#education lead generation agency

[buddhwani]

Using Video Content to Boost Your Education Marketing Efforts

Video content has become a game-changer for education marketing, helping schools, colleges, and universities connect better with students and parents. In 2024, using videos as part of your strategy is no longer optional; it’s essential. Whether you’re promoting courses, building your brand, or reaching out to prospective students, video content is one of the most engaging ways to communicate your message.

Why is Video Content So Powerful?

Video content is easy to consume and highly engaging. Platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok are filled with videos that capture attention within seconds. For educational institutions, this means a chance to stand out, tell your story, and attract more students.

Videos can showcase your campus, explain your courses, and even feature testimonials from happy students. When done right, they leave a lasting impression and help you build trust. By working with an education marketing agency, you can create high-quality video content tailored to your audience.

Types of Video Content That Work for Education

There are many types of videos you can use to market your institution. Here are a few popular ones:

Virtual Campus Tours: Help students explore your campus from the comfort of their homes. Virtual tours give them a glimpse of your facilities, classrooms, and more.

Student Stories: Let your current students or alumni share their experiences. These videos feel authentic and inspire trust in your institution.

Course Explainers: Break down what your courses offer and how they benefit students. These videos make it easy for viewers to understand your programs.

Event Highlights: Showcase the energy and excitement of events like cultural fests, graduations, or open days. It shows your institution is vibrant and active.

Social Media Snippets: Create short, catchy videos for Instagram or TikTok to keep your audience engaged and interested.

The Benefits of Video Marketing for Higher Education

Video marketing can solve many challenges faced by educational institutions. It’s especially useful for higher education, where the decision to apply often involves a lot of research.

With Video Marketing for Higher Education, institutions can:

Build Trust: Videos make it easier to connect emotionally with your audience. A well-produced video can convey your institution's values and strengths more effectively than text or images.

Simplify Complex Information: Use videos to explain programs, admission processes, or financial aid options in a clear and engaging way.

Reach a Wider Audience: Videos can go viral, helping you reach students not just locally but globally. They’re shareable and easy to distribute.

Increase Applications: Videos boost interest and encourage prospective students to take the next step, whether it’s visiting your website or filling out an application.

How to Make Video Content Work for You

Creating video content doesn’t have to be complicated. Follow these simple steps to get started:

Understand Your Audience: Know what students and parents are looking for. Create videos that answer their questions or solve their problems.

Be Authentic: Use real students, faculty, and alumni in your videos to keep things genuine. People respond better to authenticity.

Keep It Short: Attention spans are short, so aim for videos that are one to two minutes long. Longer videos are best for detailed topics, like webinars.

Optimize for Mobile: Most people watch videos on their phones, so make sure your videos are mobile-friendly and load quickly.

Add a Call-to-Action: End every video with a clear message, like asking viewers to visit your website, sign up for a tour, or contact your admissions team.

Video Content and Lead Generation

One of the biggest benefits of video marketing is its ability to generate quality leads. Videos grab attention and guide students toward taking action. For example, a video about a scholarship program can encourage viewers to sign up for more details, while a virtual tour can inspire them to schedule a visit.

An education lead generation agency can help you create videos specifically designed to capture leads. These agencies know how to use videos to convert viewers into applicants, ensuring your marketing efforts deliver results.

Success Stories with Video Marketing

Many educational institutions have successfully used videos to boost their marketing.

A university in India saw a 50% increase in applications after launching a series of videos highlighting student testimonials and campus life.

A coaching center used short Instagram videos to explain exam preparation tips, which led to higher engagement and inquiries.

A vocational school created a YouTube series about career opportunities in their field, resulting in more students signing up for their programs.

The Future of Video Marketing in Education

The role of video in education marketing is only going to grow. Some future trends to watch include:

Interactive Videos: Let viewers click within the video to explore more about specific topics or take a virtual tour.

Live Streaming: Use platforms like Instagram Live or YouTube Live to host Q&A sessions, virtual open days, or live classes.

Personalized Videos: Send tailored video messages to prospective students, making them feel valued and engaged.

Conclusion

Using video content is one of the smartest ways to boost your education marketing efforts. It’s engaging, shareable, and effective at driving results. From virtual tours to social media snippets, video helps your institution connect with students and stand out from the competition.

By working with an experienced education marketing agency, you can ensure your videos are professional, impactful, and optimized for your audience. Start incorporating videos into your strategy today, and see how they transform your marketing success.

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FAQs

1. How can video content help educational institutions attract more students?Video content is engaging and helps institutions showcase their strengths, such as campus facilities, courses, and student success stories. Videos build trust, simplify complex information, and emotionally connect with prospective students, making them more likely to apply.

2. What types of videos work best for education marketing?Popular types include virtual campus tours, student testimonials, course explainer videos, event highlights, and short social media videos. These formats capture attention and effectively communicate your institution's unique offerings.

3. Why is video marketing important for higher education?With Video Marketing for Higher Education, institutions can simplify decision-making for students by providing clear, engaging content about programs, campus life, and career opportunities. Videos also increase global reach and boost applications.

4. How do videos help in generating quality leads?Videos guide viewers to take action by including calls-to-action, such as signing up for a tour or applying online. Partnering with an education lead generation agency ensures your videos are optimized to capture and convert leads.

5. How can educational institutions create effective video content?Start by understanding your audience’s needs, keeping videos authentic and short, optimizing them for mobile, and including clear calls-to-action. Collaborating with a professional education marketing agency ensures high-quality videos that resonate with your target audience.

[idreamkraft]

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[professorcalculusstanaccount]

How would you describe Chang's relationship with his adoptive parents in your wonderful au?

Chang is adopted pretty quickly, so it's likely they didn't get much time to get to know each other as well as most adopted families nowadays. My thoughts on Chang and his adopted family are below!

Chang's heroism in The Blue Lotus was impressive, which leads to lofty expectations Chang himself feels incapable of meeting. He struggles to adapt to life in Shanghai, the Wangs' upper middle class culture and has problems at school, having missed out on a few years of education and a lot of unresolved trauma.

He's frustrated at his own inability to fit in, and guilty about flubbing this opportunity at life they gave him. Part of him feels like he's tearing their family apart. The Wangs are desperately trying to give Chang a good life, but feel completely out of their depth.

He also can't help but compare himself to Didi, his much older adopted brother and their biological son, who is scarily competent and a clear favourite of their mother.

Didi is aware that his father may have expectations for Chang to join the Sons of the Dragon. Having experienced the pressure and danger first-hand he takes it upon himself to foster a sense of agency in Chang so he will be capable of choosing for himself when the time comes. Didi trains Chang in martial arts and is tough on him in general, but encourages Chang to travel when he expresses an interest in it. Chang on the other hand encourages Didi to have fun and let loose!

Mr Wang has high expectations for Chang because he believes in him. He and Mrs Wang genuinely care for him and only want the best possible life for him, but this sometimes comes across as them expecting Chang to be somebody else. They first thought Chang was much like Didi, disciplined and quiet, but Chang's rebellious streak catches them off guard. Mrs Wang is particularly shaken.

It struck me how gentle the Wangs were with Didi while he was under the influence of madness poison, and as they are good friends with a mental health specialist, they would absolutely take Chang's mental health seriously. Whether or not they fully understand each other is another thing. As Chang slips into a deep depression they decide to send him off to London to meet his uncle, hoping a change in scenery will help him. On his way through Tibet however, his plane crashes into the mountains...

[promilo]

Understanding the B2B Buyer's Journey: How to Guide Prospects to Conversion

The B2B buyer's journey is the process that businesses go through when they are researching and purchasing products or services from other businesses. It is essential to understand this process if you want to guide prospects to conversion successfully. In this article, we will go over the different stages of the B2B buyer's journey and provide tips on how to guide prospects through each stage.

Awareness Stage

The awareness stage is the first stage of the B2B buyer's journey. At this stage, the buyer becomes aware that they have a problem or a need that they want to solve. They may not know what the solution is or who can provide it, but they are starting to research potential options.

To guide prospects through this stage, you need to make sure that your business is visible and easily discoverable online. This can include optimizing your website for search engines, creating informative blog posts, and building a social media presence.

You also need to make sure that your content is relevant and targeted to your potential buyers' needs. This can include creating educational content that helps your prospects understand their problem and the potential solutions available to them.

Consideration Stage

Once a prospect has identified their problem or need, they move on to the consideration stage. At this stage, they start to research different solutions to their problem and evaluate potential providers. They may also start to compare different providers and consider factors such as price, quality, and customer service.

To guide prospects through this stage, you need to make sure that your business is seen as a credible and trustworthy provider. This can include creating case studies and customer testimonials that demonstrate your ability to deliver results.

You also need to make sure that your sales and marketing teams are aligned and working together to provide a seamless experience for prospects. This can include providing personalized content and messaging that speaks to their specific needs and concerns.

Decision Stage

The decision stage is where prospects make their final decision on which provider to choose. At this stage, they may request a proposal or quote, negotiate terms, and finalize the deal.

To guide prospects through this stage, you need to make sure that you provide a smooth and efficient buying experience. This can include simplifying your buying process, providing clear pricing and terms, and responding to inquiries and questions in a timely manner.

You also need to make sure that you continue to build trust and credibility with your prospects throughout the buying process. This can include providing excellent customer service and support after the sale is made.

In conclusion, understanding the B2B buyer's journey is essential if you want to guide prospects to conversion successfully. By providing relevant and targeted content, building trust and credibility, and providing a seamless buying experience, you can increase your chances of converting prospects into customers.

[philosopherking1887]

More good things the Biden administration is doing: OSHA heat safety rules for workers

Remember when Texas and Florida passed laws preventing local and municipal governments from implementing their own heat safety rules and said that if heat is such a big problem, OSHA should make rules that apply to everyone? If not, NPR can remind you. OSHA has now accepted the challenge, moving much faster than they usually do:

OSHA National News Release U.S. Department of Labor July 2, 2024 Biden-Harris administration announces proposed rule to protect indoor, outdoor workers from extreme heat WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor has released a proposed rule with the goal of protecting millions of workers from the significant health risks of extreme heat. If finalized, the proposed rule would help protect approximately 36 million workers in indoor and outdoor work settings and substantially reduce heat injuries, illnesses, and deaths in the workplace. Heat is the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the U.S. Excessive workplace heat can lead to heat stroke and even death. While heat hazards impact workers in many industries, workers of color have a higher likelihood of working in jobs with hazardous heat exposure. “Every worker should come home safe and healthy at the end of the day, which is why the Biden-Harris administration is taking this significant step to protect workers from the dangers posed by extreme heat,” said Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su. “As the most pro-worker administration in history, we are committed to ensuring that those doing difficult work in some of our economy’s most critical sectors are valued and kept safe in the workplace.” The proposed rule would require employers to develop an injury and illness prevention plan to control heat hazards in workplaces affected by excessive heat. Among other things, the plan would require employers to evaluate heat risks and — when heat increases risks to workers — implement requirements for drinking water, rest breaks and control of indoor heat. It would also require a plan to protect new or returning workers unaccustomed to working in high heat conditions. “Workers all over the country are passing out, suffering heat stroke and dying from heat exposure from just doing their jobs, and something must be done to protect them,” said Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health Douglas L. Parker. “Today’s proposal is an important next step in the process to receive public input to craft a ‘win-win’ final rule that protects workers while being practical and workable for employers.” Employers would also be required to provide training, have procedures to respond if a worker is experiencing signs and symptoms of a heat-related illness, and take immediate action to help a worker experiencing signs and symptoms of a heat emergency. The public is encouraged to submit written comments on the rule once it is published in the Federal Register. The agency also anticipates a public hearing after the close of the written comment period. More information will be available on submitting comments when the rule is published. In the interim, OSHA continues to direct significant existing outreach and enforcement resources to educate employers and workers and hold businesses accountable for violations of the Occupational Safety and Health Act’s general duty clause, 29 U.S.C. § 654(a)(1) and other applicable regulations. Record-breaking temperatures across the nation have increased the risks people face on-the-job, especially in summer months. Every year, dozens of workers die and thousands more suffer illnesses related to hazardous heat exposure that, sadly, are most often preventable. The agency continues to conduct heat-related inspections under its National Emphasis Program – Outdoor and Indoor Heat-Related Hazards, launched in 2022. The program inspects workplaces with the highest exposures to heat-related hazards proactively to prevent workers from suffering injury, illness or death needlessly. Since the launch, OSHA has conducted more than 5,000 federal heat-related inspections. In addition, the agency is prioritizing programmed inspections in agricultural industries that employ temporary, nonimmigrant H-2A workers for seasonal labor. These workers face unique vulnerabilities, including potential language barriers, less control over their living and working conditions, and possible lack of acclimatization, and are at high risk of hazardous heat exposure.

[fucktoyfelix]

This is actually a useful thing to understand how to spell out. What exactly is wrong with puritanical attitudes towards sexuality? TW: Discusses body image issues, suicide, STIs, sexual assault etc

1. It fosters fear, disgust and loathing of our bodies. By hiding the human body as soon as we are born, and treating it as an object of inherent shame: THAT creates trauma. Shame is one of the primary sources of trauma, its the fuel and lets trauma burn. Those raised in nudist societies, and children raised in households where nudity is treated in a neutral and non-sexual tend to have a much more positive relationship with their bodies as adults. This makes complete sense when you think about it. Going through puberty not knowing if your body is "normal" terrifies children in ways that stick with them for life. In fact, most cultures outside of the Unites States aren't as strange about non-sexual nudity actually...and are healthier for it. We can't have body positivity as long as we are literally criminalized for having an uncovered body. 2. It creates fear, shame and disgust about sex. Most people have sex at some point in their lives. No one would be here at all without it. Most people have sexual desires which lie outside their control. When people are ashamed of those desires, it leads to self hatred, and depression and anxiety. This shame is just as traumatic as bodily shame. When sex is normalized, and treated with the same candor as any other hobby: it becomes less apt to traumatize people.

3. Puritanical attitudes towards sex limit sex education. When people are too ashamed to talk about sex, people don't learn about pregnancy, stis, or consent. All of these things can and do kill people when they aren't addressed with an open dialogue.

Sexual shame leads to people too ashamed to buy condoms, to talk to their doctor about birth control, to ask their partner to use protection, to get tested...the negative health impacts of sexual puritanism have a massive negative effect on society.

4. Sexual shame leads to poorer communication in relationships. Ohh if I had a dime for every person i knew who ruined their relationship because they felt too guilty to talk to their partner about their sexual feelings...Not just that, but the general body shame that comes with puritanism blocks people from connecting to one another too. Have you ever avoided getting close to someone because you were ashamed of your body? If not, I guarantee you know someone who has.

5. Misogyny! Puritanical sexual believes hold that women are not capable of sexual agency. That only men should initiate sex. That women should only ever want babies and not pleasure from sex. All of this rolls right into the next one:

6. Victim blaming in sexual assault. When women are the gatekeepers of sex, its easy to blame them when they 'fail' to protect their chastity when someone violates their trust. This isn't something that just effects women: as the same attitudes hold that men are not capable of experiencing sexual assault. The lack of education and discussion about sex in a sex-negative world inherently prevent the open dialogues necessary for creating and maintaining consent culture.

7. Suppression and marginalization of the queer community. If we're too ashamed to talk about sex, we'll be too ashamed to talk about sexuality. Puritans can't accept any deviation from gender norms either. Anything other than sex between a cis man and a cis woman for the purpose of making a baby is a deviant kink, a mental illness, and needs to be wiped out. Its important to point out that many queer people hold puritanical values about sex: believing that they can achieve sex negativity and queer liberation at the same time. However, sex negative movements always rise with censorship and discrimination of queer people...because queer people are inherently considered deviant by the vast majority of sex negative "allies". It's very dangerous to forget this.

8. Censorship of art. Who decides what is sexual and what is not? Its easy to agree that sex needs to be hidden...but it never takes long before the definition of what is "sexual" expands. Even women's breasts are considered sexual in the United States. Its so normal for Americans to think of them that way that women can't feed their children in public. Drag queens face violence for reading at libraries. Books get taken off the shelves. Artists are bullied offline.

9. Censorship of scientific exploration. Scientific research into reproductive health, sexual behavior, gender identity and more are often hindered due to the "moral objections" of puritans, delaying progress and understanding. That's just off the top of my head. I think its time for people to take how problematic 'puritanism' is more seriously. As we see fascism rear its ugly head all over the world, we're going to see a lot more talk about 'degenerates'...and we know where that kind of talk leads.

[hyperlexichypatia]

I think the way nonprofits and public agencies are funded leads us to adopt some of the worst aspects of a capitalist mindset towards our service users.

In a business, the goal is clear: Generate profit. Sell more product, to generate more profit. Recruit more customers, to generate more profit. Upsell customers to a more expensive product, to generate more profit. Convince customers to keep coming back and buying more things, to generate more profit.

Manipulation is built into the process, and it's understood by all parties. When a business does something "for you," it's in the hopes that you'll buy (or keep buying, or buy more of, or persuade other people to buy) their product. When a company offers free ice cream with your insurance quote, it's not because they like you and and want you to have ice cream; it's because they want you to come for the ice cream, stay for the insurance quote, and buy their insurance policy before you leave, so they can get your money. Everybody knows this.

Nonprofits and public agencies theoretically don't have this motive. Theoretically, the services we offer are for you, the service user. Theoretically, there is no profit motive, and thus no motive for manipulation. Theoretically, whether or not people choose to use the services we offer has no effect on us, so our only goal in promoting or raising awareness of our services is so that potential users can know about them and decide whether or not to use them.

Theoretically.

But in reality, public agencies and nonprofits are funded by governments, foundations, and donors. They demand "data" to justify their funding, and a major source of "data" is the number of service users. Markers of success have to be measurable and numerical, even if that metric doesn't really make sense. So even if there's not directly a profit motive for recruiting service users as "paying customers," there can still be a financial incentive for recruiting as many service users as possible, including using "sales" techniques like giveaways and gimmicks.

Now, this isn't inherently a bad thing -- after all, people in the nonprofit sector want people to use our services, so we want to get the word out about what we have to offer. I'm not saying it's inherently wrong for a nonprofit to use a raffle or a giveaway or a pizza party or whatever to get the word out and recruit new service users.

But since the services we offer are supposed to be for the service users' own benefit, sometimes the attitude around promoting them slips into the idea that the people we're ostensibly trying to serve have to be manipulated or bribed or tricked into accepting services for their own good, because they don't know or care what's good for them.

This can get into some really unfortunate implications territory in the context of the demographics of people who tend to work at nonprofits and public agencies, compared to the demographics of people those agencies tend to serve.

Attitudes can quickly morph into "Those People don't care about their children's health/education/etc., so we have to trick and manipulate and bribe them with food and prizes."

There's a difference between "Giveaways are a fun way to get the word out about our services" and "Those People don't care about their children's diabetes risk unless we make them sit through a lecture before we give them food." And way too many public agency and nonprofit workers, in private, in what they think is a sympathetic audience, are way too open about saying the latter.

[mydaddywiki]

William Barr

Physique: Average Build Height: 6′ 1″ (1.85 m)

William Pelham Barr (born May 23, 1950) is an American attorney who served as the United States attorney general in the administration of President George H. W. Bush from 1991 to 1993 and again in the administration of President Donald Trump from 2019 to 2020. Barr was the second person in U.S. history to serve twice as attorney general (the first was John J. Crittenden).

Bill looks like a human Droopy. Then I see him smile and I go aww… want some dick? What? I’m not voting for or marrying him. I’m just using him as a cum dumpster then kicking him to the streets. And something tells me, he would be good in bed.

Born and raised in New York City, Barr was educated at the Horace Mann School, Columbia University, and George Washington University Law School. From 1971 to 1977, Barr was employed by the Central Intelligence Agency. He then served as a law clerk to judge Malcolm Richard Wilkey of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Before becoming attorney general in 1991, Barr held numerous other posts within the Department of Justice, including leading the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) and serving as deputy attorney general.

Barr has been married to Christine Moynihan Barr since 1973, and together they have three daughters. Lets see what else I can find out about him. Hmm… Barr is an avid bagpiper having played competitively in Scotland with a major American pipe band.

OK that one is WAY too easy.

[morimakesfanart]

Sindria's Prophet #41

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [Intermission] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40]

[AO3] [wattpad]

Sinbad x OC

*Mori goes to horny mecha *More sex ed things *Emotional/tonal whiplash ~POV Sinbad~ Mori couldn't keep their eyes off of him for days, but they turned away every time Sinbad returned their gaze. He was definitely getting under their skin. It was only a matter of time before they fully became his, but he wasn't certain he could make it happen before he left for the Kou Empire. It was only after he sat at his desk and couldn't seem to finish a single document that he couldn't deny Mori was under his skin too. Even the waves were pointing him away from his desk.

However, the King couldn't exactly leave when he had just started working -that was what Zepar was for. The bird circled the Black Libra Tower, and when it entered through an open window of Mori's office it wasn't his Beautiful Prophet inside. That was definitely Ja'far leaving the room holding a bunch of scrolls. And when he entered the court yard, the General was headed towards the White Capricorn Tower. Something told Sinbad that Ja'far was heading his way without the waves. He dropped control of the bird.

Sure enough, Ja'far entered his office with the scrolls and put them on his desk. "Sin, is what Mori wrote in these true?" Just glancing at the labels he knew, "I haven't read those ones yet, but I'm sure they are." "Read them now." Ja'far had not looked this upset with him in years. "I'll wait."

--- ~POV Sharrkan~ Mori was ranting and it was far worse than anything Yam had ever said. "Yeah, no! I don't care how pretty these are or how much of a tourist attraction they are! You have to stop selling and supplying quartz and wooden dildos!" The Prophet pointed one such facile at the group before her. "These materials are porous. They can't be properly sterilized, so they will eventually lead to infections no matter what orifice they're shoved into!" Sindria's best swordsman was stuck between covering his face or ears while Mori 'educated' him and the staff of the Red Light District. This was a mistake. 'Can the King just show up and kill me right now????' She sighed. "You can make a similar-ish affect to quartz with glass right? That's actually safe to use, easy to sterilize, and they can handle a wide range of temperatures so you can even use them for temperature play." The Prophet twirled the crystalline dick while talking. "I was surprised when I saw how advanced this country's glass is so there shouldn't be a problem making dildos out of safe materials with the glass work here." Sharrkan had thought she would just take notes or something and leave, not try to fix everything right then and there!!! What materials were safe, what practices were dangerous; 'didn't matter that she was also teaching them things they could do/use instead that would work better. Wasn't Mori supposed to be a huge virgin nerd like Yam??? Why did she know so much about all of this? There's no way this was just from her visions. The staff were the ones taking notes instead of the Prophet. 'At least they seem to be enjoying themselves.'

--- ~POV Sinbad~ Ja'far brought the remaining Fate scrolls Sinbad had yet to read, but only really wanted him to read parts of 2 of them for the conversation. The contents were telling, both in his mistakes of the past, and Ja'far's current glare. When his Beautiful Prophet first told him that he ran away from responsibility using 'Fate,' he thought he had found the true answer in the waves. But that was a contradiction. The waves were caused by people's decisions, so even if they guide people to opportunities it doesn't remove their agency. Without realizing it, Sinbad had fallen into another phantasm to protect himself from guilt. Some of the comments Mori made since they met had hinted at the real reason but it was clear she had no intention of telling him directly. All of the scrolls had signs of being edited here and there, but not these two. They were still in process. And so there was the truth written directly in the paragraphs after his release from slavery.

...He had long forgotten how to ask for emotional support ... Those feelings would fester every time he made another mistake until he was able to fully replace his guilt with the acceptance of 'Fate' as inevitable. He wouldn't be able to acknowledge his own potential for evil for another 15~ years...

That last line held the answer. 'His own potential for evil.' That was the point Mori was really talking around all this time. In her visions he hadn't been able to accept that side of himself until it was too late. He knew he was capable of such things on a factual level considering how he viewed some of his Kingly actions as 'necessary evils,' but that wasn't the same as acknowledging that truth in his Heart. The reason he had longed for the ways of his youth was because back then he hadn't done anything that would haunt the rest his life; he had yet to gamble in desperation only to hurt those around him. But even that wasn't really the truth. When Sinbad had read about when he left home after capturing the Dungeon all he could think of was how that action damned everyone in his village just as was revealed in the scrolls in front of him. He had been making this mistake since the start. 'Just what have I been doing all this time?'

Ja'far's darkened stare waited until he got through the 2nd scroll. "This is so much worse than how you made it sound. This is more than some kid thinking he's the chosen one." A hand went to his head as he tried to wrap his mind around everything. "Sin, why do you think we all swore our lives to help you achieve your dream?"

Sinbad couldn't look away from the scrolls. Doing so would only mean seeing the disappointment in his friend's eyes. He had spent so long keeping what happened in Parthevia a secret. There was nothing he could do about it now.

"I know you don't like sharing your plans, but I thought... Did you ever trust us to help you?! What was the point of gathering all of us then??"

The King opened his mouth, and the realization that he couldn't say the 'right' answer and believe his own words hit him much harder than Ja'far's accusations. His heart started racing to match the flow of the waves. The General may have only read those 2 scrolls but Sinbad had read everything leading up to them, so more of his past was fresh in his mind. Sure, he reached out to people to teach him things periodically, but any time he ran into a real problem he always took on that burden alone. Sinbad had expected 'support' from his Household Members and citizens, but never 'help.'

Sinbad lost control over his expression. "That's part of why I decided to change this path I'm on. Mori made it clear that I will repeat the mistakes of my past if I don't start relying on you all even when I..." He was unable to find the right words to finish his sentence.

"Sin." Ja'far practically hissed his name. "If you don't fix this bad habit of yours then I'll kill you myself, just like I promised all those years ago, before you can cause the 2nd Calamity."

"I'll count on that." He would rather that than be the one that almost destroyed the world. Taking a deep breath didn't help nearly as much as he hoped. "I think we've humored Mori long enough. I need to know for sure how I'm connected to the 2nd Calamity." ---

~POV Mori~ To be honest, I wasn't expecting the management of the Red Light District to believe me right away. But apparently, being officially announced as the Prophet was really good PR because they were very excited to receive some of my 'prophecies for the betterment of Sindria.' The waves had grown dangerously high during my info dumping. If I didn't know how much of a change a sexual revolution could cause from reading history I might have been concerned. Instead, it made my heart swell with pride.

Returning to my room empty handed was a bit disappointing, but it did make it easier to sneak back without being noticed. It also gave me time to make a space the bunch of the new glass dildos I preordered. I was definitely looking forward to the future.

"Finally!" Sharrkan groaned as we exited the district. "If I knew you were going to take so long figuring out-" Both of us froze in the gold gilded doorway.

'Why is Sinbad entering the Red Light District in the middle of the day???' That thought was immediately counter when I noticed Ja'far standing next to him. That meant he was here for official business, not pleasure. 'Why am I only now realizing I could have waited for him to leave the country before attempting this????' At least I wasn't carrying a bag of dicks. That would have been the most damning evidence. --- ~POV Sinbad~ When the guards had revealed that Mori was escorted to the Red Light District by Sharrkan, Sinbad was unwilling to wait for their return. However, something wasn't quite adding up to his expectations. Mori was happily walking out of the Red Light District, and Sharrkan was drained and depressed besides her.

Before the King could say anything, Mori greeted them. "Hello, you're Majesty, Ja'far! I was originally going to tell you after writing up a report first, but since you're here I'll let you know now: I realized I could share medical information for reproductive health here." She gestured behind her, "I just finished my first trip to see what is the current common knowledge, so I could better understand how I can help."

'Does that means Sharrkan didn't drag Mori here?' Even so she was talking a bit too quickly. She was definitely nervous about something.

Ja'far responded before the King could gather his thoughts. "Mori. You do remember that you promised not to invent anything, don't you?" His smile was not the nice one.

"Yes," she admitted without skipping a beat. "However I don't need to invent anything that we aren't already working on to help here." Mori's smile was unwavering.

Sinbad sought direct confirmation. "You really came here to figure out ways to improve this place?" ---

~POV Mori~ "Of course! Who do you think I am?" I said, you know, like a liar. I placed one hand on my hip, and the other over my heart for added flare. "The whole reason I came here was because the rubber experiments are coming along, and the same material can be used to make comfortable condoms you can actually feel through. That way no one has an excuse to not use them." The King and estranged prince coughed at my words. Ja'far's eyes widened. I took his lack of comment as a sign to continue. "We are already working towards rubber gloves. And what are the fingers on gloves other than tubes? We can make condoms by just making bigger tubes." I gave a perfect customer service smile to the man in charge of finances. "From my visions, I know how much trouble 'people' get into when they can't deny their desires, so I thought I could at least help with this part of the problem." "Mx. Prophet," Ja'far took a few steps forward and grabbed my hands. "You should have told me sooner! Something like is invaluable with a King like Sinbad." 'Fish, meet hook.' I softened my expression to lean into this pity angle. "I understand. I know how many complaints you've had to deal with because of him."

((Blatant Rose of Versailles reference ;3)) --- ~POV Sinbad~ This was a dilemma. Even though Sinbad had stopped taking partners, his Beautiful Prophet was none the wiser. This was a good opportunity to enlightened her, but there was something else he had to take care of first. Ja'far might have disliked Mori when they first met, but ever since the rebellion in Balbadd was stopped things started to change. They had started having periodic moments like this when their thoughts aligned. Sin didn't like it. He gently separated their hands and received their attention at the same time. "Hey now, I stopped asking for call girls weeks ago." On one hand, if Mori wanted something, Sinbad wanted to make sure she got it -if that was the assistance of one of his Generals so be it. But on the other hand, he didn't want anyone else catching Mori's eye. When he had heard that Sharrkan brought her to the Red Light District he had thought that one of his Household Members had betrayed him. From the look of things it was starting to seem like, instead of Sharrkan, it was Ja'far he should have been worried about. Ja'far took a few steps back. His eyes and brow scrunched in great disappointment and complete lack of fucks for the topic. "I think we will all feel better with this added protection considering your track record." "Yes, well..." There was no denying that. Sinbad cleared his throat into a fist to buy time as he listed the facts in his head: '-Mori has already admitted to her feelings for me before so clearly she wants to be with me. '-Mori is also aware of my own feelings even though she hasn't fully accept it yet. '-Mori has started working on condoms that are comfortable. 'She is clearly working towards our future, so we can have a long honeymoon before growing our family!!' Mori's expression was only marginally better than Ja'far's. "Are.... you sick?" The Prophet still trusted her visions far more than anything he could say. "I'm fine. I promise." This was a failure of a conversation. Sharrkan's snickering rubbed salt in the wound. There was nothing the Womanizer of the Seven Seas could say to clear his name. "...Okay." She clearly didn't believe him. Mori lightly clapped their hands together with a smile. "Well, on that bombshell, we'll let you go do whatever you were gonna do in the Red Light District." Regret. Humiliation. Was how he spent his life really such a bad thing for a future spouse? Wouldn't his experience and expertise mean that he would be guaranteed to satisfy them? Ja'far brought the topic around to their true purpose. "Actually Mori, we came to get you. We have some questions about the future you saw in your visions."

--- ~POV Mori~ The room they brought me to was the same one that lead to the balcony where I had dinner with Sinbad more than a month ago. As soon as we entered, the King started taking off his rings. Confusion spiked my anxiety. Sinbad gave me a reassuring smile. "I noticed during our meetings about Fate that you keep looking at my rings. When I remembered you know my Djinn's abilities it was obvious what you were worried about." He took off his remaining metal vessels and placed them on a coffee table. "I know I'll never use any of these on you, but actions speak louder than words at times like these." Ja'far followed his King's example and placed his metal vessels on the the table as well. I knew I looked at Zepar's ring a few times when talking about Fate, but I thought I made it seem like my eyes were wandering. I couldn't respond. My brain was still catching up and accepting what was happening. 'This isn't going to be about his trip to the Kou Empire...' I had already explained what visions I had of that trip during a meeting about preparing for it, but it was still the most likely topic I could think of. It wasn't until they settled in amongst the plush seating that I realized I should sit down too. Sinbad's expression went serious but he didn't feel angry. After a moment's hesitation he looked me in the eye. "The person who causes the 2nd Calamity is me, isn't it?" . . . . . . 'How????' The thought was immediately followed by the realization that since I hadn't responded right away there was no way they would believe anything other than admittance. I couldn't even consider the option. ((So that emotional whiplash of a cliffhanger, amiright? The chapter took so long to come out because- Surprised! That eye infection I had came back and being on the medication this time really messed me up. It's a stronger antibiotic since the last apparently didn't fully knock it out of me. I couldn't go outside without catching on fire and passing out, and I had to hyper monitor my diet. The doctor said I'm past the next stage so the dosage was cut in half. I feel more like a person again :D I'll be on it for at least another month. Wish me luck!! This chapter was also delayed because I ended up deciding to do Artober daily this year. It was my first year making a piece every day since Jake Parker ruined Inktober by trademarking it and doing a plagiarism. Anyway, I really enjoyed the challenge :D Inspired me to work on more of my original work and things. On that note, the next chapter is going to be delayed because I want to get a lucid dream one shot out by December 7th. I definitely chose that date for no reason in particular. It absolutely has nothing to do with it being a Jujutsu Kaisen dream. Promise UwU I also have an original piece I'm nearly done writing, but I'll wait to finalize it until I have the next chapter of Sindria's Prophet posted :3 The world and this country is on fire but that doesn't mean it's the end. We have survived every day up to this one, we can survive another. We will preserve.))

[starlostlix]

Bungo Stray Dogs and the separateness of Childhood - a sociological view

[So a large portion of this is left over from when I was revising sociology for my alevels, which were done over a month ago now (wow). So I hope there's people out there who find this interesting, it's nice to post this since it goes back to my roots of what started me on tumblr in the first place (sociological analysis, but of MTP). Also this has Stormbringer spoilers.]

Sociologists agree that childhood is a social construct (a concept in society with no fixed definition). The definition of childhood changes depending on culture and time, so it is not universal or 'natural'. Bungo Stray Dogs portrays a definition of childhood much different to many of our own cultures, and part of its presentation is something I want to look into.

The main idea to look at is Jane Pilcher's idea of 'separateness' - childhood as a clear and distinct stage of life in which children are considered physically and psychologically incompetent and unable to run their own lives. This idea of separateness often leads to childhood being considered a 'golden age' of play and having a lack of responsibility. In BSD, the idea of childhood as a separate stage is not as clear - many children 16 or under are seen working in (or looking for) employment much like adults would do. For example, in Stormbringer Shirase (who is 16) works in a car factory, Yosano at age 11 is said to work in a confectionery store (we don't know if this was family owned or not though), and Ranpo in Untold Origins (aged 14) looking for a job when he meets Fukuzawa. With this information we can gather that children have to take the responsibility of work from a younger age than many cultures (for instance where I lived children have to be in education until 18) and that from as young as 11 they are able to employment.

Consider the other children present - the Akutagawa siblings living on the streets for many years without parents or financial support, Kyouka and Q (as well as teenagers like Dazai and Chuuya) being part of the mafia from a young age, Kenji in his village, Chuuya and Mary Wollstonecraft in Stormbringer, and Atsushi living in the orphanage. All of these have different notions of childhood attached to them.

The Akutagawa siblings learnt to support themselves from a young age. Their group of fellow homeless children act as proof of a wide child poverty issue, one which represent the effects of a lack of child welfare support by the government or the effects of the many casualties in the Great War (leaving many without parents). The lack of child welfare support may show a general lack of the idea of separateness, since specialist support for children is not available.

The abundance of children in the mafia, especially those who reach the higher ranks of executives like Dazai and Chuuya by the age of 16, show a distinct lack of recognition of childhood as a separate stage. Those who are children don't seem to be treated much differently to the adults, which is especially apparent in Q and Kyouka's missions (where Kyouka in her first mission we see being considered disposable by the mafia).

Kenji's childhood on paper seems the closest to many farming cultures in our world. He works on a farm from a young age, as many people in his village and in real life farming families do. The recruitment of him to the detective agency however, suggests that (despite his youth) his ability makes him fit for the job. This somewhat leads on to the idea that children with abilities are seen as more mature and subjected to more adult activities and topics from a younger age, with their allowance of separateness smaller than that of non-ability user children.

A few other Stormbringer examples - Mary Wollstonecraft is only 10 years old as of Stormbringer, and yet she is working for the European governments and making robot agents for them. Young children working for governments is a clear example of a lack of separation between child and adult. Another, and arguably much worse example, is Chuuya and Verlaine - both experimented on by scientists/the government and infused with singularities via force. Chuuya is also canonically cloned. Verlaine and Chuuya, in their experimentation, are not treated much differently, despite Verlaine being an adult and Chuuya being around 5 at the time of his kidnapping/start of experimentation. This suggests a lack of seperateness yet again. There is a lot more that could be said about the whole 'cloning/made into a weapon' part of their story, but this is not the post for that.

A more recent one - Teruko. Because of her unique ability to change her age means that within the first few months of her life she was forced to fight in war. She's actually forced to bypass her own childhood for the war effort, and therefore her childlike demeanour during the Decay of Angels arc may be to try and harness what she missed out on. Her ability in itself could also play into the 'old age is a social construct' argument too maybe but again, not the post.

Atsushi's childhood in an orphanage at first seems to match the ideas of childhood as a separate stage dependent on others. The purpose of orphanages is to raise children without parents and help them prepare for the world, but Atsushi's experiences of abuse shows that his ability, to the orphanage director, makes him undeserving of this separate stage. Instead he is abused and eventually kicked out with no real support. This being able to go on unchecked alongside the other examples brings me to my conclusion about the definition of childhood in Yokohama/the surrrounding villages/possibly the world are not being considered a separate 'golden age' to the same standards as our world.

As mentioned earlier, children who are ability users are less likely to have this construct of seperateness include them. In sociology, labels and constructs are assigned by people and society, and so in this universe there are many adults who have removed this construct from ability users' lives in their childhood. Yosano is the clearest example of this - Mori takes her away from her experience of childhood and places her in a war zone, where she, despite being 11 years of age, is treated like an adult and (because of her ability) is placed on a pedestal by the solders. She's stripped of her childhood through not only the standards placed upon her, but the trauma she endures in the war zone - leaving her to spend what remained of her childhood in a psych ward until Fukuzawa is able to take her in.

Ability user children, via circumstances or adult intervention, do not get to experience childhood in the way other children do because that label is stripped away from them. This is most usually because they pose some asset to an organisation or campaign - and this can include the ADA too. Just because the ADA offers a more healthy and safer environment for the children than other organisations, it is still putting children into work and treating them the same as adults. How ethical this is, is in itself another question that I don't think I can give an answer to. But I could honestly talk about how ability user children are treated differently in a whole other essay.

[I do not have much else to say now about this specific area but it's probably better to post than just to let sit in the drafts as it has done for a while. So no proper conclusion sorry.]

[stillness-in-green]

Finding Fascism in My Hero Academia

Part 2 is now live! You can read excerpts below the cut, or hit up my Patreon for the whole thing. As before, this part is available for everyone to view, with or without membership, while paid members can read ahead to the next part. (Part 1 can be read by all here.)

This time, I cover how or to what extent my three different groups (the MLA, Team Hero, and the meta-narrative) handle disagreement, fearmonger about their chosen enemies, and reflect the class-based anxiety of the societies in which they were formed.

Point 4: Disagreement is treason.

Distinction, disagreement and criticism all endanger the cultural syncretism and are signs of intellectual, scientific thought, and therefore associated with the modernism fascism rejects.  Also indicates diversity of opinion, and diversity is an enemy as per the next point.

Team Hero: Heroes themselves frequently disagree on-panel: witness instances like the conference Nighteye holds about the situation with the Shie Hassaikai, the kids arguing about rescuing Bakugou, Endeavor’s early hostility to All Might and Hawks, etc.  However, looking at the HPSC complicates this considerably, most significantly when Lady Nagant explains the nature of her role being to covertly assassinate anyone who threatens the Hero System, be they guilty or innocent.  Indeed, the moment she herself started asking too many questions, the President of her time verbally threatened her and made a move like he was going to pull a gun on her; she then got thrown in Tartarus and had her crime falsified.  At least some details of this are likely known to the HPSC’s own governing authority, the National Police Agency, given both the successful falsification of Nagant’s crime and the fact that a high-ranking officer of the NPA is the one that comes to Hawks and the HPSC President with the mission to infiltrate the League of Villains.

Further, while the Heroes can do a fair amount of professional disagreement, and the students navigate disagreements with relative aplomb, that tolerance dries up swiftly when it comes to questioning and critique from Villains. 

—(…)—

Point 6: Appeal to a frustrated middle class.

Fascism often stems from a fearful or stressed middle class, perceiving political humiliation or economic crisis.  This negativity can be pointed both upwards at societal elites (targeting the wealthy or educated) or downwards at lower social groups who are seen to present an economic threat.

MLA: A relatively straightforward yes.  The MLA’s leadership may be wealthy and influential, but their rank and file are considerably less so.  They show a general disdain for “Villains,” among whose number they certainly don’t count themselves, despite the fact that acting in accordance with their free quirk use mantra would absolutely land them in legal-definition-of-Villain territory.  Villains are, of course, very frequently disenfranchised, pushed to that extreme due to a lack of options, so being dismissive of Villains is also being dismissive of the circumstances that lead to them.  Likewise, they’re also resentful towards Heroes, who are their society’s celebrity elite.  When we get Hawks’s impression of them, we see solidly blue collar, “everyday people” nursing a resentment towards a status quo they feel is holding them back.  It’s not quite the standard, “They’re taking our jobs and undermining our way of life,” tack, but it’s still a definite picture of people stuck in the middle who are aiming their anger both up and down.

That said, the median wealth level of the MLA is also quite immaterial.  They’d get a point anyway because everything I’m about to say about Team Hero’s existence appealing to a frustrated middle class also applies to the MLA.

—(…)—

Point 7: Obsession with a plot.

Followers must feel besieged.  To this end are used fevered imaginings of a massive threat targeting the group—this can be from outside enemies or inside infiltrators, favoring the second but more strongly favoring both simultaneously.  Eco frames this primarily as the root of—and a function for—nationalism, but it’s applicable to any group touting conspiracy to solidify the in-group identity at the expense of out-groups.

Meta-Narrative: I definitely think it starts getting there when the war arcs roll around.  For all that I said above about the threat being portrayed as real in-universe, from a meta perspective, there’s a lot more reason than not to be skeptical of how genuine that threat is.  The Villains are consistently talked up—they’re so strong, they’re so wicked, they’re so numerous, they’re so embedded in society, etc.—but when push comes to shove, practically none of that actually means anything because the Heroes consistently have more strength, more numbers, a better social foothold, more support, more resources, more information, and on and on and on.  The story is constantly screaming about how besieged the Heroes are when the observable facts quite simply do not back that up.

(...)

The most damning sign of this, I think, is how the meta-narrative’s obsession with how scary and dangerous the Villains are reflects Eco’s point about solidifying the in-group identity at the expense of the out-group.  To wit, one of the most egregious parts of the ending is how it ultimately answers Toga’s question—“Do Villains count as people?”—in the negative by declining to include Villains in its ideal of the Perfect Victory.

If Perfect Victory is defined as both winning and saving all, with “saving” meaning, at a minimum, that the people saved must be smiling in the end, then scads of Villains were not saved!  Indeed, tens of thousands between the first and second wars were arrested or killed with not even an attempt being made to save them in any sense!  Yet the story seems to want us to accept that the Heroes got their Perfect Victory anyway because e.g. the nameless American jet pilots survived and Edgeshot is recovering from his self-wormification.  The only way that works is if the story conspicuously doesn’t think that Villains—at least Villains without designated Tragic Backstories—are part of the “all” in the “save all” portion of Perfect Victory’s equation.

Thus does the meta-narrative demarcate the boundaries of who’s in the in-group and who isn’t: by leaning hard on the supposed cruelty, zealotry, and implacable danger represented by the Villains who threaten Our Heroes.

—

Read the rest here!

[buddhwani]

Maximizing Enrollment Through Data Insights

Increasing student enrollments is one of the top priorities for educational institutions today. With growing competition, schools, colleges, and edTech businesses need smarter ways to stand out. Data-driven marketing has emerged as a powerful solution to this challenge. By using data effectively, institutions can target the right audience, create personalized campaigns, and optimize resources for better results.

This article explains how data-driven strategies can help institutions maximize enrollments and how partnering with the right experts can make a big difference.

Why Data Matters in Education Marketing

Data plays a crucial role in creating successful marketing campaigns. It helps institutions understand their audience, track campaign performance, and make better decisions. For example, analyzing website traffic can show which courses are the most popular or which pages visitors spend the most time on.

With this information, schools and colleges can focus on promoting the programs that attract the most interest. Similarly, understanding what platforms—like social media or email—are driving the most inquiries helps direct marketing efforts effectively.

An education lead generation agency can help institutions gather and analyze this data to deliver better results. Such agencies specialize in converting potential interest into high-quality leads, making the enrollment process smoother and more efficient.

The Role of Digital Marketing in Education

Digital platforms are essential tools for reaching prospective students. Whether it’s through social media, search engines, or email, these platforms allow institutions to connect with their audience. Digital channels also produce a lot of data that can be used to improve marketing strategies.

For edTech businesses, digital marketing opens up even more possibilities. Tools like Google Analytics, CRM systems, and social media insights offer detailed reports about user behavior. This information helps institutions understand how students interact with their brand and what factors influence their decisions.

Using this data, institutions can create campaigns tailored to specific groups, increasing the chances of conversion. For instance, an institution can create online ads that target students interested in specific subjects, ensuring that their message reaches the right audience. With digital marketing for edTech businesses, companies can scale their reach and improve their enrollment numbers.

Personalized Marketing for Better Engagement

Personalization is one of the biggest advantages of data-driven marketing. Prospective students are more likely to respond to messages that address their specific needs and interests. Data allows institutions to deliver such personalized experiences.

For example, if a prospective student has shown interest in medical programs, the institution can send emails focusing on related courses, career opportunities, and alumni success stories. Similarly, retargeting ads can remind students about upcoming application deadlines or scholarships.

An experienced education marketing agency understands how to use personalization to improve engagement. They can help institutions create targeted campaigns that connect with students on a deeper level, making them more likely to enroll.

Using Predictive Analytics to Plan Ahead

Predictive analytics is another effective way to use data in marketing. It helps institutions forecast trends and make better decisions based on past performance.

For example, by studying data from previous years, institutions can predict when student interest is likely to peak and plan their campaigns accordingly. Predictive analytics can also help identify factors that lead to drop-offs during the application process, allowing institutions to address these issues proactively.

Educational institutions working with a skilled marketing agency can gain access to these insights, ensuring that their campaigns are always a step ahead of the competition.

Optimizing Campaigns Through Testing

One of the best ways to improve marketing performance is by testing different strategies. A/B testing, for instance, involves running two versions of a campaign to see which one performs better.

For example, an institution could create two email subject lines for a campaign promoting admissions. By testing these subject lines with a small audience, they can identify which one gets better responses and use it for the larger campaign.

Testing can also be applied to online ads, landing pages, or even call-to-action buttons. This approach ensures that every aspect of a campaign is optimized for success.

Measuring Success with Key Metrics

For data-driven marketing to work, it’s important to measure success using the right metrics. These metrics, often called key performance indicators (KPIs), show how well a campaign is performing.

Some common KPIs include:

Cost per lead (CPL): The amount spent to generate one lead.

Conversion rate: The percentage of leads that turn into enrollments.

Engagement rate: The number of likes, comments, and shares on social media.

Tracking these metrics helps institutions understand what’s working and what isn’t, allowing them to improve their strategies over time.

Responsible Use of Data

While data is a powerful tool, it must be used responsibly. Institutions need to ensure that they comply with data privacy laws and maintain transparency with their audience. Students should be informed about how their data is being used and given the option to opt out if they prefer.

Using data ethically not only builds trust but also enhances the institution’s reputation in the long run.

Conclusion

Data-driven marketing is transforming how educational institutions approach enrollment. By using data to understand their audience, personalize campaigns, and predict future trends, schools, colleges, and edTech businesses can maximize their enrollment numbers.

Whether it’s creating targeted social media campaigns or optimizing email outreach, data provides the insights needed to succeed. Partnering with an experienced agency ensures that institutions can make the most of this opportunity.

In a competitive market, embracing data-driven strategies is the key to staying ahead and achieving long-term success.

______________________________________________________________

FAQs

1. What is data-driven education marketing?Data-driven education marketing involves using data and analytics to create targeted, personalized marketing campaigns. It helps educational institutions better understand their audience, optimize resources, and improve enrollment outcomes by focusing on strategies that yield measurable results.

2. How can data-driven marketing benefit educational institutions?Data-driven marketing allows schools, colleges, and edTech businesses to identify their ideal audience, personalize communication, track campaign performance, and make informed decisions. This approach leads to better engagement, higher conversion rates, and maximized enrollments.

3. What role does an education lead generation agency play in data-driven marketing?An education lead generation agency specializes in converting prospective students into qualified leads. They use data-driven insights to identify potential students, create targeted campaigns, and guide institutions in optimizing their enrollment funnels.

4. How can digital marketing support edTech businesses with data-driven strategies?Digital marketing provides tools like analytics, social media insights, and CRM systems that collect valuable data on audience behavior. EdTech businesses can use this data to design tailored campaigns, improve user experiences, and scale their enrollment efforts effectively.

5. What are the key metrics to track in data-driven education marketing campaigns?Important metrics include cost per lead (CPL), conversion rate, engagement rate, and website traffic. These indicators help institutions measure the success of their campaigns and make data-informed adjustments to improve performance.

[eretzyisrael]

Brown University students call for divestment from their pro-Palestinian encampment on the campus' Main Green in Providence, Rhode Island, April 24, 2024. (Anibal Martel/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Brown University rejects pro-Palestinian protesters’ demand to divest from Israel

BY ANDREW LAPIN OCTOBER 9, 2024 5:16 PM

Brown University’s board of governors has rejected a closely scrutinized, student-led proposal to divest from companies with business in Israel.

The rejection allays concerns expressed by some pro-Israel groups that the divestment movement was gaining momentum after the pro-Palestinian student encampments at universities across the country last spring.

“Baruch Hashem,” Rabbi Josh Bolton, executive director of Brown/RISD Hillel, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, using a Hebrew term akin to “Thank God.”

Bolton said the vote “is a definitive and powerful rejection of divestment on every level.” Coming so soon after the first anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel was also significant, he said: “After a year of insanity, antisemitic sloganeering, maligning of Jewish students, this is a day that we can be proud of our institutions.”

The vote was in the works and debated for months before taking place on Tuesday, months before it was expected, by secret ballot. The Brown Corporation agreed with an internal committee that had voted 8-2, with one abstention, to recommend rejecting divestment.

“The Corporation reaffirmed that Brown’s mission is to discover, communicate and preserve knowledge. It is not to adjudicate or resolve global conflicts,” the board wrote in a lengthy statement Wednesday explaining its vote. 

The Ivy League school in Providence, Rhode Island was among the first this past spring to agree to hold a vote on divestment in exchange for a peaceful end to its student encampment. The encampments often pushed for divestment, while Jewish students reported being antagonized by the pro-Palestinian activists. Protesters at Brown were motivated by, among other factors, a Palestinian student who was shot in Vermont in November in an apparent hate crime.

After dismantling their encampment, Brown student activist leaders were permitted to make their formal case for divestment to the board; similar deals were also struck at Northwestern University, the University of Minnesota and elsewhere. An internal committee then considered the case but kept its report private until Wednesday, after the formal vote was announced. Leading up to the vote, Brown would only confirm that it was scheduled for October but provided no other details on timing.

Among its chief rationales for rejecting divestment, the committee determined that Brown was not heavily nor directly invested in the 10 companies included in the proposal “and that any indirect exposure for Brown in these companies is so small that it could not be directly responsible for social harm.” Those 10 companies included Boeing, General Electric, Motorola, Volvo and Northrop Grumman, all of which the divestment proposal said “facilitate the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.”

The school’s leadership declared it was satisfied with the process and the results of the divestment vote.

“Brown’s mission doesn’t encompass influencing or adjudicating global conflict,” Christina Paxson, the school’s Jewish president, and chancellor Brian Moynihan said in a joint statement shared with the school, alumni and press. “Our greatest contribution to the cause of peace for which so many members of the community have advocated is to continue to educate future leaders and produce scholarship that informs and supports their work. A decision to divest would greatly jeopardize our ability to continue to make this contribution.” 

Paxson and Moynihan continued, “If the Corporation were to divest, it would signal to our students and scholars that there are ‘approved’ points of view to which members of the community are expected to conform. This would be wholly inconsistent with the principles of academic freedom and free inquiry, and would undermine our mission of serving the community, the nation and the world.”

Some Jews had been angry that the vote was happening at all. One Jewish member of the Brown Corporation resigned in protest over it, saying the school had capitulated to extremists. He was rebuked by Paxson, who has long argued that the vote was happening in accordance with Brown’s usual procedures for considering divestment-related proposals. 

At least 100 Brown faculty members publicly supported divestment, while the Anti-Defamation League and other Jewish groups have ardently argued against college Israel divestments in general. Dozens of Republican state attorneys general had warned Brown that any move toward divestment could result in pushback from their states.

The Rhode Island chapter of the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace, which had advocated for divestment alongside other pro-Palestinian groups, did not immediately return a request for comment. The Brown Divest Coalition, together with the national Students for Justice in Palestine movement, posted a profane message on Instagram directed at the Corporation and Paxson, concluding with “Free Palestine” and, in all caps, “All settler colonial institutions will fail.”

Paxson and Moynihan concluded their communication on the vote with a plea that the university community maintain civility even in disagreement.

“Whether you support, oppose or have no opinion on the decision of the Corporation, we hope you will do so with a commitment to sustaining, nurturing and strengthening the principles that have long been at the core of our teaching and learning community,” they said.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Report analyzes long history of NASA support for commercial space

NASA published a new report on Thursday highlighting 17 agency mechanisms that have directly and indirectly supported the development and growth of the U.S. commercial space sector for the benefit of humanity.

The report, titled "Enabling America on the Space Frontier: The Evolution of NASA's Commercial Space Development Toolkit," is available on the agency's website.

"This is the most extensive and comprehensive historical analysis produced by NASA on how it has contributed to commercial space development over the decades," said Alex MacDonald, NASA chief economist. "These efforts have given NASA regular access to space with companies, such as SpaceX and Rocket Lab, modernizing our communications infrastructure, and even led to the first private lunar lander thanks to Intuitive Machines.

"With commercial space growth accelerating, this report can help agency leaders and stakeholders assess the numerous mechanisms that the agency uses to support this growth, both now and in the future."

Throughout its history, NASA has supported the development of the commercial space sector, not only leading the way in areas such as satellite communications, launch, and remote sensing, but also developing new contract and operational models to encourage commercial participation and growth.

In the last three decades, NASA has seen the results of these efforts with commercial partners able to contribute more to missions across NASA domains, and increasingly innovative agency-led efforts to engage, nurture, and integrate these capabilities. These capabilities support the agency's mission needs, and have seen a dramatic rise in importance, according to the report.

NASA has nurtured technology, companies, people, and ideas in the commercial space sector, contributing to the U.S. and global economies, across four distinct periods in the agency's history:

1915–1960: NASA's predecessor, the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA), and NASA's pre-Apollo years.

1961–1980: Apollo era.

1981–2010: Space shuttle era.

2011–present: Post-shuttle commercial era.

Each of these time periods are defined by dominant technologies, programs, or economic trends further detailed in the report.

Though some of these mechanisms are relatively recent, others have been used throughout the history of NASA and NACA, leading to some overlap. The 17 mechanisms are as follows:

Contracts and Partnership Agreements

Research and Technology Development (R&TD)

Dissemination of Research and Scientific Data

Education and Workforce Development

Workforce External Engagement and Mobility

Technology Transfer

Technical Support

Enabling Infrastructure

Launch

Direct In-Space Support

Standards and Regulatory Framework Support

Public Engagement

Industry Engagement

Venture Capital Engagement

Market Stimulation Funding

Economic Analysis and Due Diligence Capabilities

Narrative Encouragement

NASA supports commercial space development in everything from spaceflight to supply chains. Small satellite capabilities have inspired a new generation of space start-ups, while new, smaller rockets, as well as new programs are just starting. Examples include CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services), commercial low Earth orbit destinations, human landing systems, commercial development of NASA spacesuits, and lunar terrain vehicles. The report also details many indirect ways the agency has contributed to the vibrance of commercial space, from economic analyses to student engagement.

The agency's use of commercial capabilities has progressed from being the exception to the default method for many of its missions. The current post-shuttle era of NASA-supported commercial space development has seen a level of technical development comparable to the Apollo era's Space Race. Deploying the 17 commercial space development mechanisms in the future is part of NASA's mission to continue encouraging commercial space activities.

IMAGE: The SpaceX Dragon Freedom spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov approaches the International Space Station as it orbited 261 miles above Ontario, Canada, near James Bay. Credit: NASA

[reasoningdaily]

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article278582149.html

Tallahassee

When Florida rejected a new Advanced Placement course on African American Studies, state officials said they objected to the study of several concepts — like reparations, the Black Lives Matter movement and “queer theory.”

But the state did not say that in many instances, its reviewers also made objections in the state’s attempt to sanitize aspects of slavery and the plight of African Americans throughout history, according to a Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times review of internal state comments.

For example, a lesson in the Advanced Placement course focused on how Europeans benefited from trading enslaved people and the materials enslaved laborers produced. The state objected to the content, saying the instructional approach “may lead to a viewpoint of an ‘oppressor vs. oppressed’ based solely on race or ethnicity.”

In another lesson about the beginnings of slavery, the course delved into how tens of thousands of enslaved Africans had been “removed from the continent to work on Portuguese-colonized Atlantic islands and in Europe” and how those “plantations became a model for slave-based economy in the Americans.”

READ MORE: DeSantis says AP African-American studies class was ‘pushing an agenda’

In response, the state raised concerns that the unit “may not address the internal slave trade/system within Africa” and that it “may only present one side of this issue and may not offer any opposing viewpoints or other perspectives on the subject.”

“There is no other perspective on slavery other than it was brutal,” said Mary Pattillo, a sociology professor and the department chair of Black Studies at Northwestern University. Pattillo is one of several scholars the Herald/Times interviewed during its review of the state’s comments about the AP African American Studies curriculum.

“It was exploitative, it dehumanized Black people, it expropriated their labor and wealth for generations to come. There is no other side to that in African American studies. If there’s another side, it may be in some other field. I don’t know what field that is because I would argue there is no other side to that in higher education,” Pattillo said.

Alexander Weheliye, African American studies professor at Brown University, said the evaluators’ comments on the units about slavery were a “complete distortion” and “whitewashing” of what happened historically.

“It’s really trying to go back to an earlier historical moment, where slavery was mainly depicted by white historians through a white perspective. So to say that the enslaved and the sister African nations and kingdoms and white colonizers and enslavers were the same really misrecognizes the fundamentals of the situation,” Weheliye said.

DeSantis’ efforts to transform education in Florida

The commentary is also an example of how Gov. Ron DeSantis has transformed the state’s education system in his quest to end what he calls “wokeism” and “liberal indoctrination” in schools — a fight that began in the aftermath of the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement that followed the high-profile murder of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minnesota.

“It’s not really about the course right? It’s kind of about putting down Black struggles for equality and freedom that have been going on for centuries at this point in time and making them into something that they are not through this kind of distorted rightist lens,” Weheliye said.

When asked about the findings of the previously unreported internal reviews, the Florida Department of Education said the course was rejected after state officials “found that several parts of the course were unsuitable for Florida students.”

Cailey Myers, a spokesperson for the agency, cited the work of many Black writers and scholars associated with the academic concepts of critical race theory, queerness and intersectionality — a term that she said “ranks people based on their race, wealth, gender and sexual orientation.” The term, however, refers to the way different social categorizations can interact with discrimination.

Brandi Waters, the executive director of the AP African American Studies course, said it is hard to understand the Florida Department of Education’s critiques on the content because state officials have not directly shared their internal reviews with the College Board. The state and the College Board, however, were in communication about the course for several months before it was rejected.

Waters maintains the coursework submitted to the state was the most holistic introduction to African American Studies.

A deeper look at Florida’s objections

The course materials provided by the College Board were reviewed by Florida Department of Education’s Bureau of Standards and Instructional Support and the decision to reject the course was made by “FDOE senior leadership,” records show.

John Duebel, the director of the state agency’s social studies department, and Kevin Hoeft, a former state agency official who now works at the New College of Florida in Sarasota, were identified as the two evaluators in the review. Hoeft is listed as an “expert consultant” to the Civics Alliance, a national conservative group that aims to focus social studies instruction in the Western canon and eliminate “woke” standards. His wife is a member of the conservative group Moms for Liberty.

Duebel declined to comment on the story and referred questions to the Department of Education, which did not respond. Hoeft did not respond to a request seeking comment. While the documents say that Duebel and Hoeft led the state reviews, much of the comments included in the state review are not attributed, making it hard to tell who said what.

The documents reviewed were provided to the Herald/Times by American Oversight, a left-leaning research organization that sued the state Department of Education for the records.

“We sued the Florida Department of Education to shed light on the DeSantis administration’s efforts to whitewash American history and turn classrooms into political battlegrounds,” American Oversight Deputy Executive Director Chioma Chukwu said in a statement. “The records obtained by American Oversight from Florida’s internal review of the AP African American Studies course expose the dangers of Gov. DeSantis’ sweeping changes to public education in Florida, including preventing students from learning history free from partisan spin.”

READ MORE: How a small, conservative Michigan college is helping DeSantis reshape education in Florida

The documents offer more detail into the state’s reasoning for rejecting the pilot course from being offered to high school students in Florida — and how topics related to racism, identity and gender were continually flagged out of concern that lessons were biased, misleading or “inappropriate” for students.

And, in cases where state officials did not find a violation of a state law or rule, concerns were often raised about how educators would teach the content, underscoring the growing distrust between state officials and educators as disputes over social issues engulf local school politics.

For example, the state worried educators teaching about how the 1960s Black is Beautiful movement helped lay a foundation for multicultural and ethnic studies movements, could “possibly teach that rejecting cultural assimilation, and promoting multiculturalism and ethnic studies are current worthy objectives for African Americans today.”

“This type of instruction tends to divide Americans rather than unify Americans around the universal principles in the Declaration of Independence,”the state officials wrote about a lesson in the course.

Records also show how some of the comments made by the state evaluators contained contradictions, such as advocating for primary sources and then later writing that certain primary sources contained “factual misrepresentations.” Many comments from the state pushed for the material to include perspectives from “the other side” but failed to elaborate whose perspective they wanted to be added.

Slavery

One of the lessons in the course, for example, set out to teach students how slavery set back Black people’s ability to build wealth.

“Enslaved African Americans had no wages to pass down to descendants, no legal right to accumulate property, and individual exceptions depended on their enslavers’ whims,” the College Board’s lesson plan said.

When reviewing the content, however, state reviewers said the lesson plan might violate state laws and rules because it “supposes that no slaves or their descendants accumulated any wealth.”

“This is not true and may be promoting the critical race theory idea of reparations,” state officials wrote in documents reviewed by the Herald/Times. “This topic presents one side of this issue and does not offer any opposing viewpoints or other perspectives on the subject.”

While there were scattered instances where enslaved people were given the chance to earn money to pay for their freedom, the wealth they accumulated still did not belong to them, said Paul Finkelman, the editor-in-chief of Oxford University Press’ “Encyclopedia of African American History 1619-1895.”

“Under the law of every slave state, including Florida, no slave could own anything. That is, slaves did not own the clothes on their back. They did not own the shoes on their feet,” said Finkelman. “So for the Florida Education Department to question whether slaves accumulated property is to not understand that slaves owned no property. In fact, they were property belonging to slave owners.”

Even in cases where slaves were allowed to make money, Finkelman argued, it would be a stretch to say they were able to accumulate wealth.

Black middle class

Evaluators also objected to a lesson plan that taught how Black Americans, even after slavery, continue to experience wealth disparities due to ongoing discrimination.

The coursework included the following statement: “Despite the growth of the Black middle class, substantial disparities in wealth along racial lines remain. Discrimination and racial disparities in housing and employment stemming from the early 20th century limited Black communities accumulation of generational wealth in the second half of the 20th century.”

State reviewers, however, said the unit could potentially violate state rules because it failed to offer other reasons outside of systemic racism and discrimination for the wealth disparity between Black Americans and other racial groups.

“The only required resource in this topic cites ‘systemic racism,’ ‘discrimination,’ ‘systemic barriers,’ ‘structural barriers,’ and ‘structural racism’ as a primary or significant causative factor explaining this disparity of wealth,” wrote one evaluator. “This topic appears to be one-sided as non-critical perspectives or competing opinions are cited to explain this wealth disparity.”

Pattillo said that while many of the comments made by the state in the review claimed that they wanted to see more balance of perspectives in the course materials, she felt state officials largely tried to minimize the topics of discrimination.

Abolitionist Movement

When it came to teaching students about the movement to end slavery, the College Board highlighted some of the prominent activists who led that abolitionist movement and the ways the government tried to stop those who resisted slavery.

“Due to the high number of African Americans who fled enslavement, Congress enacted the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850, authorizing local governments to legally kidnap and return escaped refugees to their enslavers,” the lesson plan stated.

Primary sources were scrutinized

When the College Board addressed the resistance to slavery, it wanted to teach students how to “describe the features of 19th-century radical resistance strategies promoted by Black activists to demand change.” In that unit, the state objected to two primary sources: “The Appeal” by David Walker and “An Address to the Slaves of the United States” by Henry Highland Garnet.

State reviewers said that “The Appeal” included “content prohibited under Florida law,” but does not offer more details; and that “An Address to the Slaves of the United States” contains “factual mis-representations” and potential violations of state rules.

“They complain that this primary source is not historically accurate. Well, of course it’s not historically accurate because it’s a political speech. It is not a piece of history, but it’s a perfectly historically accurate primary source to understand the anger of a Black abolitionist,” Finkelman said.

However, earlier in the review, the evaluators applauded the College Board for stating that “anchoring the AP course in primary sources fosters an evidence-based learning environment” and that the course will be focused on the works and documents of African American studies rather than “extraneous political opinions or perspectives.”

“This is exactly how all courses are to be taught in the state of Florida and we commend [the] College Board on this position,” wrote the state reviewer .

Scholars’ political leanings questioned

In one review, one of the state evaluators questioned the balance of the content because of the individuals the College Board picked to develop the coursework.

But one of the evaluators had a gripe: they claimed that there were no conservative Black scholars. This was a concern because, as the state evaluator put it, there may not be an “adequate level of intellectual balance.”

“Conservative and traditional liberal members may need to be added to the committees to bring balance and ensure compliance with Florida statutes, rules, and policies,” the state evaluator wrote.

Waters said the College Board is focused on having scholars on their committees who are the leaders in the field of African American studies and that their political background isn’t something they take into consideration.

“In terms of the scholars, we never really asked them ‘what is your political background?’,” Waters said. “I don’t assume that is a characteristic that remains static in a person’s life over time.”

“What we do is look for scholars who represent the expertise needed for the course. So who is leading the field in how we understand the origins of the African diaspora? Who is leading the field in cutting edge research on unearthing new perspectives of the civil rights movement? We look for their expertise and also the different backgrounds that they represent,” she added.

How did we get to this point?

While Florida law requires the study of African American history, the state reviews of the AP course show how the DeSantis administration and Republican policymakers are implementing changes to how schools can teach about race, slavery and other aspects of Black history.

In 2021, Florida barred lessons that deal with critical race theory, a 1980s legal concept that holds that racial disparities are systemic in the United States and not just a collection of individual prejudices. Critical race theory was not being taught in Florida schools. The state also barred lessons about “The 1619 Project,” a New York Times project that reexamines U.S. history by placing the consequences of slavery and contributions of Black Americans at the center.

A year later, the Republican-led Legislature approved a new law, known as the “Stop W.O.K.E. Act,” which prohibited instruction that could prompt students to feel discomfort about a historical event because of their race, ethnicity, sex or national origin.

To DeSantis, the restrictions are a necessary effort to protect students from what he sees as a cultural threat that, as he puts it, teaches “kids to hate this country.” But the policies have been widely criticized by Democrats, educators, historians and even a few Republican lawmakers who see the laws as an attempt to distort historic events.

State officials’ interpretation of these policies collided with many of the learning objectives outlined in the A.P. courses. This collision, some scholars say, is emblematic of the chilling effect the state’s vague laws can foster in academia.

“I think this is the point that many people have been saying,” Pattillo said. “That the misguided blanket use of this term critical race theory, and in the absence of some definition of what that means or what they think it means, makes any teaching of racism questionable per that vagueness...”

Based on the state reviews the Herald/Times provided to him, Finkelman said it appeared the state was “hunting for bias.”

“And if you hunt long enough, you can find bias anywhere,” Finkelman said, noting that “anyone can find faults, and even small mistakes with any scholarly enterprise.”

To do the job right, Finkelman said, the state should ensure the course is reviewed by historians, with expertise in the specific subject area — not political scientists or state bureaucrats. He questioned whether the state prioritized reviewers’ credentials after seeing the state’s comments on the topics of slavery, or subjects that took into account the issue of racism and identity.

Based on Finkelman’s review of the content, he said, the state reviewers were more interested in correcting content based on their reading of the material over “scholarly accuracy.”

Read more: Only 3 reviewers said Florida math textbooks violated CRT rules. Yet state rejected dozens

Since Florida rejected the pilot course in January, students in other parts of the country have been taking part in the pilot program. Education officials in only one other state — Arkansas — are disputing whether to make the AP course eligible for credit. The Arkansas Department of Education — led by Florida’s former K-12 Chancellor Jacob Oliva — recently removed the class from its course code listing.

In November, the College Board plans to submit the final version of the course’s curriculum for approval. But with Florida’s laws still in place, the fate of the course remains in limbo — and the outcome could potentially make Florida students in public high schools less likely to have access to the course. If approved, parents and students can choose to enroll in the course.

College Board officials are aware of this possibility, but remain hopeful.

“We certainly hope that Florida students will have the opportunity to take this course,” said Holly Stepp, a spokesperson with the College Board.

Myers, the Florida Department of Education spokesperson, said the College Board is welcome to resubmit the course for review in November.

But, Myers said, “at this point, it is inappropriate to comment on what the future could hold – it is just speculation.”

This story was originally published August 29, 2023, 5:30 AM.

[deadpresidents]

"It is said Gen. Garfield will restore wine and liquor to the White House. I hope this is a mistake. I am no fanatic on the subject. I do not sympathise with the methods of the ultra temperance people. I believe that the cause of temperance will be most surely promoted by moral, religious, and educational influences and by the influence of example. I would not use the force of law as an agency for temperance reform. If laws on the subject are enacted let them be for the security of the community -- to protect the public from nuisances and crime. Let the temperance reformer keep to the text influence, argument, persuasion example.

When we came here we banished liquor from the house: 1. Because it was right, wise and necessary 2. Because it was due to the large support given me by the sincere friends of the Temperance reform. 3. Because I believed that it would strengthen the Republican party by detaching from the political temperance party many good people who would join the Republican party, and would save to the Republican party many who would otherwise leave it to join the Temperance party.

If Gen. Garfield rejects the practice I have inaugurated, he will offend thousands, and drive them into the hands of the Temperance demagogues. He will lose the confidence of thousands of good citizens and gain no strength in any quarter. His course will be taken as evidence that he lacks the grit to face fashionable ridicule. Nothing hurts a man more than a general belief that he lacks the 'courage of his convictions.'"

-- President Rutherford B. Hayes, who had (in)famously banned liquor from the White House during his Administration, leading to his wife and First Lady earning the nickname of "Lemonade Lucy", on reports that his successor, President-elect James Garfield would serve alcohol in the Executive Mansion after his Inauguration, personal diary entry, January 16, 1881.

President Garfield only served 199 days as President -- and 79 of those days were spent desperately battling for his life after being shot. But Garfield did lift the ban of alcoholic beverages during his brief tenure in the White House, likely making meetings and parties a lot less "dry" than those of the Hayes Administration.