What is the Future of Education?

From augmented reality to integrated touchscreens in every student’s desk, one thing is certain: Technology will play an even bigger role in the education of tomorrow.

Technology Will Change How We Teach and Learn

To date, 50 percent of all Americans own either a tablet or an eReader, and 58 percent of Americans own a smartphone. Those numbers will surely grow, and touchscreens and tablets will likely play an increased role in education, in the physical classroom as well as at home and in online environments.

Already, six out of ten college students say they prefer books in digital format. This preference doesn’t seem to present a problem. As our reading expert says, “all reading is good reading.” In fact, one study referenced showed improved engagement and learning outcomes when students had regular access to technology.

Along with changes in hardware, we can expect to see progress in software. Augmented reality integrated into lessons would mean fun and engaging curricula and changes in the ways we teach and learn. Gamification apps like Grand-Essays already offer fun, easy learning opportunities anywhere, and we can expect to see more as devices improve and new apps are developed.

Free, Accessible Education for All

Increased access to the Internet will mean more learning opportunities for more people. Currently, 79 percent of Americans have a computer at home and 75 percent have home Internet, numbers that have grown exponentially in a relatively short period of time. With increased connectivity comes increased access to education.

MOOCs, or Massive Open Online Courses are already offered by respected institutions like Harvard, MIT, and Yale and studies show they’re proven to be effective. Over the last few years, millions of students have enrolled in these courses, and they’re only expected to grow.

A predicted deemphasis of college degrees by employers and a shift to valuing knowledge means these courses could be an accessible, affordable option for future job-seekers to gain the knowledge they need. We’ve seen firsthand the success of online school options for students in grades K-12. Free, effective online learning for higher education, accessible to anyone, anywhere, is an exciting prospect.

4 Networking Strategies for Authors Who Hate Networking

I’m an introvert who hates forced social situations, but I’ve discovered some valuable networking strategies since my debut YA novel ONE NIGHT was released, though I didn’t realize I was networking at the time.
I think it helps to define networking here as connecting with someone who can and does help get your name and/or your work in front of more people. The audience can be large or small, but ideally the audience should be engaged. My top tips for networking:

1. Submit your polished work to online outlets in a professional manner.

This might sound obvious, but I’ve found even when it doesn’t result in a piece getting accepted it works in other ways. Oftentimes if I pitch a guest column or blog post that isn’t accepted, the editor refers me to someone else. For example, I pitched Chicago YA Writers a personal statement about writing mentorships and they told me they were on hiatus, but referred me to an editor at YA Interrobang who accepted the piece. This has happened to me a few times. If you put your best foot (and work) forward you’ll likely get the name of a new connection even if the original place you pitched to rejects you.

2. If you’re going to write a blog post, be helpful.

I know I’m not the first person to have said this, but I’m here to tell you that it works. I wrote a post recently on my web site about how to avoid burnout and my struggle to balance my writing with everything else. I wrote it because I thought the tips I’d found useful might be helpful to someone else. I figured if it helped one person that would be great. I think that was the key—that my primary goal was I wanted to be helpful, to give someone who was in a similar situation some ideas. The goal wasn’t to increase my blog traffic, but in my effort to be helpful I’ve been pleasantly surprised that the link has been shared a few times and was mentioned on a podcast (along with my name).

3. Just talk to people (like they’re a regular person) without expecting anything in return.

There’s some networking advice that says you should always go to events with a goal of making two connections but I find just having a regular conversation with someone you think is interesting accomplishes a lot. I did a local author event in January and wound up sitting next to a YA author who had had traditional publishing deals but decided to start publishing independently. I asked questions, genuinely curious about her experience, and she told me about an annual luncheon with booksellers and librarians one state over and said she’d get me on the invite list. I didn’t even ask for anything, but she apparently enjoyed our conversation enough to offer something up.

4. Extend bigger thank yous to people who go the extra mile for you. 

As a rule I always send email thank yous, but sometimes when a blogger does something unexpected for me or a reader passes along news about my books I send a handwritten thank you note or a signed book. This small act of showing gratitude pays off in the long run. I sent a signed book to one blogger who has been incredibly supportive of my work and when I later asked her for a favor related to my writing she responded and delivered on it the same day.

Best Inspiring Quotes from Famous Singers

Katy Perry

I love what I do, and when I don’t love what I do, I’ll make a change.

Katy Perry is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Katy Perry in her quote reminds us to love what we do. She tells the importance of doing what we love as well. She mentions that she used to make changes to the things that she doesn’t love. She indeed offers a great message that if we do what we don’t love, the result of the action will be very terrible. If we do what we love, we will in fact give our whole mind into it. So, we can become successful in our career if we do the things that we love. We should also have the mind to make changes to our deeds if it’s not lovable to us.

Lady Gaga

Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you’re wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn’t love you anymore.

Lady Gaga is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. In her inspirational quote, Lady Gaga tells us the significance of making exact choices in our life. She reminds us that the choice or decision we make in our life shouldn’t guide us to regret for making such choices or decisions. Lady Gaga offers her view that we have the choice to make a decision regarding our career and to follow our dreams. Once we made a choice regarding our mla annotation generator, career will never wake up and tell us that it doesn’t love us anymore. It means that the choice that we make should be the correct one and it should love us right through our life as well.

Bruno Mars

You can’t knock on opportunity’s door and not be ready.

Bruno Mars is a well known American singer, songwriter, choreographer, record producer, and voice actor. His inspirational quote “You can’t knock on opportunity’s door and not be ready” mentions the importance of being ready prior to look for opportunity. Obviously, opportunity doesn’t knock twice and not being ready means it’s impossible for you to pursue success. Let it be anything, without good preparation, you will end up as a looser. When you are well prepared, you will be dared to face any challenges that fall upon you. Ideal preparation will help you deal with your issues and challenges very effectively. So, Bruno Mars’s hints to be ready or prepared before knocking on opportunity’s door.

Christina Aguilera

The roughest road often leads to the top.

Christina Aguilera is a famous American singer, songwriter, and actress. Her motivating quote “The roughest road often leads to the top” denotes that it is a rough road that guides people to the heights of greatness.  Obviously, it is the difficulties that we face in our lives often leads us to any significant accomplishment. Sometime your achievement is measured as great because the road that you traveled to achieve it was so rough. We can see that people never like to face roughest roads in their life and they wish for easiest ways to become successful.
Scores of people quit on their dreams and ambitions since they don’t want to face too much obstacles. Make sure those roughest roads or the obstacles that you face stands as an important thing to test your will and also assist you take a look at life from a different way. Christina Aguilera’s quote tells us that leading life effectively in tough conditions makes us perfect.
Despite you are a real music lover or not, the above mentioned quotes by concert singers definitely inspire all kind of people. However, musicians mean something special with usual words so is their quotes as well. They may have been prepared something new to egg on the fans when they meet together during the upcoming concert events. Go to some concerts of your favorite singers this season and take pleasure in the events that will offer you great moments to get inspired ahead for your entire lifetime.

THE MAIN SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF MODERN SOCIETY

There are many problems in modern society, however, humanity creates many other issues, like legit paper writing services trying to solve them. Consider the main problems that have arisen in the modern world.
DEMOGRAPHIC GROWTH

The first problem of the society is the demographic growth that arose because of the extraordinary population increase in some parts of the world, for example, in China. Most of the problems in this country in most cases stem from this situation.
CRUELTY

The second problem of society is the wildness and embitterment of people, manifested in cruelty, indifference, and terrorism.
MISUNDERSTANDING OF GENERATIONS

The third problem of society is an increasing gap between generations. Young people often do not hear the older generation and distance themselves from an understanding of their problems and moralizing. This problem continues for many generations and cannot be solved for many centuries.
ECOLOGICAL PROBLEMS

The fourth problem of society is the growth of environmental problems. Every day, big enterprises pollute the air, water, and soil. This condition increases the number of chronic diseases around the world.
THE THREAT OF DESTRUCTION OF THE OZONE LAYER

The fifth problem of the society is the growth of consumption of oil and gas. Due to its burning, the ozone layer is under threat of destruction.
INFECTIOUS DISEASES

The sixth problem of society is the growth of infectious diseases that occur in one part of the world and rapidly spread to other regions of the whole planet.

The main task is to eliminate all problems of society so that subsequent generations will continue to live in normal conditions. Humanity needs to pay great attention to the environmental issues, the fight against terrorism, and improving the quality of medicine. People must eliminate these problems as fast as possible, or it may be too late.

Not-So-Grumpy Facts about Grumpy Cat, a.k.a ‘Bakchod Billi’

1. Grumpy Cat’s real name is Tardar Sauce: This unique and unusual moniker was given to Grumpy Cat by one of her owners. And yes, Grumpy Cat is A HER! Apparently, her daughter Crystal was the one who came up with the name as she thought Tardar Sauce was the same color as the little kitten when Grumpy was born. However, her owners said in an interview that she also responds to the name Grumpy!

2. There was a Grumpy Cat Art Project in Alabama in 2013. At the height of her fame, Tardar Sauce would also inspire artists in residence from the Lowe Mill Arts and Entertainment Centre to create pieces based around Grumpy. This massive art installation had residents from Huntsville, Alabama showcasing their works of art, all centred around Grumpy. There were a variety of art forms to be seen – everything from models and sculptures to stained glass pieces. Some lucky folks also got to take their favorite pieces home, since the art pieces were also auctioned off towards the end of the exhibit.

3. Grumpy Cat has a brother called Pokey. While he doesn’t sport the same formidable frown as her, they are both still alike in size and personality. Pokey and Grumpy both resemble showshoe cats, and photos of them playing around can be found on Grumpy’s website. Pokey also stars with her in Dynamite Comics’ series, “The Misadventures of Grumpy Cat and Pokey!” The three-issue series just had its third instalment released this year, and it seems to be quite a hit.

4. Tardar Sauce is a ‘spokescat’ for Friskies. In September 2013, cat food brand Friskies declared Tardar Sauce as its official representative. They later released a series of videos on their YouTube channel titled “Will Kitty Play With It?” My book report had Grumpy interacting with different objects and seeing whether or not she would play with them. The videos were a massive success and together garnered millions of views. The brand also gave her a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Friskies Cat Video Contest Awards, and this was all before she was even 2 years old!

5. Grumpy Cat has a best-selling book. It is titled Grumpy Cat: A Grumpy Book. The book successfully made it onto the New York Times Best-Selling list. It is a coffee-table read and contains a variety of material, like tips on being grumpy, along with fun games and activities to inspire the reader to be grumpy. She may not have authored it, but at least she inspired it!

6. Grumpy Cat’s owner used to be a struggling waitress. That all changed after the phenomenon of Grumpy Cat took on, but her owner Tabatha has still seen some hard days in the past. Among all the endorsements, website, book and entertainment deals, she is now estimated to have amassed around $100 million since 2013 and travels the world with Tardar Sauce. What a lucky cat, indeed!

Grumpy is formidable in everything but her personality. Her signature frown has brought us, fellow grumps, together and made us laugh. After reading these fun facts, we hope that we have made Grumpy Cat a little bit more loveable for you!

5 Incredibly Important SEO Lessons For Every Startup

1. Decide your target keywords

A user types in a keyword in a search engine. The search engine comes up with a list of results based on the most relevant websites using those keywords. It is imperative that you know what keywords are important to your website. If you are a gifting app, you need to concentrate on keywords like gifting, online gifts, gifts for her, gifts for him etc. If a user types ‘gifts for mom delhi’, you need to come up with creative ways to include keyword variants naturally and organically in your content to show up in the result page. Engaging in SEO means that you are staying competitive, that your brand gets the exposure 24×7 and that you are constantly getting new customers.

2. Indulge in Content Marketing

SEO is heavily dependent on good content. Therefore, creating and sharing content that attracts and converts more and more prospects into customers is very important. The content, though, should be closely related to what you sell. You could have interesting blogs, videos, catchphrases, podcasts etc. 86% of companies today are using content marketing. But less than half are any good at it. Content marketing done right can take your brand from good to great.

Coke’s “Share a Coke” campaign gave everyone an opportunity to personalize their favourite drink. Coke took 150 most common names in Australia and added them to the bottles. The touch of personalization made people feel special and the campaign was an instant hit.

3. Be active on Social Media

Social media today is more important than ever. With majority of the population living on social media, it is a great platform to make new customers. For a startup, engaging in social media is a great way to get the desired attention to your brand. With the right content you can connect with the potential customers and directly present your brand to them and have people talk about your brand. Through social media you can determine the popularity of your brand. It also drives high quality traffic to your website. If people are engaging with your brand on social media, there is good chance that they might go to your website as well.

A good example of a great social media presence is Airbnb. Through their fun ‘Hollywood & Vines’ videos to their heart touching ‘Stories’ section, Airbnb has been able engage everyone(even non-customers).

4. Mobile friendly websites

According to studies, about 40% of the people who have a mobile phone use the internet and half of them go online at least once every day. There is no point having a website that is not easily accessible through a mobile phone. When a customer finds that your website is not mobile compatible, they might switch to a website that provides similar services and is mobile compatible as well. The alternative to a mobile friendly website is creating an app, which of course is little more tedious and an expensive affair (though effective). But, having a mobile friendly website is great for SEO as it helps improve rankings on mobile friendly search engines such as Google or Yahoo.

5. Off-site SEO

Off-site SEO focuses on a website’s relationship with other websites. Creating inbound links and making sure that you are present in online directories and websites where your potential customers might visit is off-site optimization. For example, if you are a book dealer, having a link on assignment writers service would be beneficial to your business. Your off-site optimization includes your social media presence, press releases, blogs, SEO articles – anything that brings in more traffic to your website. Off-site SEO should be reviewed and updated regularly as it is as important as your on-site optimization.

4 Steps to Stay on Track During College Break

When circumstances push students to take a break from college, it can be a hard to cope. For reasons like family financial status, prolonged illness, or issues at work, you may have to take a break from college. The following four steps can help you stay on track during the break and eventually complete the degree.

Take Advice from a Mentor

It’s a good idea to approach a college advisor seek information regarding any curriculum changes or information on how to continue your degree while out of school. Any knowledge regarding resources like financial aid, scholarships, mental health services, and childcare services that may be available to students may help in making a smooth transition back to college in the future.

Be Practical and Realistic

Most students who take a break for financial reasons find it increasingly hard to motivate themselves after a long gap. During the break, students should make plans to seek work that pays higher than minimum wage with a flexible schedule so that they can head back to college. If the reason is parenthood or recovery from illness, it’s best to accept the current scenario and remain positive. There is always a chance to continue college.

Continue Learning

An ambitious student should continue to study their subject of interest even during the break. Participating in related online forums, local groups or meet-ups and also taking up an internship can be crucial. Students who have access to online resources can even hire annotated bibliography apa generator to help them stay on par with their peers in college.

Focus on Completing the Degree

Going through a break can be very tumultuous and keeping your focus can make all the difference. Contact Take Your Class if you need help with assignments and tests.