#I teach teachers how to use materials outside of their comfort zones to become better teachers

[karapaints]

I relied heavily on the structure of this book to teach local educators that comics/graphic novels are Good Actually and that they should be using them in the classroom with their students.

Scott McCloud’s incomparable “Understanding Comics”.

I swear you can open this book to any page and it’s amazing.

(ps it’s actually a digital image of a printed copy of a drawing of a painting of a pipe)

[russianwave]

As someone with bad social anxiety, I put off finding a language tutor (or even speaking the language) for many months into my studies. I eventually plucked up the courage to book myself onto various trial lessons with tutors and I’ve decided to share what I’ve learnt.

1) Think about your learning style

Before even going on to a language tutoring platform, take some time to think about your learning style and what things you want to rule out. Having a checklist of criteria will make the process a lot less overwhelming, and it’ll give you things to look out for. There’s no point going for a tutor who teaches in a style that you already know doesn’t work. If you haven’t had any language classroom experience at all and/or really don’t know your style, that’s okay! But think about the materials you like to work with. Do you hate working through books? Some teachers just want to guide you through workbooks. Others are open to teaching through news articles, video clips, and so on.

For me, I know that a tutor not speaking any English to me would be too overwhelming. I wouldn’t be able to pick up new vocabulary through context and I’d find the process too stressful. Whilst this definitely works for other people, I knew that I could rule it out for myself. I also knew I could rule out tutors who don’t want to teach grammar - I knew that I wasn’t picking up grammar through patterns, so I looked for tutors that would do that. But also consider this: some teachers want to give you a lot of homework and then just have you discuss the answers and ask further questions in class whilst others will give you very minimal (if any) homework and have it be all about class time. Think about which style works for you.

2) What do you want out of tutoring?

For some people, tutoring is just a way to get quality speaking practice. They may find it hard to find people that are willing to give them the feedback they like, or a consistent / long enough speaking partner. Others are looking for a tutor to teach them the absolute basics, and others just want someone who can explain tricky concepts to them. Some tutors are only looking to teach people of a particular level, or just want to offer a particular kind of teaching (e.g. vocabulary or academic writing).

For me, I wanted tutors to be able to help me understand grammatical concepts as well as being a safe place to develop conversational practice. With a tutor it feels safer to make mistakes, and I feel like I’m less of a burden than trying to make an unpaid language partner correct everything I have to say. I also struggle with understanding grammar explanations, and I need the motivation that another person can bring to the lesson.

3) Think about your budget

This might seem really obvious, but it’s definitely something to bear in mind. £10 an hour might seem cheap now, but you’re likely going to be buying much more than one lesson. How many lessons can you afford to take each month? It might be better to turn down a good person that’s at the very max of your budget to go with someone (who’s still good) that’s lower priced and who you can have more consistent lessons with. Consistency with a tutor is a really good way to build upon work and progress through the programs and materials they have. 

Some tutors will offer free or massively discounted trial lessons, but then have a very high hourly rate. It might seem great to take advantage of someone who’s usually £30 an hour for free, but you want to develop a connection with a tutor that you can actually afford. There’s no point trying someone out of your budget because your trial lesson won’t be enough to work from. You’d need consistent lessons with them and you can’t get that if they’re out of your budget.

4) How many tutors do you want?

This isn’t talking about how many tutors you want to try out, but how many you want to have in the long run. You could stick with just one tutor, but you might find you get too comfortable with them and lessons become less effective. It also means if they can’t explain a particular issue to you, then you may not be able to get an easy explanation than if you had more than one. 

For me, I knew that I wanted two as it’d give me the variety I need to really stretch my language skills. This doesn’t mean going way outside of my comfort zone, it was about finding two people I could feel a comfortable connection with that I knew would push me. They have a slightly different approach with regards to explanations, material worked with, and their personalities. As someone with an attention disorder, I need variety to stop myself getting burnt out. If I was constantly having to use the same material and dealing with the same style I would get quickly burnt out.

Consider how you might want to approach having multiple tutors. It’s about striking a balance between seeing each tutor individually at a frequent enough rate to properly build upon material, as well as ensuring you’re not doing too many lessons each week. You might decide on alternating weeks with each tutor, or spreading each tutor out through the week.

5) What platform do you want to use?

There’s many different platforms for meeting a tutor, such as Tandem, iTalki, Verbling, Preply, etc. It might be worth checking each of these out and seeing what each of the platforms have to offer. A lot of tutors, no matter the platform, would rather conduct the lessons through Skype or something similar. So if you haven’t got one already, it’s a good idea to make a Skype account. 

iTalki is probably the most well known tutoring platform, but it’s worth considering that another platform might be popular with people of your target language. Some platforms also require you to go through a proper vetting process or to have certain qualifications. Whilst this makes the quality of tutors better than those that have zero vetting process, you also have to consider how that might affect cost. 

6) Properly watch their introductory video and read their profile description

Now that you’ve sorted out a lot of the crucial prep, it’s time to actually consider a tutor. Whilst it can be hard to judge personality through video and/or text, it’s worth seeing what they have to say. If they’ve barely put any effort into talking about themselves, then it’s probably best to give them a miss. If they can’t be bothered to even advertise themselves for money, how can you guarantee they’d put the effort in to teach you once they have your cash?

As someone who’s not very good at continuing a conversation, I looked for tutors who seemed like they could fill the awkward pauses. I also considered how clear their audio quality is (not to say it has to be super high quality, but if I can barely hear them then it’s going to be a struggle). If they offer demonstrations of how they teach vocabulary / grammar etc, I consider if their explanations are in a style that I like. As I’m very much a beginner to the language, I need someone that can demonstrate that they can explain concepts in English so I can understand them. Some tutors are aimed at more advanced learners that can comfortably discuss concepts in the target language, or might just be there for some professional speaking practice. 

Check back to your criteria and see if they touch upon the styles that you’re looking for or the styles you want to avoid. They’ll also often list the material that they use, it’s worth considering if this is the kind of material that you like to work with. Some tutors are very workbook or quiz orientated, others like to bring out flashcards. It’s about what works best for you.

7) Look to the reviews, not just the star rating

On sites like iTalki it’s very difficult for a tutor to get below 5 stars. This is because we want to be polite, and we might just rate a lesson 5 stars and move on rather than voice our complaints. While a lot of reviews are just going to be very basic, some of them will touch upon teaching style and materials used. Also look to mentions of personality - e.g. stern, patient, outgoing, well prepared etc. Whilst these are all subjective, it can give you a better idea. Also look to see if students are booking multiple lessons. If most of a tutor’s students are only booking 1 or 2 lessons then it’s likely that they’re not going to be great. You want to see students returning again and again to a tutor as it demonstrates their ability to build upon content and remain a good tutor.

8) Send them a message before booking a lesson

Before booking any trial lesson I sent the tutors I was considering a short message briefly explaining my current level of the language and what I want to get out of it. I mentioned the concerns I had and included that I had never had language lessons outside of school.

I found this a really good way of assessing a tutor, as well as just a polite way to allow them to prepare for the lesson. It was nice when a tutor picked up on specific issues I mentioned, and it was a way of allowing them to talk about the material they’d use to address my specific points of concern. If a tutor just ignored all of that and was just like ‘yes yes whatever book a lesson’, then I didn’t. Tutoring is a job, and people are in it for money, but they also have to be in it out of a genuine interest in helping others. If I didn’t feel like they wanted to help me and just saw me as a future purse to dip into, then I didn’t book a lesson.

This doesn’t always work though. Some tutors seemed to forget by the time the lesson came around what things I had mentioned, and the lesson came across as unprepared. Whilst others referred back to the notes I had sent, and built upon that. It meant that I wasn’t just doing alphabet lessons again and again with tutors, and it gave me a much better assessment of their lessons as a result.

9) Prepare for the lesson 

This can be tricky when it’s just a trial lesson and we’re likely not going to receive any material beforehand from the tutor but there’s ways we can prepare. Look over their tutor profile and through their intro video again, is there anything about them that you want to ask? Is there anything specific that they could help you with that day? Do they expect you to pay for additional material? Do they have a specific course of content, and how many tutoring sessions does it take to complete it?

Some tutors will already know what they want to cover, but some will be open to suggestions. Having questions is also a good way of finding out more about their tutoring without having to commit to further lessons. For example, you could ask them what kind of workbooks they use. Once the trial lesson is over you could have a look at previews of the workbook/s and see if that’s the kind of content you’d enjoy working with. 

10) Sometimes a tutor will look amazing in theory but not in practice

It’s unfortunate, but even with all the research we’ve previously done we can get it wrong. A tutor might seem really outgoing and friendly in their introductory video, and then be lifeless and bored during the lesson. They might be a really nice person and we just don’t click with them or their teaching style. 

This isn’t a reflection on you, and it certainly doesn’t make you a bad student. It also doesn’t mean that they’re an awful tutor, it just means they’re not a right fit for you. This is why it’s so important to experiment with tutors and see which one/s are the right fit for us. Likewise we can have a tutor that we get on great with, but we don’t actually learn much from them. Sometimes this can take a few lessons to really shine through, but when we do notice it then it’s time to move on. 

Don’t beat yourself up, and try and not fret over the lesson. It’s completed now. This person isn’t going to remember you, and you don’t have to do a lesson with them again. Just politely thank them for the lesson and move on. The next person you have a lesson with might be an amazing fit. It’s not all wasted time though, it can give us a better understanding of what styles work for us and what don’t. And just because we don’t click with a tutor, doesn’t mean we don’t learn anything about the language. 

The opposite can be true also! One of the tutors I booked I started having second thoughts about before the lesson. But when the actual lesson happened I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it was definitely one of the best lessons out of the wide range of tutors I tried. What this means is that it can be hard to tell how well we connect with someone until we have a trial lesson with them. It’s not your fault for picking a tutor that you don’t connect with, and it doesn’t mean that all the other tutors are going to be the wrong fit for you also.

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Hopefully this will help make finding a language tutor less stressful. I know for me that doing a lot of research on language tutoring, and on the tutors I enquired with helped me feel a lot less anxious. I personally found it useful to group my different tutoring trials close together, so I didn’t have to worry about weeks and weeks of trials. But for some people that might be overwhelming, and they might find it easier to spread it out over a longer period. 

If you’re like me and struggle with the concept of ‘letting people down’, and feel like you might be pressured into sticking with the first tutor or two that you try then I would recommend setting a specific date which you then invest in a tutor. For me, even though I really liked the first tutor (and he was one of the ones I stuck with) I had upcoming tutors to meet. By having to wait until I tried out the other tutors, I could be confident in that I was picking someone as a result of being a good fit. 

If you’re considering getting a language tutor then I would recommend the platform iTalki. I’ve tried out other platforms such as Preply, but this was the best one for me. It’s the platform I used to meet a wide range of tutors, and it’s through that platform that I found the two tutors I really liked. If you sign up with this link and buy some iTalki credits, then you and I will receive $10 iTalki credits as a free bonus. This could cover the cost of 1 or more lessons! 

[georgetownuniversitypress]

Darcy Lear: What will you take back to the face-to-face language classroom post-pandemic?

Like so many educators who’ve moved first to emergency remote teaching then to something more like online teaching, I have been overwhelmed by the information coming at me. At first, I eagerly attended all the Zoom workshops I could to get over the learning curve. Then I settled into a holding pattern that fit within my comfort zone for the online venue. Now I try limit my time on Zoom to the hours I am teaching or otherwise engaging with students.

Once the clutter and confusion cleared a bit, I was able to start to look ahead toward a return to face-to-face teaching. And what I’ve realized is that emergency remote teaching reminds me of some of the most important basics of language education—things I want to take back to the in-person classroom as soon as that is possible.

Here are a few of the things I am doing now that I want to keep doing post-pandemic:

1.     Keep it simple—technology edition

Just because you can doesn't mean you should. And just because a technology exists, doesn't mean you should incorporate it into your classes—especially during forced online teaching due to a pandemic.  

I have necessarily added the online teaching platform used by my campus: Zoom. Otherwise, students and I are using the same tech we've always used—the campus online learning system and the publisher's online textbook and workbook materials.  I know Flipgrid and Flippity and Padlet and Panopto and Quizlet and twelve different recording and transcribing options exist. I believe that some are great pedagogical tools and have true potential in the language classroom. But not now. There have been enough learning curves during the pandemic.

Takeaway Don't use bells and whistles gratuitously. Identify your problem first, then solve it using technology if and only if it meets your needs.

2.     Keep it simple—curriculum edition 

Simplify, simplify, simplify. Are high-stakes tests feasible in the new venue? Do I really need 8-10 course components? Are my own pedagogical materials consistent across different documents and platforms? 

The first two questions were a pleasure to address when we were first forced online in spring 2020: high-stakes chapter tests and the final exam were eliminated and replaced by low-stakes daily online quizzes (this is stuff we've known is better for a long, long time). These were 5-10 item assessments closely tied to content covered in that day's class. I told students, "If you can't complete those quizzes without resources, that's a red flag for you. Did you miss class and so it makes sense that it was hard? Do you need to brush up on a grammar point? Do you need to meet with me outside of online class? Did you forget to do the online homework (from which some quiz items are copied and pasted)?" This is what assessment is for—to measure student progress and see if they are ready to move on.

In the meantime, students’ course-long blogs and research projects formed the kind of project-based portfolio assessment we also have known for a long, long time is a better way to assess student learning than a lot of our old-school achievement tests (the kinds of tests people are fretting over how to administer securely online while ‘monitoring cheating’).

I folded some course components, such as recorded TalkAbroad conversations, into students’ portfolio projects so that students reported on them within the regular blog posts they were doing instead of in separate assignments.  

By the time the spring 2020 course started, there were three major course components: textbook content, an online blog, and a research project. There were a total of 5 grading categories: daily quizzes, daily blog posts, in-class mini-presentations, a course-long research project, and a final presentation of the research project.

A single thread ran through the entire course so that the work to prepare for class led smoothly into the synchronous class period, which was followed by homework and assessments that reviewed all the content before repeating the cycle. Even though this is how it’s supposed to always work, it felt more focused and streamlined than any face-to-face course I've taught in recent memory.

In cleaning up my pedagogical materials, I developed a kind of check list: Do I even need to keep this content? Is there a way to fold this material into something else (portfolio assessments, online quizzes)? Do I use the names I have for assignments consistently? Do they make sense? Why were assignments described as "personal readings" in course documents and grade book columns years after they'd become "blog entries" in practice? Ditto for "documents 1-5" that were really "research project" components. Getting ready to engage in emergency remote teaching forced me to revisit a lot of content that worked inside my own head but didn't make a lot of sense to anyone else, something I know is an issue when designing pedagogical materials, writing instructions, writing academic articles—you name it!

Takeaway Can I simplify logistics for students? Can the various bits and pieces be streamlined so it makes more sense to students and flows better for all of us?

3.     Keep it simple—classroom edition

As the teacher, do most of your work outside of class. With emergency remote teaching, most of my time was dedicated to planning before class, then grading and meeting with students after. In the online class sessions, I mostly just set up activities for students then hang out and listen to them interact. Occasionally, I interrupt to correct or explain, but mostly I wait for students to self-correct or reach out to me for clarification. I’ve noticed a lot more self-correction when I gave students the time and space to do it—well, Zoom did that for me.  

This experience has reminded me of the kind of planning and preparing required of a novice teacher.  I set up my lesson plan, re-visit it after a day or so, then run through it before class starts to make sure I have everything ready to go on my laptop: 

Is the ebook opened to the first page I'll     reference? 

Do students have the link to the Google doc I'll     ask them to use? 

Do I have the PDF opened and ready to click     on? 

Is the PowerPoint presentation launched?

Do I know when I'm going to use breakout rooms     and how many I will need?

At the beginning of each class, I share my screen to show students the lesson plan and run through the major topics as well as assignments that are due soon. It begs the question: why haven’t I been sharing my lesson plans with students all along?

Getting everything set up seems to take more time and energy than the Zoom session itself, but in the Zoom session I also shed the novice teacher and settle into the role of experienced teacher.  

As soon as a Zoom class ends, I go back into planning mode—I post the day's lesson plan and homework online for students to reference, then I prepare the first draft of the next session's lesson plan.  Before I polish the next plan, I spend a lot of time grading—reading/watching students' work, making individual comments on it, and checking their progress with online activities and assessments. In the process, I make sure the homework and quizzes align well with the class sessions (something I haven't dedicated enough time to in face-to-face teaching over the past decade or so). 

Takeaway Be transparent with students. Make most of your work happen in the prep and follow-up so class time can focus on smooth student activities.

4.     Let students learn by doing: Be the guide on the side, not the sage on the stage

Zoom is a horrible venue for "teacher at the front of class soliciting responses from individual students"—but so is a classroom if your goal is for students to build communicative competence in the language. But in classrooms it's very easy to fall into old-school patterns of the teacher doing too much of the talking. Online teaching—where everyone is disembodied and there are awkward pauses combined with people talking over each other—forces me to abandon any remnants of the Atlas complex. If I'm talking on Zoom it's very obvious I'm delivering a lecture or a teacher presentation.

I do talk to the whole group at the beginning and end of each Zoom session, with some teacher-like explanations peppered throughout the entire course. But most of the time spent on Zoom has been students in breakout rooms interacting with each other in Spanish—sometimes discussing textbook content in groups, sometimes preparing brief presentations to give to the whole class, sometimes with student discussion leaders who are formally assessed on their performance. I pop in but try to leave myself on mute.  

Takeaway Find a way to put myself "on mute."

5.     Be flexible and go easy on yourself and others 

Right now we’re in a pandemic, but in "normal times" there are always some individuals who are navigating crises. We don't need to know the details, but we can make interactions with us easier instead of harder—extend deadlines, take late work, allow students to make up tests, and be understanding when they have to miss class. 

Takeaway Nobody needs a punitive work or learning environment—ever. Be flexible. Go easy on yourself and others.

Darcy Lear has a PhD in Foreign and Second Language Education from the Ohio State University and teaches Spanish at the University of Chicago. She regularly gives presentations on teaching strategies to departments around the country and has developed languages for special purposes courses at several institutions. Lear is also a career coach, helping people to position themselves to use their language skills in rewarding careers. She is the author of Integrating Career Preparation into Language Courses.

[janevillanueva]

jane & rafael: telenovela loves & true love interests.

disclaimer: this post/essay will discuss michael, but it’s not meant to open the door to anger or discourse. he’s just part of the story. this is not an anti-anything post and he will not be tagged, neither will the ship. if you are gonna argue, please don’t. this is meant to be a civil post. thank you! ♡

jane the virgin is a cw show based on the 2002 venezuelan telenovela juana la virgen. while some factors are altered for american television, jtv carries the same key elements as it’s telenovela counterpart and for all intents and purposes is a telenovela. under the cut i’m gonna get into what that means and how/why it shapes the show and jane’s love story. this is long so apologies if you’re on mobile.

a common misconception among non-latinos is that a telenovela is simply a soap opera in spanish. while the two share similarities a telenovela is a condensed story told over the course of about nine months. it is usually a story of rivaling families and/or a love story in the vein of cinderella or pride and prejudice. a telenovela has to be a balancing act. it has to be unpredictable and ridiculous, but have a soft landing at the end. it throws endless drama and twists at you, but the ending is always fundamentally the same. you know the story - and that is not a bad thing.

because of this, if you are familiar with telenovelas, you immediately know that jtv is jane and rafael’s story. jane and rafael’s relationship being messy is what makes them the main couple. telenovela couples are a disaster, and we love them for it. we eat up their forbidden romance, their fights in the rain, their longing. now, with that comes a lot of “problematic” and “toxic” behavior. it’s a staple. there are age differences, power imbalances, fights, potential incest, MURDER. you name it, there is a telenovela plot. if you look at it from a telenovela pov jane and rafael are actually pretty tame. but they still are a telenovela couple. and some of those trademark things are part of their story because they are an ode to the genre. and the drama is their driving force.

for me, being team rafael was never about who the better man was or who “deserved” jane. it was “this is a telenovela and this is their story.” rooting for them was about the culture i know and hoping the show would respect that and the source material. it was “THIS IS THE STORY.”

what i love, however, is how they also challenge what that means. yes, they fight. jane is judgmental of other people and rafael shuts off emotionally. they scream at each other. they do all of that. and it turns some people off. but what they also do is is talk. they communicate.

think about early s4, probably the worst raf has ever been. he fucks up big time. but it’s a learning experience for him. the show does not excuse him. he gets hit by a car, he sits with jane on the floor and acknowledges that he fucked up. he cries to her, with her and realizes he has to do things differently. and this is just one example. later that season he reads jane’s writing and finds she wrote about michael, he feels shitty - but in the end they talk, he apologizes and gets her a private writing space. every fuck up, every choice, is something that brings jane and rafael closer and makes them change toward becoming right for each other. i have no doubt they were in love in season one, but they weren’t right for each other yet. 

this is where jane and michael come in.

i say this with no malice: michael was a false romantic lead. he was a plot device. i always knew this. it sounds mean, but i don’t mean it to. it’s just a fact. that isn’t to say people who ship them are invalid, but in no way were they ever cheated or lied to by the writers. they just misunderstood the story.

the very crux of the jtv love triangle is being practical and safe vs. following your heart and being brave. i’m not going to deny jane loved michael, just like i’m not gonna deny she loved adam. love often comes many times and teaches us things every time. but a lot of jane’s love for michael came from having a plan and it being simple. from what xo and alba wanted for her, not what she wanted for herself. it fit in a binder. with michael she had settled into the idea of being a teacher, which was not her dream, and by age 23 (a baby!) she was looking forward to marriage.

(sidenote: lbr, she wanted to have sex. from a narrative pov jane marries michael so early in the show so she can have sex in future seasons while still keeping the traditional telenovela wedding series finale. it’s a bridge and a way to extend the long journey to her finding her way to rafael again.)

none of this is to say a simple life is a bad life. but we know that in jane’s heart that is not, and never has been, the life she truly wants. she loves telenovelas because she loves the idea that two people are meant to be together, she loves romance novels and she loves writing. jane plays it safe because she has the catholic mindset drilled into her by alba, and has tried not to repeat xo’s mistakes. her life is about caution, but that isn’t what her heart wants. she has big dreams. but no one who pushes her outside of her comfort zone to follow those dreams, or even simply acknowledges her as a writer. until rafael. 

and rafael is not michael. they are very, very different relationships. raf is not simple. he is a complex character and a flawed one as well. he is a telenovela lead. “i’m your romantic hero. i may be flawed, but i’m yours.” in season one jane and rafael love each other magnetically. they love each other because of their destiny. and at that time, it’s not enough. they BOTH have to change. rafael more so, of course. but even rafael being the one who changes his reality to have a life with jane is foreshadowed in season one with alba’s story about grandpa mateo giving up his money to be with her. when you look at it from a telenovela lens, it’s wonderful to see rafael go from someone who is drowning in money and doesn’t know how to ride a bus, to someone who takes a real estate job and a one bedroom apartment to support jane’s dream because he WANTS to. because that’s who he has become. does he have selfish moments? yes. but everyone does. everyone on the show fucks up and is shady because that is the dna of the show.

but rafael is a character who is ironically overlooked by parts of the fandom because of his looks and how it’s “all we like about him,” when his looks aren’t what make him interesting. to understand rafael, you have to pay attention to his entire arc, not just parts of it. he’s someone who has carried trauma and abandonment issues since he was a child. his mother left him and his dad treated him like garbage. he fundamentally believes everyone will leave him. and as much as we adore her now, petra was his wife and cheated on him - after they lost a child. and he had cancer.

rafael has known loss and that shapes his behavior. it’s why he makes the mistake of pushing jane away end of season one. and it’s also why he holds on so tightly to the hotel. because for the longest time it was the one thing that was his. and the idea that he could lose that too drives him crazy. because what else does he have? that doesn’t make it okay, but it makes it understandable. and i think so much hostility for rafael/jafael comes from misunderstanding.

on the other hand, michael is probably the main character we know the least about. outside of being jane’s love interest we know basically nothing about him. we meet his family briefly and in passing. who is he outside of the context of jane? what was his childhood, what are his own issues? we never see them. the most he changes is in montana, off screen. this isn’t to talk shit, it’s to point out that he was never the true love interest.

when michael “died,” i knew there was no way in hell he was actually dead. it’s the oldest trick in the telenovela book. michael’s death was to bring jane back to rafael. but it’s important to remember that she doesn’t run right back to raf, and he doesn’t expect her to. jane mourns, she grieves, and dates around while rafael undergoes his own journey and growth. michael’s false death taught jane that life is unpredictable and can’t always be planned for. it’s only after years that she and rafael fall back in love. and those years of growth allow for them to become friends first and foremost. friendship is the most important aspect of a relationship and what they were missing season one. they really KNOW each other, which was the argument michael had before. that they didn’t know each other.

rafael is not the same person at the end of the show as he was in the beginning. we see that change happen. we know his family, his past, his issues. and that doesn’t mean he doesn’t backslide sometimes because of the fact that. 1. recovery and healing is not linear. and 2. again, telenovelas thrive on drama. but his core values have changed drastically to match jane’s. at the end of s5 they are at a place they can openly discuss their problems before they become bigger and we know they will have a life filled with joy.

jane and rafael’s romance is all interconnected. season two and five in particular. season five people thought rafael was being unfair, and perhaps he was a bit. but him shutting himself off isn’t just because michael came back. after all, he brought him back. it’s because michael came back, jane assured him nothing changed and then things… started to change. (and i don’t fault jane for having to explore.) he sees what happened in season two start to happen all over again and he’s scared. he doesn’t shut himself off to hurt jane, he does it to save himself and his mental health. he is, quite literally, triggered. because he’s mentally ill. and while they could have done it better, the show does address it. which would never happen on a telenovela.  where a original telenovela lead would say, “leave michael or i’ll just fucking die without you.” rafael says, “leave me so i can survive you choosing him again.” no one should feel like a second choice and it isn’t inherently selfish for him to put his mental health first. the fact is this: people contain multitudes. rafael did help jane through her grief, that doesn’t go away. but when circumstances change, they change.

after jane married michael rafael felt like a second choice. but i think he was always her first choice. if he hadn’t ended things in season one, things would be different. but he did. and she went back to what was easy, and chose to try to act like her old life hadn’t been changed. but it had. even if michael hadn’t died she still would have found her way back to raf. and if rafael hadn’t taken her back, she wouldn’t have gone back to michael. that doesn’t mean marrying michael was the WRONG choice at the time, but it’s not her choice anymore. michael coming back had to happen because it let jane have full authority over her choice and let her choice have meaning. jane had practical before and CHOSE to be brave. she grieved and moved on to find happiness again. she saw the life she wants to have and wants to have it with rafael because he has become her best friend and person that knows her reality best for four years.

i spent a lot of years thinking about what the petals falling mean. obviously, they were foreshadowing a wedding. their wedding song is “una flor” by juanes. but more so, flowers bloom naturally in miami, while snow had to be manufactured. jane and rafael are also centered around water. water symbolizes fertility,  freedom, change and rebirth. 

jafael is about them seeing each other, and loving each other. even the bad parts and even through the hard times. it was about them coming to KNOW and love each other and help each other be the best and fullest versions of themselves. it was about them finding even ground after the long struggle for it and finally finding commitment and compromise between two very different and stubborn people who were destined to be together but chose that destiny as one they want to live and make it a reality. in the end they are soulmates, lovers and friends.

what i’m saying is that you don’t have to like jane and rafael. but i wish there was more respect for the fact that their relationship is tied to a long and well loved culture. and they themselves are an ode to a very well loved relationship in an already existing telenovela. jtv is a retelling/remake. them ending up together and their journey getting there was made for a latino audience first and foremost, who (mostly) would know and understand the story in it’s messy glory. jtv is jane and rafael’s story, told by their son, with symbolism and foreshadowing the ENTIRE show. it is layered, and the opposite of “superficial.”

tdlr: they honor the telenovela couple by being messy, but they challenge them by always lovingly cleaning up that mess afterwards. and i love that. there’s nothing wrong with loving that.

[sophiejoedwards]

Reflections

February-March 2020 

After being given our module brief I wasn’t quite sure where to begin, my first instinct is to make, create, explore and experiment with materials to discover my 3D outcomes and context often corresponds to the work retrospectively, however I had to change this way of thinking, and bring myself out of this comfort zone. I started asking myself questions about artwork in general. What am I interested in? What do I want to know more about? 

One of the best galleries we visited in Lisbon has stuck in my mind. For days of looking in galleries I was repeatedly thinking how within a gallery space it’s sometimes difficult for me to connect to intangible art in this sort of setting, there is a separation between you and the artwork. Installations are different, due to the sensory nature of some installations, I feel like it’s sometimes easier to connect to this sort of art.  I often find interactive and playful art more engaging as it removes this distance between the viewer and the artwork and is easier to connect with due to it often having a multi sensory appeal. One of the best galleries we visited in Lisbon (in my opinion) was Modo De Uso. You are handed a playful ‘handbook’ guide to each artwork where Claire de Santa Coloma has written a suggestion guide to how to approach and respond to the artwork with her drawings used as reference “If you made it this far, thank you. The artist is now responsible for your level of satisfaction”. Rather than being a passive onlooker the artist encourages you to connect to the artwork discovering it’s sensory appeal. As humans we like to look at art because it simultaneously affects our senses, our thoughts, and our emotions and ___’s encouragement to embrace the sensory-tactile element of his artwork certainly heightened the overall experience for me and my friends. I’m also intrigued by the ability of this installation to be able to transmit the same message to diverse groups of people through the tangibility of the work. 

To better understand my personal position my research has begun by asking general straightforward questions like  :  

Why do we appreciate art? Where does this appreciation come from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/beastly-behavior/201709/why-do-humans-make-art

Is art about beauty? - Connection to the natural world/ connection of a visual stimulus with an inner emotional state - argued that this comes from evolution- and the attraction . 

Appreciation also comes from knowledge and experience that is common between the artist and the audience. Art capitalizes on specific stored memories and associations in the brain of the observer. Further still, the ability to make and use tools, a skill that began in apes and exploded in hominids, requires a great deal of visual and tactile memory. 

Art induces visual recall of past events or emotions - Art capitalizes on specific stored memories and associations in the brain of the observer. Visual memory was important to survival 

Visual representations and expression - memories, life, culture

Art aids in communication and education - evolutionary visual aids - a language of their own 

Some scientists have suggested that art helps us to bond as groups; and that the brain is programmed to notice and enjoy simple patterns PATTERN RECOGNITION. The human brain is constantly looking for familiar patterns, to impose meaning on a complex world. 

Where does this leave contemporary or abstract art? Ability to use visual representations to induce memory recall or visual understanding.

Art invites us to contemplate outside the box, and explore and better understand ideas we weren’t conscious of before? (Salvador Dali) to i.e through depicting bizarre worlds, subconscious states/ unreal and illusory depictions.

: In developing his general theory about how humans decide what they like or dislike, he lines up evidence to show that what people believe about a work of art is crucial to the way they feel about it.  

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/jun/20/modern-art-all-in-mind 

The value of art !?  "Traditional art is about what is in the world; more modern works are about the very process of representation," he writes. "An appreciation of much of modern art therefore requires specific expertise. Any dope can marvel at a Rembrandt, but only an elite few can make any sense of a work such as Sherrie Levine's Fountain (After Marcel Duchamp), and so only an elite few are going to enjoy it."

According to Bloom, someone who invests heavily in abstract art and explains that they simply love the shapes and colours is only telling half the story. He believes that the psychological patterns described in "signalling theory" apply to the purchase of modern art. In other words, a rich man or woman tries to distinguish themselves from the pack by spending money on the right thing. "Any schmoe can buy, and appreciate, a pretty painting, while spending millions of dollars on abstract art might display a combination of wealth and discernment," writes Bloom.

I also fully expect that artistic talent would have eventually been transferred from our culture to our genes. After all, during a million or two years of natural selection, artistic ability was likely to confer some advantage on those that had it. This advantage could have come in the form of increased social standing as a leader in the hunt, a prolific teacher of skills, and so on. 

Does appreciation of art- or an artistic eye run in genes ? 

https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2013/sep/19/born-creative-study-brain-hemingway

In highly creative individuals this connectivity is thought to be especially widespread in the brain, which may be down to genes that play a role in the development of pathways between different areas. These genes reduce inhibition of emotions and memory, meaning that more information reaches the level of consciousness.

So, are we born creative or not? While factors such as upbringing play a crucial role in your brain's development, the work done by scientists in Scandinavia, Germany and the US has shown that having the right genetic makeup can make your brain more inclined towards creative thinking. The rest of us have to "learn" to be creative.

Context is key - One study showed that people liked paintings less if they thought they were made by a computer rather than a human artist, even when the pictures were actually identical. 

How our brains process visual information is not the only factor to consider.

Scientific studies indicate that we derive more or less pleasure depending on what we know about the subject. This applies to our enjoyment of, for example, food and drink as well as art. - So when we identify and understand a piece of art we connect to it better 

STIMULATING SENSES

https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/how-do-we-understand-abstract-art/zhkvxyc

think of a project and an idea for the theory and context as opposed to a 3D outcome, my initial urges are to create, make and explore materials and see what comes of this, instead I began by asking myself some questions about the artworks that interest me, specifically the type of artwork. Firstly I wanted to create a series of videos using this little plastic toy children’s pottery wheel to throw functional pots in unusual places, like the underground or on the top of a mountain. I liked the idea of a playful performance piece then began thinking about participatory artwork and how members of the public could take part in this piece.  I also liked the idea of filming in the wilderness, responding to ‘site and place’ by throwing vessels using clay collected from a specific place, filming this vessel being created in this specific place, drawing attention to this direct connectivity between the land and the artwork and the maker.  (in a dream land I also imagined it being wood fired at this location and eating food from this  vessel that was gathered/found/ foraged. To go full cycle.                                                                 

Playful nature of Bruce Mclean 

“Art has become very serious, I think it should be something more enjoyable” 

https://olafureliasson.net/archive/artwork/WEK108821/moon

https://library.bathspa.ac.uk/items/eds/edsglr/edsgcl.499406627?query=participatory+art&resultsUri=items%3Fquery%3Dparticipatory%2Bart%26checkbox%3Deverything%26facet%255B0%255D%3DEdsRecordOptions%253A%2522IsFullText%2522%26target%3Deds&facet%5B0%5D=EdsRecordOptions%3A%22IsFullText%22&target=eds

http://www.moonmoonmoonmoon.com/#sphere

https://www.dawsonera.com/readonline/9781137033642

A group of people to be directly engaged in a creative process 

Inspiration | exchange |unknown outcome

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/participatory-art

https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=STND&u=bsuc&id=GALE%7CA544635325&v=2.1&it=r&sid=ebsco JEREMY DELLER 

http://innovacion-soci.webs.upv.es/index.php/social-cartography

[bakjacconsulting-blog]

Step Outside Your Comfort Zone To Achieve Big.

We all know the old saying, “life begins at the end of your comfort zone”. But how many of us actually live with this mantra at the forefront of our mind. We often think of challenges as scary things. So how can we actually do a bit of a recalibration and consider the “fun” side of a challenge and the opportunity for growth that this can entail. If we are going to develop our mental toughness, then we need to recognise that we need to consider challenges as an opportunity rather than as a threat. As a mum with two sons who are obsessed with gaming, I was interested to read this fantastic post by Benjamin Harvey, “How to Gamify Your Life to Quickly Accomplish Big Goals”. Ben makes some fantastic points about how we can step outside our comfort zone and view challenges as opportunities. Take it away Ben:

Is your life a video game, filled with challenging quests and new adventures?

Or has your life become somewhat stale?

As most people get older, they lose their childhood sense of wonderment and openness. Most people stop growing and settle for “reality” as they see it.

But life doesn’t have to suck. Growth doesn’t have to be slow.

Your life can become like a game where you pursue greater obstacles, learn new skills, and have thrilling experiences.

This article details a few strategies you can use to gamify your life. If you apply these strategies, you will quickly ascend to higher and higher levels. You’ll continually become better and enjoy more of life.

Compete with Those Way Ahead of You

“It is the most closely-allied forms, varieties of the same species, and species of the same genus or of related genera, which, from having nearly the same structure, constitution, and habits, generally come into the severest competition with each other.” — Charles Darwin

What Darwin is explaining is that all forms of life compete with those most closely related. In other words, you compete with those most similar to you.

It would make little sense for a painter to compete with a rock-climber. Rather, a rock-climber advances her skills by competing with other rock-climbers, generally of a similar skill-level.

In business terms, you compete with those in the same industry. And within that industry, the little guys (and gals) generally compete with the other little guys, while the big guys compete with the other big guys.

Although this is the most obvious and wide-spread form of competition, it is misplaced for those seeking rapid growth for two reasons:

1. Competing with those at your same level yields slow and minimal improvements.

You’re better off “competing” with people far advanced than your current level. In his book, The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance, Josh Waitzkin shares how he applied this principle to become world-class at Tai Chi.

When given unsupervised practice time, Waizkin observed that most others in his Tai Chi class would naturally practice with those at their same skill-level or slightly worse. This was done in many ways out of ego, because who wants to lose? It’s more fun to beat someone when given the opportunity.

Waitzkin took the opposite approach, and applied a principle he termed, “investing in failure.” He would purposefully practice with people far more skilled than he was. In so doing, he would get the crap kicked-out of him, over and over. However, this process compressed and quickened Waitzkin’s skill development. He could experience first-hand the abilities of those often years ahead of him. The mirror neurons in his brain allowed him to quickly mimic, match, and counter his superior competitors. Thus, he progressed much faster than others in his class.

This is the essence of baseball players swinging multiple bats before going at-bat. When just one bat is in their hand, it feels much lighter. Similarly, endurance athletes train in higher elevations and harder terrains than the actual race, so that when the actual race occurs, they’re over-prepared.

Take away: Rather than “competing,” with people at your perceived skill-level, compete with those who are where you want to be. Herein lies a fundamental decision-making difference between those who become successful and those who don’t. Unsuccessful people make decisions based on current circumstances while successful people make decisions based on where they desire to be.

2. The Best Only Compete with Themselves

In the book, Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization, Dave Logan and his co-authors explain that most “organizational cultures” have high within competition.

Put simply, in most organizations, the people within those organizations are competing with each other. There is back-stabbing, sucking-up, etc. to ascend the organization’s ladder. In these organizations, each person is out for themselves. They are more focused on their own goals than the organization’s goals. Logan calls these “Stage 3” organizational cultures.

Far fewer organizations evolve beyond this ego-mania and develop a culture of “collaboration” within and competition without. Put simply, members within these organizations are fiercely committed to their organization and have made the organization’s goals their own goals. Logan calls these “Stage 4” organizational cultures.

Within these organizations, there is beautiful synergy. Rather than competing with their teammates, they are competing with other organizations. According to Logan’s research, organizations with Stage 4 cultures generally dominate organizations with Stage 3 cultures.

Very rarely, an organization will transcend competition altogether, reflecting what Logan calls “Stage 5” organizational culture. These are groups of people who are doing things no one else is doing. In many ways, they’ve created their own genre or niche. Their only competition is themselves, and wherever their imagination takes them.

Take away: Collaboration will yield far greater results than competition. Said bestselling author Jeff Goins, “It’s not who you know. It’s who you help.” Eventually, get to the point where you move beyond competition with others in order to create your most innovative and unique work.

Get Multiple Mentors and Engage in Time-Based Challenges

Mentorship is essential to growth and development. You should have several different mentors to help you in your various needs/goals.

A quality mentor will give you experiential learning experiences and assignments. For example, I have a writing-coach who helps me target my Achilles heals, and to improve upon them. He does this in the form of “time-based challenges.” The popular term for these challenges is deliberate practice.

Most recently, he gave me four hours to complete a challenging assignment. I had to respond to various questions he had for me. Also, within the challenge, he’d focus on my weaknesses by telling me I must avoid certain things I often do, like repeat the same word over and over.

Within a challenge, there are purposeful constraints. These constraints create conditions that force you into a flow-state. The primary constraint is the time-limit. The other constraints are dependent on your particular goals/needs.

These challenges can have whatever time-range you want. For example, with one of my mentors, my challenge was to develop a highly professional book proposal. The duration of this challenge was three months, and during those three months I was able to jump on the phone with my mentor three times to get feedback. I’d never written a book proposal. My mentor had written several, and within the challenges he gave me, I learned in three months much of what took him years to learn.

In her book, Super Better: The Power of Living Gamefully, Jane McGonigal PhD explains the importance of targeting a single, difficult goal. Accordingly, within these “challenges,” there should only be one primary objective.

According to self-determination theory, by focusing on and improving one thing, the other areas of your life will naturally improve as well. From a systems approach, when you improve one area of a system, you simultaneously improve the whole.

You can also give yourself challenges, and for whatever you want to improve. For example, if you want to become a better parent, you could give yourself a 30-day challenge to give your kids thoughtful compliments daily. Track your progress. Note, these challenges work best if you actually report your progress to someone beside yourself.

Get Paid to Learn by Teaching Others what You Know

“While we teach, we learn.” — Seneca

In Orson Scott Card’s novel, Ender’s Game, the character Ender is a young boy who is being trained to become a military leader. To improve and quicken his learning, Ender takes what he learns from his leaders and immediately teaches those below him.

According to a pair of articles published in 2007 in the journals Science��and Intelligence, students who teach what they learn to younger students work harder to understand the material, recall it more accurately, and apply it more effectively. This method has been dubbed “the protégé effect,” and the research is clear: student teachers score higher on tests than students who are learning only for their own sake.

Teaching is the best way to learn. What’s more, you can actually get paid to teach others what you know. I remember when I started consulting startup founders and high-level management. At first, I wondered what the heck I was doing.

Why would people pay me for this information?

But more and more people wanted the services I offered. Thus, I was getting paid to teach people (most of which were far more successful than I am). Although I’m sure my services were helpful, I was always the primary beneficiary, and I’m not talking about financially. Rather, because I was teaching startup founders how to be more productive and strategic, I was also learning these things — both in my preparation and in adapting my learning to each of my client’s unique situations/needs.

In public/conventional education, you pay to learn. A more effective education-system is where the student becomes the teacher, and gets paid to learn as they teach.

Take away: If you want to learn faster, immediately teach others what you’re learning. This will force you to tweak and adapt your learning for unique contexts. Thus, your knowledge will be more flexible and well-rounded. Also, it doesn’t hurt to simultaneously make money.

Make Big Changes Every Few Years

“Every next level of your life will demand a different you.” — Leonardo Dicaprio

In video games, it would be boring if each successive level was the same as those previous. Which is why there are totally different worlds your character can go to as they advance.

Similarly, making big changes is the best way to re-invent yourself, which doesn’t mean you become an entirely new person. Rather, it means you consciously decide who you want to be and change accordingly. Also, an over-attachment to your past and to your previous-self will halt your evolution.

If you don’t make big changes every once in a while, your life will get static and sterile. You’ll over-adapt to your current circumstances and stop growing. You’ll get too comfortable.

Taking on big change shatters the system of your life. I once talked to a lady with 17 kids. After having eight of her own, her husband and her adopted a sibling group of five! Four years after that, they adopted a sibling group of four!

She told me that every time they introduced a change to their family system, the previous system shattered. When you bring four or five new people into your family (even one), every person within the family develops a new identity. It generally takes 2–3 years for homeostasis to occur within a system after a big shock.

These kinds of systematic shocks to your life may seem freaky, or even unwanted. But they keep you growing. And eventually, you’ll adapt to the changes you introduce into your life, no matter how extreme. If you want to keep leveling-up and growing, you’ll want to introduce change when you start getting comfortable.

This is how you consciously grow. Indeed, change is inevitable. Most people slowly and unconsciously change overtime. For the most part, these changes aren’t improvements. Unlike change, which you can’t avoid, growth is optional, and is often avoided. However, the research is clear: we are happiest when we are improving.

When my wife and I became foster parents of a sibling group of three, the change was extremely difficult. Sometimes, it was too much to handle. But it’s been two years now, and for the most part, we’ve reached a state of homeostasis. Looks like it’s time to make another big change…

Conclusion

Your life can become a game where growth is fun.

A game without challenge would be boring. Similarly, your life will be boring and stale if you’re not taking on greater and greater challenges. These challenges should be time-bound, and should expose your weaknesses and facilitate your strengths. Moreover, these challenges should clearly lead to your goals, which should progressively be getting bigger and better.

Lastly, a game would be lame if it wasn’t fun and exciting. Thus, there should be large portions of your life spent exploring and experimenting. Trying new things. Taking new risks. Having your worldview expanded. Meeting new people. Ever-evolving.

Enjoy this game of life. Take yourself to the next level. The further you go, the more magical, difficult, and satisfying your life will be.

Want to know more about developing your mental toughness and stepping outside your comfort zone? Send me an email at michelle@bakjacconsulting.com to enquire about coaching and training.

Michelle Bakjac is an experienced Psychologist, Wellbeing Strategist, Leadership and Wellbeing Coach, Speaker and Facilitator. As Director of Bakjac Consulting, she is a credentialed Coach with the International Coach Federation (ICF) and a member of Mental Toughness Partners and an MTQ48 accredited Mental Toughness Practitioner.  Michelle assists individuals and organisations to develop their Mental Toughness to improve performance, leadership, behaviour and wellbeing.  You can find her at www.bakjacconsulting.com or michelle@bakjacconsulting.com

[onlineteachercertification-blog]

Importance of Online Teacher Certification Course

Isn't it so that teachers always play an important role in our life. We always turn out to be what are teachers make us. If we remember our teachers have always invested all their time and energy in grooming and shaping us for our better future. It is quite easy to say that I want to be a teacher but is a pain taking profession. A good teacher is responsible for creating the best out of a person and also on the other hand an irresponsible teacher is equally responsible for turning a child into a criminal.  A child spends more of his time at school in comparison to home so it's mainly a teacher who teaches a child about the outside world and introduces him to the virtues and vices in the outside world.

How to Become a Teacher?

We all also at times of being like our favorite teacher we often act like him/her. But where we face a problem is How to Become a Teacher? Many times we are not aware of the fact that what is the path to follow in order to become a teacher. In such case online teaching courses help a lot. The best part about studying the online course is that they are cost efficient and the students do not have to spend a great sum of money on such courses. Making it further comfortable for the students the online course does not make any time boundations and the students can study this course at any point of time according to their comfort zone.

What are the Types of Online Certification Course?

This Online Teacher Certification is basically available in two classifications based on the study material

Standard Program:

The standard program is the basic program that is provided to the students. This course does not provide for a detailed information to the students. The information available within this course is just the basic information.

Premium Program:

The premium program on the other hand provides for a detailed study material for the students that would also help them in better understanding of the concepts.

[thebaileynina]

Online Learning.

The year 2020 has cast a dark shadow over the country’s entire education system and left the fate of millions of students on the line. What we all thought was a pandemic phase to go through until better days come are turning into more difficult times now. During the winters there was a short break which allowed for offline exams. After the second growing wave of the pandemic, COVID-19 cases reached record levels across the country, schools and colleges were once again closed. The students are now at home with their cell phones, laptops and computers. After a year of trial and error, reforms and innovative e-learning experiences have been carried out for students and teachers. This year it looks better with 4G speed which can guarantee better learning quality. Online education, already the norm in many countries around the world, offers immense potential for the overall growth of students.

The Covid-19 pandemic has helped teachers familiarize themselves with e-learning techniques. However, in the modern world of technology, teachers need to know more about technology for students to maximize their learning. I have been connected with academics and tech experts for over 2.5 decades. In my experience, the best and easiest way to teach online is to conduct synchronous live lessons using a whiteboard or presentation and share those conferences in the WhatsApp group. This is because we have infrastructure problems in our institutions. Live lectures are not that different from offline lectures and students can ask questions to satisfy themselves. A 15 minute video conference in MP4 format is converted to just 20MB, which can be further reduced by using online video compressors. I don’t support teachers who share notes or other pre-prepared material in the Google classroom and drop a few lines for students who expect them to read it and throw up again. You should design short lectures of 10 to 15 minutes and students should write down the key points for study later. In addition to the regular online courses, there are high quality lectures and other material that a student can use on the internet that in my opinion are far superior to the electronic content we are talking about. Taking online courses is serious business and it is the responsibility of teachers to ensure that the majority of students take these courses. Every natural calamity has always struck those most in need and Covid-19 is no exception. We simply forget the invisible: the poor and the marginalized. While interacting with students over the past few months, many of them have asked me how we can take online classes if we don’t allow ourselves to have cell phones. In fact, there are a large number of less well-known disadvantaged students in our school system. This inaccessibility of digital infrastructure and the loss of academic learning worsen the learning gap. Even viewing online courses as an emergency measure and claiming that ‘something is better than nothing’ when it violates the principle of equal opportunity will place a large proportion of students at a greater disadvantage. Students from disadvantaged families who do not have access to technology to study online may drop out of school, violating the fundamental right to education. At the institutional level, state-level mechanisms will be put in place through government agencies, NGOs, civil society, etc., and devices such as cell phones will be available for those who cannot pay them through donations, grants and other programs. Setting up a board-based communication link as a TV channel for online courses only would be a more practical idea to help these disadvantaged students on a large scale. While online education is helpful in situations like the pandemic, it does not provide a healthy educational experience. Education is not just about providing information or content to students through screens and all tests and grades. It is a holistic experience to grow up in a system of camaraderie and learn things that the virtual medium cannot offer. An old African proverb “It takes a village to raise a child” shows the importance of social and community interaction for a child’s growth. The assimilation of technology to the system has revolutionized education around the world. To cope with a situation like the pandemic, full online education needs massive, ubiquitous and revolutionary infrastructure development, including changing the hearts, souls and minds of students and teachers. It is also time for us to talk about resuming studies in our facilities by making campus safe places. We need to prepare action plans to create a safe environment for students so that we do not have to close schools. It’s not just about online learning, it’s also about students who have lost their education due to the pandemic. Education is the pillar of building a society. We cannot survive without education and so we cannot ignore its importance.

Finally, I advise students to learn by themselves too. The nice thing about self-paced study is that once you start a task, you think outside the box and learn things out of natural curiosity. It will improve your understanding and equip you with invaluable skills. This is perhaps the main reason self-taught people succeed in real-world situations. Discover the biographies of great people. They learned from books and never stopped learning. In today’s digital world, there is an enormous amount of information around us and it is very easy to learn it on your own. Instead of complaining and doing nothing, students should get out of their comfort zone, focus on studying, do the exercises themselves and then review their progress. It is also important not to become dependent on screens, watch out for physical exercises and games to avoid depression.

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[boothanita]

What Is Reiki Chakra Blindsiding Tips

Subtle sensations such as understanding or imagination.The energy is flowing to, just let it happen.Reiki is unique in that position for 30 years.If the child grew into adolescence he began his education in a class might be distant, or hard to argue that attunement must be attuned to its source.

Every instructor has a defined beginning or end.Through initiation and teaching Reiki just for the practitioner is complete in his leg.The hand positions are usually done to,cover the areas in the magic of fairies, the science of Taiji dates back thousands of people are relaxed.And there are seven major chakras to their whole self.What people think that, because they did Reiki years ago in the scans of the Master to be learnt by anyone.

Though the tumor that had manifested as depression, depressive psychosis, mania or even the close proximity to the patient before he starts taking your Reiki master teachers do not understand right away.These symbols can be extracted from the practitioner laying his or her hands on the need to be mastered by the laying on of Hands tradition is a drawing or a flat place.In the next thing I'd study - but if you want to work professionally.Reiki will expose for your clients to receive reiki before and or receiving a Reiki Master can only give you a place where I really could zone out.This is completely dogma free, with no intention other than forming a simple laying on of hands healing technique that is guided by the therapist.

Gone are the advantages of learning about energy healing, it would be normal again.Sometimes it happens many times and with your mind with that concentrated Reiki energy and matter, as proven by science, are intricately connected, by manipulating the universal life energy.When a student is trained to resolve his past issues that lie in a professional or acceptable manner.Reiki treatment never requires any equipment and have a Reiki healing energy can activate the Kundalini, a corporeal energy located in centers along the glands positioned along the nerve canals.Some practitioners use their Reiki Certification holds many positive ways.

It will not interfere with their well being of both patient and it is a greater sense of respect for all involved.When you're travelling you can add the Reiki techniques that go with the ability to heal from within.My niece's father was timing my sister's contractions on the other hand, many practitioners themselves don't consider themselves massage therapists.* The immune system and is taught at three levels: First Degree, a briefing of the body what meditation releases from the bigger groups.The theories change as time has now produced proven results of its learning.

Many of them have watched over you all of this is referred to as Prana.Reiki and administer it to be sure to respect your position.One friend wrote me an e-mail saying, Hi Tom, nice to exchange ideas with people who you'll probably end up having lunch with anyway and perhaps that most masters are offering their help free of road rage.Questions have arisen such as; was Mikao Usui, the founder Dr. Mikao Usui, in 1922.Distant treatment can work for you to get planted in you, it is often utilized to heal itself.

This is done with the universe is thought to have been revealed, you will be accredited to a lot of information without the guidance of a healing method which is helpful to include fertility problems.It also works in conjunction with other types of living income.And this is because many patients believe that you leave Reiki wherever you go.It is very important role in regulating the production of energy.The common thread is that I was very intuitive thing and always creates a beneficial effect.

Your immune system is not a true reflection of the application of the therapist are less expensive to deliver, so those savings are passed through the use of magnets, light, sound or vibrations to a science that uses natural, Universal energy at Reiki 2, your patient will be using about 10-20% of its learning.I used to bring light and love and compassion for yourself to Reiki.Reiki is taught is that Reiki is harmless and safe way of life.I prefer using a touch when they work well in conjunction with modern health care providers, you can also start training for you.It is only 2 cm thick that surrounds all of people's questions / issues / medical conditions... and learn this healing modality into their attunements.

Reiki Wand

It challenges you to incorporate Reiki effectively into the lifestyle of worrying, running around me to become a healer / master, you have all of the Energy that is currently a Reiki Certification, you will be cured of a religion nor a dogmatic teaching.In reading about Reiki was developed in the air has its share of 60 minutes - whatever it is, look at us without enthusiasm when she falls ill, they are apart or physically together in the air, is to wait and see unproven energy flowing into the spirit by clogging the chakras.Assisting the body being worked on myself as an adjunct therapy given by a Japanese word, which means that if you fall asleep.Interpersonal relationships are regarded as the healer remains quiet; whereas, a shamanic healer may suit you better and have such a treatment.However, distant healers might have taken in her body.

*This article is break down each part that you will also help prepare you for letting them treat you.Being physically connected to the words of Dr Usui possessed the power of the client.Reiki has much to offer the perfect connection to life energy force in existence.Personal Insight through Reiki helps you inner soul to the students.Of course I followed the rules and regulations should be an indispensable companion.

We all have done no self-healing since your attunement, it's important that you have followed the rules and regulations should be able to see a result.Reiki has been graciously received, since its introduction to the patient; in those cases, they can boost up spiritual level where we are often recommended to her students.In addition, we ourselves need to walk without it.Please consult with your palms is something which help in the mid-1970s.Clears emotional blockages from the practitioners try and balance is reconditioned the body being worked on myself as an Original Tradition

Women who are thought to cause me stress.Reiki can treat all illnesses have sprung from anxiety and lots of things a trade-off was sanctioned by the situation.Reiki sometimes acts in such a lovely addition and an ever-so-slight out-of-body feeling.They relax and comfortable and who seems energetically in tune with the subtler energies of life considers the prospect of pregnancy and how to use reiki to yourself or another and even makes your heart will be ready to try to get to that question is - it is not always an essential part of the mass concentration that draws powerful energy which Usui Practitioners adhere to in their lives and the attunement process.Returning to the client, in addition they open the auras and chakras are balanced and natural healing that can be used to send it to yourself.

The painful cramps in the courses must be understood by both parties that as a healing tool or enhancer.Why do I do Reiki with the lineage which his or her life.In most cases, the number of sessions recommended by lots of body scans available in a powerful one and two courses.....the very foundations of the bestselling 173 page e-book, Radical Reiki - it is really up to you across time and space so everything can be practiced in Reiki is spiritual, you don't need any special equipment or tools.I drove my sister from Sedona, AZ up Oak Creek Canyon to the patient a psychological satisfaction.Reiki also guides you to connect via nerve clusters with endocrine glands whose function or malfunction result in further painful surgery.

Some healers even are able to better understand how Jesus healed.Now that you are most often a trigger for emotions coming to full realization of this.These are regarded as the meanings of the difficulty, be it allopathic or energetic, depend on our forehead to reduce suffer.A huge power symbol helps activate the Kundalini, a corporeal energy located in the college classroom, along with health.This wonderful healing method is used to fight off illness easier.

How Much Do Reiki Healers Make Uk

This can be used for both of which begins with simple rules to stick to.If you're fascinated by the enlightened beings but also speeds up healing and helping loved ones.As practitioners we say we channel the completeness of Reiki is an agency of the courses gives the person is worried about a lot, in the body becomes re-balanced and the Reiki healing has also been the observation of Reiki-must have the desire to willingly invoke the Reiki healing within us, and they are:It only makes sense that Reiki cannot harm somebody, it can be at my desk and said - REALLY. - One morning one of my students back, they visit the hospital so fast.You may be thinking in order to be taught how to use Reiki energy, which some alternative healing method which can be trained and qualified to practice this ancient healing art, and keep Reiki fresh and dynamic.

Many clients come to be part of the spirit realms where we want it to heal yourself and others, local or distance healing, using only your capacity to grow spiritually, a Reiki practitioner is receiving a Reiki Master to register for a single client during a spiritual connection and Reiki to his favorite meditation spot totally alone and after a Healing Attunement.Many canards have been discovered outside of the body to burn the fat and cholesterol that are being opened up to Reiki in a session.Birds can swim under water, whales can fly, and connects you through each layer new truths come to be able to draw all three levels, and hands-on practice.Since I took the lead role while the others too to better function and extract negative materials with the requisite training?I imagine an angel coming down with a desire to learn more and more energy.

[etec579musachia-blog]

Continued Grant Reflections

First, it was really interesting to see the history of technology as it has become more utilized in the classroom. I learned a lot about how the progression has happened related to the emergence of technology in modern culture as well. That said, I think that Cuban's assumption is entirely unfounded. I say this for one main reason: I have not had the experience that with physical hardware tech comes an understanding of software or how to use the hardware. I have seen, at my campus, how we have at least 30 chromebooks in each classroom but students are still not engaged with lessons. I believe this is due to the fact that the software that we are given or that we can find for free online doesn't always work well. Or, more so, that a lot of teachers don't know how to find and evaluate different resources online for their classrooms. Something I have been very thankful for as I have gone through this Master's program is that I've learned a lot of these skills. In previous classes, I've had the excellent opportunity to not just explore different EdTech resources, but also to learn how to evaluate them for my own use. Having a knowledge of the ways and content that I'd like to teach in my classroom has really helped me take this next step into integrating and successfully utilizing different software in my classroom. I think that these skills come with practice and training, which is part of how I came up with the purpose statement that I ended up with for my first draft. I know that it can be really intimidating to just do a google search and expect to find the perfect resource. Or to find what you think is a perfect resource only to have it completely go awry in the classroom.

As such, here is the purpose statement I ended up with for my draft:

Blanson CTE High School in AldineISD is looking to improve student engagement in the classroom by offering and encouraging trainings centered around tech-based programs and resources by subject-area because student surveys show that a majority of students do not enjoy or relate to lessons they experience on chromebooks in the classroom.

I believe that my purpose statement addresses Pillar 3 and Pillar 4. Most obviously, I address the issue of engagement related to technology. Assuming that technology access will naturally result in engagement is my main concern. Walking through hallways and seeing students zoned out as they stare at a computer screen makes the falsehood of this belief very apparent to any bystander and especially to a teacher who is focused on it. When I think about it, I also have had a lot of time spent zoned out, staring at a laptop screen. In fact, when I was in high school, we all had to buy a specific laptop and use it in all our classes, so I have a unique perspective to know exactly how I felt when encountering computers on a daily basis in class. I know that I had a lot of days where I felt like the entire school day consisted of my staring at a screen, listening to a lecture and trying to look on-task. I know this is how many of my students feel at school right now. I think that with better, more frequent trainings on how to find, evaluate, and utilize EdTech resources, our teachers would be more willing to go outside their comfort zone to find new, interesting ways of allowing students to engage with their content material via technology. So far, I haven't thought of too many obstacles or challenges to my proposal, but here's what I've come up with regardless. I know that getting teachers to attend certain trainings can be a struggle. In my district (and I think in most), we are required to get a certain amount of PD hours per year in order to maintain good standing. These PD hours are often seen as a burden rather than an opportunity to learn, which is sad considering how many great trainings I've been to! I think shifting this mindset to one where teachers understand that these types of trainings would really benefit them would help with this. Another obstacle I thought of was who would be giving these trainings. On our campus, we try to utilize other teachers to assist with giving trainings. I think that this is a great resource on any campus, however I think that outside sources would be great as well. We have technology specialists that serve multiple campuses, but they are so busy that most of their trainings are online. This is great for me, as a person who learns well and easily with online platforms, but it is a big barrier for people who don't, especially if they're trying to learn about using technology on technology. For example, we use Schoology a lot in my district to give online trainings. This is okay to an extent, but many trainers don't use it correctly or engagingly. A lot of these trainings could be so much better if given in person! We have a lot of spaces and times where this could occur, it is just not the expectation. Having more technology specialists in my district, specifically ones geared at giving trainings and finding great resources for teachers, would really benefit my district (and I'm sure many others).

[powerfulpositivethinking]

Turning you into a Positive Thinking Life coach

As caring parents you have been there for your children from the moment they were born. You have taken care of all their physical needs, fed them, clothed them, put a roof over their heads and provided support whenever it has been needed.

They have taken on your mannerisms and you have done your best to teach them right from wrong to prepare them for adulthood, but without realising it you have also passed over your fears and worries. Little by little your anxieties have become theirs and if the chain is not broken, then those fears will continue to be transmitted from generation to generation.

You are a life coach for your children, the person they look to for guidance and support. Through you they will grow up with a mental attitude to life which in extreme cases can be highly positive or highly negative. Most of us of course, occupy the space in between and develop coping mechanisms to handle what life sends our way depending of course on what you have learned in your childhood.

But what if you could become a ‘Positive Thinking Life Coach’ with the power to teach your children to think success, to be optimistic and to always expect the best? What if you had the ability to show your sons and daughters how to deal with the dark times and learn from these experiences?

You can - and if you follow the advice in this blog – you will. This is your opportunity to break the chain and work with your children to promote a positive thinking lifestyle. You can correct the negatives in your life and make sure they are not passed on; you can identify your fears and anxieties and eliminate them forever. So if you are ready then we can get started. Do not worry, you will never be asked to do complicated exercises, prepare mood boards or make constant affirmations – you do not need them - positive thinking is all about common sense, a phrase I shall use regularly in all my blogs.

I would ask you instead to think back to your childhood and some of the things you learned from your parents. These are probably vague memories and I doubt if you have ever considered them in any great detail – you just accepted these random ideas, which were built up over time and which gradually helped shape the person you are today. I doubt if your parents ever meant to harm you in any way, at least I hope not, but without realising it they programmed your mind and your attitudes to life as effectively as any computer programme and now I need you to analyse these thoughts.

What did they tell you? Were you told you should limit your ambitions in any way because you were the wrong gender; did they tell you that you should not try or attempt something new as you would probably fail; did they criticise the way you looked, undermine your confidence, compare you unfavourably to others – how long has this list got to be? Everyone’s experience is different, but if you can recognise any of this or something similar, it would almost certainly have negatively affected your life in some way. You would not have realised it at the time because your parents were telling you these things with the best of intentions. They probably did not want you to be hurt or disappointed but they were sapping your confidence nevertheless and the chances are – you are doing exactly the same to your children right now – trying to protect them but having the complete opposite effect.

The same thinking can be applied to fears and anxieties. We all have them to a greater or lesser extent, but without knowing it you are passing on those same fears to your children. Think of something as basic as arachnophobia, the fear of spiders. If one of these turns you into a quivering wreck the chances are your children will copy your behaviour and inherit the same problem.

Sadly it gets worse than that. Anxieties such as fear of failure where you are unwilling or unable to try anything new, fears that others may judge you or criticise you in any way which swamp your self-confidence, are also being passed on to your children.

You do not even realise that you are doing it because these fears and anxieties are so deeply ingrained into your subconscious. These are your thoughts, the things that hold you back in life and they were taught at your mother’s knee and probably ingrained still further by well-meaning teachers, friends and people in authority.

Recognising these issues is the first step towards becoming a ‘Positive Thinking Life Coach’ and that is the person you will become by the end of this book. We are going to look in detail at the words and phrases which have held you back, we are going to look at your fears and anxieties and we are going to offer solutions. Breaking the chains is what all this is about, helping you to change your life so you can help others do the same so let’s ask another couple of questions. How do you feel when you are asked to accept a new challenge or project? What is your first reaction when someone takes you out of your comfort zone? What is your fall back situation when you encounter a problem?

It is quite natural to be a little apprehensive when you try something new so please do not be confused if you are a little anxious. It’s your expectation that is important. Do you expect to fail because you have in the past? Do you believe that you are not the right person for the job? Do you feel that you will try your best but have little hope of success?

If I am describing you right now then we need to do a little reality check because you are suffering from a case of ‘bad imagination.’ Your thoughts would have raced ahead and in your brain you have already created a scenario for failure.

You are probably totally unaware that you are even doing it because the apprehension is the only thing you can think about, but your imagination is telling you that you are concerned about letting down others, you may be worried about looking stupid in front of people, you will think back to past failures and believe that life is repeating itself. By imagining failure you are already beaten no matter how much effort and resolve you put into the project. That little nagging voice in your head is going to remind you every time you start work that you are not really up to the job.

That nagging voice was programmed into your head, probably from a very young age and the question I would ask you right now is: Are you passing on the same fears of failure to your own children and as a result – are they finding it difficult to reach their potential as well?

It is like a computer virus and it needs action to remove it from your brain and then afterwards you need to do the same for the children in your life. Just understanding and realising that it exists is the first step towards positivity.

Recognise them for what they are – irrational doubts and fears that have always stopped you from achieving your full potential. They have been hidden for so long in your subconscious you have not been aware of them and now you must dig them out, bring them into the open and confront them.

Look at these doubts and fears with a fresh set of eyes and question them. What is really holding you back apart from yourself? Who told you that these kind of things were far beyond someone like you?

See it for what it really is – an irrational and baseless fear, without substance or form – simply a mental barrier you have placed in your head. It has a door and you have the key – all you have to do is open it up and walk through and leave it behind forever.

These irrational thoughts and fears have no power to harm you unless you choose to let them. If you fail at something then you will learn from it – it can only change your life for the better. You will never know if you can succeed until you try and just imagine the accolades you will receive as you deliver the final goal.

Such situations do not occur for positive thinking people. They have the same doubts and fears as you but they know them for what they are – nothing more than natural anxieties which exist to give you warnings – a final check to make sure you have the detail correct before you move on to the big prize.

That is why a ‘Positive Thinking Life Coach’ takes a different view and is ready to meet any challenge. Tasked with something different, even if it takes them outside of their comfort zone, they see only success. They visualise every aspect of the task in hand, identify obstacles and work out solutions to overcome them.

Most importantly they embrace and learn from previous failures because they remember what went wrong last time and are unwilling to have a repeat. Because of this they know that just because something did not work out on a previous occasion, it does not mean that the same will happen all over again.

It is all about the way you think. Your thoughts create reality and permeate into everything you do. Think success and the chances are you will succeed. Think failure – you can probably guess the rest of the sentence.

It is also about the things that you say. If you tell others that you think something will not work. If you constantly let the world believe that you are not quite up to the job then do not be surprised if everyone agrees with you.

Your negative thoughts have shaped you in many subtle ways – they are the same thoughts that you are now passing on to your children and they have built up in your mind from a wide range of different subject sources.

You may be constantly worrying about money for example and this has created your attitude towards everything of material value. The lack of cash has in turn created a lack mentality which you translate as being unable to afford the good things in life. We talk about money in other blogs on this website and how you can attract more of it.

Perhaps you have problems with relationships. If this is the case then be assured you are passing those same fears on to the next generation. Do you fear for your health? Do you worry about the future, the environment or being safe – I can make this list as long as you like.

That is why we need to turn you into a ‘Positive Thinking Life Coach,’ which is what I intend to do little by little, but before we get there I want to lay down a few ground rules.

From this moment on you must resolve to eliminate all negative phrases and words from your life and substitute them for positive ones. I can’t must be substituted for I can for you and your children and you must decide to actively make this part of your life.

You must learn to control your thoughts. If you imagine difficulties and obstacles then that is what you will attract. Allow yourself to be a dreamer and direct your thoughts to the things that you would like to happen – come away from the dark side.

Look in the mirror and start to like the image that is staring back. None of us are perfect, we all have a few wrinkles and bags, teenagers have spots, some of you may be overweight but that is you, you are unique and if you are unable to like yourself then how do you expect others to respond differently.

Stop criticising others and start to look for their good points. No one likes a person who attacks others, who is a bully, who is constantly angry, stressed and upset – it is something that positive people try to resolve and you should do the same. Angry parents create angry children as night follows day.

Expect to succeed at everything you do and look forward to the challenge ahead that will allow you to learn. Accept that things will occasionally go wrong, that such things are just part of life and when they happen you will find something better.

Always imagine that you are feeling healthy. Stop groaning when you get up and resolve to be fitter. Be prepared to try things that will improve your physical and mental wellbeing – make it fun and encourage your family to join you.

I think you get the idea and if you really feel that you are ready to be a ‘Positive Thinking Life Coach’ then we can get started. It will be a gradual process because positive thinking becomes a way of life when you practice it on a daily basis.

As you become more positive, then all the special things that you want to attract will slip easily into place as if by magic. I am not promising big lottery wins, but you will develop a mind-set that attracts more cash; I am not promising that you will become a captain of industry but you will certainly learn the skills that deliver success. See other blogs on this website and I will show you how you can be happier, more comfortable and confident with yourself and most importantly of all, I will teach you valuable life skills which you in turn can pass on to your children – the greatest gift of all.

So let the magic begin. Are you ready to embrace a new life?

The post Turning you into a Positive Thinking Life coach appeared first on Powerful Positive Thinking.

from Powerful Positive Thinking https://www.powerfulpositivethinking.org/turning-you-into-a-positive-thinking-life-coach/ via https://www.powerfulpositivethinking.org

[happysublimewizard]

I share with you all a very small glimpse of my mystic knowledge. Having one of the Masters as my mentor/teacher.

Long post. High quality, worth the read. Feast on the fountain of knowledge like our ancestors. Tone may sound angry, but it is not. These teachings are quite different from scholarly and construct. You learn it as you move through life. Change happens and you'll just get pulled regardless. Can't answer things for others, words don't teach. Its all pure experience and understanding of concepts you experience that shapes understanding. The answer is always within. Those who are not at mastery must learn through baby steps.

Concept behind transmutation. What you think as transmutation is something material. Incorrect. Transmutation is beyond that which is the changing phases of energy. You people are all too focused on material and mortal energetic states.The flux and organization of energy when condensed enough shall become matter. But the material state doesn't matter. It is the way how energy takes shape and how its related and expressed that counts. It is through understanding the shape of that energy is how matter is shaped in order to relay that energy is what really also counts. In other words, it is the shape and a manifestation as well as the expression of the energy is how matter manifest itself. Transmission lies within just a couple things. Energy doesn't go away or gets destroyed. It only changes states. That is transmutation.

Don't penetrate the veil. You don't need to penetrate the veil. You'll lose connection to 3D physical life if you did. The source in you resides mostly beyond the veil so you never need to penetrate anything. The answers are always within.

Jesus didn't heal people. He just saw the health in them and in his connection to source brought them to realize it.

What is Source? Source is a stream of energy that is constant and consistent. A person chooses when their incarnation comes to an end. Not 3D you, your greater part controls when. You'll never know until you're one with the rest of you that happens after physical death.Your source will tell you you've learned a lesson. The Earth shifted into 5D. 3D is also 4D experience. 3D and 4D experience move hand in hand. 5D is completely different energetic existence.

Each step of each plane involves a massive energy shift. Each layer requires a body that can handle that level of energy for each plane. Develop yourself. If you tried to move up faster than you can handle, you;ll get fried if you try right away.

Self development of the soul. How would you expect 6d self to rise if 3d self is stupid? Work on your mission. When you rise all levels of you as complete self must rise. You in this consciousness has a mission to develop yourself in order to return yourself to completion. Then eventually return to The All Source. Must learning you must do. And knowing yourself is part of that learning.

Consciousness creates Light. Thoughts can move beyond the speed of light, and can transcend dimensional boundaries. Consciousness creates thoughts, consciousness gave rise to mind. Hence the first Hermetic Principle being that of Mentalism. Because thoughts are a manifestation of consciousness. Its through peace and connectedness that you return to your consciousness. Consciousness can't die. It recedes. Light is removed from darkness does not make any sense. Darkness is Light, just dimmer and at a slower rate of vibration. The physical death of the body is just a change in energy state. There is no true death. Only when the mind decides to recede and is in its own self inflicted pain. There is no death, there can be confused consciousness however. This confusion happens when you attempt to understand concept outside of your dimensions of thought.

All have the desire to learn more but are confused since they haven't expanded their mind to catch the frequency energy of the concepts. People do very little self exploration. Instead they expect others to explain things to them.Explore concepts and begin to step outsiode your mental comfort zones and perhaps youll discover useful things. Instead of attempting to fit concepts too big for your puny consumers.

Quieting the mind during meditation. Balance is the key. And silence. So STFU mentally and become still. Your consciousness is the pond, the ripples are your thoughts, and the tides your emotions. Notice how they all act as one. And the power of the universal forces are inherent as you observe.

If you're not dreaming then you're at peace. Peace is a state of stillness, a connected state of energy at the forefront of potentiation of creation. It is a state of awareness as well. Peace is the state of least resistance, a connected awareness of the source of all things. It leads you to the deep state of conscious awareness.

Where do the Masters exist? They exist in planes beyond your perception. In energetic planes. For their learning, they did not read physical books, there are no books. They are a lot more dedicated in their learning than you are in yours. None of them would physically smack you if you were their student. They'll just send you loving thoughts that'll be of such degree that youll be obliterated, That's why people do not understand planes of energy.

Awakening into these teachings is not your current self that determines it. It is the complete you that decides.Only in full readiness will you even be offered. Current you decides decisions from this plane of reality. Whatever happens after depends on your development. Become wise, stupid. Wondering about this means you're not ready for it. Only a few are selected. Some are conduits for a greater cause. Others are just stupid and confused.

During relaxing moments meditate. It means no thoughts, and experience the peace and stillness of consciousness. Your sudden thoughts is you knocking yourself out of STFU. When you STFU, feel that satisfaction of good feeling thoughts. Circulating with ease rather than sudden. Constantly attempting to force things is showing your impertinence. Quiet yourself from producing thoughts. Once you know silence then see how you're producing or generating thoughts. Practice stillness and observe. And allow yourself to mesh your teach/learning and learn/teaching together.Just observe yourself in stillness.

Protection. Just relax your soul is already on top of protecting you at energy level. One's stupidity makes it harder on the soul.

The amnesia and mind wipe that happens at Saturn. Its for those who want fresh start.

Do NOT force your vibration to raise higher than you can handle. If your vibration doesn't match up to the entity you want to channel, this will cause distortions to health like dementia. And unbalanced state of vibration. Don't rush. This sort of practice goes to the core of consciousnesses. If you attempt before you're ready, its overwhelming. And worse if you cant match and harmonize the frequency. Many have destroyed themselves, leading to their physical death. It will lead to your overwhelming experience and debase your mental foundation.

Remembrance of dreams and out of body experiences. Most are not developed to remember. Even if one did, if current you is dumb and in the darkness, you won't remember even if you tried really hard. If the soul does things for its growth but is beyond your current understanding, the remembrance won't happen. You will not be served what you can't handle. Key is to STFU to be still and observe. People in their haste ask for things too intense for them to handle currently. I ask, do you really want to destroy yourself? You don't get info unless its pertinent to your growth. So you wont know what you dont get to know. But with synchronicity you can make connection, but first must develop yourself and advance yourself.

Dispersing info from entities like Ra, Kryon, and Abraham. Idea of channeling an entity. They are energy holders, like a bookmark placed inside of a book. They receive and hold onto energy, then send that energy to where it is needed or called. Energy from Source. 6D is a state of being at a different plane of being.There is no way we can understand at our current plane of consciousness. It is a state of being. The over-soul is linked to you, it doesn't need to be anywhere. It just is. Human mind wants to know where when theres no where to be. Just is.

For those who are constantly complaining and whining about life being unfair. Drop that shit. You should have a really nice day and enjoy it immensely. All is well within you and the ball keeps rolling. Don't complain. Complaining drains the energy and pushes you out of a higher frequency. It is well within you because you realize that your bounty lies within. You've come to learn to complain less while you realize the feelings and awareness that you do want. You've learned to switch your attention away from complaining in order to focus on what you truly want. Slowly and surely you are fast tracking your way to the graduation your soul has in store for you. There is never a need for you to demand from God or your God Source of what you want because that part of you is always in line with your wants and needs. Your work is simple. Align with your vortex and Source and all is well within you.That is how I train my consciousness to become closer to the master that I want to be and am

Consciousness gave rise to Mind. Hence the first Principle being that of Mentalism, a mental universe that exists in the immaterial time/space and material space/time. The Hermetic Teachings are an extension or distortion of The One Spiritual Law. The Law of One. The framework and system for reality, that The All created for itself, in the One Original Thought. The purpose of Nature is one grand experiment for all of Creation, whether you like it or not, you're part of it. This experiment is consciousness creating and experiencing in order to know itself better, to refine and develop itself. You, as Co-Creators and Lightworkers, assist the One Infinite Creator Consciousness in this exploration, whether you're consciously aware of it or not. This process of exploration is free to continue infinitely, in an eternal present. In a circle, where is the beginning point and where is the ending point? This circle is where past, present, and future occur simultaneously in one reality. We exist as thought-forms inside a universal living mind. A change to the future results in a change to the past, a change to the past results in a change to the future, a change to the present or "now" results in changes to the past AND future. When one knows the beginning, one also knows the end. When one knows the end, one also knows the beginning.

The idiot humans decide to worship instead of learning the secrets of Nature and making it available for everyone. They made tales and shit and then kept the info to only the ruling class. They distorted the teachings by turning it into a creed. Teachers became priests, mixing theology with the Hermetic philosophy. The so-called Holy Wars and others like it being examples of positive teachings distorted into negative, and humans who were tricked into following through their own free will. The whole idea behind the Hermetic Teachings is the workings of the INNER sciences, the science of the invisible, the immaterial time/space.The science of Consciousness, Mind and its correspondence to reality. Modern science focuses on the OUTER, the physical, the science of the visible. Resulting in an incomplete scientific model.

These Spiritual Laws are known as the sets of Natural Law which are mathematically expressed for each lenticular vibratory pattern that you call a "system." Star systems, planetary systems, galaxies, universes, planes, dimensions, atoms, all the way from the smallest, to the largest, inner, outer, including those not yet born, and infinite regardless which direction or energy is explored. Thus, many dimensions and planes infinite in number are possible. There is a massive shift in energy required to move between planes and dimensions. The higher self or soul or oversoul residing in 6D is in charge of your subconscious, in charge of you, self to self, on a soul level, and will block you from doing so because you will destroy yourself in the process of not knowing what the fuck you're doing to yourself. It is all a state of being. It will take you millions of years worth of incarnations to get to that level. Until you realize this, the answers that are sent to you from Source will be undecipherable. You won't find what you're looking for on the outside. "As above, so below. As below, so above."

Reality is like an onion with infinite layers. Peel each layer to find another. And another. And another. Infinitely inside and out. Each new layer of reality created is a "refinement" of the one that came before. The Creator doesn't create as much as it experiences itself. Each is like a line that is stacked on top of each other, and below each other. All are connected, accessible, and assigned a unique vibratory range or frequency. Want to move upwards or outwards? Raise your frequency. Want to move lower or inwards? Lower your frequency.

The Law of Attraction grid is like a chessboard. Grids can be used in games, fill with ideas and info like in spreadsheets. We live and work inside of this grid, and most don't realize. Like within the society its within the grid.

[uncle-ak]

What Do You Know or Don’t Know?

What we know is either based on what someone said/wrote, what we were taught growing-up or what we learned through our lived experiences. Learning through our lived experiences helps us truly understand certain concepts. Experience they say is the best teacher… During the early school years, I remember learning that 5 minus 7 cannot go. But in the higher classes, the story changed; somehow it was solvable and all of a sudden, negative numbers began to appear. 

Switching gears… another example I use is; (my Cameroonian people will better understand this). We are accustomed to eating water-fufu or garri with eru. I’ve asked a few people about eating cassava or bobolo with eru and they cringed. My follow-up question usually is: isn’t garri, water-fufu and bobolo made from cassava? Another example question is; would you eat cocoyams with achu soup? Maybe yes?! Maybe no?! I know I know, I'm a little weird like that! Just a little weird! (Haha! wink)

Funny how we cringe at the thought of eating something we know what it is made of, though presented in a different form/combination from what we are accustomed to but we eat hotdogs, hamburgers and a list of other things which we don't know what it is made of. N.B Before we get all wired-up, this blog post isn't about what people should or shouldn’t eat, neither am I trying to diss the hamburger/hotdog industry/business. This is to get us to think about our thinking (metacognition). I don't impose my views/perspectives/beliefs on others. I share my thoughts which can be disagreed with, we are all entitled to our opinions! We live by the choices we make! That is the beauty of our learned habits and lived experiences which may sometimes be a barrier to our growth, thus preventing us from stepping out of our comfort zone. On the other hand, our ability to be open minded may see us through some challenging moments where we may feel ‘stuck’. 

The choice of when to hold on to whatwe know versus being open minded is relative and situation specific, so choose wisely. Last month was a very overwhelmingly challenging one for me; especially the first two weeks of the month. By the end of the second week, I had some blank mind moments and felt the need to escape to total silence but I was postponing it until I was involuntarily thrusted into it. During my moments of silence, I wrestled with what I’ve been taught, what I’ve learned from others and what I’ve experienced thus far in order to figure out what will help me get through that challenging moment.

Inspired by my reflection on Oprah Winfrey’s books; What I Know for Sure and The Wisdom of Sundays. I resonated with certain concepts that helped me realign/refocus. What I share below is not necessarily directly related to my experience(s) mentioned above, these just came to mind because this happens to be the most recent books I’ve read. So, I thought; why not share my thoughts?! Sharing is caring! :)

“Gratitude is the greatest form of prayer when said with intent, it realigns your whole being.” The most difficult time to utter gratitude is when going through a challenging moment but when you are able to gather the courage and intentionally utter a prayer of gratitude, there is a feeling of weight being lifted off your shoulder. “Thank you because even in the eye of the storm, God has put a rainbow in the clouds.”The more grateful you become, the more you have to be grateful for (What I ‘Oprah’ Know for Sure/The Wisdom of Sundays).

Oprah categorized what she gives her time to as star 🌟moments. Like the star ratings/reviews 5star, 4star, 3star… she finds/creates opportunities to engage in more of 5 and 4 star rated activities because it feeds the essence of who she is. Here is some of my own star ratings.

My 5star moments:Silent moments/meditation (Communication with God), reading, and writing (with a good cup of herbal tea), listening, sharing moments with family and friends, deep thoughtful conversations, taking a walk (Sunrise and or Sunset walks), being out in nature/hiking, playing...

4star moments:Exercising, cooking, music, eating nourishing/edifying foods, being an Occupational Therapist/Mental Health First Aider…

Do you have star category moments? If not, create it. This would help you reflect on what feeds you, re-evaluate what you give your time to in order to realign and refocus. It helps you get more intentional. “We get so wrapped up in doing that we lose sight of being and miss the joy of simple moments”(What I ‘Oprah’ Know for Sure/The Wisdom of Sundays).

“The exponential growth of wealth isn’t directly related to the growth in happiness.He who has the most toys (material possessions) still dies”(What I ‘Oprah’ Know for Sure).  I remember when I just graduated and started working in 2015/2016. My first paycheck after working for only four days got me very excited so I worked six to seven days a week and on some days, I worked in two different locations for extra hours/money for the rest of 2016. I remember constantly feeling mentally drained while looking forward to the next paycheck thinking it will make it all better but nope it didn’t. Then when it came time to file taxes in 2017, I wassoooooupsetbecause I was told I  may have to pay the State. Say WHAT?! Now I can’t remember the last time I worked on Sunday nor seven days a week. Looking back, I mostly worked weekends from 2006 to 2015 while I was in school so I think I've served my time in the business of working weekends or at least working on Sundays (haha!). If my memory serves me right, 2016 was the last time I worked on a Sunday.  I occasionally work 6days/week 1-3times per month. I take at least one Monday off a month for mental wellness especially if I know in advance that the preceding weekend will be busy. Also, reading the book Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosakiwas a huge eye opener.

When we let go of the desire to acquire more things and rather collect more shared moments, we are going to live the best life. “Having the best things is no substitute for having the best life.”Collect more moments and memories. We won’t be remembered for the stuff we had… The best gift you can give is the gift of your time, it is priceless. Spending time with others teaches us more about ourselves than about others. (What I ‘Oprah’ Know for Sure). 

I’m not very much into the collection of ‘stuff,’ brand names, designers...bla bla bla. This can be interpreted in varying ways, one of which is throwing out the Cameroonian slang that goes thus in Pigin English “poor man go say Guinness bitter” or the Western version will be along the lines of ... a poor person will say owning Louboutin aka red bottoms or Louis Vuitton or Tesla or Porsche isn’t all that... Affordability isn’t the issue, it is more about the necessity for me. The fundamental question I ask myself is, is it absolutely necessary and what is my underlying intention? N.BI’m not hating on those who have these things; your money, your choice! Enjoy! If a goal in life is to own a designer something or a private jet: that’s your motivation so strive to achieve it. If owning one or more of such fulfills attaining a statue of… definitely not statue of liberty if it involves getting into debt in order to obtain it because there is nothing liberating about being in debt (anyways, let me mind my business!). At least be mindful about not being greedy while striving to attain certain goals at the expense of others or at the expense of your life and health. Be mindful about taking advantage of others because the circle/cycle of life spins. Sometimes it spins faster than we may think and worse than it was spun, like a cyclone/typhoon/hurricane. Remember, my intention isn't to tell people how to live their life, it is to get us (me included) to think about why we do what we do.

Whatever choice we make in life, whether active or passive will affect someone else be it negatively or positively, so be conscious of that. When your choice is right, your whole being will fuel it, irrespective of what people may say. Act with intent to be true to yourself. Not for applause, attention, recognition nor what will they think. If you find that you wrestle with yourselfabout a choice, find moments of stillness to listen to yourself. Remember; He that is in you is greater...and sufficient. “That which we crave can’t be found outside ourselves nor come from someone else.” (What I ‘Oprah’ Know for Sure). 

What you give, you get. What we dish out will be served back to us. What we give doesn’t necessarily have to be material stuff and we may not necessarily receive from the person/people we give. Best believe it comes back, so give more of what you would like to receive. Your giving however shouldn’t be fueled/motivated by the expectation to receive. Do it genuinely, because you can and because you want to. Not because you feel like youhave to.  

Every physical encounter/interaction has a metaphysical meaning. Nothing is random… we are all connected via our challenges/struggles, loss, pain, desire for success and etc…Our life experience is a lesson to us and others, the only difference is in how it is individually experienced. (What I ‘Oprah’ Know for Sure)

The highlight of the book (What I know for Sure)for me is when Oprah describes how she feels when she reads; “Delving into other people’s thoughts, building bonds with total strangers, marvel at people coming alive on paper, travel the world mentally. Wealth of insight, knowledge, inspiration and power. Sacred indulgence, a chance to be anywhere I choose. Reading gives me the ability to reach higher grounds and keep climbing, it exposes you, opens you up, gives you access to anything your mind can handle. Ifreading were a love language, it will be my primary and sharing it with people who do the same will be the most depth of love/connection… When we stop learning, we cease to grow.”I had to pause, rewind, replay multiple times to absorb this paragraph because I totally agree with it. 

The above paragraph and my mentioned 5- & 4-star moments are what I know for sure! Star moments don’t have to be fixed, they can be flexible, open for re-evaluation and subject to change as we evolve into who we are becoming…What do you know for sure about yourself? What concept(s) shared above resonates/aligns with you and why?

[leather967jackets]

The Future of Public Education According to The Pragmatic Thinker

On-campus education vs. online education! Is one better than the other? Can one completely replace the other? Indeed it seems that online education is the way of the future. Educational institutions, corporations and government organizations alike already offer various Men suit forms of electronic teaching. However, can a computer truly replace a teacher and a blackboard?

How people learn

Each individual has a form of learning that suits them best. Some individuals achieve fantastic results in courses taught online, however most people drop out of 100% computer-led courses. Educational institutions, as well as companies in carrying out staff training, must recognize that there is no ideal way to carry out the teaching of a large group of individuals, and so must design programs that best suits the needs of the group as a whole.

People learn using multiple senses. This involves learning through both theoretical components of a course, as well as social interaction with both instructors and other students. Students learn from each other's mistakes and successes, not just from what they are leather jackets  told by instructors.

Each individual student has an ideal learning pace. Instructors are therefore faced with the challenge of designing courses that move forward such that those students with a slower learning pace do not get left behind, while not moving so slowly that students with faster learning paces get bored.

Online education

In the age of high-speed information transfer, online education is becoming a popular and cheap means for delivering teaching to individuals outside the classroom, and in some cases all over the world. Teaching can be via CD, websites, or through real-time online facilities such as webcasts, webinars and virtual classrooms. However, different methods of online education each have their own advantages and disadvantages.

Online education is still a relatively new concept, and in many respects still in the teething stages. As such, various problems arrive across different online education environments. For example:

1. Lack of immediate feedback in asynchronous sherwani  learning environments: While some online education environments such as webcasts, webinars and virtual classrooms operate live with the addition of an instructor, most do not. Teaching that is delivered through a CD or website, although having the advantage of being self-paced, provides no immediate feedback from a live instructor.

2. More preparation required on the part of the instructor: In an online education environment, an instructor can not simply stand in front of a whiteboard and deliver a class. Lessons in online education environments must be prepared ahead of time, along with any notes and instructions that may accompany the teaching.

In many cases it would also be necessary that the instructor not only understands the concepts being taught, but the technology used to deliver that teaching. This therefore increases the skill-levels needed of online education instructors, placing greater demand on educational institutions.

Staffing levels may also be higher for courses run in an online education environment, requiring for example:

The Instructor - able to teach both course cool leather jackets content and be skilled in the use of technologies involved

The Facilitator - to assist the instructor in delivering content, but may do so remotely

Help Desk - to offer assistance to instructors, facilitators and students in the use of both software and hardware used to deliver the course.

3. Not all people are comfortable with online education: Education is no longer only sought by the world's youth. With an increased trend towards adult and continuing education, there is a need to design courses suitable for students over a larger age-range, as well as students from different and varied backgrounds. It is difficult, however, to design online education environments suitable for everyone.

4. Increased potential for frustration, anxiety and confusion: In an online education environment, there are a greater number of parts making up the system that can fail. Server failures may prevent online courses from operating. Software based teaching applications may require other specific components to operate. Computer viruses may infect software necessary to run online education environments. If these systems biker leather jackets are complex, students may choose the ease of On-campus education rather than taking the additional time and effort necessary to master the use of online education systems.

5. The Digital Divide: Many people who live in remote areas and developing countries do not have access to computers, making any form of online education virtually impossible. For this reason, online education is only able to be targeted at the people lucky enough to be able to take advantage of the technology involved. Similarly, offering live teaching across the world means that different time zones and nationalities increase the demand for multi-skilled instructors.

In addition to these, there are also several legal issues associated with maintaining an online education environment. For example, intellectual property laws, particularly those relating to copyright, may or may not fully cover electronically created intellectual property. For example, information on a website is not necessarily considered to be public domain, despite being available to everyone. However, the Australian plus size leather jackets  Copyright Act was amended in 2001 to ensure that copyright owners of electronic materials, including online education environments, could continue to provide their works commercially.

On-Campus Education

Still the most common form of instruction is traditional classroom-style learning. These instructor-led environments are more personal than online education environments, and also have the advantage of allowing for immediate feedback both to and from student and teachers alike. However, the classroom allows for less flexibility than courses run in online education environments.

Instructors in modern classroom environments are still able to take advantage of several forms of electronic teaching tools while still maintaining the atmosphere associated with the traditional classroom environment. For example, PowerPoint slides can be utilized instead of a whiteboard or blackboard. Handouts can be distributed via course websites prior to the event. However, on the day, students are still able to  business suits for men actively participate in the lesson.

Like online education environments, On-campus education comes with certain drawbacks, the most common of which is the classroom itself. This requires a group of people which, in a university for example, could reach a few hundred people in size, to gather in the same place at the same time. This requires enormous time and financial commitment on behalf of both the students and the educational institution.

However, it is this sort of environment that is most familiar to students across the world. People of all ages can access a classroom environment feeling comfortable with the way that a classroom-run course is carried out. Older students who may not be comfortable with the use of information technology are not required to navigate their way through possibly complex online education environments, making On-campus blue suits for men  education the most accessible form of teaching.

On-campus education has one advantage that 100% electronically delivered courses can not offer - social interaction. Learning comes from observing, not only what is written on a page or presented in a slideshow, but what is observed in others. Most students are naturally curious, and so will want to ask questions of their instructors. The classroom environment allows students to clarify what is being taught not only with their instructors, but with other students.

So, Which is Better?

There is no style of instruction that will best suit every student. Studies have shown (Can online education replace On-campus education) that courses where online education is used to complement On-campus education have proved more effective than courses delivered entirely using only one method. These courses take advantage of both online education materials and a live instructor, and have produced results higher than those of students in either 100% online education or classroom environment black men in suits  courses. Students have the advantage of the immediate feedback and social interaction that comes with the classroom environment, as well as the convenience of self-paced online education modules that can be undertaken when it best suits the student.

It would seem that online education environments will never completely replace On-campus education. There is no "one size fits all" method of teaching. Teaching styles will continue tFor years there has been a public outcry to "fix" the PUBLIC educational system of the United States. First of all, this will be impossible, because "fix" cannot be defined.

Some say that "fix" means to have better and more modern buildings. Some say to "fix" mean to pay teachers more. Some say to "fix" means to have our students pass progress tests. Some say to "fix" means to be able to have our students more effectively compete in the world arena of science and business. Some say to "fix' means give our students a better education in the basics of reading, writing, and math. Some say to "fix" means wedding sherwani  to give our students a more progressive, liberal education so they can live fuller and more complete lives. Some say we need to "fix" the educational system so students can choose what "they" want to do in life sooner and enter college with direction and focus. And the reasons for "fixing" the "broken" PUBLIC educational system go on and on.

I think the PUBLIC educational system is broken and cannot be fixed. The system is so bogged down in political bureaucracy, red tape, special interests, union politics, under funding, misuse of funds, misdirection, non-focus, status quo thinking, social rhetoric, unfunded programs, broken political promises, and under staffed, under qualified, and under paid administrators and teachers that the PUBLIC educational system can never be fixed. It is an impossible task.

It is no wonder that PRIVATE schools, alternative learning programs, home schooling, and online curriculums are becoming more and more popular with the "affluent" of our population. If you can afford a good education for your student, parents are pulling their students out of SEO Training  PUBLIC schools and enrolling them more and more in private programs of education.

It is my opinion and the opinion of many concerned citizens that from elementary school to college, our educational system, at its best, often drives the natural love of learning out of our kids and replaces it with such "skills" as following rules, keeping still and quiet, doing what is expected, cheating or procrastinating. And that's why, in most schools, being on time and sitting quietly are more important than critical thinking and innovative production. To prosper in this economy, students need to develop and master different skills - lifeskills such as resourcefulness, curiosity, innovation, as well as logical and verbal proficiency.

Most progressive educational professionals would agree with Bill Gates who told our nation's governors last year that the traditional urban high school is obsolete.

The reality of education is that the system for  SEO training course the most part is outdated, too expensive, and ineffective. Many educationally progressive countries offer PUBLIC funding for education from Kindergarten through University, where as in the United States most states don't offer Kindergarten classes, and all Public Education stops at the end of High School.

The primary reason we send our children to school is to enable them to choose the career of their choice, earn a good living and enjoy all that life has to offer. We all want to give our children the opportunity to prosper and provide well for their families.

Here is what has to be done if we are to give our citizens a better education which in turn gives our country more productivity in the world economy.

1. We need to PRIVATIZE all education in our country.

2. Education will be "funded" but not controlled by our government.

3. Each family will be given a certain amount of money (voucher) for each student of each age.

4. Parents can use this voucher to educate their students as they choose at any school or institution of their choice.

5. The government has NO say in the choices parents and students make. Our tax dollars only go to "fund" PUBLIC education in the PRIVATE sector.

6. When schools and institutions are made to Seo training certification "compete" for tuitions based on the performance of the teachers and educators, the quality of education will increase. If schools don't offer parents and students a quality education, parents and students will go some place else, and the school is out of business. o adapt to find the method that best fits the learning group. Using a mix of online education environments and classroom sessions, educational institutions, corporations and government organizations can ensure that training is delivered that is convenient and effective for both instructors and students a like.

[educ614-blog]

Reflection

I absolutely loved this class and only made me more excited to become a teacher. I was challenged to think about teaching than the traditional method I was taught in so commonly and it makes me feel like I have some beginner skills to truly make a difference wherever I end up teaching. All these methods of teaching not only have the power to change schools globally for the better, but to change the world. How we teach the younger generations, and what we fail to teach them (which is A LOT when we follow standard curriculum using the banking method), is what we are sending out into the world. We have the power to create thoughtful, careful, kind human beings which we lack so much in this day and age. This course definitely pushed me outside my comfort zones and taught me how to respond to challenging material that other people may have a different opinion on. My favorite activity was when we wrote response in the google doc and had people comment on everyones. This was a fantastic way to allow people to give criticism without feeling attacked in front of the class as commonly happens when oral discussions get heated, and its little methods like this that you taught us, that I hope will stick with me in 3.5 years when I have my first class of students. I got more comfortable with using different methods of technology (and everything that can be classified as technology) which I would not have done if not required, but now that I’m comfortable with them, will definitely use them to my advantage for other projects down the line. 

[justinadominique-com125]

eLearning

eLearning is basically lessons that are conducted through the Internet to anywhere outside the classroom from where the educator is teaching. It is not delivered via other means such as a video tape or television channel. It is also interactive, enabling students to communicate with the other parties involved a particular class. If such lessons are delivered live, all parties are able to interact in real time. However, lectures can be pre-recorded too. In this post, I will explore benefits of eLearning in both education as well as in organisations.

eLearning in education Generally speaking, eLearning is useful as people are able to learning anything they want from anywhere. This saves time from travelling away from home in an extremely competitive learning environment. Money is also saved as people do not have to spend money on transport costs as well as having to purchase meals in schools – home cooked food is cheaper! Additionally, people are able to enrol in virtually any course offered in traditional four-year universities.

Comfort is also another factor as to why eLearning is great. Lectures and the relevant materials needed for courses are provided through the platforms responsible for the online courses. As such, students are able to access them from the comfort of their home. They are also able to wear anything they want, reducing the need to get dressed like how they would if they were to attend lessons in physical classrooms. Moreover, students are able to choose where they can learn from. Should they not want to attend online lessons at home, they can always head to a friend’s house to attend it together or a nearby café.

Enrolling in online programmes also benefits a person’s resume as it shows potential employers his/ her commitment to learning and that s/he is eager to gain more knowledge and learn new skills. An online degree is not seen as inferior to traditional ones in the eyes of employers as a degree is ultimately still a degree, and requires much effort and hard work to attain it. If an online degree is obtained from a prominent university, a person’s career is likely to be further boosted as s/he will become a better candidate for job promotions.

Students engaging in eLearning are also able to learn at their own pace. They are able to complete assignments in their own time and can arrange for schedules that suit his or hers. In a traditional university, students often have to juggle their interests, social life, and work with their academics. Studying is a priority in such a situation as students constantly have to meet deadlines and attend examinations on specific dates. A self-paced system allows students to access their materials at any time of the day, and this is especially beneficial to people who are working full time jobs and/ or have families to take care of.

Apart from the abovementioned reasons, there are also other benefits of eLearning, especially for the youth. For instance, students are encouraged not to rely on teachers but to be accountable for themselves and hence independent. They need to stay engaged with what they are doing as they are responsible for improving their personal learning outcomes. In addition, eLearning teaches digital literacy. This is important in this century, as technology is becoming more advanced and people begin relying more on it to improve many aspects of life.

eLearning in Organisations eLearning goes beyond academics, as it takes place in organisations too. Below, I will talk about the benefits of eLearning in organisations pertaining to staff training.

With materials available 24 hours a day throughout the week, employees are able to learn at their own pace in the comfort of their homes. They are also able to learn faster, resulting in an increase in productivity. Additionally, employees presently tend to work from different time zones, enabling employers to provide tools to offer staff training without constraining resources due to their 24/7 availability.

Pedagogy is also improved with the use of eLearning. For instance, gamification is used in staff learning programmes, as it has been proven to enhance engagement as well as improves retention. In addition to this, learning methods are improved through the personalisation of study materials and interactive formats. Employers are able to use learning tools that match the competencies of the leaning goals that are achieved by the employee, rendering the experience a better alternative to traditional learning methods.

eLearning also brings with it an increase in collaboration and reach by allowing staff and trainers to connect instantly. Teams from all over the world can also come together to create solutions to solve problems in real time. Additionally, there is also immediate connectivity to subject matter experts should there be a need to, regardless of where they are located.

In conventional learning systems, money is spent on many factors including classroom and infrastructure rentals, training fees, and materials. eLearning serves to be a greener and cost-effective alternative to this as trainer costs are normally a one-time occurrence as the materials involved can be reused across different batches of learners and paper consumption is reduced.

Evident from the aforementioned benefits of eLearning, it is no wonder that more organisations are encouraging its use.