#i was a senior in high school when this was a trend on vine

[lesbiansloveseokjin]

day 104/548 of taehyung's military service

this selca was posted on 140717 with the caption:

Look forward to next week~

(trans cr: Nika @ bts-trans)

bangtan bomb posed that day:

[golbrocklovely]

In terms of Jake trying too hard with his aesthetic, the same could be said literally about everyone including Sam and Colby, Kat, AND Tara. Have you seen pics of Sam and Colby in kansas and even when they moved out to L.A? Preppy. Kat kinda gave off like a tomboy look before like shed wear snapbacks and now shes a mix of trying to be edgy, or anime cutesy ( its the facial expressions)but sexy too much which is very on trend with ALL of these insta/tiktok girls right now. Tara in high school was the epitome of every girl in the early 2000s who was into Paris Hilton & the simple life i mean her room & car are pink. Even Xepher looked preppy in high school. I personally think peoples styles change and its not that they're trying too hard (Maybe they are unknowingly comforming to a popular style when really they are trying to stand out and be different) if you think of these styles like Punk or Emo or scene they were all about being extreme and dressing out of the ordinary anyway so its contradictory to tell someone who is now dressing like that that they are trying too hard to represent that style because of how "out of the ordinary" they are dressing when thats the point...hope i make sense.

People change, maybe it is a phase he'll grow out of, maybe its a form of self expression that will change once he gets his point across, or maybe without realizing he is acting just like every other person on the internet who claims to be different and an outcast🤷🏻. Also i haaaaate his hair.

i agree, everyone looked different a couple years back, especially since a lot of them were teenagers. i know for 1000% i looked different in high school. mostly bc i didn't like my body so i kinda just wore clothes that would cover me up, but also bc i didn't know how to express myself with clothing yet. sophomore and junior year is when i started to get a style i liked, and then senior year i wore exclusively sweatpants bc senioritis lol

i don't think there is anything wrong with changing your style, as long as you aren't changing it to meet someone else's standards bc fun fact, you never will.

and i get what you're saying, it's similar to the joke of 'all the gothic kids that look exactly the same never want to conform' (we stan bo burnham in this household). just bc now being "dark" is in, that doesn't mean that ppl who are now dressing like it are somehow fake or are only following it for a trend.

not to mention, everyone follows trends. there's nothing wrong with liking things bc they are popular. that's kinda the whole point why something is popular: bc it's well liked.

i think the previous anon was more trying to say that maybe jake isn't being authentic bc his change came very abruptly. for example, colby's change into what he dresses/acts like now was a slow and gradual one, while jake's has kinda only came within the last year or two. he changed his style a bit when he first moved out to la, but it's only been within this last year that he has gone into the full one that he has now. is it possible he has amped up this bc of his music? sure. but i don't think there is anything wrong with that tbh. i don't think he's lying and pretending to be something he is not. honestly, he could feel so much more comfortable with himself that he now feels like he can express himself to the fullest extent, and i think that comes with being a little outlandish.

if you don't agree, that's totally fine too ! personally, i think he could also be expressing himself like this to get rid of any "fake fans" that were only around for him from back in the trap house and vine days. he's no longer that person, but that's not a bad thing to me. everyone changes, and that's okay :)

(also i don't really care for his hair, but it's also whatever to me lol i don't quite understand having it super short underneath but long all around. it's like an ass-backwards mullet... but who am i to judge? i've had the same hair style since birth)

[dreemiie]

57 Facts Tag!

57 Facts about You!

I was tagged by @rand0msimmer to do this a few days ago and I’m super excited to try it so thank you so much! ♥

My tags: Anyone who sees this and would like to do it! Feel free to tag me as your tagger. (:

 I’m a senior in high school this year.

My favorite animal is dogs.

I recently came to the conclusion that I think after high school I’d like to go to college for something in the veterinary field.

I’m in a long distance relationship. Over 12 hours apart!

I hate sports.

I’ve been playing the sims since I was about 9 years old.

I have 7 piercings.

I only have one sister and we’re very close.

I love going to concerts.

I have a super small family.

I turned orange when I was a baby because my parents fed me too many carrots and sweet potatoes. (Seriously, orange.)

I have a small friend group (by choice) and tell very little to anyone except my boyfriend.

I’m really bad at math. Like, super bad.

I think Vines are hilarious.

It takes me no time at all to fall asleep.

My dog is named after a song by my favorite band.

I’ve known all my best friends since elementary school. (Except my boyfriend.)

I was a vegetarian all of middle school, then impulsively gave it up at McDonald’s for a chicken nugget.

My favorite color is white. 

I have social and generalized anxiety, and therefore tend to be super quiet and antisocial.

I love chap-stick. (Burt’s Bees specifically.)

I get scared super easily and it’s an ongoing trend for my friends to see how many times they can scare me.

I’m really bad at texting back/replying.

I had braces for a year and a half.

I probably dye my hair too much.

I’m a huge pacifist and cried the first fight I witnessed in middle school.

I had a flip phone in middle school.

I’ve never had a job.

I was a part of the flag-line in marching band my freshman and sophomore year. (A lot of fun, just a lot of drama.)

I’d like to have three kids.

I used to hang out at one of my friends houses so much that one time I was leaving and her moms friend asked me if I lived with them.

I sunburn super easily.

I get bad road rage. (Silently, to myself. Not yelling and screaming at other people.)

I was born two months premature and stopped breathing twice as a baby.

I was the youngest person in my family until almost three years ago.

I didn’t want kids until I met and fell in love with my boyfriend.

I always make sure to wear my retainer when I sleep.

I prefer drinking over eating. (Not alcohol.)

I got a kidney stone a year ago and was out of school for two months because of it.

I got to be in the delivery room when my sister had her son and it was nothing like I expected it to be.

I started going deaf when I was in kindergarten.

I don’t like pretzels. (Even though I really wish I did.)

I have a really short attention span.

My favorite shirts to wear are tie-dye ones.

I recently developed a huge sweet tooth.

When I was younger I was really attached to my dad and would cry when he had to go out of town for work.

I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten older the less and less I enjoy wearing clothes.

I’ve never broken any of my bones.

I cried at lunch in elementary school because my mom forgot to pack me a juice box. (I’m talking full on weeping.)

I learned how to skateboard before I could drive.

I own way too many jackets.

I fell off a tire swing in mid air when I was younger. (Literally ate shit and almost messed up my face forever.)

I almost drowned trying to knee board.

I used to force my family to go camping for a week every year for my birthday.

I liked the Emoji Movie and I’m not sorry.

I took drama 3 years of high school.

I cut all of my hair off when I was 11 and haven’t gotten anything more than a few inches off since. (Eight years.)

*Bonus Fact* When I was a baby my sister shoved Play Dough down her ear and tried to say I did it while she was asleep.

[shirlleycoyle]

Why This Teen Walked Away From Millions of TikTok Followers

This is part of a special series, The Future of Fame Is the Fan, which dissects how celebrity became so slippery. It’s also in the latest VICE magazine. Subscribe here. 

Sixteen-year-old Ava Rose Beaune was hanging out at a friend’s house on an otherwise unremarkable mid-July afternoon when her cell service briefly shut off. She tried to text her dad, but it wouldn’t send—definitely odd, she thought, but not alarming.

Then people started messaging her: Did you see what’s on your Twitter? Your Instagram? What’s going on? She logged on to her social media accounts and saw that her new Facebook status alluded to suicide—but she hadn’t posted it.

“My whole family thought I was going to kill myself,” Ava said.

Suddenly, a man she’d never met was calling her parents, demanding to speak to her. He had control of all her contacts, texts, emails, and social media accounts. The next day, he texted her: I just want to talk to you. (Spoken and written quotes from Ava’s alleged stalker are italicized to indicate they are not necessarily direct quotes but are as she remembers them.) He called her, and she answered, begging him to do whatever he wanted to her Instagram account, if that’s what he was after. “Delete it. Delete it and leave me alone if that’s what you want,” she told him. You don’t want that, he said. “I do,” she replied. I just want to meet up with you and have sex with you, he said.

“That’s when I hung up the phone, and I was like, this is getting weird,” Ava told me. This stranger had managed to hack her accounts using a method called SIM swapping, in which he contacted her wireless service carrier and convinced them that he owned the account and needed them to transfer access to the SIM card to the phone in his hand—effectively taking over her digital life.

In screenshots viewed by VICE, the hacker can be seen posting a Story to her Instagram about being Ava’s new boyfriend, issuing rape threats, and writing things like “I can’t wait til I impregnate you and marry you. you only live 5 MIN away from me.” She got her social media accounts back in her own possession and resolved the problem with her carrier. “OK, this is, you know, the end, whatever,” she recalled thinking.

With more than 2 million followers on TikTok, Ava was a minor celebrity in her own circles. So, she said, she was used to men being creepy, or even hostile. This was extreme, she thought, but it was over.

But it wasn’t. This was only the beginning of weeks of daily harassment so severe it would uproot her life entirely.

As of this year, TikTok likely has more than 1 billion monthly active users, and the market research firm Statista estimates that adolescents between 10 and 19 years old make up 32.5 percent of those users. The spiritual successor to Vine, TikTok is a micro-video sharing platform that favors an off-the-cuff, do-it-yourself style: People of all ages lip-sync to movie clips and songs, mimic elaborate dances in their living rooms, and use filters to edit the 60-second videos into tiny works of art. It’s also something of a fame lottery.

All this manic, frenetic energy combined with massive audiences is addictive in the same way any social media platform is: with casino-style scrolling and a notification system and the looming chance at virality. Normal teens like Ava—who signed with a talent agency in January 2020—become voracious consumers as well as unstoppable creators, hoping to strike it big, get discovered, or at the very least, make it to the For You feed, where one video plucked by some mysterious algorithm from a user’s feed can get in front of millions of eyeballs instantly.

“I’d rather not give those people the satisfaction of being noticed.”

Despite all this, cyberbullying experts say that TikTok isn’t the worst social media app for harassment. “The way that TikTok is built reduces the likelihood of cyberbullying when compared to other apps,” said Sameer Hinduja, the co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center. Features like direct messaging that only allow mutual followers to contact each other, and the inability to add images or videos to comment sections, set it apart from other apps. “To be sure, cyberbullying can manifest itself in hurtful TikTok videos directed towards others, as well as in comments and in livestream chats—but these possibilities are no different than on any other social media app,” Hinduja told me.

According to TikTok’s transparency report from 2020, 2.5 percent of videos the platform removed were for bullying or harassment. But there are some features unique to TikTok that make it prone to a different, more personal kind of harassment. “Duet” allows other users to repost your video with a split-screen video of their own. Most of the time, it’s used innocently, for singalongs or miniature skits. But some users say it opens a portal for disturbing abuse. In 2018, BuzzFeed News reported that people—often young children—would duet their videos with a video of them acting out suicide, putting plastic bags over their heads or belts around their necks, to show their disgust at the original post. And a Duet from a more popular account can send a wave of attention from their followers to your page, not all of it positive.

Nick, who runs a TikTok account with his five-year-old daughter Sienna (the family goes by their first names publicly, to protect their privacy), told me that they experience Duet-based harassment on top of the usual comment section cruelty. “Some users would duet our videos and say mean, nasty things that were just not true,” he said. “In the beginning, it made us second-guess the path we were going down.”

It hasn’t stopped since they started the account, in October of 2018—and they’ve since gathered more than 14 million followers. But they have gotten better at managing it, Nick said. “Sienna is luckily very intelligent and knows that this is not OK. I made sure to sit down with her, emphasizing how special she is and that people may not see that right away.”

Nick believes TikTok does a good job of handling harassment, and giving creators the tools to handle it themselves. “If there is consistent harassment from a specific account, I block and delete their hateful comments,” he said. “For the negative comments in general, I tend to just ignore them. I’d rather not give those people the satisfaction of being noticed.”

TikTok does allow users to opt out of Duets. But these are the features that foster that slingshot fame; opting out of them means opting out of your chance at going viral or just growing your audience.

Fatima and Munera Fahiye, who are sisters and TikTok creators with around 3 million followers each, told me that they also find the platform to be responsive when they need support. “There were multiple accounts on TikTok impersonating me on the app, and TikTok helped me by verifying my account to let people know that my account is the real one,” Munera said.

Whatever harassment they do receive—which often means racist comments—they say is outweighed by the support of fans. “I have been on TikTok for a year now, and I have not experienced any harassment, but after gaining some followers I have seen some mean comments about my hijab every now and then, but I try to not give it any attention, because the love and support that I am getting from my fans is more than the little hate, so it does not matter,” Fatima said.

The harassment that happens on TikTok doesn’t stay there, however. On Reddit, whole communities are devoted to catching women and girls on social media in the middle of wardrobe slips, where you can see down their shirts, up their skirts, or anytime they shift and move and reveal a glimpse of more skin. Standalone websites are made for this purpose, too, and for doxxing and harassing women who might have a TikTok in addition to an OnlyFans or other separate adult platform.

In 2020, a server on the gaming chat platform Discord took requests for TikTok creators to be made into deepfakes—AI-generated fake porn. Although child pornography is against Discord’s terms of use, even in the form of deepfakes, one of the most requested targets was only 17. A request for another deepfake noted, “by the way she turns 18 in 4 days.”

Creators also find their content, clothed as in the originals or deepfaked, reposted to porn sites. In concert, the people on each of these platforms work together to create an overwhelming environment of virtual assault for many young women.

Until TikTok, Ava had never really been into social media, she told me on a Zoom call in her parents’ house. She was taking a break from high school distance learning; this was her senior year, spent over video chats because of the COVID-19 pandemic. “I always told myself I’d never make a TikTok because my friends all had it and I was like, that’s so cringe,” she said. “Like, I’ll never start that. But they were like, ‘Come on make one,’ so I did.”

She said she made her first account when she was 15, and posted the usual stuff: trend dances, makeup videos. Within a few days, her audience went from the friends who talked her into joining to 150,000 followers—a leap in popularity that she still doesn’t entirely understand. The sudden attention startled her; she deactivated the account.

She accidentally reactivated the account later, and at this point, having gotten over the initial shock of attention, decided to give it another try.

A rock smashed through her mom’s car window with a threatening note tied to it: I want to take you and impregnate you.

Once Ava started posting new videos, the hateful comments started. “I thought that was like the worst it could get,” she said. “It was like, body shaming and hate—the body shaming especially never bothered me, and the normal hate comments were just like, whatever.” A few users created accounts to post rape threats about her, and this did disturb her, but she took it as par for the course as a young woman online.

That is, until one of her followers started stalking her and her best friend, Gabriel. That follower messaged Gabriel, mentioning her home address and demanding to know who she was dating. “So, we’re both kind of like laughing like this guy’s obviously just some weird fan,” she recalled.

I have something planned for Ava. You’ll see in the next three months. I’m planning something big, Ava says he told Gabriel. He hacked her phone three months later, on Gabriel’s 18th birthday. After that, the man texted Ava every day.

“It was stuff about how he wants to rape me, how he’s going to get me, how I can easily stop this—he was texting my dad saying, She’s not allowed to hang out with her friends, if she goes out I’ll know. Saying he’s watching over us and stuff like that.” Every time Ava thought the situation was as bad as it could get—that this man she’d never met was going as far as he could go—he went further.

Then a rock smashed through her mom’s car window with a threatening note tied to it: I want to take you and impregnate you.

Cyberbullying has proven long-lasting effects on teens and young adults. As Hinduja noted, studies show that it’s tied to low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, family problems, academic difficulties, delinquency, school violence, and suicidal thoughts and attempts.

“So at this point I was like, ‘OK, this is getting a little serious.’”

“Most important to me is how negative experiences online unnecessarily compromise the healthy flourishing of our youth at school,” he said. According to his and his co-director Justin Patchin’s research at the Cyberbullying Research Center, over 60 percent of students who experienced cyberbullying reported that it “deeply affected” their ability to learn and feel safe while at school, and 10 percent of students surveyed said they’ve skipped school at least once this past year because of it.

“That cannot be happening,” Hinduja said.

“In general, I hope people will remember that everyone is a human being just like them. We are all capable of feeling hurt and disappointment, and just because there are numbers and a platform attached to our lives doesn’t mean we are impervious to hurtful words or harassing comments,” Nick said. “TikTok is a space where everyone should feel safe to express their creativity, and in order to do that we need to be kind to others.”

Maxwell Mitcheson, Ava’s agent and the head of talent at TalentX Entertainment, told me that he’s seen harassment take a direct toll on young people. “A lot of creators are growing up in front of millions of people, and that involves making mistakes and learning and growing from them,” he said. “The hateful rhetoric definitely weighs on them; some don’t even look at their comments section anymore just to try and stay positive.”

“It’s the inability to make mistakes, being attacked for being authentically yourself, and the sudden lack of anonymity,” Mitcheson said.

Ava’s experience was on the extreme side, he explained, but creators at his agency have had instances of hacking and stalking, or fans randomly showing up at creators’ homes. “We’ve had to involve security and PIs before, but Ava’s was a situation that could have ended in tragedy if it weren’t for the Toronto police intervening.”

After the window-breaking threat, Ava said the police told her that she couldn’t stay at home. She went to stay at a friend’s house, but he still reached her there, she said. “He just kept going saying like, look at what you’ve done, this is all your fault,” she said. He sent her a private message that would delete after it was opened, so she recorded it using a friend’s phone:

I need you to accept the fact that I’m extorting you right now, you need to accept that this isn’t going to end no one’s gonna catch me, the police haven’t ever caught me when I did this before, accept it, give me what I want, I want you to meet up at this park right behind your house I want to do this this this this to you

if you don’t I will kill your parents in front of you in your living room and take you.

“So at this point I was like, ‘OK, this is getting a little serious,’” she told me.

She said she sent the message to the police, who told her whole family to stay somewhere else, hours away. They did, for two weeks. He kept texting her: are you going to be there Saturday you’re making the wrong decision you better answer me.

Eventually, Ava recalled, he was caught. He left the VPN he was using to mask his location off for a half a second, according to her—just long enough, she remembers the police telling her, for the investigators to capture his location data and pinpoint where he was texting her from.

Ava said that the police told her that when he was caught, they found six separate phones and a bunch of SIM cards in his possession—full of pictures and videos of Ava that he’d taken from her accounts. According to the Toronto area detective Ava and her family worked with, the case is still in the courts.

Talking to me now, over Zoom, in between classes and facing midterms, Ava seems fine. She’s able to recount this story in delicate detail, without flinching. She understands the gravity of what happened to her, and how it upended her life. Her family decided to move away, “to the middle of nowhere, pretty much,” she said.

But she is different now. She stopped posting to her TikTok to focus on her friendships and family, though she still posts sporadically on Instagram. She would like to be more active on social media, but she’s not pushing herself. She has anxiety that she describes as “really bad.”

“It’s really affected me, like, you know, just like not being able to live in your own home, and like, even when you are at home, not being safe… It’s really hard, especially when I was only 16 when this happened,” she said. “It is hard, and knowing that my parents were always stressed out and not being able to go outside and walk without feeling kind of scared…”

Before she stopped posting new TikTok videos, she tried to open up on the platform in videos about her mental health and her experiences. But people weren’t receptive to it.

“Especially when they’re like, Oh, a TikTok girl that all the simps love, or What are you complaining about, all these boys love you, kind of thing,” she told me. “I’ve been trying to go to therapy and trying to get over it, but when that kind of thing happens you’re not really the same afterwards. You have a different outlook on social media. You’re kind of scared of if it’s going to happen again. You don’t think those people exist until it happens to you, and then you’re like, wow, this is crazy.”

Online harassment has a silencing effect on people of all ages and genders, but women have it especially bad—and young women are pushed offline, out of the center of conversations and control of their own narrative, at earlier and earlier ages. As adolescents, harassment online makes them do worse in school, seek riskier behaviors, and contemplate or even attempt and follow through on self-harm and suicide. As grown women, this looks like anxiety, a lack of self-confidence, not sleeping, and stepping out of the online conversation altogether to protect their own mental health, and, in severe cases, the safety of themselves and their loved ones. When harassment is allowed to carry on, and women are shamed for seeking help, the damage digs deeper—and we lose those voices.

I asked Ava what she wishes more people understood—about her, about what it’s like to have a big social media following, about how it feels to have millions of eyes on you at such a young age. “I just wish they knew that just because you have followers, doesn’t mean you have this perfect life,” she said. “Just because boys love you, that doesn’t complete your life. When these kinds of things happen, you should be able to be open about it.”

Follow Samantha Cole on Twitter.

Why This Teen Walked Away From Millions of TikTok Followers syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[dippedanddripped]

I was born in 1995. If you ask some, I am a member of Generation Z. Others will say that I am more of a millennial. No wonder I’ve always felt like I straddled the line between the two. While technically I’m a member of Gen Z, before the time when “generational experts” and marketing firms started targeting my cohort, I played the part of a millennial, doing all the things that those same marketers labeled as being peak millennial behavior. This means: I got my fashion tips from Tumblr, started a style blog on Blogspot, and dressed like every other person my age in middle school (first, at Abercrombie; then, Urban Outfitters and Free People). It wasn’t until college that I even thought to try thrift shopping. Once I had, it was years before I learned the ins and outs of the trade — which days my local Goodwill locations got new stock, what’s salvageable and what’s not, and how much is too much to spend on a pair of vintage Levi’s. Thrifting now feels like one of the most Gen Z things I do, and it’s no wonder: For Gen Z, thrifting isn’t just a way to shop — it’s a lifestyle.

Olivia McCafferty-Cable,17, from Santa Barbara, California, has been thrifting regularly since she was 13. “Thrifting allowed me to find things at very affordable prices that no one else I knew had,” she tells Refinery29. “I like standing out with my clothes, especially at school, because I tend to be a very quiet person, and [thrifting] was a way for me to express myself and push myself outside of my comfort zone.” Hannah Valentine, a 19-year-old from St. Louis, Missouri, doesn’t even remember her first thrifting experience. “Thrifting has been a constant in my life for years,” she says. “I’ll never stop loving the rush of adrenaline that I get when I enter a thrift store not knowing what I’m going to find that day.” While Valentine fell for thrift shopping because of the search aspect, over time, it turned into something else entirely. “Now, I thrift because I want to help save clothing from being thrown away, while also providing an easy and accessible way for people to shop secondhand so that they’re not instead shopping on fast fashion websites,” Valentine says. The way she does the latter is through Depop, an online marketplace where many members of Gen Z have set up shop. (According to The Wall Street Journal, of Depop’s 15 million users in 2019, 90% were under the age of 26.) Valentine’s Depop page is scattered with floral maxi dresses, ‘90s sportswear à la Princess Diana, and retro pins from Steak & Shake. She offers sizes up to 3X and uses her platform on the app to advocate for people with disabilities. “I think of my job as a second-hand clothing rehoming service,” she says.

Another seller on Depop, 23-year-old Monique Miu Masuko, started her thrifting journey in middle school. Ever since her mom told her when she was a kid that buying secondhand was the easiest and most affordable way to stay on-trend, Masuko hasn’t stopped thrifting. Like so many others before her, took her favorite pastime and built a career out of it. Now her Depop shop has 2.8k followers. “[Thrifting] is more affordable, accessible, and eco-friendly — all three of which go hand in hand with sustaining Gen Z’s future,” she says.According to Deloitte, Gen Z’s interest in thrifting could have something to do with having entered adolescence during the recession of 2007 to 2009, when the oldest members of Gen Z were between 12 and 14 years old. Many grew up experiencing financial hardship, and so it makes perfect sense that they’d be searching out economically friendly ways of staying in fashion. Gen Z isn’t the only demographic actively shopping secondhand right now. Fashion search engine Lyst reported that, in September, there was a 104% increase in online fashion searches for secondhand-related keywords like “vintage fashion” and “slow fashion,” the latter of which was responsible for more than seven million social impressions. But they are the largest demographic: An estimated 46% of Gen Z shopped secondhand in 2019, according to Medium, compared to 37% of millennials and just 18% of Gen X. Since Gen Z has matured into its spending power, the resale market has grown significantly. In fact, it’s grown 21 times faster than traditional retail over the past three years to be worth $24 billion in 2019. It makes sense. Unlike millennials, who are said to “seek validation through purchases,” members of Gen Z are obsessed with being different from their peers. Ask the question of “why thrift?” for instance, and it will result in a wide variety of answers. (I’d know, I talked to over 30 of them.)

Some listed being able to look unique and build a more personalized sense of style as one of the reasons for thrifting. Tori López, 24, from Brooklyn, New York, says she found an “inexplicable sense of empowerment and independence” in wearing pieces that felt made for her, even if they were previously owned by someone else. “Wearing ‘one-of-a-kind’ clothing makes me feel special; it makes me feel unique; it makes me feel happy — and if that outfit costs you $30, all the better.” Elena Dunn-Barcelona, a 24-year-old from Harlem, fell in love with thrifting during her senior year of high school because it allowed her to compete with her classmates style-wise “for an eighth of the price,” she says. “I was one of a handful of Black kids at a predominantly white boarding school,” she tells Refinery29. According to Dunn-Barcelona, everyone there wore the same things from the same brands (“Sperrys, J.Crew, Free People, Vineyard Vines, etc.”), none of which her parents were willing to buy for her: “There was no way they were going to hand me $60-plus for a top that would be out of style before the school year was over.” Thrifting made it possible for Dunn-Barcelona to build confidence in her style without overspending. It also allowed her to find options that fit when off-the-rack styles wouldn’t because of her scoliosis. “I have a shortened torso, and stand at only 4 feet and 4 inches, which makes shopping for clothing a constant struggle for me. But after a while, when I’d find cute things that didn’t fit me, I realized that someone else might love them, so I turned it into a business,” she says. Her Depop shop, Mighty Thrift, sells clothing in sizes 0 to 5X and has over 5k followers. By August 2021, she says thrifting will be her sole way of supporting herself.

There is also the matter of the climate crisis looming, which many listed as a major motivation for thrifting. “Thrifting taught me that I can positively impact this world in more ways than one,” Lopez says. “It’s granted me an entryway into a new way of living that feels more productive and purposeful.” She explains that what started as a mode of expression has since catalyzed a more intentional lifestyle, where, across categories, she’s more considerate about her purchases: “Now that I’m older, I find myself frequenting more local businesses, paying attention to companies’ stances on current political issues, and buying quality over quantity.” During the lockdown, many young people took to TikTok for entertainment. In the process they also learned about the damaging effects that fashion — and other powerful industries — has on the environment. Of TikTok’s 800 million worldwide users, 60% are members of Gen Z, many of whom are using their fast-growing platforms to promote thrifting as an alternative to fast fashion and an easy way to minimize waste. The numbers don’t lie: #ThriftStore has 92.7 million views on the app, while #Secondhand has 90.8 million views. “So much of our clothes get worn a couple of times, then head to the landfill, which is really gross considering how many resources go into producing clothes,” says 24-year-old Lily Fulop, the author of Wear, Repair, Repurpose: A Maker's Guide to Mending and Upcycling Clothes and a designer at Refinery29. “We need to produce less clothing, and make use of the clothes that are already in existence,” she says. One of the easiest and most affordable ways to do that is by thrifting: “It saves water, reduces microplastics and petroleum use, cuts down on pollution from pesticides, dye, and shipping... the list goes on.” 

According to Emily Reyes, a 21-year-old living in New York City, Gen Z YouTube influencers like Emma Chamberlain are in large part responsible for showing young people that, unlike what their older family members or friends would have them believe, fast fashion isn’t the only way to find on-trend clothing at an affordable price. The 19-year-old YouTube celebrity — who has 9.6 million subscribers on YouTube and 8.3 million followers on TikTok — is known for frequenting Goodwill. Chamberlain’s thrift hauls, videos in which she goes through the items she recently thrifted and styles them on herself, are among her most popular videos on both platforms. Thrifting feels emblematic of the way that Gen Z prefers to stray from the beaten path — a path beaten to death by millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers, that doesn’t even seem to be going anywhere anymore. They want to be independent. They want to save the planet. They also want to save money — and make money. And they want to do it all in a cute outfit, probably one that costs less than $10. Thrifting makes all of that possible. Now that I know this, I look forward to making up for lost time.It's a cliché, but this year was supposed to be our year — full of independence, opportunity, or at least a few weekend afternoons spent with more than 10 friends with fewer than six feet between us. But with COVID-necessary social distancing, a shitty job market, and closed campuses, 2020 hasn't given us much to work with. Past generations have had to deal with a recession, social upheaval, and changing norms: We've had to deal with all of it at once.So, what now? What do we do with our careers, our relationships, and our lives? How do we move forward when we're still stuck in our high school bedrooms? These stories are for us — filled with the resources, blueprints, and people who are finding ways to turn all this garbage into something like lemonade.

[jeramymobley]

Influencer Marketing: 5 Questions with TrendPie Founder Victor Ricci

Bloggers, Instagrammers, Snapchatters and YouTube stars are taking over turf from celebrity influencers.

Bloomberg reports that $255 million is spent on influencer marketing every month, and this spend is set to grow to a $5B to $10B market.

TrendPie is a start-up offering social media campaigns and promotion to help connect users with clients’ apps and services. brandchannel sat down with TrendPie Founder Victor Ricci, whose journey began the summer after his senior year of high school, after posting a six second “life hack” video to his Vine account, @QuickLifeHacks, using a water bottle to separate the white and yolk of an egg. From that surprising start, Ricci transitioned from social media stardom to launch TrendPie in April 2015 to connect brands to his network of non-celebrity online influencers. The key to his business model is right in the name, TrendPie, “Everyone can get a piece of the influencer marketing pie.”

What was the inspiration for that hack, and what followed?

I don’t like eggs—so I was playing around with a water bottle hack and made the video, and my mom said, “You should put that on your Twitter account”. I resisted and said nobody is going to care, that’s a stupid idea. But eventually I did and it went viral.

My Vine account grew every day after that, reaching more than 1.4 million followers and becoming one of the most followed accounts worldwide.

Companies started offering me $3,000 – $5,000 to feature their products, mostly gaming and app companies—smaller ones—younger and more progressive with their ads than the big guys. Apps that were already promoting on Vine like Game of War and Westbound, appealing to a millennial audience and looking to increase their bottom dollar with any means necessary.

Winston Churchill. http://pic.twitter.com/7jSF9bXMUz

— trend pie (@trendpie) July 24, 2017

It’s a big change to move from social media stardom to go-between for brands and influencers. What was your motivation?

It was definitely a conscious change. I stopped enjoying being in front of the camera, stopped enjoying being an influencer. I didn’t like the image or the mentality or the lifestyle behind it. So one day I just stopped posting Vines. I had posted 196 Vines in about one and half years, posting every day, then every couple of days and then weekly. I just lost interest.

But I saw the value of it and knew I had the connections, and I’m passionate about social media and understand it pretty well along with apps—so I figured why not do something I’m passionate about and leverage everything learned up to this point?

Great advice we can all adhere to a bit better http://pic.twitter.com/bFmluMKAKf

— trend pie (@trendpie) July 23, 2017

You’ve said of TrendPie’s strategy, “I think of it kind of as the Wal-Mart approach. We charge less, but we do it everyday.” Please elaborate.

I figured, what these brands are paying me, there’s no way they’re making $3,000 – $5,000 on what I post, they’re not breaking even—probably even losing money, and the deals were inconsistent.

So I figured, instead of charging $5,000, we’ll charge 10% of that, $500, but we’ll do a post every single day. The brands will have more exposure for the same amount—they’ll make money—and have more money to spend in the long run.

I contacted a few of my influencer friends and pitched them the idea, and they all said “Yes, when do we start?”. I got a call from Joshua Anton wanting me to promote his Drunk Mode app on my Vine channel, which stops you from doing dumb things when you’re out drinking like blocking numbers so you can’t call your ex-girlfriend or your professor or your mother. It helps you find your friends and lets them know you’ve gotten home after a night out.

So we set up our first campaign for $2,000, and I rallied as many influencers as I could. Next day—the app was trending on the App Store. Josh was happy and booked another campaign, then 10 more and eventually we broke even. It validated what we were doing, and now Josh is a minority partner in TrendPie.

Case study for the Walk Against Humanity app. http://pic.twitter.com/AdJDHjE0mM

— trend pie (@trendpie) July 16, 2017

Social influencers have turned legacy celebrity marketing on its head—a paradigm shift from a Kim Kardashian getting $500,000 a post. Who are your network of influencers and what’s their profile?

The definition of celebrity has changed. Influencers are now celebrities in their own right. People with hundreds of thousands if not millions of followers are now celebrities just because they post videos of themselves putting on make-up. There’s something about that I’m just inherently against. But I was there and I understand it 100%. They’re playing the game. Some are more genuine than others—some not talented, while others are extremely talented—and over time, the ones with talent separate from the pack.

Gen Z’ers see these people on social media and they respect them, so they emulate them and want to follow the positive characteristics they see. They see someone massively popular on social media and follow them, and feel like they could be like that person. “I could get there.” It’s the American Dream in itself. People mimic the style, the colors, the imagery, and it gives many kids an identity and something to look up to, confidence to go outside their comfort zone.

Originality > Imitation http://pic.twitter.com/GrtveFAjqF

— trend pie (@trendpie) July 29, 2017

Looking ahead, will social media influencers replace celebrities, or will there always be both? And how will TrendPie change to meet them?

Both. There’s always going to be a high-end car like a Ferrari and people who buy them. But our model is disruptive—kind of like Tesla making the electric car for everyone.

An expenditure of $2000 with us gets you 2 million impressions—that’s a guaranteed minimum, but we’ve seen 4.5 million impressions from that spend since people just keep sharing and promoting our campaigns which are typically one day pushes—trending the next day, then a few days off—then repeat. In one campaign we pushed 50 million impressions in 24 hours.

Let's get you trending! http://pic.twitter.com/HvF0FR6egz

— trend pie (@trendpie) July 9, 2017

We want to take TrendPie into other social media, including movie and television show trailers and sees Snapchat as a big opportunity since they don’t currently have support for influencers. We recently renovated our office space in Rhode Island, we’re setting up an internship, and hiring a sales team.

Oh and PS—Thanks Mom!

Get more insights in our Q&A series and suggest a Q&A at editor@brandchannel.com.

Subscribe to our free daily e-newsletter for more.

The post Influencer Marketing: 5 Questions with TrendPie Founder Victor Ricci appeared first on brandchannel:.

[johnhardinsawyer]

Howdy, Partner!

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

9 / 29 / 19

1 Corinthians 12:12-19

John 15:1-12

“Howdy, Partner!”

(Transforming Partnerships and Making Space for our Neighbors)

A few weeks ago, we began this sermon series on the book Neighborhood Church, and I know that there might have been a few of you who wondered where, exactly, this whole thing was headed. First, Pastor Karen encouraged us to ask the question, “Who is our neighbor?”  Next, I talked about how sometimes we don’t seek out our neighbors because we’re worried we don’t have enough to offer them – enough money, energy, time, etc.  But God has a way of converting us from a mindset of scarcity to a mindset of abundance so that we can turn to our neighbors – whoever they may be – and offer what we do have.  And, last week, Pastor Karen talked about the importance of listening to our neighbors, because when we do, there might just be something Holy at work.

Our church is in a neighborhood – here in Bedford, in the greater-Manchester area, in Southern New Hampshire, in New England, in the United States, on planet earth – and however big our neighborhood might be, we have neighbors, and Jesus has given us the commandment to love those neighbors.[1]  From right down the street to around the globe, our church can be a neighborhood church – loving our neighbors, wherever they may be.  It is through turning toward our neighbors that we show and share the love of Jesus.  And, one of the ways we do this is found in the ways that we partner with our neighbors to make our neighborhoods better.  This is the point of our whole Neighborhood Church series – encouraging our congregation to think of ways that we can listen and serve and give and partner to make our neighborhood better.

If we were to think about this in a local sense, our neighbors live in our area, and shop in the same stores, and eat in the same restaurants, and go to the same schools. They breathe the same air and drink the same water.  They already kind of know us and we already kind of know them.  We are connected because we are neighbors.  This is where our two scripture readings come into focus this morning, because they are all about how we are connected – connected – by God – to one another, like how all the parts of a body are connected; and connected to God, like branches that are connected to a vine.

In today’s first scripture reading, the Apostle Paul is encouraging the church in Corinth to stick together because every part of the body is important.  It would not be good for the different parts of the body to think that they do not belong because they are not another part of the body.  Paul gives example after example of how the body is connected and all the parts are indispensable.  “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.”  (1 Corinthians 12:26)  This is a wonderful image of how the church could be – and isin so many ways, in how we support one another and lift each other up and how if one member of our body is suffering, we suffer alongside them to make sure they know they are not alone.  I wonder what would happen, though, if we started thinking of our neighborhoods in the same way – that if one member suffers, the rest of us suffer.  How many of our neighbors – right down the street – are lonely, depressed, stressed out, or living in fear?  As residents of Manchester, my wife and I are concerned about the recent uptick in the homeless population – not too far from our house, as the crow flies (not too far from our church, as the crow flies, either). If one of our neighbors suffers, what effect does this have on us?  What effect shouldit have on us?  How connected are we to our neighbors?  How connected does God call us to be?  And what does this mean?  What should we do?

In today’s reading from the Gospel of John, we heard Jesus saying that he is the vine and God is the vinegrower.  The vinegrower is very interested in making sure that the branches attached to the vine are bearing fruit.  This makes sense.  If you are growing grapes (or any other kind of fruit), you want to produce as much fruit – good fruit– as you can.  I imagine Jesus feeling this way about the church – wanting the church to produce as much good fruit, to do as much good in the world for the kingdom of God, as it possibly can.

I was listening to an interview of a pastor in Dallas, TX, who said something very interesting about producing good fruit.  He said, that his congregation has been able to meet immediate needs in their neighborhood, which is great, but they are also trying to think bigger than the immediate needs of their neighbors.  He said,

Part of what we do is thoughtfully determine what needs we can try to meet.  A larger church can go beyond direct aid to something more systemic. . . sustain systemic impact in the future.  A group of people in the church is talking with city leaders to learn what big needs there are so that our church can do a deep dive into a particular need.[2]

The idea here is that taking a deep dive into one particular issue has the potential of producing a lot of good fruit.  It might be possible, in the big scheme of things, to do more good by going deep instead of spreading themselves thin.

There are big needs in every neighborhood, and, sometimes the best ways to meet those needs is for the church to build connections in ways that are true to who the church is but also expand the church’s reach and influence.  Believe it or not, there are some non-church people and organizations in our neighborhood who are doing good work – bearing some kind of good fruit.  You might know some of these people.  You might be involved in some of these groups.  No, they might not be “religious” organizations, per se, or connected to any church, but – in the ways they are helping and serving and loving their neighbors – they are doing Holy work, whether they know it or not – whether they believe it or not.

Now, I know that – in today’s passage – when Jesus is talking about the vine and the branches, he is talking, openly, about the importance of being connected to him – how being connected to Jesus is essential in bearing good fruit.  In building partnerships with our neighbors, what would it mean for the church to make that connection – between the seemingly secular and the sacred – by building true partnerships with anyonewho is looking for a more effective way to love their neighbor in ways that look a lot like the love of Jesus, whether the name of Jesus is mentioned or not?  It might just be a different kind of evangelism – a subversive work of the Holy Spirit in which the good fruit, borne by seemingly secular hearts and hands, is revealed as God’s Holy work.

Just so you know, in some ways, our congregation is already pretty good at doing this – taking a deep dive into partnerships with our neighbors and having close encounters with Jesus.  

About four years ago, one of our members, George Reese, was coordinating the Thanksgiving Basket ministry and noticed a trend of more and more people in the town of Bedford who were signing up to receive a Thanksgiving Basket.  It seemed like this was an unfortunate growing trend in our neighborhood.  So, George did some research and found out the number of children in the town school system who were on some sort of food assistance and how many households in the town were food-insecure.  The results were surprisingly high – especially for a town like Bedford.  And, so, the Bedford Community Food Pantry was started. It is important to note that Bedford Presbyterian Church could have started the Food Pantry all by ourselves, butGeorge saw a real value in not having it be “just us.”  Community-wide needs like this can be met in a better way if the entire community works together.  So, we formed a partnership with several other churches and the Lions Club. I’m going to be honest and say that forming the partnership wasn’t always a smooth process.  There were lots of minds and hearts around the table and a lot of back-and-forth conversations about how this whole thing should go, but now – four years later – the partnership is alive and well and people who live in our community have an official place to come for help.  And, because we are centrally located and have the space in our Mission Outpost, we are able house the Food Pantry right here in our building.  “I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat,” Jesus said.  (Matthew 25:35)

Another example of how our church has partnered well with our neighbors can be seen in our Caring Closet ministry.

About eight years ago, a child of this church, Reed Swain, was looking for a senior project to do during her last year of High School.  Because she was a member of this church, she knew Beth Richeson, a former member of our church who was serving as the Chaplain at the Women’s Prison in Goffstown.  Beth let it be known that some of our neighbors who had completed their time in prison were released back into society with little more than the clothes on their backs. What would happen if these neighbors were able to have several changes of clothes, a warm coat in the winter, and the kind of things that a woman needs to feel like herself, again, after years behind bars?  Beth and Reed got together and a partnership was born between our church and the women from the prison.  Because of this partnership, and the generous donations of clothing, and time, and energy, over the years, hundreds of women have received clothes out of that basement room beneath the Food Pantry.  Our congregation has shown the love and care of Christ, who once said, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I had no clothes and you gave me clothes, I was in prison and you visited me. . .”  (Matthew 25:35-36)[3]

In the end, this is what happens when we partner with our neighbors:  we encounter Jesus Christ in a deeper way because we are connected to one another.

You know, when I chose the title of today’s sermon, “Howdy, Partner!” I kind of did it for fun – thinking about the subject for the day, as well as old cowboy movies.  But, then I started thinking about what kind of relationship I would need to have with someone to actually say “Howdy, Partner!” to them.  It’s not the kind of thing I would say to someone I didn’t know, but it is the kind of thing I would say to someone with whom I worked, someone with whom I had a vested interest in making something better – a success.

So, Partners in the pews today at Bedford Presbyterian Church:  How is God calling you to be a good neighbor, a good partner in ministry? How is God calling our church to be a good neighbor – to make our neighborhood stronger by easing suffering, and creating space for community, and showing hospitality?  How is the Spirit nudging us, even now, to open our doors and open our hearts in new ways through our church’s Mission Outpost so that strangers become friends and neighbors become partners?  As Fred Rogers used to sing:

Let’s make the most of this beautiful day,

Since we’re together, we might as well say,

‘Would you be mine?  Could you be mine?  

Won’t you be my neighbor?’[4]

In so many ways, this is what God has been singing to us for two thousand years in the person and presence and partnership of Jesus Christ.

So, Partners:  Let’s make the most of this beautiful day, this moment, this season. . .  Since we’re together, we might as well open our hearts to loving our neighbors and partnering with them for good.  For it is in building partnerships like this that we bear good fruit and encounter Jesus in deep and holy ways.

May we do this, trusting in the gracious mercy of God.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

-----------------

[1]Matthew 22:39, Mark 12:31, Luke 10:27.

[2]Chris Girata, Day1 Podcast. September 22, 2019.  http://day1.org/8425-christopher_girata_shrewd_faith. Paraphrased, JHS.

[3]Paraphrased, JHS.

[4]http://www.neighborhoodarchive.com/music/songs/wont_you_be_my_neighbor.html.

[endevia]

MS Career Planning: Moving in the Right Direction

I really like the recent trend away from presenting college as the goal for all graduating seniors, opening that up to include a wide variety of careers. Our job as educators is to encourage students in whatever their choice of post-school employment is, be it more education, a technical school, or a job. If we try to force students into a future not of their own choice, they disengage from learning. Ask a Tech Teacher contributor, Bryce Welker, has some ideas on that I think you’ll find interesting:

As an educator, you want to help your students excel now and in the future. This means you have to do everything possible to prepare them for their careers.

One way school districts are ensuring this is by introducing career topics and studies to middle school students. According to the Association for Career and Technical Education, middle school is the time when students are the most likely to become disengaged from learning.

This is in part due to them going through puberty, trying to form their own personal identity, and overcoming other challenges that come with navigating new environments. So this is a vital time to introduce courses that teach students about various career opportunities.

Let’s take a look at how educators around the country are helping middle school students plan and direct their future careers.

North Carolina: Getting Kids College Ready

In Chatham County, North Carolina, teachers aren’t waiting until high school to get students pondering their future careers. Instead, they introduced the College Ready and Career Ready program, which is aimed at middle school students.

What makes this time ideal is that it enables students to think ahead and take the proper steps now. For instance, if a middle school child is able to identify a core subject they’re interested in – let’s say math – then they can focus on taking advanced courses in that subject.

If this student has an interest in becoming an accountant, then they could enroll in advanced math courses that will help them reach their goal. It would also help them to learn more about the requirements for becoming a CPA.

Other STEM courses require advanced courses so it’s best to identify interest in these fields as early as possible.

With programs like the College Ready and Career Ready Program, teachers are directing students to achieve higher so they can do well in their high school courses. And potentially enroll in advanced classes for college credits.

Using Technology for Career Planning

Technology is making learning easier for both students and educators. It’s the same when it comes to career planning.

One way students are able to explore career options is through introductory Career and Technical Education (CTE) courses. These help students find careers they may be interested in and then enable them to develop employability skills for those areas.

This can be done in year-long classes that consist of 16 career clusters. Or it can be throughout a semester, covering a broader career area. These courses can be made available online so students have the flexibility to continue their studies at home.

Personalized Education and Career Plans

Besides using technology to educate students on specific career paths, it can be used to personalize their education. Parents, guidance counselors, and teachers can work together to create specific career plans for each student.

Schools can use technology to develop personalized courses for each individual student based on their strengths and interests. These can then be scaled according to the child’s development.

It may turn out that the student would be more suitable for a different career path based on their changing interests and skill-sets.

It’s essential for educators to keep the students’ options open as they grow older. By introducing this system to middle school students, it will give them time to change course early on so they’re more confident in their career options by the time they get to high school and college.

It’s also found that the achievement of 8th graders is something educators and administrators should monitor since this can be an early indicator of their readiness to for college and a career by the time they graduate.

Let’s delve into this a little more.

ACT Early Predictive Models for College Readiness

ACT created a predictive model to determine the college readiness of students based on their performance on the ACT test. There are six factors found to influence this, which includes:

Background characteristics, such as race and gender

Eight-grade achievement in ACT EXPLORE test scores

Standard high school coursework

Advanced/honors high school coursework

High school GPA

Student testing behaviors

Based on these results, it was found that students can take certain steps in high school to improve their college readiness, such as:

Maintaining a B average in relevant high school courses

Earning higher grades in relevant standard high school courses

Taking a core curriculum (math and science only)

Increasing EXPLORE scores by two points in all subject areas in 8th grade

Taking additional standard courses (math and science only)

Meetings EXPLORE college readiness benchmarks in all four subject areas in 8th grade

Taking advanced honors courses in relevant subjects

Now, this isn’t to say that high school level enhancements won’t benefit students. However, it’s believed that increasing 8th graders achievements hold the greatest impact on career and college readiness.

How Technology Helps Educators Overcome Academic Barriers

While middle school career exploration has proven benefits for students, not all schools are implementing these methods due to various barriers.

For instance, today’s school struggle with focusing on career development because of the pressure to raise test scores. Because of this, many middle schools are shortening electives and guidance activities, such as career exploration.

Then there’s a lack of guidance counselors, which further limits career exploration efforts in middle school. The restrictive financial challenges middle schools face doesn’t help either.

A lot of schools lack the funding to pay for technology and other resources to aid in this endeavor.

Yet, to overcome these barriers educators and administrators are developing flexible ways to implement career exploration in middle school. One way is through the use of CTE courses and scalable technology for career and academic planning.

Giving Your Students Access to a Brighter Future

Educators are limited by the resources they have access to. However, with the right strategies and tools, schools are able to overcome these limits to deliver the education their students need to succeed.

As we can see, technology plays a major role in how teachers can introduce career exploration and planning even with budget restrictions.

Hopefully, you will find this information helpful so you do what’s needed to enhance the futures of your middle school students!

Author bio

Bryce Welker, a CPA consultant who passed his CPA exams on the first try and devoted his life to helping students to achieve the same. Founder and CEO at CPA Exam Guy. 

More on career prep

Top 10 Study Group Forums and Websites for High School Students

How to Prepare for the SAT

How to Interest the Next Generation of Great Minds to Work in STEM Fields

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice reviewer, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today and TeachHUB, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

MS Career Planning: Moving in the Right Direction published first on https://medium.com/@greatpricecourse

[statrano]

MS Career Planning: Moving in the Right Direction

I really like the recent trend away from presenting college as the goal for all graduating seniors, opening that up to include a wide variety of careers. Our job as educators is to encourage students in whatever their choice of post-school employment is, be it more education, a technical school, or a job. If we try to force students into a future not of their own choice, they disengage from learning. Ask a Tech Teacher contributor, Bryce Welker, has some ideas on that I think you’ll find interesting:

As an educator, you want to help your students excel now and in the future. This means you have to do everything possible to prepare them for their careers.

One way school districts are ensuring this is by introducing career topics and studies to middle school students. According to the Association for Career and Technical Education, middle school is the time when students are the most likely to become disengaged from learning.

This is in part due to them going through puberty, trying to form their own personal identity, and overcoming other challenges that come with navigating new environments. So this is a vital time to introduce courses that teach students about various career opportunities.

Let’s take a look at how educators around the country are helping middle school students plan and direct their future careers.

North Carolina: Getting Kids College Ready

In Chatham County, North Carolina, teachers aren’t waiting until high school to get students pondering their future careers. Instead, they introduced the College Ready and Career Ready program, which is aimed at middle school students.

What makes this time ideal is that it enables students to think ahead and take the proper steps now. For instance, if a middle school child is able to identify a core subject they’re interested in – let’s say math – then they can focus on taking advanced courses in that subject.

If this student has an interest in becoming an accountant, then they could enroll in advanced math courses that will help them reach their goal. It would also help them to learn more about the requirements for becoming a CPA.

Other STEM courses require advanced courses so it’s best to identify interest in these fields as early as possible.

With programs like the College Ready and Career Ready Program, teachers are directing students to achieve higher so they can do well in their high school courses. And potentially enroll in advanced classes for college credits.

Using Technology for Career Planning

Technology is making learning easier for both students and educators. It’s the same when it comes to career planning.

One way students are able to explore career options is through introductory Career and Technical Education (CTE) courses. These help students find careers they may be interested in and then enable them to develop employability skills for those areas.

This can be done in year-long classes that consist of 16 career clusters. Or it can be throughout a semester, covering a broader career area. These courses can be made available online so students have the flexibility to continue their studies at home.

Personalized Education and Career Plans

Besides using technology to educate students on specific career paths, it can be used to personalize their education. Parents, guidance counselors, and teachers can work together to create specific career plans for each student.

Schools can use technology to develop personalized courses for each individual student based on their strengths and interests. These can then be scaled according to the child’s development.

It may turn out that the student would be more suitable for a different career path based on their changing interests and skill-sets.

It’s essential for educators to keep the students’ options open as they grow older. By introducing this system to middle school students, it will give them time to change course early on so they’re more confident in their career options by the time they get to high school and college.

It’s also found that the achievement of 8th graders is something educators and administrators should monitor since this can be an early indicator of their readiness to for college and a career by the time they graduate.

Let’s delve into this a little more.

ACT Early Predictive Models for College Readiness

ACT created a predictive model to determine the college readiness of students based on their performance on the ACT test. There are six factors found to influence this, which includes:

Background characteristics, such as race and gender

Eight-grade achievement in ACT EXPLORE test scores

Standard high school coursework

Advanced/honors high school coursework

High school GPA

Student testing behaviors

Based on these results, it was found that students can take certain steps in high school to improve their college readiness, such as:

Maintaining a B average in relevant high school courses

Earning higher grades in relevant standard high school courses

Taking a core curriculum (math and science only)

Increasing EXPLORE scores by two points in all subject areas in 8th grade

Taking additional standard courses (math and science only)

Meetings EXPLORE college readiness benchmarks in all four subject areas in 8th grade

Taking advanced honors courses in relevant subjects

Now, this isn’t to say that high school level enhancements won’t benefit students. However, it’s believed that increasing 8th graders achievements hold the greatest impact on career and college readiness.

How Technology Helps Educators Overcome Academic Barriers

While middle school career exploration has proven benefits for students, not all schools are implementing these methods due to various barriers.

For instance, today’s school struggle with focusing on career development because of the pressure to raise test scores. Because of this, many middle schools are shortening electives and guidance activities, such as career exploration.

Then there’s a lack of guidance counselors, which further limits career exploration efforts in middle school. The restrictive financial challenges middle schools face doesn’t help either.

A lot of schools lack the funding to pay for technology and other resources to aid in this endeavor.

Yet, to overcome these barriers educators and administrators are developing flexible ways to implement career exploration in middle school. One way is through the use of CTE courses and scalable technology for career and academic planning.

Giving Your Students Access to a Brighter Future

Educators are limited by the resources they have access to. However, with the right strategies and tools, schools are able to overcome these limits to deliver the education their students need to succeed.

As we can see, technology plays a major role in how teachers can introduce career exploration and planning even with budget restrictions.

Hopefully, you will find this information helpful so you do what’s needed to enhance the futures of your middle school students!

Author bio

Bryce Welker, a CPA consultant who passed his CPA exams on the first try and devoted his life to helping students to achieve the same. Founder and CEO at CPA Exam Guy. 

More on career prep

Top 10 Study Group Forums and Websites for High School Students

How to Prepare for the SAT

How to Interest the Next Generation of Great Minds to Work in STEM Fields

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice reviewer, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today and TeachHUB, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

MS Career Planning: Moving in the Right Direction published first on https://seminarsacademy.tumblr.com/

[davisgordonc]

Influencer Marketing: 5 Questions with TrendPie Founder Victor Ricci

Bloggers, Instagrammers, Snapchatters and YouTube stars are taking over turf from celebrity influencers.

Bloomberg reports that $255 million is spent on influencer marketing every month, and this spend is set to grow to a $5B to $10B market.

TrendPie is a start-up offering social media campaigns and promotion to help connect users with clients’ apps and services. brandchannel sat down with TrendPie Founder Victor Ricci, whose journey began the summer after his senior year of high school, after posting a six second “life hack” video to his Vine account, @QuickLifeHacks, using a water bottle to separate the white and yolk of an egg. From that surprising start, Ricci transitioned from social media stardom to launch TrendPie in April 2015 to connect brands to his network of non-celebrity online influencers. The key to his business model is right in the name, TrendPie, “Everyone can get a piece of the influencer marketing pie.”

What was the inspiration for that hack, and what followed?

I don’t like eggs—so I was playing around with a water bottle hack and made the video, and my mom said, “You should put that on your Twitter account”. I resisted and said nobody is going to care, that’s a stupid idea. But eventually I did and it went viral.

My Vine account grew every day after that, reaching more than 1.4 million followers and becoming one of the most followed accounts worldwide.

Companies started offering me $3,000 – $5,000 to feature their products, mostly gaming and app companies—smaller ones—younger and more progressive with their ads than the big guys. Apps that were already promoting on Vine like Game of War and Westbound, appealing to a millennial audience and looking to increase their bottom dollar with any means necessary.

Winston Churchill. http://pic.twitter.com/7jSF9bXMUz

— trend pie (@trendpie) July 24, 2017

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

It’s a big change to move from social media stardom to go-between for brands and influencers. What was your motivation?

It was definitely a conscious change. I stopped enjoying being in front of the camera, stopped enjoying being an influencer. I didn’t like the image or the mentality or the lifestyle behind it. So one day I just stopped posting Vines. I had posted 196 Vines in about one and half years, posting every day, then every couple of days and then weekly. I just lost interest.

But I saw the value of it and knew I had the connections, and I’m passionate about social media and understand it pretty well along with apps—so I figured why not do something I’m passionate about and leverage everything learned up to this point?

Great advice we can all adhere to a bit better http://pic.twitter.com/bFmluMKAKf

— trend pie (@trendpie) July 23, 2017

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

You’ve said of TrendPie’s strategy, “I think of it kind of as the Wal-Mart approach. We charge less, but we do it everyday.” Please elaborate.

I figured, what these brands are paying me, there’s no way they’re making $3,000 – $5,000 on what I post, they’re not breaking even—probably even losing money, and the deals were inconsistent.

So I figured, instead of charging $5,000, we’ll charge 10% of that, $500, but we’ll do a post every single day. The brands will have more exposure for the same amount—they’ll make money—and have more money to spend in the long run.

I contacted a few of my influencer friends and pitched them the idea, and they all said “Yes, when do we start?”. I got a call from Joshua Anton wanting me to promote his Drunk Mode app on my Vine channel, which stops you from doing dumb things when you’re out drinking like blocking numbers so you can’t call your ex-girlfriend or your professor or your mother. It helps you find your friends and lets them know you’ve gotten home after a night out.

So we set up our first campaign for $2,000, and I rallied as many influencers as I could. Next day—the app was trending on the App Store. Josh was happy and booked another campaign, then 10 more and eventually we broke even. It validated what we were doing, and now Josh is a minority partner in TrendPie.

Case study for the Walk Against Humanity app. http://pic.twitter.com/AdJDHjE0mM

— trend pie (@trendpie) July 16, 2017

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Social influencers have turned legacy celebrity marketing on its head—a paradigm shift from a Kim Kardashian getting $500,000 a post. Who are your network of influencers and what’s their profile?

The definition of celebrity has changed. Influencers are now celebrities in their own right. People with hundreds of thousands if not millions of followers are now celebrities just because they post videos of themselves putting on make-up. There’s something about that I’m just inherently against. But I was there and I understand it 100%. They’re playing the game. Some are more genuine than others—some not talented, while others are extremely talented—and over time, the ones with talent separate from the pack.

Gen Z’ers see these people on social media and they respect them, so they emulate them and want to follow the positive characteristics they see. They see someone massively popular on social media and follow them, and feel like they could be like that person. “I could get there.” It’s the American Dream in itself. People mimic the style, the colors, the imagery, and it gives many kids an identity and something to look up to, confidence to go outside their comfort zone.

Originality > Imitation http://pic.twitter.com/GrtveFAjqF

— trend pie (@trendpie) July 29, 2017

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Looking ahead, will social media influencers replace celebrities, or will there always be both? And how will TrendPie change to meet them?

Both. There’s always going to be a high-end car like a Ferrari and people who buy them. But our model is disruptive—kind of like Tesla making the electric car for everyone.

An expenditure of $2000 with us gets you 2 million impressions—that’s a guaranteed minimum, but we’ve seen 4.5 million impressions from that spend since people just keep sharing and promoting our campaigns which are typically one day pushes—trending the next day, then a few days off—then repeat. In one campaign we pushed 50 million impressions in 24 hours.

Let's get you trending! http://pic.twitter.com/HvF0FR6egz

— trend pie (@trendpie) July 9, 2017

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

We want to take TrendPie into other social media, including movie and television show trailers and sees Snapchat as a big opportunity since they don’t currently have support for influencers. We recently renovated our office space in Rhode Island, we’re setting up an internship, and hiring a sales team.

Oh and PS—Thanks Mom!

Get more insights in our Q&A series and suggest a Q&A at editor@brandchannel.com.

Subscribe to our free daily e-newsletter for more.

The post Influencer Marketing: 5 Questions with TrendPie Founder Victor Ricci appeared first on brandchannel:.

from WordPress http://ift.tt/2wRtt4S via IFTTT

[joejstrickl]

Influencer Marketing: 5 Questions with TrendPie Founder Victor Ricci

Bloggers, Instagrammers, Snapchatters and YouTube stars are taking over turf from celebrity influencers.

Bloomberg reports that $255 million is spent on influencer marketing every month, and this spend is set to grow to a $5B to $10B market.

TrendPie is a start-up offering social media campaigns and promotion to help connect users with clients’ apps and services. brandchannel sat down with TrendPie Founder Victor Ricci, whose journey began the summer after his senior year of high school, after posting a six second “life hack” video to his Vine account, @QuickLifeHacks, using a water bottle to separate the white and yolk of an egg. From that surprising start, Ricci transitioned from social media stardom to launch TrendPie in April 2015 to connect brands to his network of non-celebrity online influencers. The key to his business model is right in the name, TrendPie, “Everyone can get a piece of the influencer marketing pie.”

What was the inspiration for that hack, and what followed?

I don’t like eggs—so I was playing around with a water bottle hack and made the video, and my mom said, “You should put that on your Twitter account”. I resisted and said nobody is going to care, that’s a stupid idea. But eventually I did and it went viral.

My Vine account grew every day after that, reaching more than 1.4 million followers and becoming one of the most followed accounts worldwide.

Companies started offering me $3,000 – $5,000 to feature their products, mostly gaming and app companies—smaller ones—younger and more progressive with their ads than the big guys. Apps that were already promoting on Vine like Game of War and Westbound, appealing to a millennial audience and looking to increase their bottom dollar with any means necessary.

Winston Churchill. pic.twitter.com/7jSF9bXMUz

— trend pie (@trendpie) July 24, 2017

It’s a big change to move from social media stardom to go-between for brands and influencers. What was your motivation?

It was definitely a conscious change. I stopped enjoying being in front of the camera, stopped enjoying being an influencer. I didn’t like the image or the mentality or the lifestyle behind it. So one day I just stopped posting Vines. I had posted 196 Vines in about one and half years, posting every day, then every couple of days and then weekly. I just lost interest.

But I saw the value of it and knew I had the connections, and I’m passionate about social media and understand it pretty well along with apps—so I figured why not do something I’m passionate about and leverage everything learned up to this point?

Great advice we can all adhere to a bit better pic.twitter.com/bFmluMKAKf

— trend pie (@trendpie) July 23, 2017

You’ve said of TrendPie’s strategy, “I think of it kind of as the Wal-Mart approach. We charge less, but we do it everyday.” Please elaborate.

I figured, what these brands are paying me, there’s no way they’re making $3,000 – $5,000 on what I post, they’re not breaking even—probably even losing money, and the deals were inconsistent.

So I figured, instead of charging $5,000, we’ll charge 10% of that, $500, but we’ll do a post every single day. The brands will have more exposure for the same amount—they’ll make money—and have more money to spend in the long run.

I contacted a few of my influencer friends and pitched them the idea, and they all said “Yes, when do we start?”. I got a call from Joshua Anton wanting me to promote his Drunk Mode app on my Vine channel, which stops you from doing dumb things when you’re out drinking like blocking numbers so you can’t call your ex-girlfriend or your professor or your mother. It helps you find your friends and lets them know you’ve gotten home after a night out.

So we set up our first campaign for $2,000, and I rallied as many influencers as I could. Next day—the app was trending on the App Store. Josh was happy and booked another campaign, then 10 more and eventually we broke even. It validated what we were doing, and now Josh is a minority partner in TrendPie.

Case study for the Walk Against Humanity app. pic.twitter.com/AdJDHjE0mM

— trend pie (@trendpie) July 16, 2017

Social influencers have turned legacy celebrity marketing on its head—a paradigm shift from a Kim Kardashian getting $500,000 a post. Who are your network of influencers and what’s their profile?

The definition of celebrity has changed. Influencers are now celebrities in their own right. People with hundreds of thousands if not millions of followers are now celebrities just because they post videos of themselves putting on make-up. There’s something about that I’m just inherently against. But I was there and I understand it 100%. They’re playing the game. Some are more genuine than others—some not talented, while others are extremely talented—and over time, the ones with talent separate from the pack.

Gen Z’ers see these people on social media and they respect them, so they emulate them and want to follow the positive characteristics they see. They see someone massively popular on social media and follow them, and feel like they could be like that person. “I could get there.” It’s the American Dream in itself. People mimic the style, the colors, the imagery, and it gives many kids an identity and something to look up to, confidence to go outside their comfort zone.

Originality > Imitation pic.twitter.com/GrtveFAjqF

— trend pie (@trendpie) July 29, 2017

Looking ahead, will social media influencers replace celebrities, or will there always be both? And how will TrendPie change to meet them?

Both. There’s always going to be a high-end car like a Ferrari and people who buy them. But our model is disruptive—kind of like Tesla making the electric car for everyone.

An expenditure of $2000 with us gets you 2 million impressions—that’s a guaranteed minimum, but we’ve seen 4.5 million impressions from that spend since people just keep sharing and promoting our campaigns which are typically one day pushes—trending the next day, then a few days off—then repeat. In one campaign we pushed 50 million impressions in 24 hours.

Let's get you trending! pic.twitter.com/HvF0FR6egz

— trend pie (@trendpie) July 9, 2017

We want to take TrendPie into other social media, including movie and television show trailers and sees Snapchat as a big opportunity since they don’t currently have support for influencers. We recently renovated our office space in Rhode Island, we’re setting up an internship, and hiring a sales team.

Oh and PS—Thanks Mom!

Get more insights in our Q&A series and suggest a Q&A at editor@brandchannel.com.

Subscribe to our free daily e-newsletter for more.

The post Influencer Marketing: 5 Questions with TrendPie Founder Victor Ricci appeared first on brandchannel:.

[glenmenlow]

Influencer Marketing: 5 Questions with TrendPie Founder Victor Ricci

Bloggers, Instagrammers, Snapchatters and YouTube stars are taking over turf from celebrity influencers.

Bloomberg reports that $255 million is spent on influencer marketing every month, and this spend is set to grow to a $5B to $10B market.

TrendPie is a start-up offering social media campaigns and promotion to help connect users with clients’ apps and services. brandchannel sat down with TrendPie Founder Victor Ricci, whose journey began the summer after his senior year of high school, after posting a six second “life hack” video to his Vine account, @QuickLifeHacks, using a water bottle to separate the white and yolk of an egg. From that surprising start, Ricci transitioned from social media stardom to launch TrendPie in April 2015 to connect brands to his network of non-celebrity online influencers. The key to his business model is right in the name, TrendPie, “Everyone can get a piece of the influencer marketing pie.”

What was the inspiration for that hack, and what followed?

I don’t like eggs—so I was playing around with a water bottle hack and made the video, and my mom said, “You should put that on your Twitter account”. I resisted and said nobody is going to care, that’s a stupid idea. But eventually I did and it went viral.

My Vine account grew every day after that, reaching more than 1.4 million followers and becoming one of the most followed accounts worldwide.

Companies started offering me $3,000 – $5,000 to feature their products, mostly gaming and app companies—smaller ones—younger and more progressive with their ads than the big guys. Apps that were already promoting on Vine like Game of War and Westbound, appealing to a millennial audience and looking to increase their bottom dollar with any means necessary.

Winston Churchill. pic.twitter.com/7jSF9bXMUz

— trend pie (@trendpie) July 24, 2017

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

It’s a big change to move from social media stardom to go-between for brands and influencers. What was your motivation?

It was definitely a conscious change. I stopped enjoying being in front of the camera, stopped enjoying being an influencer. I didn’t like the image or the mentality or the lifestyle behind it. So one day I just stopped posting Vines. I had posted 196 Vines in about one and half years, posting every day, then every couple of days and then weekly. I just lost interest.

But I saw the value of it and knew I had the connections, and I’m passionate about social media and understand it pretty well along with apps—so I figured why not do something I’m passionate about and leverage everything learned up to this point?

Great advice we can all adhere to a bit better pic.twitter.com/bFmluMKAKf

— trend pie (@trendpie) July 23, 2017

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

You’ve said of TrendPie’s strategy, “I think of it kind of as the Wal-Mart approach. We charge less, but we do it everyday.” Please elaborate.

I figured, what these brands are paying me, there’s no way they’re making $3,000 – $5,000 on what I post, they’re not breaking even—probably even losing money, and the deals were inconsistent.

So I figured, instead of charging $5,000, we’ll charge 10% of that, $500, but we’ll do a post every single day. The brands will have more exposure for the same amount—they’ll make money—and have more money to spend in the long run.

I contacted a few of my influencer friends and pitched them the idea, and they all said “Yes, when do we start?”. I got a call from Joshua Anton wanting me to promote his Drunk Mode app on my Vine channel, which stops you from doing dumb things when you’re out drinking like blocking numbers so you can’t call your ex-girlfriend or your professor or your mother. It helps you find your friends and lets them know you’ve gotten home after a night out.

So we set up our first campaign for $2,000, and I rallied as many influencers as I could. Next day—the app was trending on the App Store. Josh was happy and booked another campaign, then 10 more and eventually we broke even. It validated what we were doing, and now Josh is a minority partner in TrendPie.

Case study for the Walk Against Humanity app. pic.twitter.com/AdJDHjE0mM

— trend pie (@trendpie) July 16, 2017

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Social influencers have turned legacy celebrity marketing on its head—a paradigm shift from a Kim Kardashian getting $500,000 a post. Who are your network of influencers and what’s their profile?

The definition of celebrity has changed. Influencers are now celebrities in their own right. People with hundreds of thousands if not millions of followers are now celebrities just because they post videos of themselves putting on make-up. There’s something about that I’m just inherently against. But I was there and I understand it 100%. They’re playing the game. Some are more genuine than others—some not talented, while others are extremely talented—and over time, the ones with talent separate from the pack.

Gen Z’ers see these people on social media and they respect them, so they emulate them and want to follow the positive characteristics they see. They see someone massively popular on social media and follow them, and feel like they could be like that person. “I could get there.” It’s the American Dream in itself. People mimic the style, the colors, the imagery, and it gives many kids an identity and something to look up to, confidence to go outside their comfort zone.

Originality > Imitation pic.twitter.com/GrtveFAjqF

— trend pie (@trendpie) July 29, 2017

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Looking ahead, will social media influencers replace celebrities, or will there always be both? And how will TrendPie change to meet them?

Both. There’s always going to be a high-end car like a Ferrari and people who buy them. But our model is disruptive—kind of like Tesla making the electric car for everyone.

An expenditure of $2000 with us gets you 2 million impressions—that’s a guaranteed minimum, but we’ve seen 4.5 million impressions from that spend since people just keep sharing and promoting our campaigns which are typically one day pushes—trending the next day, then a few days off—then repeat. In one campaign we pushed 50 million impressions in 24 hours.

Let's get you trending! pic.twitter.com/HvF0FR6egz

— trend pie (@trendpie) July 9, 2017

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

We want to take TrendPie into other social media, including movie and television show trailers and sees Snapchat as a big opportunity since they don’t currently have support for influencers. We recently renovated our office space in Rhode Island, we’re setting up an internship, and hiring a sales team.

Oh and PS—Thanks Mom!

Get more insights in our Q&A series and suggest a Q&A at editor@brandchannel.com.

Subscribe to our free daily e-newsletter for more.

The post Influencer Marketing: 5 Questions with TrendPie Founder Victor Ricci appeared first on brandchannel:.

from WordPress https://glenmenlow.wordpress.com/2017/08/16/influencer-marketing-5-questions-with-trendpie-founder-victor-ricci/ via IFTTT

[corpasa]

MS Career Planning: Moving in the Right Direction

I really like the recent trend away from presenting college as the goal for all graduating seniors, opening that up to include a wide variety of careers. Our job as educators is to encourage students in whatever their choice of post-school employment is, be it more education, a technical school, or a job. If we try to force students into a future not of their own choice, they disengage from learning. Ask a Tech Teacher contributor, Bryce Welker, has some ideas on that I think you’ll find interesting:

As an educator, you want to help your students excel now and in the future. This means you have to do everything possible to prepare them for their careers.

One way school districts are ensuring this is by introducing career topics and studies to middle school students. According to the Association for Career and Technical Education, middle school is the time when students are the most likely to become disengaged from learning.

This is in part due to them going through puberty, trying to form their own personal identity, and overcoming other challenges that come with navigating new environments. So this is a vital time to introduce courses that teach students about various career opportunities.

Let’s take a look at how educators around the country are helping middle school students plan and direct their future careers.

North Carolina: Getting Kids College Ready

In Chatham County, North Carolina, teachers aren’t waiting until high school to get students pondering their future careers. Instead, they introduced the College Ready and Career Ready program, which is aimed at middle school students.

What makes this time ideal is that it enables students to think ahead and take the proper steps now. For instance, if a middle school child is able to identify a core subject they’re interested in – let’s say math – then they can focus on taking advanced courses in that subject.

If this student has an interest in becoming an accountant, then they could enroll in advanced math courses that will help them reach their goal. It would also help them to learn more about the requirements for becoming a CPA.

Other STEM courses require advanced courses so it’s best to identify interest in these fields as early as possible.

With programs like the College Ready and Career Ready Program, teachers are directing students to achieve higher so they can do well in their high school courses. And potentially enroll in advanced classes for college credits.

Using Technology for Career Planning

Technology is making learning easier for both students and educators. It’s the same when it comes to career planning.

One way students are able to explore career options is through introductory Career and Technical Education (CTE) courses. These help students find careers they may be interested in and then enable them to develop employability skills for those areas.

This can be done in year-long classes that consist of 16 career clusters. Or it can be throughout a semester, covering a broader career area. These courses can be made available online so students have the flexibility to continue their studies at home.

Personalized Education and Career Plans

Besides using technology to educate students on specific career paths, it can be used to personalize their education. Parents, guidance counselors, and teachers can work together to create specific career plans for each student.

Schools can use technology to develop personalized courses for each individual student based on their strengths and interests. These can then be scaled according to the child’s development.

It may turn out that the student would be more suitable for a different career path based on their changing interests and skill-sets.

It’s essential for educators to keep the students’ options open as they grow older. By introducing this system to middle school students, it will give them time to change course early on so they’re more confident in their career options by the time they get to high school and college.

It’s also found that the achievement of 8th graders is something educators and administrators should monitor since this can be an early indicator of their readiness to for college and a career by the time they graduate.

Let’s delve into this a little more.

ACT Early Predictive Models for College Readiness

ACT created a predictive model to determine the college readiness of students based on their performance on the ACT test. There are six factors found to influence this, which includes:

Background characteristics, such as race and gender

Eight-grade achievement in ACT EXPLORE test scores

Standard high school coursework

Advanced/honors high school coursework

High school GPA

Student testing behaviors

Based on these results, it was found that students can take certain steps in high school to improve their college readiness, such as:

Maintaining a B average in relevant high school courses

Earning higher grades in relevant standard high school courses

Taking a core curriculum (math and science only)

Increasing EXPLORE scores by two points in all subject areas in 8th grade

Taking additional standard courses (math and science only)

Meetings EXPLORE college readiness benchmarks in all four subject areas in 8th grade

Taking advanced honors courses in relevant subjects

Now, this isn’t to say that high school level enhancements won’t benefit students. However, it’s believed that increasing 8th graders achievements hold the greatest impact on career and college readiness.

How Technology Helps Educators Overcome Academic Barriers

While middle school career exploration has proven benefits for students, not all schools are implementing these methods due to various barriers.

For instance, today’s school struggle with focusing on career development because of the pressure to raise test scores. Because of this, many middle schools are shortening electives and guidance activities, such as career exploration.

Then there’s a lack of guidance counselors, which further limits career exploration efforts in middle school. The restrictive financial challenges middle schools face doesn’t help either.

A lot of schools lack the funding to pay for technology and other resources to aid in this endeavor.

Yet, to overcome these barriers educators and administrators are developing flexible ways to implement career exploration in middle school. One way is through the use of CTE courses and scalable technology for career and academic planning.

Giving Your Students Access to a Brighter Future

Educators are limited by the resources they have access to. However, with the right strategies and tools, schools are able to overcome these limits to deliver the education their students need to succeed.

As we can see, technology plays a major role in how teachers can introduce career exploration and planning even with budget restrictions.

Hopefully, you will find this information helpful so you do what’s needed to enhance the futures of your middle school students!

Author bio

Bryce Welker, a CPA consultant who passed his CPA exams on the first try and devoted his life to helping students to achieve the same. Founder and CEO at CPA Exam Guy. 

More on career prep

Top 10 Study Group Forums and Websites for High School Students

How to Prepare for the SAT

How to Interest the Next Generation of Great Minds to Work in STEM Fields

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice reviewer, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today and TeachHUB, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

MS Career Planning: Moving in the Right Direction published first on https://medium.com/@DLBusinessNow

[evnoweb]

MS Career Planning: Moving in the Right Direction

I really like the recent trend away from presenting college as the goal for all graduating seniors, opening that up to include a wide variety of careers. Our job as educators is to encourage students in whatever their choice of post-school employment is, be it more education, a technical school, or a job. If we try to force students into a future not of their own choice, they disengage from learning. Ask a Tech Teacher contributor, Bryce Welker, has some ideas on that I think you’ll find interesting:

As an educator, you want to help your students excel now and in the future. This means you have to do everything possible to prepare them for their careers.

One way school districts are ensuring this is by introducing career topics and studies to middle school students. According to the Association for Career and Technical Education, middle school is the time when students are the most likely to become disengaged from learning.

This is in part due to them going through puberty, trying to form their own personal identity, and overcoming other challenges that come with navigating new environments. So this is a vital time to introduce courses that teach students about various career opportunities.

Let’s take a look at how educators around the country are helping middle school students plan and direct their future careers.

North Carolina: Getting Kids College Ready

In Chatham County, North Carolina, teachers aren’t waiting until high school to get students pondering their future careers. Instead, they introduced the College Ready and Career Ready program, which is aimed at middle school students.

What makes this time ideal is that it enables students to think ahead and take the proper steps now. For instance, if a middle school child is able to identify a core subject they’re interested in – let’s say math – then they can focus on taking advanced courses in that subject.

If this student has an interest in becoming an accountant, then they could enroll in advanced math courses that will help them reach their goal. It would also help them to learn more about the requirements for becoming a CPA.

Other STEM courses require advanced courses so it’s best to identify interest in these fields as early as possible.

With programs like the College Ready and Career Ready Program, teachers are directing students to achieve higher so they can do well in their high school courses. And potentially enroll in advanced classes for college credits.

Using Technology for Career Planning

Technology is making learning easier for both students and educators. It’s the same when it comes to career planning.

One way students are able to explore career options is through introductory Career and Technical Education (CTE) courses. These help students find careers they may be interested in and then enable them to develop employability skills for those areas.

This can be done in year-long classes that consist of 16 career clusters. Or it can be throughout a semester, covering a broader career area. These courses can be made available online so students have the flexibility to continue their studies at home.

Personalized Education and Career Plans

Besides using technology to educate students on specific career paths, it can be used to personalize their education. Parents, guidance counselors, and teachers can work together to create specific career plans for each student.

Schools can use technology to develop personalized courses for each individual student based on their strengths and interests. These can then be scaled according to the child’s development.

It may turn out that the student would be more suitable for a different career path based on their changing interests and skill-sets.

It’s essential for educators to keep the students’ options open as they grow older. By introducing this system to middle school students, it will give them time to change course early on so they’re more confident in their career options by the time they get to high school and college.

It’s also found that the achievement of 8th graders is something educators and administrators should monitor since this can be an early indicator of their readiness to for college and a career by the time they graduate.

Let’s delve into this a little more.

ACT Early Predictive Models for College Readiness

ACT created a predictive model to determine the college readiness of students based on their performance on the ACT test. There are six factors found to influence this, which includes:

Background characteristics, such as race and gender

Eight-grade achievement in ACT EXPLORE test scores

Standard high school coursework

Advanced/honors high school coursework

High school GPA

Student testing behaviors

Based on these results, it was found that students can take certain steps in high school to improve their college readiness, such as:

Maintaining a B average in relevant high school courses

Earning higher grades in relevant standard high school courses

Taking a core curriculum (math and science only)

Increasing EXPLORE scores by two points in all subject areas in 8th grade

Taking additional standard courses (math and science only)

Meetings EXPLORE college readiness benchmarks in all four subject areas in 8th grade

Taking advanced honors courses in relevant subjects

Now, this isn’t to say that high school level enhancements won’t benefit students. However, it’s believed that increasing 8th graders achievements hold the greatest impact on career and college readiness.

How Technology Helps Educators Overcome Academic Barriers

While middle school career exploration has proven benefits for students, not all schools are implementing these methods due to various barriers.

For instance, today’s school struggle with focusing on career development because of the pressure to raise test scores. Because of this, many middle schools are shortening electives and guidance activities, such as career exploration.

Then there’s a lack of guidance counselors, which further limits career exploration efforts in middle school. The restrictive financial challenges middle schools face doesn’t help either.

A lot of schools lack the funding to pay for technology and other resources to aid in this endeavor.

Yet, to overcome these barriers educators and administrators are developing flexible ways to implement career exploration in middle school. One way is through the use of CTE courses and scalable technology for career and academic planning.

Giving Your Students Access to a Brighter Future

Educators are limited by the resources they have access to. However, with the right strategies and tools, schools are able to overcome these limits to deliver the education their students need to succeed.

As we can see, technology plays a major role in how teachers can introduce career exploration and planning even with budget restrictions.

Hopefully, you will find this information helpful so you do what’s needed to enhance the futures of your middle school students!

Author bio

Bryce Welker, a CPA consultant who passed his CPA exams on the first try and devoted his life to helping students to achieve the same. Founder and CEO at CPA Exam Guy. 

More on career prep

Top 10 Study Group Forums and Websites for High School Students

How to Prepare for the SAT

How to Interest the Next Generation of Great Minds to Work in STEM Fields

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice reviewer, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today and TeachHUB, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

MS Career Planning: Moving in the Right Direction published first on https://medium.com/@DigitalDLCourse

[markjsousa]

Influencer Marketing: 5 Questions with TrendPie Founder Victor Ricci

Bloggers, Instagrammers, Snapchatters and YouTube stars are taking over turf from celebrity influencers.

Bloomberg reports that $255 million is spent on influencer marketing every month, and this spend is set to grow to a $5B to $10B market.

TrendPie is a start-up offering social media campaigns and promotion to help connect users with clients’ apps and services. brandchannel sat down with TrendPie Founder Victor Ricci, whose journey began the summer after his senior year of high school, after posting a six second “life hack” video to his Vine account, @QuickLifeHacks, using a water bottle to separate the white and yolk of an egg. From that surprising start, Ricci transitioned from social media stardom to launch TrendPie in April 2015 to connect brands to his network of non-celebrity online influencers. The key to his business model is right in the name, TrendPie, “Everyone can get a piece of the influencer marketing pie.”

What was the inspiration for that hack, and what followed?

I don’t like eggs—so I was playing around with a water bottle hack and made the video, and my mom said, “You should put that on your Twitter account”. I resisted and said nobody is going to care, that’s a stupid idea. But eventually I did and it went viral.

My Vine account grew every day after that, reaching more than 1.4 million followers and becoming one of the most followed accounts worldwide.

Companies started offering me $3,000 – $5,000 to feature their products, mostly gaming and app companies—smaller ones—younger and more progressive with their ads than the big guys. Apps that were already promoting on Vine like Game of War and Westbound, appealing to a millennial audience and looking to increase their bottom dollar with any means necessary.

Winston Churchill. http://pic.twitter.com/7jSF9bXMUz

— trend pie (@trendpie) July 24, 2017

It’s a big change to move from social media stardom to go-between for brands and influencers. What was your motivation?

It was definitely a conscious change. I stopped enjoying being in front of the camera, stopped enjoying being an influencer. I didn’t like the image or the mentality or the lifestyle behind it. So one day I just stopped posting Vines. I had posted 196 Vines in about one and half years, posting every day, then every couple of days and then weekly. I just lost interest.

But I saw the value of it and knew I had the connections, and I’m passionate about social media and understand it pretty well along with apps—so I figured why not do something I’m passionate about and leverage everything learned up to this point?

Great advice we can all adhere to a bit better http://pic.twitter.com/bFmluMKAKf

— trend pie (@trendpie) July 23, 2017

You’ve said of TrendPie’s strategy, “I think of it kind of as the Wal-Mart approach. We charge less, but we do it everyday.” Please elaborate.

I figured, what these brands are paying me, there’s no way they’re making $3,000 – $5,000 on what I post, they’re not breaking even—probably even losing money, and the deals were inconsistent.

So I figured, instead of charging $5,000, we’ll charge 10% of that, $500, but we’ll do a post every single day. The brands will have more exposure for the same amount—they’ll make money—and have more money to spend in the long run.

I contacted a few of my influencer friends and pitched them the idea, and they all said “Yes, when do we start?”. I got a call from Joshua Anton wanting me to promote his Drunk Mode app on my Vine channel, which stops you from doing dumb things when you’re out drinking like blocking numbers so you can’t call your ex-girlfriend or your professor or your mother. It helps you find your friends and lets them know you’ve gotten home after a night out.

So we set up our first campaign for $2,000, and I rallied as many influencers as I could. Next day—the app was trending on the App Store. Josh was happy and booked another campaign, then 10 more and eventually we broke even. It validated what we were doing, and now Josh is a minority partner in TrendPie.

Case study for the Walk Against Humanity app. http://pic.twitter.com/AdJDHjE0mM

— trend pie (@trendpie) July 16, 2017

Social influencers have turned legacy celebrity marketing on its head—a paradigm shift from a Kim Kardashian getting $500,000 a post. Who are your network of influencers and what’s their profile?

The definition of celebrity has changed. Influencers are now celebrities in their own right. People with hundreds of thousands if not millions of followers are now celebrities just because they post videos of themselves putting on make-up. There’s something about that I’m just inherently against. But I was there and I understand it 100%. They’re playing the game. Some are more genuine than others—some not talented, while others are extremely talented—and over time, the ones with talent separate from the pack.

Gen Z’ers see these people on social media and they respect them, so they emulate them and want to follow the positive characteristics they see. They see someone massively popular on social media and follow them, and feel like they could be like that person. “I could get there.” It’s the American Dream in itself. People mimic the style, the colors, the imagery, and it gives many kids an identity and something to look up to, confidence to go outside their comfort zone.

Originality > Imitation http://pic.twitter.com/GrtveFAjqF

— trend pie (@trendpie) July 29, 2017

Looking ahead, will social media influencers replace celebrities, or will there always be both? And how will TrendPie change to meet them?

Both. There’s always going to be a high-end car like a Ferrari and people who buy them. But our model is disruptive—kind of like Tesla making the electric car for everyone.

An expenditure of $2000 with us gets you 2 million impressions—that’s a guaranteed minimum, but we’ve seen 4.5 million impressions from that spend since people just keep sharing and promoting our campaigns which are typically one day pushes—trending the next day, then a few days off—then repeat. In one campaign we pushed 50 million impressions in 24 hours.

Let's get you trending! http://pic.twitter.com/HvF0FR6egz

— trend pie (@trendpie) July 9, 2017

We want to take TrendPie into other social media, including movie and television show trailers and sees Snapchat as a big opportunity since they don’t currently have support for influencers. We recently renovated our office space in Rhode Island, we’re setting up an internship, and hiring a sales team.

Oh and PS—Thanks Mom!

Get more insights in our Q&A series and suggest a Q&A at editor@brandchannel.com.

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The post Influencer Marketing: 5 Questions with TrendPie Founder Victor Ricci appeared first on brandchannel:.