Okay, very good morning. Hope you're doing well. My name is Anthony Chung. I'm the head of market analysis here at Amplify Trading. Check out the website link if you want more information about us, what we do, how we trade, our trader development programs and so on. Also as well, just as a heads up, please do like and subscribe to the channel back by popular demand, Sam North, who you probably remember. He's hairs about this big and he's got a beard like that nowadays. But he's going to be back on the weekend and every Sunday he's going to be doing a more technical focused and trade setup related video on a Sunday for the week ahead. So hopefully that's going to be a nice addition to generally what we do. I mean obviously me and Sam, not together physically in the same space and probably unlikely to be so on the trading floor in London for some time. But you'll get that on a Sunday and obviously Eddie as well giving it a different mix looking at some of the hot topics in a little bit more detail is going to be on a Saturday as well. So hopefully you get real value out of the channel. So any comments, of course, feel free to always leave a comment and I'll reply to you straight away. But let's look at the markets then for this morning and starting off, I guess with this graphic right here. This is looking at the S&P 500, the Dow and the Nasdaq Composite looking at the daily changes. And as you can see here, all three major indices finishing in the red yesterday and actually posting the worst day since the first of the month. Two real different things here. Concerns about the second wave of coronavirus infections as we go through this period of the loosening of these measures. Particularly as we discussed here yesterday, the German kind of R rate back above one, the South Korea new outbreak led by a particular individual visiting three nightclubs, which then might have then consequently infected or at least exposed multiple thousands of people. And then also in Wuhan, there's been a very small outbreak in a specific tower block, but they're going to test the entire 11 million population of the city. Not only that, there was also a leading US infections disease expert speaking in Congress yesterday and warned lawmakers that premature lifting of lockdowns could lead to additional outbreaks of the coronavirus. This is specifically talking about the US, of course, and that made people a bit nervous that of course in addition to the ongoing kind of pressures mounting on the trade war side efforts in the Senate to impose new sanctions on China, not helping either. And if I just zoom into the SMP chart here to have a look in a bit more detail, probably make a little bit more sense of the general narrative in markets that we've had has been driving some of this equity index movement. And so this is looking at the month of May. I marked this up just to make a few things quite clear. This is when we had the initial criticism of China by Trump. He's obviously changed his tune, flip flopped a few times. We then had quite a big push up on more positive developments on that front, but also as well in the back end of last week, Thursday, kind of Friday, that federal funds rate futures pricing and the potential for negative rates and market kind of taking heed or support from the back of that. We then had payrolls come out and obviously economically pretty disastrous, but all in all, not perhaps as bad as some might have feared and we rallied into the end of last week. That kind of really has defined the top of the recent moves that we've had in May. And then last night we really started to come under some severe selling pressure right into the close and then for about half an hour in the aftermarket trade in the futures market. And there wasn't really one singular catalyst. As I've said, it's kind of a dual fold thing of just generally people a bit panicked by the potential significance of a second wave of infections. That again, the catalyst perhaps was that infectious disease expert speaking to lawmakers in the US yesterday, that with the China tensions, we just broke down technically as well. It started to get quite heavy when we broke that key level we were looking at this time yesterday, which was those respective lows was holding up the price action so far this week and also some resistance points from last week. And then it really was quite an assault on markets into the close. And then we dipped further, got into ward then the lows that were seen back on what would have been Wednesday going to Thursday night last week. We have had a bit of a bounce. There's not really been much in a way of any reason for the bounce, to be honest. I'll run through the headline shortly, but whenever you get a quite pronounced and a fairly quick move like that, without really any new definitive one headline driving the price just generally deterioration of sentiment into the close. Then a little bit of, you know, just closing out of those very speculative short term shorts just naturally sees a bit of a bounce in markets. And as we do bounce back up, obviously we'll just be keeping an eye on this kind of area here. So just ahead of the pivot, you've got the 382 retracement of that high to the low of which we had generally in yesterday's session or to the Asia Pacific low, which comes in at around the same point as to the levels that were seen on the support on the evening of last Thursday on the 7th. So any further movement upwards, I'll be looking at that as a pretty strong area of resistance. But all in all, yeah, a quite aggressive sell off. I wouldn't over interpret that just thinking we're going to sell off again today. Perhaps that might be the case, perhaps not. I think the bounce this morning, though, is not based on any real fundamental developments. It's just a natural retracement of the over stretch short term move that we had last night. But let's have a look at a few different things. There's certainly some things to talk about and going to start off then with talking of coronavirus and update generally of what's going on. And, you know, like this time yesterday, we were talking about Russia being the kind of new area of an outbreak in geographically. And they went from fourth to now second in terms of the confirmed case table. They're now only sitting behind the US, which is obviously way out in front in terms of those numbers. Looking elsewhere, then there are a couple of interesting things that I saw last night that I thought I would talk over what I was tweeting in case you hadn't seen it. But I saw Bernstein came out with a piece of research. And obviously everyone's trying to understand this kind of as in the UK, Boris Johnson continues to talk about this R rating. And, you know, they can only start to loosen measures when it is consistently below one, this figure being representative of the kind of the compounding nature of what happens then. If it's above that, the multiple chances are that even just above it could see extreme growth in numbers of the virus spreading. And Bernstein basically have said that they believe multiple US states will struggle with further relaxing requirements as disease trends start heading the wrong way. Their model that they've run for the pandemic suggests that even moderately elevated R equaling 1.05 would see cases double every six weeks. And here it then lies a bit of a problem because as we know in America, Trump, and I guess tactfully so, has rather than taken full ownership and responsibility, he kind of delegated that to state governors to make those decisions from the administration. They could purely put out recommendations. But obviously there is some political nuances involved with that where he's going to be putting pressure on likes of certain Republican candidates to be doing certain things. We saw yesterday he was very much backing up Tesla's Elon Musk that they should reopen factories even though that would be going against what the current laws are within that particular area. But what's Trump got to lose when you're talking about an area that's democratic in that sense because he knows that he can just say all these things where he has pretty much zero accountability in that sense. What's interesting here then are a few different things. And this is looking at workers in toss-up states among the hardest hit by COVID-19 lockdowns. What we're looking at here are areas like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Georgia, Washington, Nevada. Quite a few of these typically are what we call toss-up states for those not familiar with that terminology, basically meaning that it's a very close call that they could swing either way in an upcoming presidential election. That being said then, what can you expect from Trump? Well, he's going to be absolutely doing his roadshow. I think I believe he's in Pennsylvania this evening. And so he'll be trying to drum up support in these particular areas. This is where the campaign funding gets focused. They know that there's certain deep red states. They don't need to focus on those. They need to focus on ones that could potentially tip the balance. Here then is looking at certain swing state counties will have deep GDP losses basically in Q2. Texas, Florida, ESA of course, big ones, Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina and so on. The biggest then carrying votes would be Texas and Florida. Texas counties that rely heavily on oil will certainly suffer greatly just given some of the price movement we've had in WTI crude. But hence the reason why then Trump, if you remember, about four weeks ago was so adamant about using further funding to help that particular industry. The more so that he can do that, the more favorable he'll be perceived in that he's taken definitive action to try and safeguard that particular region. And why would he do that? Well, he knows that they're particularly important politically for his fate in terms of what it plays out in a few months time in the election. The other things then here are this. This is real clear politics, otherwise known as RCP. Again, for anyone in the UK, you might not have heard of this website before. If in the US, you're probably more familiar with it. But this is a website that will be scrutinized and looked at much more frequently as we go further forward in the months to come and we start to get closer to the election. Basically, if I just go back to the homepage. This is basically your hub for all things related to US politics. It has basically every single major story that's related to anything to do with US politics. So it scours and aggregates everything from Politico, Washington Post, The Spectator, Bloomberg, The Hill, NBC News, so on and so forth. And it breaks it down into certain different subject matter. And what I'm looking at this morning is you can track then poll averages for these different swing states. So it's obviously quite interesting to see how things are playing out at the moment. So in an area like I said, Trump speaking in Pennsylvania later, that's one of the strongholds according to the polls at the moment where Biden does have a decisive lead at the moment. Then what they have at the top here is an RCP national average. And if I click on that, you can see then this is kind of what we would have in the UK is the poll of polls aggregating then the averages. And it gives you then a generalized score where you can see Biden at the moment is up 4.4 points over Trump. Interestingly though, here in the polls, Biden's up. But then if we go back and if we just go back to the election 2020 section, if you go to the betting odds. It tells a bit of a different story. Trump up by eight. And we all know that the bookies tend to be the ones in the know. And I still at this point, not sure whether or not Biden's got what it takes without a further mismanagement. Let's say of a significant outbreak and second wave virus in the US. I think it's the one thing that could bring Trump down. Other than that, it's more a mistake on that front rather than Biden just steaming ahead. And I think that's pretty much reflected in the bookies price at the moment that obviously the temptation for Trump here and the real risk is that in his push to try and reopen the economy and kind of resuscitate the US economy back on its feet, given the dire situation at the moment, is that could he just be going too soon too fast? I mean, that's certainly what that US infectious disease expert said to lawmakers yesterday on Capitol Hill. And so that's a problem and potentially for him. So absolutely quite fascinating to watch this unfolding at the moment. Obviously, this is talking much more bigger picture over the coming months. But these are the types of things that I think you're going to need to start tracking going forward. What else is happening? Well, Congress has been a few different things. Democrats in Congress have released a plan for a three trillion in new stimulus spending that would help state and local governments through the coronavirus crisis. Unveiled after governors in large US states like New York and California warned essential services could be curtailed without any funding forthcoming. Democratic proposals were drafted without input from Republicans. So as you can imagine, their demands for extra funding for certain states, particularly when it comes to New York and California are going to be highly contested and a real sticking point. Trump has suggested hard hit states. So he's basically inferring the state of New York, which of course is an area as well as with California. He's going to pin that on being mismanaged by Democratic governors, of course. So the real political gainsmanship begins at this point. And he will suggest then that as such, that's not his fault and therefore they do not deserve any type of federal help. When push comes to shove, though, there's a bigger national picture, of course, that the administration needs to manage for the moment. And unemployment, of course, we saw last Friday topped out at this 14.7 percent reading. So action does certainly need to happen. So it's just the point here that this was fully written by Democrats and obviously assists in those certain areas where Trump will want to make a point out of, as I just said, that it was a democratic issue that's led to that, even though we know that's not necessarily the case, because New York just happens to be a highly cosmopolitan and densely populated urban area in terms of New York City, of course, which is kind of heart of the outbreak in that area. This comes, of course, with Congress already appropriated nearly three trillion in economic relief since the start of the outbreak. So these are just whopping numbers on the fiscal side. And certainly this then does lead us on quite nicely as to what Powell is likely to be requesting when he delivers his speech a bit later on today. On that front, then, let's talk about drawing power. This is kind of one of the main events of certainly today, but obviously this week as well. And it comes in the context of what we've had of that whole talk about conversation of negative rates in the U.S. and as much as that's been downplayed by a number of Federal Reserve officials going into this speech. This speech is happening at two o'clock London time. He's likely to push back on this idea. I don't think that will come as a great deal of surprise. Reinforcing his willingness, though, to continue using balance sheet tools, leaning on fiscal policy to really help support the monetary moves they've already made in taking rates down to zero and restarting QE and various other liquidity-inducing measures that they've put into place. What a couple of people are looking at is potential for what we call yield curve control policy. Now this has been adopted by other central banks. That would entail the central bank basically setting a target for yields on longer term Treasury securities. In addition to its overnight benchmark and buying and selling treasuries in order to hit that target. The Fed has already been buying lots of treasuries. Since mid-March it's actually added about one and a half trillion dollars to its balance sheet. Initially the rationale was to just help restore liquidity whilst we were going through that big episode of market volatility through the main bit of March. But now as markets functions have improved the Fed will probably continue to buy with the aim of keeping long term yields generally low. And that in itself being then targeted and supportive then of the economy in a slightly different fashion to complement all the other tools that are ongoing at the moment. The other thing of course is forward guidance. Forward guidance of course is one of those less I guess tangible real policy tools but arguably the most important one because it carries such ability to shape market expectations about the future. And if you can really harness and control that you can really start to support the market in a way that doesn't necessarily need an action like a negative rate. Which obviously starts to put you down a certain path and also starts to diminish your policy responses in future should you need to turn to them. So here the central bank's current guidance if I just read it out to you is that benchmark rate will remain pinned near zero until it is confident that the economy has weathered recent events and is on track to achieve its maximum employment and price stability goals. And so yeah some people intonating towards have they got to be a little bit more specific has they got to be certain more concrete kind of posts that they can see ahead of time that if hit will mean this type of action. I'm a little unsure of that I think Mark Carney was a victim of being that specific with forward guidance when he first came into the Bank of England. And so I don't think Jerome Pound necessarily is going to go through that so all in all although this power speech will be very closely followed by markets. I don't think he's really going to say a great deal to be honest that we haven't already heard so calling on lawmakers for additional fiscal relief reiterating a lack of appetite to negative rates. I guess it's how far does he go in hinting towards could it be a possibility or what would it take in order for it to become a more credible possibility would be the way I'd kind of look at it. Of course Trump yesterday what was he saying about this whole negative rate situation he was saying of course let's go let's adopt negative rates like everyone else has done while we're doing it. And if you think about it from a Trump point of view you know again this is him tactfully looking to protect himself in a sense that if the economy and Powell does what he wants doesn't go negative. Manages these this you know pandemic period Trump can say yep fine that's what he's employed to do but then if he fails and markets come under severe pressure. Well again it's not the pandemic. It's not the death toll. It's Powell's fault and it's Powell's fault because I told him to adopt negative interest rates and doesn't matter whether or not that would have been the panacea. The solution here for whether or not this could have solved the issues but that again means that Trump already has positioned himself appropriately that he can discount any accountability for that outcome. So you can see you know this is the way to sort of sort of think about these things. Hopefully it makes sense and that speech is going to be at two o'clock under time so early in the morning in the states. Final things to talk about we've got the RBNZ they had their rate decision overnight. Not going to talk about this a great deal just a summary. The New Zealand dollar a little bit of pressure. The country basically boosted its asset purchase program. In fact they almost doubled it. They indicated their openness toward negative interest rates. So it really is the talk of the town at the moment. And then we had the oil in between numbers from the API last night market not really buying into this at all. It's kind of there's other things going on right now. But ahead of the DOEs as a recap we had a crude builders 7.6 million bigger expected builds 16th weekly build in a row. Cushing saw its first draw down though in 10 weeks. Cushing was a minus 2.216 million gasoline drawdown 1.9 to still build 4.7 million but again that Cushing number perhaps interesting there the first draw in 10 weeks. Calendar wise we've already had UK data GDPs come out. What did that come out as let me just refresh you. It was the Q1 don't forget preliminary GDP number. So the pound has had a moderate tick higher. We're back up to the pivot in the cable futures. So off the Asia Pacific lows the number came in at minus 2% expectations worth a minus 2.5. So yeah little bit of sterling strength but nothing outrageous. Don't forget that these are Q1 numbers and everyone's obviously focused on the depths of how bad then Q2 is going to be. Not so much backward looking back to Q1 where we already caught very tail end of the initial lockdown and the pandemic kicking in the end of March. Interestingly though the UK deficit and you probably read in the UK press from Sunique going further and saying about the furloughing of workers for another multiple months but the overall fiscal situation in the UK is going to be pretty hairy to use lack of a better phrase. And that likelihood is going to mean at some point you can't get away from it. Some form of austerity in the form of higher taxes and all these types of things you know it's inevitable I'm afraid. The government doesn't give away just free money for nothing. Someone's got to pay for it in the end of the day. So perhaps a little bit of reality coming home from these mammoth fiscal packages that are being unleashed at the moment but I guess that's an issue for another point in time. I can't remember it from top of my head I saw a fantastic phrase yesterday someone talking about this but the general takeaway is that look when you're facing near death you've got to take real action there and then it's a necessity to remain alive. And so therefore you worry about the consequences later and that very much so the case with governments and they're racking up of their debt in that respect. So other than that UK data you've now got a fairly quiet morning until we get into this swing of the US session. You've got PPI numbers but again POW is going to be the main thing that people will be focusing on. If you ever did want to know a bit more detail about Fed speeches and so on if you go on the Federal Reserve website you basically go to news and events which is the second tab go on to calendar. If I click on that it gives you then the calendar for the month of May you scroll down obviously the 13th today and you can see here Jerome Powell. So you can see the time he's speaking and also you can access the live link then here for when he does go live later on today. Unclear yet I've spoken to the squawk guys whether or not there's going to be any pre-prepared text. They do not have an answer to that at this point in time I would say normally in this type of high level event of this importance then normally would be which means that all the comments will come out simultaneous at the point of turning 9am local time or 2 o'clock in London. All right guys that's it any questions feel free to leave a comment and I'll wish you guys a good day ahead. For the guys on the advanced on professional trading program Sam and I will jump on a private call and we'll run through some of the technical setups for the day as well. All right have a good day guys.


Hello, aspirants. Welcome to daily news analysis by Shankar IS Academy. The list of topics chosen for today is displayed on the screen. We have also provided page number of these topics in various editions. Interested aspirants can go through them. Now, let us begin our discussion. Now, look at this news article. This news article is regarding Supreme Court Collegium System. See, in the past one month, Collegium System has been constantly in the news. This is because the system has made a lot of recommendations. For example, it made recommendations regarding appointment of 8 new chief justices of iCodes. It also recommended transfer of 5 iCode chief justices. In addition to that, the system also recommended shuffling of 28 iCode judges. So, in the last one month, the Collegium System has recommended over 100 judicial appointments and several transfers. This is why this topic is very important. It is constantly in the news. And it is also overlap of static portion as well as current of its portion. So, it has a high chance of being asked. Very, very important topic. So, please pay attention. So, based on this context, let us discuss about Collegium System. See, we all know that India follows Collegium System. The system is used to appoint the judges of higher judiciary. Now, let us come to the most important point. The origin of Collegium System. See, the system was not enacted by an Act of Parliament. The first important point. It was also not enacted through a provision of the Constitution. Not enacted by Act of Parliament. Not enacted through a provision of Constitution. Then, how did the system emerge? See, the system evolved through the judgments of the Supreme Court. These judgments are called as judges' case. And based on this judges' case, the system has emerged. I hope, as friends can follow. This point is very important because in problems, you can expect these kind of statements. Supreme Court Collegium System was enacted by an Act of Parliament. Which of the above statements are correct? So, these kind of statements can be expected in problems. So, remember, Collegium System emerged and evolved only through the judgments of Supreme Court cases. These cases are called as judges' case. Now, moving on to the next important point. See, in India, we have two types of Collegiums. One is Supreme Court Collegium. Another is I Court Collegium. First, let us see about Supreme Court Collegium. See, Supreme Court Collegium is added by Chief Justice of India. In addition to the Chief Justice, Supreme Court Collegium comprises of four other senior most judges of the Supreme Court. Chief Justice of India. Four other senior most judges of the Supreme Court. This is the composition of Supreme Court Collegium. Now, moving on to I Court Collegium. See, I Court Collegium is led by the Chief Justice of the I Court. The first important point. In addition to the Chief Justice of the I Court, I Court Collegium consists of four other senior most judges of the particular I Court. I hope aspirants can follow. Chief Justice of I Court. Four other senior most judges of the particular I Court. So, this is the main difference between the Supreme Court Collegium and I Court Collegium. The composition is different. See, remember one thing. The recommendation of I Court Collegium reaches the government only after getting approved by the Chief Justice of India and Supreme Court Collegium. This point is very important. For example, take Chennai I Court. Chennai I Court will have a Collegium system. It will have the Chief Justice of Chennai I Court and four other senior judges of that Chennai I Court. This will be the Collegium system of Chennai I Court. They will make the decision and they will recommend it to the government. But before going to the government it will go to the Chief Justice of India and the Supreme Court Collegium. They should give their approval. Then only it can go to the government. See, when we are learning about Collegium system, we should also know about NJAC. What is NJAC? NJAC stands for National Judicial Appointments Commission. See, NJAC is a constitutional body. This body was proposed to replace the present Collegium system of appointing judges. The most important point. And it was established to the 99th Amendment Act in 2014. 99. Remember this number. See, after the constitution, the parliament also passed a law called National Judicial Appointments Commission Act 2014. This act was passed to regulate the NJAC's functions. According to this act, NJAC will consist of six people. Who are those six people? Chief Justice of India. The Chief Justice of India will be the chairperson of NJAC. In addition to the Chief Justice of India, there will be two more senior judges of the Supreme Court, law minister and two eminent person. So this will be the composition of NJAC. But remember, this body is not in practice. We have only the Collegium system. NJAC is not right now in practice. This is because Supreme Court of India declared 99th Constitutional Amendment and NJAC Act to be unconstitutional and void. We all know that independence of judiciary is a basic structure of Indian Constitution. And Supreme Court believed that 99 Constitutional Amendment and NJAC Act affects the independence of judiciary. So it declared NJAC Act and 99 Constitutional Amendment as unconstitutional and void. So right now we do not have NJAC. We are only following Collegium system. So these are the important points regarding Collegium system. Very very important topic from prelims as well as main perspective. And remember, this year the Collegium system has been constantly in the news. It is being super active. So it may get the attention of the examiner. Make sure you revise this topic five or six times before the exam. So with this we have come to the end of the discussion. Now moving on to the next topic. Now take a look at this editorial. See in yesterday's discussion we saw about NCLAT. NCLAT stands for National Company Law Appliate Tribunal. In yesterday's discussion we discussed about this body. We discussed about NCLAT structure, NCLAT function and NCLAT appointments. But in today's discussion we will discuss about the issue surrounding NCLAT. We will discuss the problem surrounding the NCLAT. This is the main content in this editorial. Very very important topic from main's perspective. So let us discuss the important points highlighted in this editorial. The syllabus relevant to this discussion is displayed on the screen. Interested aspirants can go through it. See India has many tribunals. We all know this. But we should also know that most of these tribunals have many vacancies. Our central government is delaying appointment of judges to this tribunals. It is hesitating. So because of these vacancies the tribunals are not functioning to their full capacity. They are struggling. So finally our Supreme Court of India interfered. The court finally intervened and asked the central government to fill the vacancies in these tribunals. So following the Supreme Court order our central government finally made some appointments to the NCLAT and ITAT tribunals. As I already said NCLAT stands for National Company Law Applied Tribunal and ITAT stands for Income Tax Applied Tribunal. I hope aspirants can follow. Now coming to the issue. See the issue is surrounding the appointments made to this tribunal. Let me explain this issue. See the appointment to this tribunals are made by a committee called Search Come Selection Committee. This Search Come Selection Committee short list the eligible candidates who can be appointed to this tribunals. They provide a list. This list is sent to the government and it is approved by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet. This is the process. Let me repeat the Search Come Selection Committee. It creates a list of eligible candidates and this list is sent to the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet. The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet approves this list and finally the appointments are made. This is the process. This is where the issue starts. See the Supreme Court of India has detected some procedure irregularities in the appointment of the judges to the tribunals. Our court has found issues in the appointment process. It has detected some procedural irregularities. Now let us discuss what is that procedural irregularity. See as I already said Search Come Selection Committee it short list the eligible list of candidates and it prepares a list. This list given by the Search Come Selection Committee has two parts. What are those two parts? The first part is a list which contains the priority names. This list has the priority names and the most suitable candidates for the appointment. This is the first part. Now moving on to the second part. The second part has wait listed candidates. So these are the two parts given by the Search Come Selection Committee. The priority list and wait listed candidate list. So this list will be sent to the Central Government and the Central Government will make the appointments. See the Central Government while making the appointments it has to take the names from the first list that is the priority list. Only after exhausting the first list it should go for the wait listed candidates. Without exhausting all the names in the first list the Centre should not go for the wait listed candidates. This is the protocol. But recently this protocol has not been followed. This is the main irregularity found by our Supreme Court of India. Without exhausting the first list our Central Government has made appointment from the wait listed category. So instead of giving priority to the first list that is the most suitable candidate it has directly gone for the wait listed candidates. This is called as cherry picking of names. This is the first issue found by Supreme Court of India. Cherry picking of candidate names. Now moving on to the next issue. What is the next issue found by our Supreme Court of India? See the Central Government while appointing new judges for tribunals send the incumbents who still attend your on leave. This is the second major issue. Let me explain. See take a tribunal X okay. This tribunal X will have a Charmin. This Charmin will have a tenure. Only after the expiry of that tenure the new Charmin should be appointed. But Centre has bypassed this. The Central Government has directly appointed the new names and asked the incumbents that is the existing Charmin to go on leave. This was done by a Central Government to accommodate the new names of their choice. The Central Government wants each people in the tribunals. So it has asked the incumbents to go on leave and it has appointed new members. For example take NCLAT. As I already said NCLAT stands for National Company Law Appalach Tribunal. In this tribunal Justice Chima was the acting Charmin. His tenure was expiring on September 20th. But even before the expiry of his tenure, the Central Government appointed Justice Venugopal to the post of Charmin of NCLAT. The Central Government forced Justice Chima to go on leave even before his expiry of tenure. I hope aspirants can follow. So finally Justice Chima approached Supreme Court of India. Supreme Court of India found merit in Justice Chima's argument and as reinstated him until the expiry of his term. So Supreme Court of India finally intervened and as put a stop to this irregularity. The Central Government cannot force the incumbents to go on leave just because it wants to appoint the people it favors. See according to Supreme Court of India there are pending verdicts from Justice Chima. So changing the judge in this crucial juncture and create problems. These pending verdicts will be affected. The new Justice Venugopal should start these cases from first. So it will cause a delay. This is the logic behind Supreme Court of India. So finally it reinstated Chima and it has asked the Central Government to stop these procedural irregularities in the appointment. See when we are talking about Tribunal appointments we should also know about Tribunal Reforms Act 2021. Our Central Government has defended its action based on this controversial act. Tribunals Reforms Act 2021. See earlier this act was a ordinance. The name of the ordinance is Tribunals Reforms, Rationalization and Conditions of Service Ordinance 2021. This ordinance was very controversial. Some of the provisions of this ordinance were struck down by the Supreme Court of India. For example take cases like Madras Bar Association versus Union of India 2020. Madras Bar Association versus Union of India 2021. In these cases the Supreme Court of India intervened and struck down the provisions of Tribunal Reforms Ordinance 2021. But our Central Government is very smart. It has included the same controversial struck down provisions in the Tribunal Reforms Act 2021. So the provisions which were struck down is now included in the Tribunal Reforms Act 2021. And the Centre has been using this act to defend its action. This issue was also pointed out by Supreme Court of India. Making appointments based on this controversial act has got the anger of the Supreme Court. Our Central Government is facing the wrath of the Supreme Court. So these are the important points highlighted in this editorial. See according to the author of this editorial the Centre is using the procedural to make appointments in the Tribunals. It is serving its political agenda. The Centre wants its people in these Tribunals. It is not following the protocols. It is also bypassing the orders of the Supreme Court of India. This has affected the transparency of the appointment process. It also affects the integrity of the office. So what can be done? See according to Supreme Court of India we should establish National Tribunals Commission. Only National Tribunals Commission can make the appointment process more objective and transparent. Very very important point. You can use this point as value addition in your mains answer. In mains answer in the solution part you can include this point as value addition. National Tribunals Commission. Only National Tribunals Commission can make suitable appointments. It can evaluate the functioning of tribunals. It can make the process more transparent. So this is the way forward. According to Supreme Court of India we should create National Tribunals Commission to make the process more objective and transparent. So these are the important points highlighted in this editorial. With this we have come to the end of the discussion. In this discussion we saw about the issues surrounding NCLAT. What was the issue? Not exhausting priority list. That is the cherry picking of names. Our next issue is asking the Incubants who still have tenure to go on leave. After discussing these issues we also discussed about Tribunal Reforms Act 2021. We also discussed about Tribunal Reforms Ordinance 2021. Why this act and ordinance were controversial. And finally we discussed the way forward. What is the way forward? National Tribunals Commission. This is the way forward. This commission can make the appointment process transparent and objective. Now moving on to the next topic. Now look at this news article. This news article is regarding agreement on agriculture by WTO. See recently our Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry expressed an opinion. This opinion was regarding WTO's agreement on agriculture. What was the opinion? According to a minister the agreement on agriculture is riddled with deep imbalances. These imbalances favors the developed countries. It is disadvantages to the developing countries. This is the opinion expressed by our Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry. As I already said this opinion is on WTO's agreement on agriculture. So in this context let us know about WTO. Very very important topic from prelims perspective. First what is WTO? World Trade Organization. This is the full form of WTO. See WTO is a global international organization. It deals with rules of trade between nations. It is equated at Geneva, Switzerland. Now let us come to the most important point. See WTO came into being in 1995. So this is the year of establishment of WTO. Before WTO we had an organization called GATT. GATT stands for General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. GATT was established after World War II. This GATT was the predecessor to WTO. Another important point. Now coming back to WTO. What is the main function of WTO? See the main function of WTO is to ensure that trade flows are smooth, predictable and free. This is the main function of WTO. See WTO has 160 members. These 160 members accounts for 95% of world trade. This is why this organization is very important. Almost 95% of world trade is under WTO monitoring. Now let us come to India. Since we are preparing for civil services let us discuss India from the perspective of WTO. See India has been a member of WTO since 1st January 1995. To put it in simple words, India has been a member of WTO since its origin. What about GATT? India was also a member of GATT since 8th July 1948. So we have been a member of GATT and after that WTO was formed and we have been the member of WTO from its origin. See know this important point. If a government wants to join WTO then the government has to bring its economic and trade policies in line with WTO rules. Only if they bring their economic policies and trade policies in line with WTO rules then the government can become a member of WTO. Very very important point. Now let us talk about the roles of WTO. See WTO has many roles. It operates a global system of trade rules. It acts as a forum for negotiating trade agreements. It settles trade disputes between its members. It also supports the needs of the developing countries. So it plays many roles. Now aspirants may have a question how WTO makes decision. So let us talk about WTO decision making. See WTO is run by member governments. All the major decisions are made by the membership as a whole. These decisions are made either by the ministers or the ambassadors or delegates of the member countries. So all major decisions are made by the membership as a whole and the decisions are normally taken by consensus. See this is the uniqueness of WTO. It differs from World Bank and IMF in this way. In WTO power is not delegated to a board of directors. It is not delegated to an organization set. As I already said all the major decisions are made by the membership as a whole. This is the uniqueness of WTO. I hope aspirants can follow. Now let us discuss about the funding of WTO. See the contributions by the member countries is a major source of income for WTO. It forms a major part of its annual budget. The contributions of the member countries are established according to a formula based on the share of international trade. So based on this formula the member countries will contribute to WTO and this contribution forms a major source of income for WTO. So these are the important points regarding World Trade Organization. Very very important topic from prilms as well as mains perspective. In prilms you can expect factual base questions. In prilms you can expect analysis based questions. So with this we have come to the end of the discussion. In this discussion we saw about WTO. The origin of WTO. The predecessor of WTO. India and its role in WTO. We also discussed about the many roles of WTO. We discussed about the addition making body of WTO. And finally we discussed the funding of WTO. With this we have come to the end of the discussion. Now moving to the next part. Now look at this news article. This article is regarding NCBS. See NCBS stands for National Center for Biological Sciences. The center is located in Bengaluru. And recently this organization is under multiple allegations. It is facing lot of allegations. See these allegations are regarding data manipulation in their publications. Many experts believe that national center for biological sciences have manipulated the data in their publications. This is where this organization is mentioned in the news. So let us see about it. See organization mentioned in the news is very important from prilms perspective. So let us learn about NCBS. The National Center for Biological Sciences. See this organization was constituted in the year 1991. 30 years before. Now we have a question. What is the purpose of this organization? See this organization conducts fundamental research in biology. It tries to understand the living systems. See cell biology is fundamental to all biology. In order to fully understand living system we should understand the working of cell. This is where this organization is very important. It tries to understand cell biology. It conducts lot of fundamental research regarding cell biology. See this organization takes ideas from other disciplines. For example it takes ideas from physics. It takes ideas from computer science. It takes ideas from multiple disciplines and conducts research regarding cells. By doing this it tries to understand the living systems. It tries to understand the functioning of cells. By understanding the functioning of cells is very important. By understanding the functioning of cells we can develop better medicines. So this organization plays an important role in the field of regenerative medicines. The most important point. Now moving on to the next important point. See NCBS not only conducts research in biology. It conducts fundamental research from diverse fields of biology. For example biochemistry biophysics bioinformatics neurobiology cellular organization and signaling genetics and development theory and modeling of biological systems ecology and evolution. So NCBS conducts fundamental research from diverse fields of biology. This is why this organization is very important. See in addition to the fundamental research NCBS also engages in number of collaborative initiatives For example it engages with INSTEM it engages with CCAMP to conduct lot of collaborative initiatives INSTEM stands for Institute for Stem Cell Science and Regenerative Medicine. CCAMP stands for Center for Cellular and Molecular Platforms. So all these three organizations come together and they conduct number of collaborative initiatives. See these three institutions are very important. All these three institutions are located in Bangalore. They form an important part of Bangalore Biocluster. These organizations play important role in fundamental research, translational studies and technology development. NCBS, INSTEM and CCAMP. Now coming back to NCBS. See National Center for Biological Sciences is a premier research institute. The most important point. It is a part of TAFR. TAFR stands for Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and NCBS is a part of TAFR. Now moving on to the next important part. See NCBS is an autonomous body. Please make note of it. It is an autonomous body and it functions under the Department of Atomic Energy Government of India. So these kind of statements can be expected in priloms. The National Center for Biological Sciences functions under the Department of Atomic Energy, which are the given statements are correct. So make sure you remember this point. It functions under Department of Atomic Energy. So with this we have come to the end of the discussion. In this discussion we saw about NCBS, National Center for Biological Sciences. We discussed why NCBS is in the news. We discussed about the history of NCBS, the functions of NCBS, the significance of NCBS. We discussed about Bangalore Biocluster, NCBS, Instem C-Camp and finally we discussed what kind of body is NCBS. It is an autonomous body under the Department of Atomic Energy. Now moving on to the next topic. Now moving on to reference articles. Look at this article. This article is regarding POXO Act. June 28, 2021 Daily News Analysis. This video has all the relevant information regarding POXO Act. Interested aspirants can go through it. Now moving on to the next topic. Next topic is regarding GST Council. We discussed about GST Council in great detail in our 15th September 2021 Daily News Analysis. Few days back. This discussion has all the relevant information regarding GST Council. Its composition, its roles and function, all the relevant information. So interested aspirants can go through it. Next article is regarding SCO, Shanghai Cooperation Organization. September 16, 2021. The Daily News Analysis on this date has all the relevant information regarding Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Interested candidates can go through it. Now moving on to practice problems question. Now look at the first question. The National Judicial Appointment Commission was introduced through which of the following constitutional amendment? A. Constitution 65th Amendment Act 1990. B. Constitution 36th Amendment Act 2002. C. Constitution 99th Amendment Act 2014. D. Constitution 101th Amendment Act 2016. From our discussion we will answer is option C. 99th Constitution Amendment Act of 2014 introduced NJAC, National Judicial Appointment Commission. Now moving on to the next question. See this question is a past question. It was asked in the year 2016. In the context of which of the following do you sometimes find the terms amber box, blue box and green box in the news? A. WTO of S. B. SARC of S. C. UNFCCC of S. D. India European Union negotiations on FTA. The correct answer is A. WTO of S. See in WTO terminology, subsidies are generally recognized as boxes. They are recognized as green boxes, amber boxes and blue boxes. All the necessary information regarding amber box, blue box, green box is displayed on the screen. Interested aspirants can go through it. The correct answer is A. WTO of S. Now moving on to the next question. Consider the following statements. First statement Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, TIFAR is a deemed university and works under the umbrella of the Department of Atomic Energy of the Government of India. Second statement, India's first digital computer, TIFRAC, was built in TIFR. Which of the above statements are correct? A. 1 only, B. 2 only, C. B. 1 and 2, D. 1 and 2. See both the statements are correct. TIFR is Autonomous Institution and it comes under the umbrella of Department of Atomic Energy of the Government of India. So first statement is correct. And moving on to the second statement. Have a look at this figure. This figure as TIFRAC, India's first digital computer. This digital computer was built by TIFR. So both the statements are correct. The answer is C. Both 1 and 2. Mains practice questions are displayed on the screen. Interest or aspirants can write the answer and post in the comment section below. If you like this video, click like. If you want to post a comment, post a comment in the comment section below. And don't forget to subscribe to Shankar Naisakini's channel. Thank you.


First of all, for anybody who, Joe Thierston, who is, used to be the head of connections, was supposed to be co-collaborating with me on this briefing, he did not be able to counsel. Those of you who came to see Joe, sorry, you're out a lot of fatigue because he's not here. But the focus of this really is about helping to look at OER and one specific slice of OER in terms of how we as a network of schools, mission-driven schools are really going to use OER as an opportunity to further our mission as well as the concepts behind OER. So this is about the work of the Judgement Virtual Learning Academy and how it supports the network of secondary schools across the country and around the world. One of our, for those of you who don't want to think about the society of Jesus, the leader of the society is the superior gentleman. So Pedro Rubin was one of the former societies and he talked about education, he talked about our schools which is a pretty significant aspect of schools and he talked about it in terms of, you know, if our schools perform as they should, they will live in a continual tension between the old and the new, the comfortable past and the uneasy present. And the reason that I really like that quote is because he said it back in 1967, right? And when you look at those words, you think to yourself, wow, that's really applicable to what's happening today, right? And so I think if we as educators are really serious about what we do, we need to really think about it in terms of how are we pushing the end of it. And I think Josh spoke to that earlier this morning about that as well. So what I want to do real quickly is talk a little bit about my personal view on the context of where we're at today from a decision maker's perspective and how things are happening in our schools and our network of schools might be different from your experiences. And then I'll talk a little bit about the work of the Judgment Virtual Learning Academy and how we're using OER, okay? So in terms of decision making and the perspective and again how I see it, decision makers in our schools generally speaking at the presidential level, they're not educators, they're not technology folks. And the way they see things is it's really in terms of, it's a world that's in flux, it's education that's in flux, funding mechanisms are in flux and technology is continually changing and at a pace that makes it hard for non-technology people to really grasp what's going on in the space, right? And so what does that lead to, right? I mean it leads to this, right? It leads to gridlock. And so basically in our schools, again speaking from my particular context, in our schools and our network of Judgment schools, there's a lot of people not doing a whole lot, okay? Really struggling to figure out what's next. How do we engage, right? The good thing is our schools generally speaking in the communities in which they exist are considered to be leaders in their communities in terms of the education that their students receive. But in terms of really moving forward, we're not really pushing very hard because we just really don't know what to do, okay? So just a tiny bit to get a little more closely aligned to OERN, right? This is obviously from UNESCO. OERNs will not be able to help countries reach their educational goals unless awareness of their common potential can rapidly be expanded beyond the communities of interest that they are already attracting, right? This is why we're all here, right? In terms of trying to figure out how to make this go. And really there's two approaches, right? And you can think about whether there's three approaches. But so you can take this from a top-down perspective, right? And really go and talk to those leaders that I was just talking about in terms that are really struggling with what's going on in the space right now and having a hard time understanding exactly how to go about making sense of education in a broader sense and how it fits in, right? And understanding funding models and so forth. So you get the top-down approach. And in general, speaking with top-down approaches, with the right direction, what do you get? You get compliance, right? Okay? So you can make that happen. You can get compliance. Then you've got the bottom up, right? You're wearing, you know, it's a groundswell. We try and get the teachers attached. And we do all we can to really help those people in the bottom. You get introduced to OER, get those systems and structures. But it's a one-man. It's getting grabbed in that person and grabbing that person. Hard work, right? At that level, though, you get buy-in, right? And that's really probably more important to this particular system than the top-down approach. Somewhere in between is hopefully what we're trying to do in terms of creating an ecosystem that helps support our network in terms of OER, okay? So that's hopefully what the system and structure that we're putting in place is. Starting, most importantly, with our teachers, okay? Because we're going to start more in the bottom up, but with an ecosystem that includes administrators, okay? So they can see what's happening in the space, all right? But what do we know about teachers? We know that they're busy, right? We know that they're busy people. At a secondary level, there's a lot that's on their plates where they're being asked to coach. They're being asked to do all sorts of other things. You know, how do you get teachers out of their foxholes, right? Hard to do, okay? So that's something to consider. We talked about barriers yesterday. I don't know if for those of you that were in the... Steve Harding did a presentation. We talked a little bit about barriers. And there's a lot of barriers attached to OER and these types of things, not the least of which is the fact that it's really not free, okay? It's not free for teachers, okay? Because there's a tremendous investment in time attached to OER, both in terms of use and selection as well as production, okay? And so that's as important at least to the secondary teachers I know. That's as important as anything else to them, okay? So it's not free, particularly when a publisher can come along and drop in your lap a whole series of resources that you can just pick and go right into a classroom and use, right? So what we're really asking to do is to fundamentally think about the ways in which they can... You know, they need to consider how to change their perspective on these items. The other thing that's happened, and I think you probably all know it as well, is that technology 20 years ago was different than technology today. And for teachers, we're 20 years ago, there wasn't a whole lot of tools and there wasn't even a whole lot of content available online. Now there's too much, right? It's almost a disincentive for teachers to engage in the use of technology because it takes too long to find the right tools and to find the right resources to using your traditional classrooms, okay? So those are the issues that I see them, okay?  We're going to spend the whole afternoon, the whole thing about cognitive surplus. And I'm a huge fan of Clay Shurkey and you're going to see his name a couple of times in the presentation because what Clay Shurkey talks about as it relates to cognitive surplus is the need to be effective in this space is the need to build a culture of generosity. Okay? That's where I think we win. That's the Network of Jesuits secondary schools. That's why I think a mission-based approach, whether you're talking to Jesuits or anything else, if you can connect to mission in a real meaningful way, you have an opportunity to use this culture of generosity as a way of moving the New York forward, okay? So, a little bit about the Jesuit Virtual Learning Academy. We founded in 2008 and the idea is it's really to harness the collaborative capacities of the Network of Jesuits secondary schools, okay? Talked a little bit about that. We do three things. Coursework for students, a professional development, and then what's next is really this building of this collaborative technology infrastructure, okay? I want to talk a little bit about the Network just to give you a sense of it, okay? We're talking about right now the Jesuit Virtual Learning Academy. We primarily focus on our schools here in the United States. There's 59 Jesuit secondary schools during about 50,000 students, okay? This is the World Play Network. 700 schools, okay? This is the Network of Jesuit Universities 200, okay? It's a large network. And the neat thing about it is it's not just about the numbers, okay? It's really, we share something that's palpable. If you've ever been on a Jesuit university or Jesuit secondary school campus, the sense of mission is palpable, okay? We share a history of 450 years, mission, vision, and values are the same. You can walk on the inner campus and hear the same language being taught. Men for others, men and women for others talked about the graduate of graduation, all sorts of common lingo that makes our school special and unique, right? Instructional pedagogy that is unique to Jesuit secondary schools. We share a spirituality, a common spirituality. We have a corporate structure that is built around regions and organized around postulates like secondary education, university work, the Jesuit refugee services, and so forth. And then, most importantly, there's a deep collegial respect among our network of teachers. They like to be with each other, okay? They like hearing what's happening on the other school's campuses. Even though each of our schools literally is its own independent school, they're tied together by this and it's real, I mean, it's felt. I think that's really what we're trying to take advantage of. So, what's our approach to OER? How are we going to talk about it? How are we going to engage our schools in it? And how are we going to support it in our network of schools? How are we going to talk about it? It's an appeal to mission and it's an appeal to our history. For those of you who don't know a lot about Jesus, early on they were pioneers. They sent the Marquette, even in here in the United States you can think about Marquette and those were judges, right? So, the Jesuit educators, the appeal to being a pioneer, the appeal to collaborators in mission, and lastly that concept of servant leader, which is really embedded directly into our mission of service. Service to others, it's foundational in our work. So, we can appeal to each of these areas in a real meaningful way and talk about OER as it relates to what it is we do. Okay? And so, what we're really working to do is to talk about OER as a humble gift. Okay? And when we talk about it in that perspective, because I think some people every once in a while you kind of get in that discussion about going back to our network of schools but we really have in our network here in the United States and then even abroad we have of the 700 schools half of them are traditional college prep kind of upper crust schools really well-heeled schools and the other half are mission-based schools. Okay? And so, what you could do this as as, oh, I'm here to help you, right? That's really not what we're talking about here. We're talking about being able to develop and to use our network to distribute gifts, right? And to share in this. And there's two sides of it, right? There's the giver and then there's the receiver. There's the gratitude that makes you want to give back, right? And so, that's really what we're talking about here, because as we give back we add deeper context particularly when we're talking about our worldwide network and the ability to gain perspective from others outside of your particular region by using our network. David Weil talked about knowledge can be given without being given away, right? We talked about it as a spirit of generosity compelled by love. Two presentations in a row where the word love came up, right? So Mother Teresa, you can do something I can't do I can do something you can't do together, let us do something beautiful for God. Okay? Next. Innovations now to play shirtly piece about innovation and really he talks about from a technology perspective any innovation it doesn't become a game changer until basically everybody's using it, right? It's kind of the 80% world, right? And so what I want to do now is to show you the technology infrastructure pieces that we're deploying and you're going to go wow there's nothing special about that that's the point, right? Our teachers are comfortable with the technologies we're going to be introducing, okay? So the three pieces of technology that we're using you're probably all familiar with connections and particularly speaking what we're interested in there is the lenses so we've developed a lens program with the connections. Moodle is what we use to deliver our coursework and it's also what we use to deliver our program for faculty so anything that we're really connecting kids but also when we're doing professional development. What's tying it all together is that piece at the top it's a tool called Kinenza and that is a closed system Facebook for lack of a better way of talking about it, okay? This here is an artificial structure that's being imposed on the system itself and it's introduced in Kinenza and what it is is an Academy of Excellence infrastructure that builds academies within this around arts and letters, major philosophies science and knowledge engineering, math and real studies people have a hold, right? It's your professional learning community, okay? It's our way of being able to connect common people around combination alright? So with that what I want to do is to just to take you real quick to it if I can see what I'm doing so here it is there's not a whole lot to it really it's pretty simple, it's Facebooky, right? So what we have is an opportunity to push out various content pieces we've got the things that people find that are important about this, this is actually not deployed yet, we've introduced it to a series of schools but what this enabled us to do is to connect people to movements like OER which I'll show you how we're doing that but also it gives us an opportunity to build on mission, right? And to really help people to gather around what makes us special, okay? So we have the opportunity to do the three minute retreat, we have opportunities for folks to do book retreats on spiritual formation pieces, all sorts of things that really speak to our mission but then also obviously connect people around what their primary work is and that's educating young people, okay? So what you have here is you know, groups around the specific disciplines that we talked about earlier you have a forum area again around those specific areas you've got the capacity to do events, groups and so forth but what I want to do is just to show you this resource page because this resource page is really where we're talking about giving people, giving teachers an opportunity to start engaging technology in a meaningful way giving them resources that they can start with, okay? And so you can see there's four general categories that we have in place, these aren't they end all to be all but it begins to starting point for folks. Down here under this tool here is a series of free or low cost tools that people can use to get the game of technology and so it's things like voice thread and Skype basically introducing teachers to easy tools, okay? And then building professional development programs around it, okay? But this finding learning content piece what I wanted to do is just to click on this to show you how we're really using this piece to move our engagement in OER as well as introduce other repositories to folks, okay? So within this structure here you're going to see our Lens Program so a link directly to our lenses on CNX okay? So it takes people directly to that but on top of it down here below are little screencasts and so forth that talk about why CNX how to use CNX how to use our lenses how to be a part of the community okay? And so it's kind of an introductory piece to it as well okay? So it's not just dumping people in there but it's helping them understand how to use it, okay? And I could take you through more but I think you probably get a picture as to what we're trying to accomplish in using this because what I want to do is to talk about this next piece which is about Josh hit on the nail on the head when he talked about access it's not about access really it's about it's about engagement, right? So it's what we're trying to do in this system is to give people an opportunity to do something, okay? It's another clay shirt piece where he talks about you can get all the pieces in place but then what? Right? And you got to just start doing stuff and see what happens, okay? So anybody know this remember this football game? 30 years ago anybody know why this is important? This was a football game you'll remember it once I can tell you what it is it's a football game that had no announcers televised football game, they went without any announcers and it was a disaster right? So they tried it it was a guy named Don Olemeyer okay? and Don Olemeyer was the producer of the first Monday night football game produced three Olympics has 16 Emmys and is in the Broadcasting Hall of Fame he took a big chance here went down in absolute flames right? and in fact this is what Brian Gumbel said before the game started okay? on national television we were just moments away from the kickoff today, he just golfed off in the game and he telecasted figures to be different the fact that we're trying something different and there too has been greeted with almost every kind of reaction from good nature to your work to applause to some surprising anger, right? I think that's really what we're that's what we're up against, right? no matter what we try if we have to risk and so what we're trying to do within our structure is just to tell people it's okay to try something okay? we're going to support you and that's because I'm going to talk about next is how do we support our people? how do we support people who are interested in helping? okay? so the people part of it is you know I talked again about that infrastructure that our official infrastructure the Academy of Excellence infrastructure what we have actually done is we have teachers in our network that are employed part-time by the Jesuit Virtual Learning Academy whose only job is to support those those areas, okay? and so it's it's not just saying here this is an open space for you go after it, right? it's actually having people attached to it who are going to start connecting people and start connecting ideas and saying hey you're really good at this I need your help and I'm going to attach you to this guy over here at this other school because he's really good at it too and what we're going to end up with is something really special okay? we need people to do that people love to be invited people love to be recognized, right? for their talents that's what the purpose of the people is right? and so that's what we're doing to support it okay? and so right out of the gate one of the things we're doing within that structure one textbook one online textbook okay? it's a project but it's a simple project we can engage people in in a small way that gives them an opportunity to start working toward something greater and at the same time if you notice that community that we built is not just for teachers there's administrative pieces attached to it too so now the administrators see what's happening they see the vetted material coming in and they get to start understanding and appreciating how OER works right? it's probably enough it's all to a top down the second piece is really about program and how we actually use program to support this network and it really comes down to professional development people we have to help teachers understand the beast and so what we've done is created what we think is a really solid professional development rubric and it focuses around a number of things and you can see how it plays out from left to right in terms of what you're really trying to accomplish thank you and so you know on the left is really introducing ideas and concepts to people and obviously we can do that all day long right? webinars and all those types of things to give people you can demonstrate how things work right? and that's all good and fun until you really start making your way over here though it really isn't a game changer ok? we've all been to conferences we've all been to head experiences and professional development experiences where you walk away going wow that was actually fantastic you get back to school and nothing changes you get thrown back into your day to day and nothing changes that's one of the beautiful things about online education is that you can take the artificial mechanisms of online education you can stretch an experience like this over an extended period of time right? it's not a three day deal anymore so you're giving teachers time back and you're helping people work through a system and a structure in a professional learning community that gets to an outcome gives them an opportunity to use tools before they actually engage it in real life so get them comfortable with it so the whole thing is really about supporting the teachers in this space helping them understand how to use OER giving them experience in using OER before they actually have to go and do the dirty work of getting it into their traditional classrooms and once they're there though and they have that experience that's the beauty of the community they can report back on the good, the bad, the ugly and really help people grow so that's the idea we're at the very beginning steps of it and I'm here for feedback because this is my first OER experience and you're the professionals any thoughts criticisms, concerns so what would drive a teacher to want to use this like you mentioned I think is it the collaborative statistics book that you're using or you have one OER book why would I say if I were a teacher in Boston want to come what would really motivate me do I have to it's all optional it's all optional and that's the point really the community and the reason why what our focus is is goes beyond just the use of OER but really about mission and so when we talk about that community we're talking about the early studies that we've done in the community we've introduced it to folks put it back out to folks and the three things they liked about it were the directories in other words I can look up people right because they know that trust that's a collegial nature thing that I was talking about the groups I can be with people of common interest and then the third piece was that content piece that I showed you so those are the three things that vetted content piece they want to engage they still don't have so again what our focus is by focusing on mission a kind of an open platform for science teachers for instance what we believe we're creating here the space that people will find to be of unique value to them as judgment educators that gives them the freedom and opportunity to engage where we are in other resources makes sense? I'm just wondering what kind of processes we use for evaluating all this in terms of the personal development of teachers in terms of the use of the system by students and so on is that something that you're giving much thought to? You know Tom as you might have guessed I'm kind of one of those guys I'm more on the action side of things on the back end of the connections I mean on the back end of all of the systems I mean there's deep battle lags so I can the reporting mechanisms on usage of the content pieces on the group pages all those things that leave a whole analytical side to who's accessing what how are they using it all those structures are in place but what we're really trying to do in terms of these early stages is engagement and once we kind of build on that engagement and we get people attached then it really becomes particularly when it comes to the vetting pieces where we really talk about who's got what how are we using things and how does it get lensed how does it get the appropriate lens of the judgment virtual learning academy that's really for the people in those various groups to kind of make those decisions and kind of come up with a rubric is that helpful? I think also just a more informal level it doesn't have to be metrics it doesn't have to be about hits if you like to the teachers like it to do this development rubric or do they think it is a bit mature? well those are good questions and we have polling mechanisms built in and again one of the things I think I mentioned was that I did introduce this over the last couple of weeks to our schools to say now what do you think of it and and the scale was basically at four choices from it's really good in these particular instances these are the things I really like about it these are the things that they're okay these are the things I still don't know about these are things I hate and basically everything has been on the far left at this point but we won't know until we get people engaged in it further and that's the work of the group that's why we have those four people attached to it to kind of help move forward is that helpful? thank you and it looks like it's time