maintain current price listings for each entry. By creating a free account, users could review wines and retailers and could malignant snooping lists, out Vulture 010 not offer tracking AT personal well collections. As of 2009, Venire ranked consistently lower than its competitors in daily page views and time spent on the site. September 2009 Reliance By September 2009, Corked was ready to reliance with its new social networking features and pricing structure. The companys reliance strategy consisted of two components. First, Corked planned a broad PR and social media campaign timed to coincide with the coming public launch. Just before the launch, Corked would host a grand unveiling of the site and wine-tasting perchance party 4 in New York City to which it would invite key influences. Second, Corked had in place variety of features and promotions to sustain momentum after the launch. The Corked team was confident that it could use Evanescence celebrity to grab attention and attract new sign-ups. But equally crucial was keeping newly recruited wine lovers engaged while on the site so they would ultimately become desirable, long- term users. Rona and Evanescence recruited 14 wineries to sign up for full memberships and join in the unveiling of the new Corked. 5 The team also sent loyal Corked users and New York supporters invitations to the party, to be held on Monday, September 14, at Corked headquarters. Over the course of the evening, a collection of wine lovers sampled wines, while Evanescence and Rona personally demonstrated the new features of the website. Attendees tasted wines from the 14 reliance wineries and wrote reviews on their laptops. Representatives from the reliance wineries as far away as South Africa sat in front of computers at home awaiting user comments. Soon, tasters were interacting with the winemakers and vineyard owners of the wines they were sampling. The community was operating Just as the Corked team had envisioned. As hoped, the tech-savvy attendees spread the word about their experience by tweeting, posting Faceable updates, and blobbing. (See Exhibit 4 for one of the blob posts. ) Although the tasting was a success, Corked needed to do significant development work before it could release the new site to the public. But two days after the release party, Evanescence was featured in the Wall Street Journal for his growing social media influence. Because of the hits to the website and the number of e-mails Corked started receiving, Rona wanted to open the site ahead of schedule. Even though a number of bugs still needed to be fixed, Evanescence agreed, and Corked opened to he public on September 16, 2009. A flurry of blob posts and several articles in influential tech outlets accompanied the launch, and user traffic spiked (see Exhibit 5 Tort an article In electronic). To build on the excitement of the launch, the Corked team devoted significant time and effort to recruiting more users. A first step was to reach out to users from the old, stagnant Corked to let them know that the site was active again. The team found that many of these former users had migrated to competing wine review websites, but some were amenable to returning. Evanescence celebrity was a key tool in reaching UT to new users. By posting links on Twitter approximately three times per week, Evanescence was able to direct many of his followers to the site. Wine Library TV was also a useful recruiting tool. After each tasting episode, Evanescence would provide viewers with a direct link to Corked so they could post a review of the wine he had Just discussed. Corked also used Twitter to recruit users unfamiliar with Evanescence. By searching for wine-related tweets, interns at Corked would find and correspond with users who indicated an interest in wine. If there was a mutual fit, the Corked interns, Ewing careful not to be too aggressive, would encourage the posters to add their commentary to the Corked site. In the weeks following the launch, Twitter led to about 200 fresh Corked user sign-ups each day. (See Exhibit 6 for growth trends. ) Corked provided incentives to keep new users engaged. It introduced a newbie badge that users could earn once they performed certain activities, like uploading a picture to the site and posting a minimum number of reviews. Corked also launched a contest in which the users who wrote the most reviews each month won a trip to New York to a wine-tasting party with Evanescence and the Corked team. Evanescence believed that maintaining fresh content was important in bringing repeat users to the site. While user-generated reviews were a source of material, Corked introduced a feature to ensure that new articles about wine were available on the site on a regular basis. Led by senior editor Jonathan Trumann, Corked Content employed a model inspired by the Huffing Post. Guest 5 writers would create content that would be available on Corked. Corked would simultaneously license the content to other websites, and since the articles included links to Corked, they generated traffic (and potentially new users) back to the site. Corked also made plans to release a mobile application. The company signed a deal with Bridgeheads development team BOOK to craft a tool for Corked users to read, rate, and review wines while on the go. Corked competitors Snoots and Cellar Tracker each offered their own phone application, although user reviews of these applications suggested that reception had been lukewarm. Challenges Ahead Reflecting on wineries concerns when deciding whether to Join, Rona knew that wellness wanted to De addle to measure ten Detentes AT cork to Justly D TN ten price and the resources they would need to maintain an account. How could current, verified wineries know how much business their paid account at Corked had brought them? And more important for recruiting purposes, how could wineries predict the relevant metrics before signing up? Other concerns arose, such as the sites limited ability to allow wineries to customize their profiles?for example, by adding photos. Most of these seemed easy enough to fix, but then again, development resources were limited. The $999 price point seldom came up as an obstacle, although Rona knew that she could never really be sure if silence on price reflected politeness or an unwillingness to sound petty or damage relationships with Evanescence. Broader questions lurked in the background. Had Corked properly balanced effort spent on recruiting wineries with effort recruiting individual users? Was recruiting wineries essential to developing a thriving community? Was there a risk of signing wineries up before enough users were active on Corked, leading to wineries frustration about limited activity? Perhaps Corked should focus on other ways to increase its user base and activity on the site, so that down the road, wineries wouldnt think twice about the value of signing up. But how long would that take? With a tight budget, it was not clear that Corked had the luxury of patience. 6 Exhibit 1 Corked. Com Home Page Source: Corked LLC, http:// www. Corked. Com, accessed January 27, 2010. 7 Exhibit 2 Article In grape (September 22, Class vs.. Mass and the Battle for Your Tasting Notes By Jeff Leftover Its somewhat De arguer for wine enthusiasts to state that they believe in the demagnification of wine: a chicken in every pot and a wine glass on every table. As the saying goes, if I had a nickel for every time somebody said they wanted to demystify wine Id be a very wealthy man, indeed. Vive been thinking about this since word came out last week via a press release and an article at Outstretch that tasting note and social community site Corked reluctance with a new CEO (Lindsay Rona?a freshly minted Harvard MBA hired by Gary Evanescence who assumes the mantle of Chairman). In my opinion, watching these various communities develop and grow is some of the most dynamic and interesting water cooler action in wine today. Historically, tasting note sites like Cellar Tracker, Evincible and Corked started out as a closed-off combination of personal cellar management and tasting notes, but has quickly morphed into their own communities on par and exceeding many of the most heavily trafficked wine sites on the web. Pick Your Flavor Each of these sites brings the same basic premise to the table, with very different executions. Evincible is the Wine Advocate of the online wine tasting note scene collectible wines with a very high-end user. Cellar Tracker, easily the largest service of its kind, is more of the Wine Spectator / Wine Enthusiast audience?educated and smart while casting a wider net of inclusiveness for wine lovers. And, Corked. Well, Corked is a bit of a mystery and deserves time to develop under focused leadership, UT its not a stretch to say that their audience consists of a significant population of those Just earning their first wine merit badge. How else to explain the fact that one of the top rated wines is a Timescale dessert wine, alongside a 95 Chateau Maraud? It is ironic that these three sites represent the three different strata of customers in the wine world. And, each takes different approaches to their ongoing development strategies. Evincible is one of a myriad of services offered by wine company Finally. Evincible aids the Finally cause as a complementary vehicle for their high-end audience interested in cellar management and other wine portfolio needs, with tasting notes acting as an ancillary benefit. Credit where credit is due, Alder Yarrow, the online wine communitys most influential writer is, by day, a user-experience expert who worked on the Evincible redesign project. His combination of wine knowledge and usability expertise creates a very elegant site experience. Cellar Tracker, the grand old dame of this space, is more community and tasting notes driven with a very high-level of activity from their user base, having recently notched their one millionth tasting note. Compare to Evincible self-reported number of ASK tasting notes and you can see the wide delta in user engagement, if not quantity of users. 8 For ten exclusive use AT P Offered as a donation-based service with some premium offerings, Cellar Tracker sprung out of founder Eric Olivines desire to create exactly what he has today?an online community of wine lovers trading thoughts and notes on their bottled wine adventures. Whats lacking in elegance in design (Eries rolling out a new version sometime in the next couple of months) is made up for by depth and breadth. Corked, on the other hand, is definitely more proletariat if Evincible and Cellar Tracker are bourgeoisie. With a decidedly more common touch, Corked is re-launching with the idea of bridging the gap directly between winery and consumer. Leveraging Faceable Connect, a universal web sign-on of sorts, with direct integration into Faceable, Corked has a tremendous opportunity to tap into the very significant segment of the wine consuming public that drinks the stuff, but doesnt wax poetic with purple prose. The fact that Corked is directly integrated with Faceable also allows them to ramp up number of users very, very quickly. Heres the thing about these tasting note sites they havent been tapped for marketing from wineries, though Corked is looking to change that. Their business model is to engage wineries to setup a page on the Corked site for an annual subscription fee of $999, allowing the winery to directly engage with consumers. Its a smart move, with a lot of implications. Life Gets More Complicated I can imagine a very near future where even the most casual of wine fans is avidly logging their notes as an ongoing historical Journey of their wine adventure. And, given my belief that winery marketers will come to tasting note sites, all tasting note ties, coupled with what could be a huge expansion in people doing tasting notes online, this has me wondering what it all means. Unfortunately, people want to associate with people that are like them. Sure, I want to demystify wine and I want more people to enjoy wine because a rising tide raises all ships, however, Id prefer not to have to spend a whole lot of time around somebody who thinks Burgundy is a jug of wine, or somebody whose self-proclaimed love of wine takes them about as far as the wine aisle at Safety looking for a $7 Reselling?especially if I have a choice of where I hang out online. So, ultimately the question is this: as tasting note sites become a widespread tool in the arsenal of people who pursue their love of wine online, and wineries engage on that turf, what will ultimately happen?

Spin Drift essays

Spin Drift essays I visited the Currier Gallery of Art and I truly enjoyed myself. I had never been to an Art Gallery and only had the impression that I had received through the movies. It was as I pictured it to be, and I would go their or another gallery again. The Currier Gallery had some outstanding pieces of art, they had everything thing from giant wall paintings to small wall paintings and giant sculptures to small sculptures. They even had a room dedicated to technology; they had the old models of vacuums, a boat motor, chairs, a jukebox, and much more. But out of all the big pictures, the bright colors, the big sculptures, and the big name artists such as Picasso and Monet, the one piece by Andrew Wyeth caught my eye. It was a smaller piece with little color that held so much meaning. Andrew Wyeth is an American, who was born in 1917. This piece is Tempera on Masonite. This piece was painted in 1950 and was named Spindrift. Spindrift had an old wooden rowboat that had been used and worn-in sitting on the beach with the waves flowing to about mid boat. The ocean was a grayish color flowing onto the dark sand. There was a bucket of silverfish sitting in the floor of the boat below the seat with a hole in it. An over used ore lye in the boat, while a small black colored bird flew just above the ground past the boat. In the side of the boat you could see the reflection of the waves. Even the frame had an old sense like the picture; it looked like it was made from driftwood or possibly old wood from a boat. When looking at the picture I had my thoughts about what did it mean and stand for. It reminded me of when I was younger and would go to the beach and Mr. Stuvola, an older man, would come home from fishing. But instead of silverfish they would be flounder and everything had more color. I think that the old boat being on the dark sandy shore and the gray water hitting the boat symbolizes Andrew Wyeth ...

The love canal case Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The love canal case - Article Example By going through the case, under-examination, the first questions appears how the situation appeared at the first place. Since, toxic wastes had been buried in the trench, once specified for the canal by William J. Love, the Board and Education and the land developers must have not constructed anything on it, as their act not only destroyed the entire region, but also put hundreds of precious lives in grave jeopardy. Secondly, the governmental agencies also appear to be responsible for demolishing of houses, schools and other places built on the trench carrying fatal waste. Had they not allowed construction of the buildings at there, the area would have not witnessed spread of cancer and other diseases, along with occurrence of abnormal births in that region (Business Week, 32). Thus, the main problem is the (mis)appropriate allocation and use of the land without cleansing it for residential, educational and commercial purposes. However, since Occidental Petroleum Company had informe d about the presence of heavy toxic wastes buried while selling the land to the Niagara Falls Board of Education, in the wake of the latter’s threatening behavior, the Company did not have any responsibilities for the losses in men and material to be occurred for the future years to come. On the contrary, the Board of Education, land developers and governmental agencies are liable for the losses took place in the form of seepage and leakage of the toxic wastes. Thus, the loyalties certainly go to the Occidental Company, and the poor masses due to the very fact that the former agreed to pay heavy ransom for the loss it did not have any involvement or intention to get involved, while the latter suffered in the form of experiencing seepage, breakout of diseases, and demolishing of their residences and workplaces at large (Business Week, 33). Another important issue, appeared while

PESTEL Analysis of Alibaba Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

PESTEL Analysis of Alibaba - Assignment Example The researcher states that a number of political factors and legal issues that come up due to the government regulations affect Alibaba. In China, the political force is the most turbulent force in the electronic commerce industry in which Alibaba is a player. For instance, the ministry of information industry has guidelines on the standards of operation in e-commerce. In fact, the Chinese government has laid a lot of emphasis on the development of the e-commerce. By so doing, the ministry of information industry has an obligation of coming up with summaries on the development of technology as time goes by. For instance, it has to provide a summary of both the middle and long-term goals on the development of information technology plan. Thus, this is a major booster in the development of Alibaba since it already has the support of the government and by the fact that it is the largest company in e-commerce in China. There is no clear legal legislation on the e-commerce industry in the Chinese government. This is because the Chinese government has not dealt with the issues for long. There minimal experience in coming up with legislation like transactional security, tax and intellectual protection of business rights in the Chines government. Much worse is the fact that there are no laws written on consumer rights, privacy, and recognition of digital signatures and validation of online contracts. This is one of the major threats to the growth of Alibaba as a company. Development in a countries economy has a great impact on the operation of a particular business. For instance, fiscal and monetary policies, of employment, GDP per head, rate of inflation and the banking policies. In China, there has been a prolonged rapid growth of its economy, at the same time, there is a continued improvement on the country’s GDP per head. This is one of the major advantages of the company Alibaba since it leads to increased shopping rates by the residents. Alibaba is affecte d by the global economy because it has now spread its wings further to serve most developed and developing countries.

The Impact of Assistive Technologies as Learning and Teaching Essay Example for Free

The Impact of Assistive Technologies as Learning and Teaching Essay Traditional classrooms in which the teacher delivered content by standing before a class of students, patiently waiting to be filled, much like empty vessels, have long been noted for their inherent shortfalls in meeting the cognitive and developmental needs of each of the range of students in their care. Research has proven that such methods do not work effectively to the benefit of all learners in a classroom because each learner has specific cognitive needs that may not be met in such a situation. Theorists as recent as Howard Gardner with his multiple intelligence theory in 1989 have emphasized the point that no two children learn in the same. The implication of this is that the teacher has to incorporate a variety of teaching strategies, tools, aids and other facilities in the classroom in order to provide the students with the best possible learning environment. Moreover the challenges that students with disabilities face are in themselves several, thus it is an added strain for them to attempt to cope with traditional teaching and learning methodology. For each child in the general education system, but even more so for these special learners, instructional modes have to be adjusted to cater for the specific needs of each learner if the overall curriculum goals are to be achieved. The use of Assistive Technologies (AT) in the classroom contributes to improvements in the performance and motivation of students across subject areas. Assistive Technology refers to the range of equipment and products that a teacher can introduce to the teaching learning situation as a means of improving the capabilities of students with disabilities. Such technologies are numerous. Non electronic equipment such as picture and alphabet boards, as well as light pointers, can be introduced to the special needs classroom (Beck, 2002). Technological advancements have facilitated the development of a number of software packages that can be used to supplement the resources that the teacher already uses in the classroom. Speech synthesis and voice recognition software and other subject specific software that have been created for use in the classroom are useful tools that have the potential, when used appropriately and effectively to enhance the classroom environment. In this paper reference will be made to several specific researches that have examined the usefulness of Assistive Technologies in the general education classroom. Since most of the research was necessarily specific to students with special needs, they bear considerable relevance to meeting the needs of these specific students. The findings could, however, be easily used in a multicultural classroom where learners are of varying physical and cognitive abilities even if their disabilities are not extensive. Armed with the knowledge of these assistive technologies teachers have the potential to transform their classrooms into an environment that caters for the specific needs of all students, whether those needs come in the form of physical disabilities, cognitive, social, psychological or other peculiar needs. In this paper a number of researches conducted on the impact of the use of assistive technology in the classroom would be presented. The research discussed initially will highlight how in one classroom a teacher created material with the aid of several assistive technology tools and demonstrate the endless possibilities for their usage in the classroom. A further research will be more specific to the advantages of using individual personal computers in the classroom. Further research will demonstrate how this tool and other assistive technology, used along with other medium can improve learners’ literacy (reading, writing and speaking) and numeracy (geometry) skills. Additional research into the tools introduced into the classroom for two other specific subject areas (social studies and environmental science) will be discussed. The result of examining these researches will show that the use of assistive technology in the classroom does in fact contribute significantly to improvements in learners’ performance and motivation. The research that Beck (2002) discusses follows the progress of three-year-old students in the Preschool Education Program. The ten students observed in this case study demonstrated various physical and cognitive shortcomings. Multiple assistive technologies were used to help develop the literacy skills of these students and allowed them to participate in different learning activities eventually leading to improved performance (Beck, 2002). Beck (2002) argues that students with disabilities have more difficulty meeting their goals in literacy skills than other students in the general education system. To facilitate easier interaction in the classroom specific assistive technology tools were created and employed by the classroom teacher. One of the first daily classroom activities is modified using a piece of software a picture communication schedule. This shows the students a picture and written text of its meaning. This approach facilitated student’s reading as they were able to associate the words with the object depicted. The second type of assistive technology was implemented at the language learning center.   Class books for reading were modified and recreated into story boards. These story boards were placed in the classroom. Students could independently follow the book by examining the pictures created to match specific words. The creation of the picture boards was facilitated through the computer software Overlay Maker (Beck 2002). The BIGmack technology was also used. This allowed students to participate in group reading activities by replaying preprogrammed phrases from the book being read, while the rest of the class read aloud (Beck, 2002). Additionally through the use of Intellipics the teacher recreated stories from the class book by using pictures that include sound and animation when selected. Students were permitted five-minute rotations at a computer to practice recognition and reading independently as facilitated by the Intellipics program. Beck (2002) gives a broad assessment of students’ attitude and performance prior to using these technologies. She notes that before, students were not engaged effectively in the reading corner as they just browsed through books, making little attempt to read the pages. She observed that improved interest in reading is the most significant and pleasing result of the introduction of the assistive technologies. The success of the introduction of these equipments in the classroom, though not overly extensive is, nevertheless, informative. Evaluation of the effectiveness of the use of assistive technology in this classroom was done primarily in the form of observations, checklists and informal teacher observations. Following a rubric, students were rated on their ability to activate the switch on the BIGMack when appropriate, their ability to name and identify a picture symbol or point to a picture after hearing its corresponding word. The results showed that approximately 90% of the students activated the BIGMack switch and 80% were able to satisfactorily match picture to word. A similar 80% of students were able to correctly name the picture symbols (Beck, 2002). This clearly shows a significant improvement in student performance when the assistive technology was used. Though these observations were not very scientific they still give a good impression. Computer-Assisted Instruction (CAI) has become an important element in today’s classroom environment. This type of instruction is becoming a significant assistive technology tool when enhancing student learning in various subject areas. It must here be noted that most schools in the United States have a form of CAI in the classroom. The article presented by Boling Martin (2002), sought to determine the effects of CAI on the development of vocabulary on 21 first grade students from a mid-Atlantic elementary school. Ten boys and eleven girls were involved in this six week study. These students were determined to be of a low socio-economic status and had limited exposure to educational experiences outside the school. They were also of mixed ethnicity, thirteen (13) Caucasians, six (6) African-Americans, one (1) Hispanic and (1) Pakistani. The study randomly assigned students to one of two groups. One group the control group, had 10 students and the experimental group had 11 students. All students continued to receive regular reading vocabulary instruction by their teachers. During their assigned 20 minute drop everything and read (DEAR) program both groups read a total seven pre-selected stories. In the control group the story was first read to the students by the teacher, next they listened to it on tape while following in the story book, and finally they were permitted to read any preferred printed literature after the first two tasks were completed. The experimental group used a computerized story board to explore the story first with each student having access to a computer, mouse, keyboard and headphones. Students would read and follow a story independently and where unfamiliar words were met, a click on the word would give its pronunciation. The program used in this study was the WiggleWorks software that offered literacy curriculum based on a combination of speech, sounds, graphics, text and other features.   Students were also able to create word banks by clicking on a plus sign and later develop their own stories or sentences using those words (Boling Martin, 2002). Determining the success of one method over the other was dependent on the students’ performance on vocabulary tests administered before and after the commencement of the study, regardless of the assistive technology used. The results were examined using both pairs of tests. The results showed significant positive effect for both groups but students using the assistive technology software showed greater improvement in their ability to remember more vocabulary words. According to Boling Martin (2002), the experimental group gained significantly as reflected in the difference between the mean scores for the pre test 3.7 and the post test 16.9. Overall the experimental group benefited to a larger extent than the control group. The use of the computer in the learning corners in the Preschool Education program and the Computer Assisted-Instruction testify to the immutable usefulness of this piece of equipment – the computer in the classroom. Acknowledging this fact several laptop immersion programs have been initiated in a number of states across the U.S. including Maine, California, and South Carolina. The Microsoft Corporation caught on to this program in 1996. Report from these immersion programs has suggested that the incorporation of laptops in the general education system not only led to improvements in students’ motivation but have also shown increase in students’ participation and in the rate at which they complete scheduled tasks (Bulek Demirtas, 2005). While educators have been arguing about the utility of laptops in the classroom, some people have questioned the degree to which these have contributed to improvements in student performance. A study was conducted at the Harvest Park Middle School to ascertain what specific impact the use of laptops have on students overall learning, specifically on their individual class grades, grade point average, writing skills and scores on standardized and other external exams (Bulek Demirtas, 2005). This school participates in the laptop immersion program which involves parents and students first applying and then each parent is required to purchase the laptop for his/her child.   In cases where there is economic disadvantage there is the option of a one year loan of a laptop subject to application and approval. Training in the use of the computer is provided. Subsequent to that the students use their laptops independently across their specific subject areas to perform any variety of curricula-related tasks such as researching, preparing presentations, typing essays and note-taking. The school, located in Pleasanton, California has approximately 24% of its population enrolled in the program. Their grade levels range from sixth through to eighth. A representation of Asians, Filipinos, Whites and Hispanics are enrolled in the program (Bulek Demirtas, 2005). The data collected from test results of students enrolled in the laptop immersion program as compared to those not involved, shows something pretty impressive. Five categories of grades were collected for students in the program over a three year period and these were pitted against the grades obtained by students not involved in the program. Their end-of-course grades were collected for each subject and from this their G.P.A. was calculated averaging their grades for all courses taken by each student. Grades were also gathered from the district writing assessment for the sixth and eighth graders and from the California Standards Tests. For sixth and eighth graders this test is strictly multiple choice while for the seventh graders a writing test is included. The last set of grades came from a Norm-Referenced Test in which all three grade levels were tested in spelling, language, reading, and mathematics. The data reveals significant difference in the scores received for all these assessments between students involved in the program and those who were not. In the initial year not much distinction existed between grades but subsequently the laptop users began to showed marked distinction in their grades. The grades obtained by both groups for English Language Arts and Mathematics showed laptop users had higher GPA scores than non-laptop users.   Sixth grade students had a better significant score by 37 points, seventh grade students by 36 points, and eighth grade students by 16 points. The end-of-year grades for these same subject areas showed more A scores and fewer F scores than non-laptop users (Bulek Demirtas, 2005). There was a very considerable difference at the seventh grade level where students in the immersion program had 16% more A’s than non-laptop users (Bulek Demirtas, 2005).   In the eighth grade, however, there is a slight shift in statistics, non-laptop users actually received 3% more A’s than laptop users.   Overall, 90% of students in the laptop immersion program received a letter B grade or performed better in English compared to 79% among the non-laptop users (Bulek Demirtas, 2005). In the district writing assessment for sixth and eighth graders, a higher percentage of laptop-using students met or surpassed their grade level expectations by 16% in grade six and 8% in the eighth grade (Bulek Demirtas, 2005).   The study showed that students in the laptop program scored more Solid Consistency Scores, 3, than the others. In the state mandated exam, students in the laptop program scored at or above the national average in the mathematics and language arts part of the exam for all grade levels (Bulek Dermitas, 2005).   There was considerable difference also in the mathematics sixth grade category where it showed students in the immersion program had a higher percentage by 13 points. The California assessment exam also showed a significantly higher result in the scores of the laptop users compared to the non-laptop users in all grade levels.   Bulek Demirtas (2005) reveal that the laptop users scored higher by a difference of 17% in language arts and 18% in mathematics. The results obtained from the study of the Harvest Park Middle school prove that the laptop immersion program had a positive impact on student achievement (Bulek Dermitas, 2005). The potential uses of the laptop in coordination with other software and technological tools therefore present boundless opportunities for the classroom teacher to modify technique and vary delivery strategy so as to ensure improved student performance. In a study exploring the use of a word processor for teaching the academic outcomes of students with special needs that had been tested as having writing disabilities, Hetzroni and Shrieber (2004), further add merit to the argument for the use of assistive technology in the classroom. In a case study involving three 7th grade students with writing disabilities, the computer word-processing program, when used correctly, was proven to be effective in increasing their writing scores. In this study the researchers functioned under the premise that the slow completion of classroom tasks caused by weaknesses in writing skill could be compensated with the use of assistive technology tools. Three male students, aged 12 to 13 were selected for the study based on their noted learning disabilities and even though they all showed reading scores appropriate to their required age level, it was believed that poor writing skills significantly accounted for their consistent underachievement. They were also required to demonstrate basic keyboarding competence. The study aimed to compare the percentage of spelling and reading errors present in the students work at the end of each language arts and Bible class, the amount of work completed (by examining the exact number of words written) and overall organizational quality, with and without the use of a computer equipped with word processing software. The study was carried out in the two subjects specified and was conducted on the basis of two alternating phases. Phase A (separated further into A1 and A2) covered the period when the students worked independent of the computer and word processing tool. Phase B (separated further into B1 and B2) covered the period when the students were allowed to use a portable computer. The sequence of the program was in-class observation and evaluation of each student by the invigilator under phase A1, an intermediary training session for four 45 minute sessions on basic word processing followed, phase B1 was conducted involving in-class observation and evaluation of the impact of the use of the word processing tool on each student’s performance, in phase A2 the computer was removed and students had to resort to using paper and pencil/pen and then in the final phase B2 the computer was reintroduced. The results of this study proved that the three students improved their writing skills by 5%, reading skills by 3%, organization skills by 30% and decreased errors by 50% (Hetzroni Shrieber, 2004).   There was, however, no noticeable difference in the average number of words the students were able to produce when assisted by the word processor (Hetzroni Shrieber, 2004). While the sample used in this study was very small (only three) it is still important. It goes a far way in demonstrating that, because writing difficulties can impact performance, assistive tools catered to the needs of such students could potentially yield improvements in student’s performance. Even if this is only to a small degree, any improvement in students’ performance is welcomed.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Given that students who have a Learning Disability (LD) have demonstrated significant weaknesses in their writing and reading skills, probably more so than any for any other skill, the use of technology must continue to be integrated in the classroom to assist students with LD’s. In a study presented by Zhang Brooks (1993) the benefits of one particular writing assistive technology, called ROBO-Writer is examined. The purpose of this article was to study the effects of ROBO-Writer as a writing tool for students with LD’s.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The study was conducted over a three month period in a mid-western school and consisted of thirty-three students classified as having a LD. These students included twenty-three male and ten female students ranging in age from 7.7 to 13.2 years in grades 2 to 6 (Zhang Brooks, 1993).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   A week prior to the commencement of the study, students were requested to hand-write freely on any topic of interest. From the papers produced, students were matched based on their mechanics, organizational quality and length and placed into groups of three and then further dispersed randomly to form three distinct groups (Zhang Brooks, 1993). The groups were assigned to use three different writing tools over the three month period. One group (MS), used Microsoft’s Word Processing, the second group (RW), used the ROBO-Writer, and the third group (CT), used the traditional paper-and-pencil writing method (Zhang Brooks, 1993).   Assessment of the merits of one method over another would be dependent on the syntactical and linguistic quality of the texts produced by the students irrespective of the particular technology used during the study period. A one-week training in their assigned technology was provided for the students in the MS and RW groups. Three assignments were given initially. All students were required to produce essays on topics of interest, written during normal assigned class writing time lasting for approximately 20 minutes, using their assigned technology. Later the students had to compose and develop a story over the course of 2 weeks using eight twenty minute sessions. A week after completing this assignment they were given a third story to produce in only 20 minutes this time. The final writing assignment was done a month afterward. For this task students spent 30 minutes writing on a specified topic. Initial observation of the students revealed that the MS and CT made little attempt to revise or edit their work before submitting while the RW group were involved in editing their work using the tools available in the software. Assessment of the written work was done by graduate students enrolled in a holistic assessment seminar. The basis of assessment was a modified rubric because the students have learning disabilities (Zhang Brooks, 1993). The results of the study show that the method used to produce the tasks had a significant influence on the overall quality of the written products. The statistical results obtained from correlation of the scores reveal that there was a considerable disparity in the average performances on the last three tasks. Without exception the students in the RW group received considerably higher scores than those in the MS or CT groups (Zhang Brooks, 1993). The above studies testify to the benefits of using assistive technology in the form of special word processing software, as opposed to traditional paper and pen methods particularly for students with learning disabilities. The research discussed by Craddock and Eng (2003) broadens the scope by demonstrating that, while assistive technology could be useful, they must be catered to the specific need of each student if they are to be effective. In a study proposing to look at how assistive technology improved students’ grades and performance, Craddock Eng (2003) provided information on how assistive technology was effectively used in the classroom with students having disabilities. The study was done over a two year period but was not confined to the classroom. Students were also observed in their interaction outside of the classroom setting.   There were forty-five students with learning disabilities that participated in the study and more than 25 individuals engaged in evaluating the students during this period of time using different forms of evaluations including formal assessment, observations, and written reports (Craddock Eng, 2003). The students were selected on the basis of their special needs. These students were lacking in assistive technology that could prove beneficial. An initial evaluation was done to assess each student’s specific need (Craddock Eng, 2003).   After evaluation and approval, each student received a specific assistive technology. The range of assistive technology provided to the students included touch screens, alternate keyboards, Reading/Writing Programs, screen enlargements, and talking processors.   Subsequently the study focused on assessing whether or not the selected technology would effectively assist or had no effect on these students’ performance. Prior performance data was obtained for each student and this later formed the basis for comparison with performance after the introduction of the assistive technology. Later on, according to Craddock Eng (2003), data was collected periodically after students were capable of using the assisted technology. After students became relatively comfortable with using the technology, they were able to use their new tools to help them improve many skills in different areas such as reading, writing, and speaking. The students were formally assessed every six weeks. Since students were using different types of assisted technology and were in different classrooms, evaluations took different forms, for example, improvement in interaction was assessed for students with speech problems as they were now able to communicate with the teacher and other students using a talking processor instead of a writing pad. Other students who couldn’t write used a Word-Processor program that allowed them to type their answer or message. The evaluation of these students did not only focus on changes in their academic performance. Certain important achievements, not capable of being formally evaluated, such as their new ability to communicate with peers and teachers as never before, were quite evident (Craddock Eng, 2003).   The findings concluded that more than two-thirds of the assisted technologies provided allowed students to work, communicate, and interact in the classroom with students and teachers.   Students using a talking processor showed improvement particularly in oral exams (Craddock Eng, 2003). Those students using a Word-Processor program were able to communicate with others and increased speed in communication by typing their message. One of the most significant improvements for these students was speed in communication and response (Craddock Eng, 2003).   Students using these technologies improved their scores by over 30% because the appropriate technology allowed them to answer correctly and freely.   However, some of the findings concluded that some students did not improve in response time or student performance using the talking processor (Craddock Eng, 2003).   Some students were able to answer rapidly but their answers were incorrect.    This concluded that even if students had the appropriate assisted technology improvements on exams was not guaranteed.   These technologies were able to facilitate and improve interaction, communication, and response time as never before.   The study concludes that, besides improvement in their grades and performance, they were also observed to be better able to interact and communicate with others (Craddock Eng 2003). Most of the researches presented so far have focused primarily on the language arts program. This may suggest that assistive technology could only be useful in helping develop language skills. This, of course, is not a true picture. Three further articles expound on research of the use of assistive technology in other subjects areas, specifically social studies, mathematics and environmental science. In Funkhouser’s (2002/2003) presentation, he points out that Mathematics software is part of the growing demand on assistive technology. A thirty six week study at a large high school aimed to ascertain if student success in geometry could be improved with the introduction of assistive technology. The study aimed to compare effects of a constructivist approach to a behaviorist instructional approach using a mathematics software program as assisted technology (Funkhouser, 2002/2003). Forty nine tenth and eleventh grade student participated in the study including both males and females. Using a normal scheduling process students were divided into two groups. One was the control group and the other was the treatment group. The control group consisted of twenty-seven students and the treatment group contained twenty-two (Funkhouser, 2002/2003). Two different learning environments were created each using different textbooks one employing a constructivist and the other a behaviorist approach.   Both groups covered the same topics. However, only the treatment group used the Geometry Supposer software as assistive technology. The pre-test and a post-test evaluation of both groups, consisting of ten questions pertaining to math attitudes, student approaches, student procedures and geometric calculations performance showed that there was significant improvement in knowledge by the treatment group by a t-test value of 2.06 (Funkhouser, 2002/2003). The results on improving student attitude were not significant between both groups. However, according to Funkhouser (2002/2003), students received significant benefits from constructivist computer-assisted instruction. This next research, discussed by Boon, Burke, Fore Spencer (2006), involves the integration of technology in an effort to enhance learning in social studies classes. The researchers attempted to assess the impact of cognitive organizers, with the integration of technology, Inspiration 6 software, on increasing content-area learning for secondary students with and without disabilities in inclusive social studies classes. There were forty-nine tenth grade students who participated in the study that lasted three weeks. From this group, twenty students were classified as having a learning disability (Boon et al 2006).   This school was located in the southeast part of the United States.   A general education teacher and two special education teachers participated in the study.   The method consisted of comparing a pretest and posttest on the result of cognitive organizers opposed to traditional textbooks. The group of students was separated into two groups classified as a control group and an experimental group. Both groups used the same textbook. In addition to the text book the control group used were involved in group activities, used guided handouts, worksheets, and video presentations. The experimental group used desktop computers, disks, guided outlines, reading materials, and Inspiration 6 software (Boon et al. 2006). The teacher in this classroom was also provided with a folder containing presentations, templates, and lesson plans.   The teacher also participated in one forty-five minute training on how to use Inspiration software.   Students in this group were also trained on using the software and creating outlines, charts, webs, using the voice converter, and converting outlines into a cognitive organizer.   This software allowed them to insert photos, sound, graphics, highlight text, change backgrounds. In the experimental group, students were introduced to a new chapter and given a pretest consisting of thirty-five questions.   Students were provided with a cognitive organizer for writing the chapter’s attributes as a class guided activity.   When students finished the chapter, they were able to input all the information they wrote in an outline on the Inspiration software.   The software allowed students to transform it into a cognitive organizer and diagram (Boon et al. 2006).   Using this cognitive organizer, students were able to study the chapter’s concepts throughout the study.   At the end, the teacher administered the posttest with the exact questions as the pretest. In the control group, the students completed the same pretest as the experimental group.   Afterwards, the students read orally as a class discussing the chapter’s concepts and later completed a ten-question worksheet to review vocabulary, people, and important events (Boon et al. 2006).   Throughout the study, students watched videos, completed group activities, and read the chapter various times.   At the end, the teacher administered the same posttest as the experimental group.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Both tests administered consisted of grading each question using points from zero to two.   The same score procedure was used for students with learning disabilities.   Ã‚   The results indicated that prior to the technology intervention no major significance in scores was found.   After the technology interference, a major difference was found as students in the experimental groups scored a mean average of 52.54 compared to the 26.84 of the control group (Boon et al. 2006). Students in the experimental group also improved their scores between the pretest and posttest by 41 points.   Overall the students who use the cognitive organizers performed better that those who just used the traditional textbook instruction. The use of cognitive organizers therefore has the potential to notably improve content-area learning for students with and without disabilities (Boon et al 2006). In the third subject-specific research Chanda, Sharonda Briers (2003) discussed how technology programs implemented in a classroom of economically disadvantage students, including disabled, enhanced their performance on the subject of Environmental Science.   The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effects of classroom strategies involving computer use on the performance of economically disadvantaged students (Chanda, Sharonda, and Briers, 2003).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The setting for this study was the Pennsylvania Middle school.   There were 311 students ranging from age 11 to 14 years (Chanda et al, 2003). The study was done using a quasi-experimental design meaning it included a pre-test, intervention, and post-test (Chanda et al., 2003).   Only 249 students were eventually analyzed because the other 62 missed one part of the design.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In the pre test the researchers designed a 25 multiple choice exam consisting of questions dealing with Environmental Science, computer skills, and student demographics (Chanda et al, 2003).   The post test consisted of 49 multiple choice questions dealing with the same subjects.   Students had 30 minutes to complete the items. According to the Chanda et al. (2003), students had a 1 week intervention on Environmental Science using special software that allowed them to work in groups. Students worked in groups but were still tested individually. Students working together from two separate stations could take on the role of driver or navigator. The drivers in each group could control the computer program and all actions. The navigator’s purpose was to guide the driver in everything. The navigator would tell the driver what to click, where to go, and type all answer in the program. However, both students had to jointly decide on the answers working together to complete the assignments (Chanda et al, 2003).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The post-test data concluded that students managed to improve their performance on the post-test after the evaluation due to the program based on the driver navigator method (Chanda et al, 2003). What the article fails to detail though is an explanation or depiction of the exact numbers, percentages, or data on their improvement. The students were also evaluated on the basis of gender and this produced significant results. According to the Chanda et al. (2003), when students were grouped by different gender, the males dominated the driver part and would take over the navigator part giving them less improvement on their post test. Significantly also students in the same gender had a more significant improvement on their post-tests after following their proper roles by working together to meet the objectives in the subject areas (Chanda et al, 2003). In conclusion, the special program did enhance their performance on the specific subject areas due to its driver navigator method on doing assignments and projects (Chanda et al, 2003). In their article Cramer Smith (2002) argue that the argument for the use of technology as an assistive tool is not very convincing. While they believe that the integration of technology into the classroom, not as a substitute to the traditional instructional method, but as a way of supporting the teaching learning process is useful, they do not find that there is enough evidence to support the claims that they impact student performance extensively. In an article Cramer Smith (2002) present the findings of a study assessing the effectiveness of these new forms of learning tools. The research examined whether the use of an innovative program titled â€Å"The Movie Project† designed to improve essential literacy, oral, technology and grammar skills in a fun and exciting way makes a impact on student’s productive skills. â€Å"The Movie Project† is a unit of content delivery designed by educators that seeks to have students actively involved in the productive aspects of language. At the beginning of each school year a topic is chosen for a movie and students in groups prepare a movie script, the best one voted on in class. Between January and April the entire class works on producing an eight to ten minute movie, each student vying for positions as actors, producers, camera operators etc. To complete their movie students had access to a variety of technological tools such as camcorders and computers (Cramer Smith, 2002). The research presented by Cramer Smith (2002), compares the performance of students from two schools, one actively involved in â€Å"The Movie Project† – called the Movie Project School, and the other and the other where technology was not integrated into the teaching process – called the Traditional School. The number of participants was eighty-eight and fifty five students and three and four language arts teachers respectively. Besides their use of â€Å"The Movie Project† teachers were interviewed to discuss their use and integration of technology in various aspects of the classroom. The Movie Project School was thus identified to be the most technological rich school while the Traditional School had less access to and used technology far as an assistive tool. Writing samples were collected from a randomly selected group of students from both the Movie Project and the Traditional School. Two separate sets of writing samples were collected for each student involved. One was collected at the beginning of the year and the second was collected at the end of the year. All language arts teachers at the two schools participated in the study except one in the traditional school because no beginning-of-the-year writing samples were obtained. A total of 148 writing samples were submitted by the language arts teachers, eight were used during the standardization procedure and one had to be discarded. A writing sample represents both the beginning and the end of the year work for each student. Each student’s paper was scored on the basis of the quality of the development of ideas and how well these ideas are articulated and organized (ideas, organization and voice). For each of these three areas a separate aggregated score was produced for each grade level with the scores for the beginning and the end of the year also separated. At the beginning of the school year the average scores received for students at the Movie School for ideas, organization and voice were 2.89, 2.61 and 2.81 correspondingly with a median of 3.0 across. For the Traditional School the equivalent scores were 2.46, 2.24 and 2.30. The comparative results between beginning-of-year and end-of-year samples for each student and between the Movie School and the Traditional school did not demonstrate any significant changes. The average scores for the end-of-year samples for the Movie School were 3.2 for ideas, 2.93 for organization, and 3.19 for voice. The median was again 3.0. For the Traditional School the mean scores were now 3.28, 3.08 and 2.97 and they too had a mean of 3.0 overall.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The argument put forward by Cramer Smith (2002) is clear, there is not enough empirical evidence to conclude that assistive technology dramatically increases students’ performance. They believe that the lack of success of research into the impact of assistive technology could be because it is very difficult to measure the extent to which assistive technology as isolated factors contribute to improvements in students learning. By its very name assistive technology suggests that other traditional methods are employed in the classroom as well. Cramer Smith (2002) argue that a vast number of factors can also mitigate either for or against improvement in student’s performance with the aid of assistive technology. In the research just outlined for example, it was noted that students in the Traditional School for given more writing samples to produce as well as journaling was required at least twice per week as opposed to only once per week in the Movie School. Additionally, even though in the Traditional School computers were not as prevalent, their students used technology more often than those in the Movie School.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The conclusion is that, in order to assess the overall effectiveness of assistive technologies as opposed to the traditional method, other independent variables would have to be removed as these could obscure the results in favor of one position over the other. Too many factors are at work in the classroom for this isolation to be possible. Until such a research becomes possible teachers should not, however discount the use of these technologies in the classroom. The traditional teaching methodology is ever changing and teachers are constantly pressed to develop new ideas and strategies to meet the needs of their students. Even if there is no broad consensus on the overall impact of assistive technology, the task of determining its usefulness for individual students must be left up to the teacher. It is the teacher who interacts daily with these learners. It is the teacher who can determine whether or not changes in attitude arise from exposure to assistive technologies. It is the teacher who feels rewarded when a child’s life, even if it is only one, is shown to be positively impacted when their learning disabilities are offset by the use of assistive technologies. While some of the researches presented were not specific to the learning disabled classroom, they are still of relevance. The goal should not only be to separate the learning disabled from the main stream system, but to see how best to integrate them into the regular school system. A multicultural classroom where each student is able to function effectively in the classroom, despite whatever physical, psychological or cognitive difficulties they may have, where ethnic, gender and other differences are accommodated, is the ideal. Training in the use of assistive technology cannot be only for special education teachers. All teachers, across all grade levels, must learn to incorporate these and several other technologies in the classroom so as to create the healthiest environment for student motivation and cognitive, social, psychological, physical and other forms of development.       REFERENCES    Beck, J. (2002, Nov/Dec). Emerging Literacy Through Assistive Technology. Council for Exceptional Children, 35, 44-49. Boling, C. J., Martin, M. (2002). The Effects of Computer-Assisted Instruction on First Grade Students’ Vocabulary Development. Reading Improvement, 39, 79-88. Boon, R.T., Burke, M.D., Fore, C. Spencer, V.G. (2006). The Impact of Cognitive Organizers and Technology-Based Practices to Promote Student Success in Secondary Social Studies Classrooms for Students with Learning Disabilities. Journal of Special Education Technology, 21(1), 5-15. Bulek, J. Demirtas, H. (2005, January) Learning with technology: The Impact of Laptop Use on Student Achievement. The Journal of Technology, Learning, and Assessment, 3 (2). Chanda E., Sharonda P., Briers G. (2003) Evaluating Classroom Strategies to Enhance Performance: Using a Computer-Assisted Program. NACTA Journal, 12, 1-5. Craddock, G. Eng, B. (2003). Satisfaction in Assistive Technology Use: Factors that Impact on Students with Disabilities, Research Results. Cognitive Processing, 4, 28-39. Cramer, S. Smith, A. (2002). Technologys Impact on Student Writing at the Middle School Level. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 1-9 Funkhouser, C. (2002/2003). The Effects of Computer-Augmented Geometry Instruction on Student Performance and Attitudes. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 35(2) 163-75. Hetzroni, O., Shrieber, B. (2004). Word Processing as an Assistive Technology Tool for Enhancing Academic Outcomes of Students with Writing Disabilities in the General Classroom. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 37(2), 143-154. Zhang, Y. Brooks, D. (1993). The Holistic Quality of Texts Created by Elementary Students with Learning Disabilities is Improved when Appropriate Computer-Based Software is Employed as the Writing Tool. Retrieved November 2, 2006, from http://dwb.unl.edu/Diss/YZhang/YZDissPaper.html

The Silk Road Essays -- Chinese History

Long before there were trains, ships and airplanes to transport goods from one place to another, there was the Silk Road. Beginning in the sixth century, this route was formed and thus began the first major trade system. Although the term â€Å"Silk Road† would lead one that it was on road, this term actually refers to a number of different routes that covered a vast amount of land and were traveled by many different people. Along with silk, large varieties of goods were traded and traveled along this route both going to and from China. Material goods were not the only thing that passed along this path, but many religions were brought into China via the Silk Road. These topics will be discussed in detail in this paper. From Babylon in the west to Chang’an in the east and from Jada Gate in the north to Patna in the south, the Silk Road stretched over a wide space of the Asian and Middle Eastern countries. There was not one road or one direct route between the many stops between these destinations. The caravans that traveled the Silk Road mainly skirted the Taklimakan desert, also called the â€Å"Land of the Dead† by the people in that area. Nomadic tribes traveled from oasis to oasis, often with little or no protection from bandits. These bandits were accustomed to engaging in raids on the merchants that used this route to trade with other countries, attacking and stealing from the merchants and later selling what they acquired in this nefarious manner. It is important to note that while the deserts were a challenge to navigate, the highest mountain ranges also made travel difficult. Many of the people who used this trade route never traveled far, but instead traded goods many times between merchants. It is because of these ... ...hina as well. Along the Silk Road, Buddhism, Christianity, and Manichaeism also migrated towards the east. The Silk Road supported trade of goods and services and the spread of ideas and religions, beginning the shrinking of the world to the relatively small place it has become in our time. Works Cited Wild, Oliver. Department of Earth System Science; University of California Irvine, "The Silk Road." Last modified 1992. Accessed March 31, 2012. http://ess.uci.edu/~oliver/silk.html. Lendering, Jona. LIVIUS Articles on Ancient History, "Silk road." Last modified 03/30/2012. Accessed March 31, 2012. http://livius.org/sh-si/silk_road/silk_road.html. Major, John. Asia Society, "Silk Road: Spreading Ideas and Inovations." Last modified 2012. Accessed March 31, 2012. http://asiasociety.org/countries/trade-exchange/silk-road-spreading-ideas-and-innovations.

Zoe’s Tale PART III Chapter Twenty-Three

Something was nudging me awake. I swatted at it. â€Å"Die,† I said. â€Å"Zoe,† Hickory said. â€Å"You have a visitor.† I blinked up at Hickory, who was framed as a silhouette by the light coming from the corridor. â€Å"What are you talking about?† I said. â€Å"General Gau,† Hickory said. â€Å"He is here. Now. And wishes to speak to you.† I sat up. â€Å"You have got to be kidding me,† I said. I picked up my PDA and looked at the time. We had arrived in Conclave space fourteen hours earlier, popping into existence a thousand klicks out from the space station that General Gau had made the administrative headquarters of the Conclave. He said he hadn't wanted to favor one planet over another. The space station was ringed with hundreds of ships from all over Conclave space, and even more shuttles and cargo transports, going between ships and back and forth from the station. Phoenix Station, the largest human space station and so big I've heard that it actually affected tides on the planet Phoenix (by amounts measurable only by sensitive instruments, but still), would have fit into a corner of the Conclave HQ. We had arrived and announced ourselves and sent an encrypted message to General Gau requesting an audience. We had been given parking coordinates and then willfully ignored. After ten hours of that, I finally went to sleep. â€Å"You know I do not kid,† Hickory said. It walked back to the doorway and turned up the lights in my stateroom. I winced. â€Å"Now, please,† Hickory said. â€Å"Come to meet him.† Five minutes later I was dressed in something I hoped would be presentable and walking somewhat unsteadily down the corridor. After a minute of walking I said, â€Å"Oh, crap,† and ran back to my stateroom, leaving Hickory standing in the corridor. A minute later I was back, bearing a shirt with something wrapped in it. â€Å"What is that?† Hickory asked. â€Å"A gift,† I said. We continued our trip through the corridor. A minute later I was standing in a hastily arranged conference room with General Gau. He stood to one side of a table surrounded by Obin-style seats, which were not really well designed either for his physiology or mine. I stood on the other, shirt in my hand. â€Å"I will wait outside,† Hickory said, after it delivered me. â€Å"Thank you, Hickory,† I said. It left. I turned and faced the general. â€Å"Hi,† I said, somewhat lamely. â€Å"You are Zoe,† General Gau said. â€Å"The human who has the Obin to do her bidding.† His words were in a language I didn't understand; they were translated through a communicator device that hung from his neck. â€Å"That's me,† I said. I heard my words translated into his language. â€Å"I am interested in how a human girl is able to commandeer an Obin transport ship to take her to see me,† General Gau said. â€Å"It's a long story,† I said. â€Å"Give me the short version,† Gau said. â€Å"My father created special machines that gave the Obin consciousness. The Obin revere me as the only surviving link to my father. They do what I ask them to,† I said. â€Å"It must be nice to have an entire race at your beck and call,† Gau said. â€Å"You should know,† I said. â€Å"You have four hundred races at yours. Sir.† General Gau did something with his head that I was going to hope was meant to be a smile. â€Å"That's a matter of some debate at this point, I'm afraid,† he said. â€Å"But I am confused. I was under the impression that you are the daughter of John Perry, administrator of the Roanoke Colony.† â€Å"I am,† I said. â€Å"He and his wife Jane Sagan adopted me after my father died. My birth mother had died some time before that. It is on my adopted parents' account that I am here now. Although I apologize† – I motioned to myself, and my state of unreadiness – â€Å"I didn't expect to meet you here, now. I thought we would come to you, and I would have time to prepare.† â€Å"When I heard that the Obin were ferrying a human to see me, and one from Roanoke, I was curious enough not to want to wait,† Gau said. â€Å"I also find value in making my opposition wonder what I am up to. My coming to visit an Obin ship rather than waiting to receive their embassy will make some wonder who you are, and what I know that they don't.† â€Å"I hope I'm worth the trip,† I said. â€Å"If you're not, I'll still have made them nervous,† Gau said. â€Å"But considering how far you've come, I hope for both our sakes the trip has been worth it. Are you completely dressed?† â€Å"What?† I said. Of the many questions I might have been expecting, this wasn't one of them. The general pointed to my hand. â€Å"You have a shirt in your hands,† he said. â€Å"Oh,† I said, and put the shirt on the table between us. â€Å"It's a gift. Not the shirt. There's something wrapped in the shirt. That's the gift. I was hoping to find something else to put it in before I gave it to you, but you sort of surprised me. I'm going to shut up now and let you just have that.† The general gave me what I think was a strange look, and then reached out and unwrapped what was in the shirt. It was the stone knife given to me by the werewolf. He held it up and examined it in the light. â€Å"This is a very interesting gift,† he said, and began moving it in his hand, testing it, I guessed, for weight and balance. â€Å"And quite a nicely designed knife.† â€Å"Thank you,† I said. â€Å"Not precisely modern weaponry,† he said. â€Å"No,† I said. â€Å"Figured that a general must have an interest in archaic weapons?† Gau asked. â€Å"Actually there's a story behind it,† I said. â€Å"There's a native race of intelligent beings on Roanoke. We didn't know about them before we landed. Not too long ago we met up with them for the first time, and things went badly. Some of them died, and some of us died. But then one of them and one of us met and decided not to try to kill each other, and exchanged gifts instead. That knife was one of those gifts. It's yours now.† â€Å"That's an interesting story,† Gau said. â€Å"And I think I'm correct in supposing that this story has some implication for why you're here.† â€Å"It's up to you, sir,† I said. â€Å"You might just decide it's a nice stone knife.† â€Å"I don't think so,† Gau said. â€Å"Administrator Perry is a man who plays with subtext. It's not lost on me what it means that he has sent his daughter to deliver a message. But then to offer this particular gift, with its particular story. He's a man of some subtlety.† â€Å"I think so, too,† I said. â€Å"But the knife is not from my dad. It's from me.† â€Å"Indeed,† Gau said, surprised. â€Å"That's even more interesting. Administrator Perry didn't suggest it?† â€Å"He doesn't know I had the knife,† I said. â€Å"And he doesn't know how I got it.† â€Å"But you did intend to send me a message with it,† Gau said. â€Å"One to complement your adopted father's.† â€Å"I hoped you'd see it that way,† I said. Gau set the knife down. â€Å"Tell me what Administrator Perry has to tell me,† he said. â€Å"You're going to be assassinated,† I said. â€Å"Someone is going to try, anyway. It's someone close to you. Someone in your trusted circle of advisors. Dad doesn't know when or how, but he knows that it's planned to happen soon. He wanted you to know so you could protect yourself.† â€Å"Why?† General Gau asked. â€Å"Your adopted father is an official of the Colonial Union. He was part of the plan that destroyed the Conclave fleet and has threatened everything I have worked for, for longer than you have been alive, young human. Why should I trust the word of my enemy?† â€Å"The Colonial Union is your enemy, not my dad,† I said. â€Å"Your dad helped kill tens of thousands,† Gau said. â€Å"Every ship in my fleet was destroyed but my own.† â€Å"He begged you not to call your ships to Roanoke,† I said. â€Å"This was a place where he was all too subtle,† Gau said. â€Å"He never explained how the trap had been set. He merely asked me not to call my fleet. A little more information would have kept thousands alive.† â€Å"He did what he could,† I said. â€Å"You were there to destroy our colony. He wasn't allowed to surrender it to you. You know he didn't have many options. And as it was he was recalled by the Colonial Union and put on trial for even hinting to you that something might happen. He could have been sent to prison for the simple act of speaking to you, General. He did what he could.† â€Å"How do I know he's not just being used again?† Gau asked. â€Å"You said you knew what it meant that he sent me to give you a message,† I said. â€Å"I'm the proof that he's telling you the truth.† â€Å"You're the proof he believes he's telling me the truth,† Gau said. â€Å"It's not to say that it is the truth. Your adopted father was used once. Why couldn't he be used again?† I flared at this. â€Å"Begging your pardon, General,† I said. â€Å"But you should know that by sending me to send you this warning, both my dad and my mom are absolutely assured of being labeled as traitors by the Colonial Union. They are both going to prison. You should know that as part of the deal to get the Obin to bring me to you, I can't go back to Roanoke. I have to stay with them. Because they believe that it's only a matter of time before Roanoke is destroyed, if not by you then by some part of the Conclave you don't have any control over anymore. My parents and I have risked everything to give you this warning. It's possible I'll never see them or anyone else on Roanoke again, because I am giving you this warning. Now, General, do you think any of us would do any of this if we were not absolutely certain about what we are telling you? Do you?† General Gau said nothing for a moment. Then, â€Å"I am sorry you have all had to risk so much,† he said. â€Å"Then do my dad the honor of believing him,† I said. â€Å"You're in danger, General. And that danger is closer than you think.† â€Å"Tell me, Zoe,† Gau said, â€Å"what does Administrator Perry hope to get from telling me this? What does he want from me?† â€Å"He wants you to stay alive,† I said. â€Å"You promised him that as long as you were running the Conclave, you wouldn't attack Roanoke again. The longer you stay alive, the longer we stay alive.† â€Å"But there's the irony,† Gau said. â€Å"Thanks to what happened at Roanoke, I'm not in as much control as I was. My time now is spent keeping others in line. And there are those who are looking at Roanoke as a way to take control from me. I'm sure you don't know about Nerbros Eser – â€Å" â€Å"Sure I do,† I said. â€Å"Your main opposition right now. He's trying to convince people to follow him. Wants to destroy the Colonial Union.† â€Å"I apologize,† Gau said. â€Å"I forgot you're not just a messenger girl.† â€Å"It's all right,† I said. â€Å"Nerbros Eser is planning to attack Roanoke,† Gau said. â€Å"I have been getting the Conclave back under my control – too slowly – but enough races support Eser that he has been able to fund an expedition to take Roanoke. He knows the Colonial Union is too weak to put up a defense of the colony, and he knows that at the moment I am in no position to stop him. If he can take Roanoke where I could not, more Conclave races could side with him. Enough that they would attack the Colonial Union directly.† â€Å"You can't help us, then,† I said. â€Å"Other than to tell you what I just have, no,† Gau said. â€Å"Eser is going to attack Roanoke. But in part because Administrator Perry helped to destroy my fleet, there is no way I can do much to stop him now. And I doubt very much that your Colonial Union will do much to stop him.† â€Å"Why do you say that?† I asked. â€Å"Because you are here,† General Gau said. â€Å"Make no mistake, Zoe, I do appreciate your family's warning. But Administrator Perry is not so kind that he would have warned me out of his own simple goodness. As you've noted, the cost is too high for that. You are here because you have nowhere else to turn.† â€Å"But you believe Dad,† I said. â€Å"Yes,† Gau said. â€Å"Unfortunately. Someone in my position is always a target. But now of all times I know that even some of those who I've trusted with my life and friendship are calculating the costs and deciding that I'm worth more to them dead than alive. And it makes sense for someone to try for me before Eser attacks Roanoke. If I'm dead and Eser takes revenge on your colony, no one else will even try to challenge him for control of the Conclave. Administrator Perry isn't telling me anything I don't know. He's only confirming what I do know.† â€Å"Then I've been no use to you,† I said. And you've been no use to me, I thought but did not say. â€Å"I wouldn't say that,† Gau said. â€Å"One of the reasons I am here now is so that I could hear what you had to say to me without anyone else involved. To find out what I could do with the information you might have. To see if it has use to me. To see if you are of use to me.† â€Å"You already knew what I told you,† I said. â€Å"This is true,† Gau said. â€Å"However, no one else knows how much you know. Not here, in any event.† He reached over and picked up the stone knife and looked at it again. â€Å"And the truth of the matter is that I'm getting tired of not knowing, of those whom I trust, which is planning to stab me in the heart. Whoever is planning to assassinate me is going to be in league with Nerbros Eser. They are likely to know when he plans to attack Roanoke, and with how large a force. And perhaps working together we can find out both of these things.† â€Å"How?† I asked. General Gau looked at me again, and did that I-hope-it's-a-smile thing with his head. â€Å"By doing a bit of political theater. By making them think we know what they do. By making them act because of it.† I smiled back at Gau. â€Å"‘The play is the thing in which I shall catch the conscience of the king,'† I said. â€Å"Precisely,† Gau said. â€Å"Although it will be a traitor we catch, not a king.† â€Å"In that quote he was both,† I said. â€Å"Interesting,† Gau said. â€Å"I'm afraid I don't know the reference.† â€Å"It's from a play called Hamlet,† I said. â€Å"I had a friend who liked the playwright.† â€Å"I like the quote,† Gau said. â€Å"And your friend.† â€Å"Thanks,† I said. â€Å"I do too.† â€Å"One of you in this chamber is a traitor,† General Gau said. â€Å"And I know which one of you it is.† Wow, I thought. The general sure knows how to start a meeting. We were in the general's official advisors' chamber, an ornate room, which, the general told me beforehand, he never used except to receive foreign dignitaries with some semblance of pomp and circumstance. Since he was technically receiving me for this particular meeting, I felt special. But more to the point, the room featured a small raised platform with steps, on which sat a large chair. Dignitaries, advisors and their staff all approached it like it was a throne. This was going to be useful for what General Gau had in mind for today. In front of the platform, the room opened up into a semicircle. Around the perimeter stood a curving bar, largely of standing height for most sentient species in the Conclave. This is where advisors' and dignitaries' staff stood, calling up documents and data when needed and whispering (or whatever) into small microphones that fed into earpieces (or whatever) worn by their bosses. Their bosses – the advisors and dignitaries – filed into the area between the bar and the platform. Usually, I was told, they would have benches or chairs (or whatever suited their body shape best) offered to them so they could rest as they did their business. Today, they were all standing. As for me, I was standing to the left and just in front of the general, who was seated in his big chair. On the opposite side of the chair was a small table, on which lay the stone knife, which I had just (and for the second time) presented to the general. This time it was delivered in packaging more formal than a shirt. The general had taken it out of the box I had found, admired it, and set it on the table. Back along with the staff stood Hickory and Dickory, who were not happy with the plan the general had come up with. With them were three of the general's security detail, who were likewise not very pleased at all. Well, now that we were doing it, I'm not sure I was entirely thrilled with it either. â€Å"I thought we were here to hear a request from this young human,† said one of the advisors, a tall Lalan (that is, tall even for a Lalan) named Hafte Sorvalh. Her voice was translated by the earpiece I had been given by the Obin. â€Å"It was a pretense,† Gau said. â€Å"The human has no petition, but information pertaining to which one of you intends to assassinate me.† This naturally got a stir in the chamber. â€Å"It is a human!† said Wert Ninung, a Dwaer. â€Å"No disrespect, General, but the humans recently destroyed the entire Conclave fleet. Any information they would share with you should be regarded as highly suspect, to say the least.† â€Å"I agree with this entirely, Ninung,† Gau said. â€Å"Which is why when it was provided to me I did what any sensible person would have done and had my security people check the information thoroughly. I regret to say that the information was good. And now I must deal with the fact that one of my advisors – someone who was privy to all my plans for the Conclave – has conspired against me.† â€Å"I don't understand,† said a Ghlagh whose name, if I could remember correctly, was Lernin Il. I wasn't entirely sure, however; Gau's security people had given me dossiers on Gau's circle of advisors only a few hours before the meeting, and given everything else I needed to do to prepare, I had barely had time to skim. â€Å"What don't you understand, Lernin?† asked General Gau. â€Å"If you know which of us is the traitor, why hasn't your security detail already dealt with them?† Il asked. â€Å"This could be done without exposing you to an unnecessary risk. Given your position you don't need to take any more risks than are absolutely necessary.† â€Å"We are not talking about some random killer, Il,† the general said. â€Å"Look around you. How long have we known each other? How hard have each of us worked to create this great Conclave of races? We have seen more of each other over time than we have seen of our spouses and children. Would any of you have accepted it if I were to make one of you disappear over a vague charge of treason? Would that not seem to each of you that I was losing my grip and creating scapegoats? No, Il. We have come too far and done too much for that. Even this would-be assassin deserves better courtesy than that.† â€Å"What do you intend to do, then?† asked Il. â€Å"I will ask the traitor in this room to come forward,† he said. â€Å"It's not too late to right this wrong.† â€Å"Are you offering this assassin amnesty?† asked some creature whose name I just did not remember (or, given how it spoke, I suspect I could not actually pronounce, even if I did remember it). â€Å"No,† Gau said. â€Å"This person is not acting alone. They are part of a conspiracy that threatens what all of us have worked for.† Gau gestured to me. â€Å"My human friend here has given me a few names, but that is not enough. For the security of the Conclave we need to know more. And to show all the members of the Conclave that treason cannot be tolerated, my assassin must answer for what they have done to this point. What I do offer is this: That they will be treated fairly and with dignity. That they will serve their term of punishment with some measure of comfort. That their family and loved ones will not be punished or held responsible, unless they themselves are conspirators. And that their crime will not be made known publicly. Every one outside this room will know only that this conspirator has retired from service. There will be punishment. There must be punishment. But there will not be the punishment of history.† â€Å"I want to know where this human got its information,† said Wert Ninung. Gau nodded to me. â€Å"This information ultimately comes from the Colonial Union's Special Forces division,† I said. â€Å"The same group that spearheaded the destruction of the Conclave fleet,† Wert said. â€Å"Not especially trustworthy.† â€Å"Councilor Wert,† I said, â€Å"how do you think the Special Forces were able to locate every one of the ships of your fleet? The only time it assembles is when it removes a colony. Locating four hundred ships among the tens of thousands that each race alone has at its disposal was an unheard of feat of military intelligence. After that, do you doubt that the Special Forces had difficulty coming up with a single name?† Wert actually growled at me. I thought that was rude. â€Å"I have already told you that I have had the information checked out,† General Gau said. â€Å"There is no doubt it is accurate. That is not under discussion. What is under discussion is how the assassin will choose to be discovered. I repeat: The assassin is in this room, right now, among us. If they will come forward now, and share information on their other conspirators, their treatment will be generous, light and secret. The offer is in front of you now. I beg you, as an old friend, to take it. Come forward now.† No one in the room moved. General Gau stared at each of his advisors, directly and in the eye, for several seconds each. None of them took so much as a step forward. â€Å"Very well,† General Gau said. â€Å"We do this the hard way, then.† â€Å"What will you do now, General?† asked Sorvalh. â€Å"Simple,† Gau said. â€Å"I will call up each of you in turn. You will bow to me and swear your allegiance to me as the leader of the Conclave. Those of you who I know are truthful, I will offer you my thanks. The one of you who is a traitor, I will reveal you in front of those you have worked alongside for so long, and have you arrested. Your punishment will be severe. And it will be most definitely public. And it will end with your death.† â€Å"This is not like you, General,† Sorvalh said. â€Å"You created the Conclave with the idea that there would be no dictators, no demands of personal allegiance. There is only allegiance to the Conclave. To its ideals.† â€Å"The Conclave is near collapse, Hafte,† Gau said. â€Å"And you know as well as I do that Nerbros Eser and his sort will run the Conclave like a personal fiefdom. One among you has already decided that Eser's dictatorship is preferable to a Conclave where every race has a voice. It's clear to me that I must ask for the allegiance I once only held in trust. I am sorry it has come to this. But it has.† â€Å"What if we will not swear allegiance?† Sorvalh said. â€Å"Then you will be arrested as a traitor,† Gau said. â€Å"Along with the one who I know to be the assassin.† â€Å"You are wrong to do this,† Sorvalh said. â€Å"You are going against your own vision for the Conclave to ask for this allegiance. I want you to know I believe this in my soul.† â€Å"Noted,† Gau said. â€Å"Very well,† Sorvalh said, and stepped forward to the platform and knelt. â€Å"General Tarsem Gau, I offer you my allegiance as the leader of the Conclave.† Gau looked at me. This was my cue. I shook my head at him, clearly enough that everyone in the room could see that he was waiting for my verification. â€Å"Thank you, Hafte,† Gau said. â€Å"You may step back. Wert Ninung, please step forward.† Ninung did. As did the next six advisors. There were three left. I was beginning to get very nervous. Gau and I had already agreed that we would not carry the act so far as to accuse someone who wasn't actually guilty. But if we got to the end without a traitor, then we both would have a lot to answer for. â€Å"Lernin Il,† General Gau said. â€Å"Please step forward.† Il nodded and smoothly moved forward and when he got to me, viciously shoved me to the floor and lunged for the stone knife Gau had left on the table next to him. I hit the floor so hard I bounced my skull on it. I heard screaming and honks of alarm from the other advisors. I rolled and looked up as Il raised the knife and prepared to plunge it into the general. The knife was left out and within easy reach for a reason. Gau had already said he intended to reveal the traitor; he said he knew without a doubt who it was; he said the punishment for the traitor would include death. The traitor would already be convinced he would have nothing to lose by attempting the assassination then and there. But Gau's advisors didn't usually carry around killing implements on their person; they were bureaucrats and didn't carry anything more dangerous than a writing stylus. But a nice sharp stone knife carelessly left lying around would be just the thing to convince a desperate would-be assassin to take a chance. This was also one reason why the general's guards (and Hickory and Dickory) were stationed at the perimeter of the room instead of near the general; we had to give the illusion to the assassin that he could get in a stab or two before the guards got him. The general wasn't stupid, of course; he was wearing body armor that protected most of the parts of his body susceptible to stab wounds. But the general's head and neck were still vulnerable. The general thought it was worth the risk, but now as I watched the general trying to move to protect himself, I came to the conclusion that the weakest part of our plan was the one where the general presumably avoids being stabbed to death. Il was bringing down the knife. None of the general's guards or Hickory or Dickory was going to get there in time. Hickory and Dickory had trained me how to disarm an opponent; the problem was I was on the ground and not in any position to block the knife blow. And anyway the Ghlagh were a Conclave race; I hadn't spent any time learning any of their weak points. But then something occurred to me, as I lay there on my back, staring up at Il. I may not know much about the Ghlagh, but I sure know what a knee looks like. I braced myself on the floor, pushed, and drove the heel of my foot hard into the side of Lernin Il's most available knee. It gave way with a sickly twist and I thought I could feel something in his leg go snap, which made me feel sick. Il squealed in pain and grabbed at his leg, dropping the knife. I scrambled away as quickly as I could. General Gau launched himself out of his chair and took Il all the rest of the way down. Hickory and Dickory were suddenly by me, dragging me off the riser. Gau shouted something to his guards, who were racing toward the general. â€Å"His staff!† Gau said. â€Å"Stop his staff!† I looked over to the bar and saw three Ghlagh lunging at their equipment. Il's people were clearly in on the assassination and were now trying to signal their conspirators that they'd been discovered. Gau's men skidded to a stop and reversed themselves, leaping over the bar to get at Il's staff. They knocked away their equipment, but not before at least one of them had gotten a message through. We knew that because all through the Conclave headquarters, alarms began stuttering to life. The space station was under attack. About a minute after Il had made his clumsy attack on General Gau, an Impo battle cruiser named the Farre launched six missiles into the portion of the Conclave space station where Gau's offices were. The Farre was commanded by an Impo named Ealt Ruml. Ruml, it turns out, had reached an agreement with Nerbros Eser and Lernin Il to take command of a new Conclave fleet after Gau was assassinated. Ruml would then take the entire fleet to Phoenix Station, destroy it and start working down the list of human worlds. In exchange all Ruml had to do was be prepared to do a little flagrant bombing of Gau's offices and flagship when signaled, as part of a larger, orchestrated coup attempt, which would feature Gau's assassination as the main event and the destruction of key battle ships from races loyal to Gau. When Gau revealed to his advisors that he knew one of them was a traitor, one of Il's staffers sent a coded message to Ruml, informing him that everything was about to go sideways. Ruml in turn sent coded messages of his own to three other battle cruisers near the Conclave station, each captained by someone Ruml had converted to the cause. All four ships began warming up their weapons systems and selecting targets: Ruml targeted Gau's offices while the other traitors targeted Gau's flagship Gentle Star and other craft. If everything went as planned, Ruml and his conspirators would have disabled the ships most likely to come to Gau's aid – not that it would matter, because Ruml would have opened up Gau's offices to space, sucking anyone in them (including, at the time, me) into cold, airless vacuum. Minutes later, when Il's staff sent a confirmation note just before getting their equipment kicked out of their paws, Ruml launched his missiles and readied another set to go. And was, I imagine, entirely surprised when the Farre was struck broadside almost simultaneously by three missiles fired from the Gentle Star. The Star and six other trusted ships had been put on alert by Gau to watch for any ships that began warming up their weapons systems. The Star had spotted the Farre warming up its missile batteries and had quietly targeted the ship and prepared its own defense. Gau had forbidden any action until someone else's missiles flew, but the instant the Farre launched, the Star did the same, and then began antimissile defenses against the two missiles targeting it, sent by the Arrisian cruiser Vut-Roy. The Star destroyed one of the missiles and took light damage from the second. The Farre, which had not been expecting a counterattack, took heavy damage from the Star's missiles and even more damage when its engine ruptured, destroying half of the ship and killing hundreds on board, including Ealt Ruml and his bridge crew. Five of the six missiles fired by the Farre were disabled by the space station's defenses; the sixth hit the station, blowing a hole in the station compartment next to Gau's offices. The station's system of airtight doors sealed off the damage in minutes; forty-four people were killed. All of this happened in the space of less than two minutes, because the battle happened at incredibly close range. Unlike space battles in entertainment shows, real battles between spaceships take place over huge distances. In this battle, however, all the ships were in orbit around the station. Some of the ships involved were just a few klicks away from each other. That's pretty much the starship equivalent of going after each other with knives. Or so I'm told. I'm going by what others tell me of the battle, because at the time what I was doing was being dragged out of General Gau's advisor chamber by Hickory and Dickory. The last thing I saw was Gau pinning down Lernin Il while at the same time trying to keep his other advisors from beating the living crap out of him. There was too much noise for my translation device to work anymore, but I suspected that Gau was trying to tell the rest of them that he needed Il alive. What can you say. No one likes a traitor. I'm also told that the battle outside of the space station would have gone on longer than it did except that shortly after the first salvo of missiles a funny thing happened: An Obin cruiser skipped into existence unsettlingly close to the Conclave space station, setting off a series of proximity alarms to go with the attack alarms already in progress. That was unusual, but what really got everyone's attention was the other ships that appeared about thirty seconds afterward. It took the station a few minutes to identify these. And at that point everyone who had been fighting each other realized they now had something bigger to worry about. I didn't know about any of this right away. Hickory and Dickory had dragged me to the conference room some distance away from the advisor chamber and were keeping it secure when the alarms suddenly stopped. â€Å"Well, I finally used that training,† I said, to Hickory. I was amped up on leftover adrenaline from the assassination attempt and paced up and down in the room. Hickory said nothing to this and continued to scan the corridor for threats. I sighed and waited until it signaled that it was safe to move. Ten minutes later, Hickory clicked something to Dickory, who went to the door. Hickory went into the corridor and out of sight. Shortly after that I heard what sounded like Hickory arguing with someone. Hickory returned, followed by six very serious-looking guards and General Gau. â€Å"What happened?† I asked. â€Å"Are you okay?† â€Å"What do you have to do with the Consu?† General Gau asked me, ignoring my question. â€Å"The Consu?† I said. â€Å"Nothing. I had asked the Obin to try to contact them on my behalf, to see if they could help me save Roanoke. That was a few days ago. I haven't heard from the Obin about it since.† â€Å"I think you have an answer,† Gau said. â€Å"They're here. And they're asking to see you.† â€Å"There's a Consu ship here now?† I said. â€Å"Actually, the Consu asking for you is on an Obin ship,† Gau said. â€Å"Which doesn't make any sense to me at all, but never mind that. There were Consu ships following the Obin ship.† â€Å"Ships,† I said. â€Å"How many?† â€Å"So far?† Gau said. â€Å"About six hundred.† â€Å"Excuse me?† I said. My adrenaline spiked again. â€Å"There are still more coming in,† Gau said. â€Å"Please don't take this the wrong way, Zoe, but if you've done something to anger the Consu, I hope they choose to take it out on you, not us.† I turned and looked at Hickory, disbelieving. â€Å"You said you required help,† Hickory said.