In the News: 05-04-13 to 05-10-13

Lead Story: “Euro Can Grow to 25 States in Next Years in Finnish Scenario”

Author: Pohjanpalo, Kati

Bloomberg.com

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-05/euro-can-grow-to-25-states-in-next-few-years-in-finnish-scenario.html

Current News Topic: International economics (Trade and Finance)

Exercise 1:

1. The newest member of the Eurozone states is;

a. Estonia

b. Finland

c. Latvia

d. Spain

2. According to the map, when did Slovakia join the euro?

a. 2002

b. 2004

c. 2009

d. 2011

3. Which one of the following countries is an EU member but continues to use their own currency?

a. Italy

b. United Kingdom

c. The Netherlands

d. Finland

Exercise 2:

1. Finland’s Europe Minister Alexander Stubb believes the euro is

a. is the most stable currency Europe has ever seen.

b. will be unable to survive the financial crisis.

c. can only be successful if certain laws are changed.

d. none of these

2. There are currently               nations that use the euro as their currency.

a. 17

b. 11

c. 25

d. none of these. 

3. The only euro-area nation that has maintained its AAA credit rating throughout the European debt crisis is

a. Finland

b. Germany

c. France

d. Greece

Exercise 3: Discussion Questions

1. How has the euro facilitated trade among Eurozone nations?

NOTE TO INSTRUCTOR: You can have some good discussion about the pre-euro currencies. Most students today do not remember German marks or French francs.

2. Discuss some of the issues that make a common currency difficult to maintain.

NOTE TO INSTRUCTOR: You can discuss the recent trouble with Greece and the country’s liberal social programs and the demands for austerity from the Eurozone countries. Discuss the possibility and implications of Greece leaving the euro and reinstating the drachma.

3. What are the benefits of a trading block such as the Eurozone?

NOTE TO INSTRUCTOR: Have students research this for a short time and come prepared to discuss it.

*Bade/Parkin and Parkin users have a similar option called “Bade/Parkin and Parkin Current News.” that features exercises created by the authors.

Economics In the News

Lead Story: “House Action on Online Tax Seen Less Urgent Than Senate”

Author: Rubin, Richard

Bloomberg.com

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-06/demise-of-online-advantage-seen-exaggerated-with-congress.html

Posted 5/6/2013

Current News Topic: Market Efficiency and Surplus; Market failure and Public Goods

Graphing it out:

1. The division of a tax burden between buyers and sellers is known as

a. tax incidence

b. fiscal structure

c. tax code

d. none of these

2. According to the graph, what happens to the supply curve when a tax is imposed on a product?

a. Supply will shift to the right

b. Supply will remain unchanged

c. Supply will shift to the left

3. What dollar amount of the tax will be borne by the consumer?

a. $2.00

b. $1.50

c. $0.50

d. $21.50

Exercise 2:

1. According to the article, the proposed Internet sales tax will generate up to            a year in new revenue.

a. $23 billion

b. $23 million

c. $23 trillion

d. $500 million 

2. Most                             are opposed to the tax.

a. Internet retailers

b. state governments

c. brick-and-mortar retailers

d. there is no opposition to the tax

3. Retailers that have physical locations as their primary means of selling products are known as

a. brick-and-mortar retailers

b. virtual retailers

c. online retailers

d. none of these

Exercise 3: Discussion Questions

1. Why are Internet sales not currently taxed?

NOTE TO INSTRUCTOR: Remind the students that the Internet is a very young market. You can have a good discussion about incentives and how they can be structured to achieve a goal. The government wanted this market to develop so not taxing sales was an incentive.

2. What are the pros and cons of Internet taxation?

NOTE TO INSTRUCTOR: You can discuss each of these points, and others, in detail.

3. Should we tax Internet sales?

NOTE TO INSTRUCTOR: There will likely be several opinions with justifications. Have students debate both sides of the issue.

*Bade/Parkin and Parkin users have a similar option called “Bade/Parkin and Parkin Current News.” that features exercises created by the authors.

Pearson’s annual Course Redesign Conference will take place this year from September 27-28, 2013 at the Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort in Phoenix, Arizona. This two-day conference helps equip participants with a basic foundation of the principles of course redesign so that they can begin the process of implementing these principles on their own campuses.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of this conference. We’ve been collecting the valuable materials each year from our experienced presenters and wanted to share with you what you could learn, as an economics instructor, by attending this event.

Click here to watch Mike Ryan’s 2012 presentation, Student Success in the Principles of Economics Course: MyEconLab ‘in and out’ of the Classroom

Registration for this event is now open. You can view more details about the event, see the agenda, and register online. We hope to see you in Arizona.

• complete core content, including text and images, in single column presentation.
• alternative text descriptions for all important figures and photos.
• enhanced navigation support, including interactive table of contents, go-to-page functionality, and keyboard access.

For texts not yet in the HTML eBook format, we continue to provide PDFs of your textbook or eText, Student Solutions Manuals, Graphing Calculator Manuals, and other ancillaries, which can be used with such accessibility technologies as screen readers and Braille displays. You can also convert the PDF files into another format, such as a printed Braille book. Requests for alternative texts can be made online.

Rick Clinton is Publisher with Higher Education’s English, Mathematics, and Student Success (EMSS) team.  As Accessibility Advocate and Leader (AAL) for the group, he develops and coordinates accessibility strategy and programs with editorial, technology, and legal teams, as well as with instructors, disabilities services staff, accessibility advocates, and assistive device developers, to ensure that our products are as accessible as possible to all students. Prior to joining Pearson, Rick was President and co-founder of Intellipro, Inc., the creator of the MathXL/MyMathLab platform.

Current News is updated every week, with one new Micro and one new Macro topic, and is available for all MyEconLab titles!

The poll results are LIVE so you’ll be able to see a real time update from all participants. Don’t see your best practice or recommendation on the list? Please share your own tips and tricks by commenting below in the Discussion area. We will upload your best practice into the MyEconLab Community site for your colleagues to use and you’ll be entered to win one of 2 Nooks! (Note: Contest runs from now until May 19, 2013. All comments posted after May 19, 2013 will not be eligible for the Nook drawing.)

Click here to take the poll.

1) Pre-Built Assignments help you get started easily! Get started easily with a MyEconLab course with pre-built assignments, and then make changes in a “shadow” course as your first semester goes along. Click here. FAQs click here.

2) Make all of the work in your MyEconLab course worth at least 20% of the final grade to ensure students take the practice work seriously. This is something you should articulate to students in your syllabus or LMS. MyEconLab also allows you the ability to assign weight to different categories of assignments. To learn more click here.

3) Pre-Requisite Settings help Students Get Better Results. Use pre-requisite settings to be sure students use the homework learning aids to get 70-80% of the material correct before entering a higher-stakes quiz on that chapter or week’s work. To learn more click here.

4) Copy Your Course for Easier Changes. Make a copy of your course each semester so that you can make changes in that course to roll out to students in the next semester. Click here to learn how.

5) A Quiz before Lecture Provides Better Classroom Discussions. Have more interesting classroom discussions by making sure your students have “read the material” before class starts – use a quiz with the appropriate review questions for the chapter, and have the quiz close before lecture starts. Click here to learn how.

6) MyEconLab features Help with Online Quiz and Exam Security. Use algorithmic questions, answer choice shuffling, timed quizzes, and question pooling to increase “security” on your online quizzes and exams. Click here to see how!

7) Current Micro/Macro News Exercises inMyEconLab Save You Prep Time. Assigning current micro/macro news exercises in MyEconLab saves time having to look for current Micro/Macro news ariticles and it helps students understand economic concepts playing out in the news and events around them. Click here to learn more.

8) Co-coordinator Course In MyEconLab Helps Last minute Hires. Use the MyEconLab coordinator course to help your last minute hires/adjuncts easily get started with a pre-set MyEconLab course they can copy and use with all of your assignments and assignment settings. Click here to learn more.

9) Include Experiments in your MyEconLab course in order to bring economics to life without sacrificing valuable class time. Click here to learn how to do this and why it is valuable.

10) Use the Search/Email by Criteria option to catch students who are falling behind before it is too late! This MyEconLab feature enables you to quickly identify the students who are not logging in to MyEconLab to complete their assignment on a regular basis. You can also search by performance on a particular assignment, the course overall, identifying students who are following below a certain grade threshold and more. Click here to see how this feature works.

Over the past few semesters I have been gathering the “Top 5 questions” students using Pearson MyLabs have been asking. The answers to these “Top 5″ are below for you to share with your students as they start becoming familiar with their Pearson MyLab. Hopefully, by having these answers on hand you’ll be able to easily address student questions and save yourself a little time in the process.

1.    “I have already registered, logged in and completed work in my course but when I logged in today, my course was not there!” Or, my student shows up in the INSTRUCTOR’S ROSTER/GRADEBOOK but when the student logs in they say they don’t see the course. 

This is most likely occurring because the student has multiple Pearson accounts and just isn’t logging into the correct one for your course. To address this issue, log into your instructor account.  Click Instructor Tools→Gradebook→Click Add/Edit Student IDs.

The next screen will show you the Student ID/Login name the students used when they registered for your course. This is the one they MUST use to access your course. If they forget their password they should go to www.pearsonmylab.com and enter their Login name and then click the “forgot password” link to reset it.

2.    “I used the Forgot Login/Password link but haven’t received the info in my email inbox.”

Firstly, have the student check their SPAM/Junk folder to see if the email with their password information went there by mistake. If it’s not there, the student most likely used a different email address to create the account or made a type-o when registering.  In order to remedy this, the student should go to the Forgot Login/Password link and enter every email they have recently used and then go to each email to check for Login/Password information.

The email will come from support@pearsonmylabsandmastering.com. If this does not work then the issue is likely a type-o and the student must contact Technical Support to correct the address.  (800) 677.6337    

3.   “I log into my account, click on my course link and nothing comes up on the page”

To remedy this situation, the student should run the browser check and/or consult the “Answer Wizard” for BROWSERS to check other recommended settings. http://247pearsoned.custhelp.com/

The recommended browser for Pearson MyLabs is Google Chrome or Firefox. Other browsers such as IE and Safari can be used. Tips are provided at the Answer Wizard site above. Technical Support can also help if needed, although likely unnecessary if the browser check is completed.

4.    “I entered my access code and it came back as invalid”

Most of the time, a student is enrolling in a second semester course or repeating a course, but they think they need to use their access code again. Or, they are under the impression their code will work for any Pearson MyLab or Mastering course. Explain to the student that the code is good for only one redemption. If it is a second semester of a two semester sequence based on the same author/title/edition of the textbook the student will simply need to click “Enroll in Another Course” and enter the new course ID.

5.    “I can’t remember my Pearson Login Name or Password” 

Direct the students to https://register.pearsoncmg.com/forgotlogin/forgotLogin.fl

In the first box they should enter only their email address and then click “Send My Login Name and  Password.” They should then go to that email and look for an email from product.support@pearsoned.com. This will contain their Login and Password. They need to be sure to check all email accounts. When they open the email from product.support@pearsoned.com they need to look at it carefully as they may have more than one Login Name and Password combination from different Pearson websites. They should then try each combination.  If they are still having trouble they should contact Technical Support.

General MyLab Tips for Students Getting Started: 

• Ensure a good connection. This is important. Satellite internet will not work. If you are experiencing an issue, try connecting via a hard wire. “Borrowing” a neighbor’s Wi-Fi is not a reliable source of Internet access when it comes to homework, quizzes or tests.

• Clear your cache. This only takes a couple of minutes; however, the procedure is different depending on the browser. Here is a link for instructions on how to do so:  http://247pearsoned.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/221

• Have a Mac? If you are using Safari, cookies are a common issue. Here is some help: http://247xl.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/8970

PEARSON TECH SUPPORT is always available for additional assistance should your students need it.

Self-Help: Search the knowledge base or ask a question
http://247pearsoned.custhelp.com

Phone: 800-677-6337

Chat or Email: http://247pearsoned.custhelp.com

Dynamic Study Modules work by giving students pointed guidance and more practice in the areas where they struggle the most by continuously assessing student performance and activity. They leverage research from the fields of cognitive psychology, neurology, and game studies to deliver a uniquely-effective learning system. Each Dynamic Study Module is optimized to promote fast learning and long-term retention.

Modules are designed to deliver only 25-30 questions, the optimal number to maximize learner engagement and maintain motivation. Students also have access to a progress pie chart, giving them immediate feedback on their progress.

A robust reporting dashboard delivering key analytics on learner data allows you, the instructor, to easily adjust your curriculum based to best suit your students.

Click here to watch a video on Dynamic Study Modules and learn more.

To find out if the Dynamic Study Modules will be available for Fall 2013 for your MyLab course, please contact your Pearson Publishing Representative.