While some treatments for hematologic conditions such as cancer and sickle cell disease (SCD) have been refined over time — increasing survival rates and decreasing side effects — patients with SCD frequently still suffer painful episodes resistant to existing treatment options, and those with cancer often feel worse while receiving chemotherapy, radiation, and other conventional therapies. These realities can make alternative treatments appealing options.

Complementary and alternative medicines predate Western medicines and persist in their appeal, and physicians are noticing their patients using some type of unconventional treatment with greater frequency — such as incorporating acupuncture into a treatment plan or forgoing conventional treatment altogether in favor of herbal supplements or other untested options they believe are more likely to cure their ills.

Despite the dangers of skipping traditional treatments for hematologic diseases, many health care providers believe that including at least some type of complementary medicine in a patients’ treatment plans may be desirable, and even beneficial.

Large cancer centers are opening what they call integrative or comprehensive centers that encourage patients to use some of the therapies that weren’t previously considered part of conventional therapy, under the supervision of physicians and in conjunction with traditional methods. Health care professionals and patients hope that the therapies will mitigate symptoms or side effects of conventional treatments.

Moreover, some clinicians hope that acknowledging the value of these methods will deter patients from skipping treatment in favor of dangerous alternatives.

“The worst thing that we can do as providers is create an environment where patients don’t feel safe talking to us about what they’re interested in trying to treat their cancers,” Skyler Johnson, MD, an oncologist at Yale University School of Medicine who studies cancer outcomes. “There’s a chance that they will do it anyway, unbeknown to us.”

Alternative, Complementary, Integrative

Any health care approach that is not typically part of conventional treatment or has origins outside of Western practice could be considered alternative or complementary medicine. The distinction comes with the relationship to standard treatments, according to the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH’s) National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH).

If a nonmainstream practice is used together with conventional medicine, it’s considered complementary. If a nonmainstream practice is used in place of conventional medicine, it’s considered an alternative healthcare treatment.

According to a 2018 survey by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, nearly 45% of people in the U.S. believe that cancer can be cured by alternative therapies alone. This belief can be deadly: Patients who forgo conventional cancer treatment and opt only for alternative treatments are 2.4 times more likely to die from the disease. Alternative therapies, often marketed as “cancer cures,” can include unproven treatments such as baking soda infusions, oxygen therapy, intravenous vitamin C infusions and herbal supplements.

Still, more and more scientists are encouraging research into certain types of therapies that fall outside of conventional disease treatment — such as yoga, massage, meditation, and mindfulness. These modalities can be helpful when incorporated into interdisciplinary treatment plans, in conjunction with traditional methods, they argue.

This type of interdisciplinary approach, which brings together conventional and complementary therapies, is referred to as integrative medicine. It emphasizes a holistic, patient-focused method of care by addressing the mental, emotional, functional, spiritual, social, and community aspects of a patient’s well-being. Doctors who practice integrative care work to understand how yoga, acupuncture, and other techniques could mitigate side effects and increase patients’ quality of life, while ensuring that people also receive conventional therapies to cure or manage their disease.

Combating Misinformation

Alternative medicines, offered by doctors, naturopaths, or even people with no medical experience at all, have always been available. Desperate patients disappointed by the risk-benefit profiles of current treatments or who distrust conventional medicine have sought them out in hopes of curing cancers and other diseases. Today, the internet and social media can make finding information about diseases and treatments both faster and more confusing than ever.

Like Dr. Johnson, many patients and family members scour the internet before or during treatment. Some might find resources from reputable sources like the National Cancer Institute or large health care organizations; others might stumble upon alternative sources that are just as convincing, but with contradictory advice to forgo conventional therapy.

From Quackery to Complementary

David S. Rosenthal, MD, a hematologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, was deeply involved with integrative and alternative medicine in the early 1970s, when the American Medical Association appointed him to its Committee on Quackery. Times have changed since the mid-1970s, when the committee was disbanded, and a growing number of doctors are tentatively getting on board with addressing — and sometimes even offering — complementary and integrative therapies for their patients.

He and his group at the Zakim Center began exploring complementary therapies back in 2000, starting with acupuncture and massage. The center offers these treatments to patients with cancer, as well as reiki, art therapy, meditation, yoga, exercise, and nutritional counseling. These methods “can help patients feel better by reducing the pain, stress, and anxiety caused by cancer and its treatment.”

Many other large treatment centers have developed similar departments to support patients who are interested in trying these therapies in conjunction with conventional treatment: The University of Arizona’s Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine has been training physicians in integrative approaches to care for 25 years; and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center operates the Bendheim Integrative Medicine Center.

In addition to treatment centers working to fund and provide integrative treatments, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) opened the Office of Cancer Complementary and Alternative Medicine (OCCAM) in 1998. The program offers grants to study complementary treatments and highlights the results on its website. However, many researchers contend that funding for research on complementary medicine is still lacking.

While encouraging conversations and offering certain integrative therapies may prevent some patients from engaging in dangerous alternative options and forgoing treatment, there are still questions about who uses complementary medicine and how it affects their other care decisions, Dr. Johnson noted. He recently conducted a study to identify characteristics that make patients with cancer more likely to pursue complementary medicine — and whether use of these therapies affects adherence to conventional treatments or has any effect on survival.

He added that the question of “whether including integrative specialists in these conversations actually can modify behavior in patients who are interested in alternative therapies is fascinating and needs to be studied further.”

Natural Does Not Always Mean Safe

Most, if not all groups that offer complementary medicine endorse mind-body methods such as acupuncture, massage, tai chi, and meditation. These options are less controversial, and possibly less likely to be mistaken for a treatment that can replace conventional therapies.

Acupuncture is one of the most researched forms of complementary medicine, with studies suggesting it can be useful for managing pain, neuropathy, anxiety, and nausea — symptoms commonly experienced during cancer treatment.

While doctors are more likely to recommend mind-body treatments like yoga and acupuncture as complementary treatments, a small 2015 survey of German patients and physicians suggested that patients were less enthusiastic about these options and showed far more interest in biological interventions such as vitamins, supplements, and herbs.

Another challenge is that patients sometimes disagree with their physicians on the value of certain complementary medicines, according to Kenneth Adler, MD, who is co-liaison to the ASH Committee on Practice from the ASH Practice Partnership. In these instances, said Dr. Adler, a hematologist and oncologist at the Summit Medical Group in New Jersey, his best option is to enlist other doctors in the discussions. He will refer his patient to a “reasonable physician who offers opinions about complementary medicine,” as well as another conventional doctor.

Working Outside the Box

Patients can easily access all types of information through a Google search, but where do clinicians turn for guidance about complementary, integrative, and alternative medicines?

Some professional societies have published guidelines for the use of unconventional techniques in practice, but Dr. Adler pointed out that they are not appropriate for all patients. The Society of Integrative Oncology (SIO) has developed recommendations for incorporating complementary medicine in breast cancer treatment, for example, but solid tumor cancers are not the same as hematologic malignancies, for which the group has not yet published any guidelines.

The NCCIH collects clinical practice guidelines created by other organizations on its website, which includes two oncology-related resources — the SIO document and guidelines regarding exercise for cancer survivors — but provides little else for patients. Several guidelines address pain and suggest the use of mind-body techniques, but they are not specific to pain associated with hematologic or solid tumor malignancies.

While guidelines about which complementary therapies are most effective may be incomplete, most groups, including the NIH and SIO, are encouraging physicians to ask patients what treatments they are using on their own. “We’re trying to educate the physicians to ask and the patients to tell,” said Dr. Rosenthal.

Composed of Northern Ireland and Great Britain, the U.K. might not commonly seem completely united. Even so this historical state is full of splendor for visitors, from pulsing urban centers to spectacular countryside. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will be exceptional points of interest in their own style, and journeys between these nations reveal both the shared traditions and notably unique local flavours that contribute to the UK.

England has become quite possibly the most favoured visitor places in the world. London specifically has become one of the most frequently frequented cities and draws travellers in due to its allure, heritage, and bars. England’s smaller cities, like Carlisle and Durham, are just as appealing with an abundance of culture and less crowds. Liverpool, home of The Beatles, boasts a rich music heritage.

There is the scenic mountainous north, the delightful rolling hills of Lancaster, Stonehenge, and Tudor cities. The country offers unique properties and natural charm. When you venture outside of London you will discover that pricing lower substantially.

UNITED KINGDOM AIRPORTS

The air travel business in the United Kingdom has completed a radical transformation since 1985. Privatisation plus partial deregulation have created a solid and spirited private market for air travel as opposed to the old government designed arrangement. Britons have delighted in extensive decreases in the price of flights, and the number of routes and the choice of destinations provided to them expanded. The London Heathrow Airport continues to be the chief international airport for flights that go to the UK. In fact, it has the largest level of international tourists in comparison to any other airport anywhere.

Several of the significant international airports in the UK include:

• London Southend Airport
• London Stansted Airport
• Gatwick Airport

As well as the international airports noted above there are many popular airports through the UK that are well suited for intranational travel.

• Bournemouth Airport
• Bristol Airport Airport
• Southampton Airport
• Birmingham Airport
• Manchester Airport

DRIVING IN WORCESTER

A large number of destinations in Britain are accessible by train or bus. That said, public transport prices are some of the highest in all of Europe — travel costs could definitely eat up a big portion of your budget. Therefore you might do well to consider driving a vehicle.

In order to drive in Britain you’ll need a current driver’s license supplemented with an international driving permit. You want to likewise make sure to keep proof of ownership or a rental agreement in your auto, and any insurance documentation.

Make certain you drive on the left lefthand side! Distances on road marks are shown in miles. Intercity roadways are a lot more busy between 8:30-9.30am and 5:30-7pm when folks are moving to and from employment or college.

A good number of hire autos are going to include GPS nonetheless keep the right map nearby. If you wish to visit more outlying regions it could be beneficial picking up a map straight from the Ordnance Survey series — they’re detailed and will definitely assist even the most focused of drives.

It may be necessary to pay at a meter to park your vehicle, so keep a few coins nearby. Several cities have park and ride services, that permit you to ride a bus from an out-of-city car lot into the city centre.

WORCESTER AIRPORT TAXI TRANSFERS

To get the optimum travelling undertaking you want to forfeit driving yourself and alternatively benefit from a chauffeur hire. As a substitute to making due with a standard taxi, imagine being on the road in style with a chauffeur taxi service. A chauffeur service is a preferred way to go in England, especially with a business such as Cars Exec for Worcester airport transfers. A great chauffeur provider likely entails many of the following.

• A luxury car that suits your needs
• A flexible service to allow for last minute adjustments to arrivals and destinations
• Flight monitoring
• Relaxed travelling with 4G Wifi
• Prior awareness of destination and return needs

PLACES TO VISIT IN WORCESTER

England, perhaps one of the most frequented countries, offers almost endless possibilities for things to see. Part of the enchanting British Isles, this small but important country bursts with remarkable history, exciting cities, and profound cultural traditions. Ancient points of interest are revealed at each turn, from ancient Roman sites to city centers dating back to the Middle Ages.

Worcester, city (district), administrative and historic county of Worcestershire, west-central England. Worcester is the historic county town (seat) of Worcestershire. Except for the small residential suburb of St. John’s, it lies on the east bank of the River Severn. The city has little river frontage, because much of the land adjacent to the river is liable to flooding. Pitchcroft Meadow (on the east bank) is one of the oldest racecourses in England.

The Guildhall Worcester

The City’s Guildhall is a truly beautiful building which dates back to 1721. It has a fascinating history — it was once the seat of justice throughout the city and even housed a prison — and today offers both visitors and residents a glimpse of Worcester’s rich and varied heritage.

Tudor House Museum

The beautiful Tudor House Museum is a 16th century building in the heart of historic Friar Street is run as a museum by volunteers. Displays focus on the house’s past, as a home to Tudor weavers through to its use as an ARP Warden’s office in WW2, and a school clinic thereafter. A cafe serves tea, coffee and wrapped cakes on vintage bone china. There is a Tudor Rat trail and activities for children. Open Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday all year.

Django Reinhardt was the first hugely influential jazz figure to emerge from Europe – and he remains the most influential European to this day, with possible competition from Joe Zawinul, George Shearing, John McLaughlin, his old cohort Stephane Grappelli and a bare handful of others. A free-spirited gypsy, Reinhardt wasn’t the most reliable person in the world, frequently wandering off into the countryside on a whim.

Yet Reinhardt came up with a unique way of propelling the humble acoustic guitar into the front line of a jazz combo in the days before amplification became widespread. He would spin joyous, arcing, marvelously inflected solos above the thrumming base of two rhythm guitars and a bass, with Grappelli’s elegantly gliding violin serving as the perfect foil. His harmonic concepts were startling for their time — making a direct impression upon Charlie Christian and Les Paul, among others — and he was an energizing rhythm guitarist behind Grappelli, pushing their groups into a higher gear.

Not only did Reinhardt put his stamp upon jazz, his string band music also had an impact upon the parallel development of Western swing, which eventually fed into the wellspring of what is now called country music. His style of gypsy music has become so popular that many musicians today attempt to master it The best way to do that is to get Django songs that come with the transcriptions.

Although he could not read music, with Grappelli and on his own, Reinhardt composed several winsome, highly original tunes like “Daphne,” “Nuages” and “Manoir de Mes Reves,” as well as mad swingers like “Minor Swing” and the ode to his record label of the ’30s, “Stomping at Decca.” As the late Ralph Gleason said about Django’s recordings, “They were European and they were French and they were still jazz.”

A violinist first and a guitarist later, Jean Baptiste “Django” Reinhardt grew up in a gypsy camp near Paris where he absorbed the gypsy strain into his music. A disastrous caravan fire in 1928 badly burned his left hand, depriving him of the use of the fourth and fifth fingers, but the resourceful Reinhardt figured out a novel fingering system to get around the problem that probably accounts for some of the originality of his style. According to one story, during his recovery period, Reinhardt was introduced to American jazz when he found a 78 RPM disc of Louis Armstrong’s “Dallas Blues” at an Orleans flea market.

He then resumed his career playing in Parisian cafes until one day in 1934 when Hot Club chief Pierre Nourry proposed the idea of an all-string band to Reinhardt and Grappelli. Thus was born the Quintet of the Hot Club of France, which quickly became an international draw thanks to a long, splendid series of Ultraphone, Decca and HMV recordings.

The outbreak of war in 1939 broke up the Quintette, with Grappelli remaining in London where the group was playing and Reinhardt returning to France. During the war years, he led a big band, another quintet with clarinetist Hubert Rostaing in place of Grappelli, and after the liberation of Paris, recorded with such visiting American jazzmen as Mel Powell, Peanuts Hucko and Ray McKinley. In 1946, Reinhardt took up the electric guitar and toured America as a soloist with the Duke Ellington band but his appearances were poorly received.

Some of his recordings on electric guitar late in his life are bop escapades where his playing sounds frantic and jagged, a world apart from the jubilant swing of old. However, starting in Jan. 1946, Reinhardt and Grappelli held several sporadic reunions where the bop influences are more subtly integrated into the old, still-fizzing swing format. In the 1950s, Reinhardt became more reclusive, remaining in Europe, playing and recording now and then until his death from a stroke in 1953. His Hot Club recordings from the `30s are his most irresistible legacy; their spirit and sound can be felt in current groups like Holland’s Rosenberg Trio.

How long has it been since you did a Google search of your name? If it hasn’t been for some time, you should do that right now. You should do this given that you can be sure others are Googling your name. Years ago, very few people worried about their online reputation. This has all changed.

Your internet reputation is very much like your cover letter, resume, business card, and a portion of your private life, all rolled into a central location.

With plenty of critical information about our lives online, it is no surprise our online reputations act as such a central part in job hunting, college or university admissions, finding new customers and even getting first dates. One somewhat astonishing statistic is that close to 74 percent of business HR departments do an online search of candidates. It also turns out that about 65% of Human Resource professionals have rejected candidates based on records they found doing a Google search.

In essence, a great number of people are missing out on jobs and college admissions, all depending on the way they appear in Google search results. You probably understand your online reputation makes a difference. However, you may not realize precisely what you can do regarding strengthening it.

The first task to strengthening your online reputation is to determine your situation. Everyone’s online reputation is unique — and you aren’t able to fix things you don’t know about.

Conduct a Google search on your own full name to see what is listed on the first few pages. Determine if there are many other people with the your name in the search listings. Gauge the number of unfavorable, good and neutral websites show up regarding you. You’ll want to additionally look at the images and see what kind of pictures appear for your name. If you’ve previously been arrested there’s a great chance your mug shot will turn up in the images.

In a study carried out in 2016 80% of organizations acknowledged using social media while recruiting. It’s highly likely that hiring supervisors will check your social media profiles. For this reason it’s essential that you figure out just how much information you are willing to share openly.

Because social platforms regularly change their privacy controls, you will want to take a glance at each social network to verify who is able to see your account information and posting history. For Facebook, check out an area named Privacy Settings and select the Limit Past Post Visibility choice to conceal your complete personal content. Look over the permissions of social media apps that are installed on each of your mobile devices. These typically differ from personal computer versions of the same social networks.

An online reputation management (ORM) provider like Fix Your Search Results can manage this challenge of pushing unfavorable sites off of the first page of Google. On top of that, they’ll conduct some other activities in order to get undesirable results down from the top of a search — steps which include migrating existing, good web pages up in search rankings to basically replace undesirable listings off the first page. Fix Your Search Results will compose so much good stuff that people aren’t able to come across the detrimental stuff.

You could be tempted to set your social account profiles to private. The plus of doing that is if employers aren’t able to unearth any facts in regards to you besides from the details available in your resume, they’re not about to stumble upon info that reflects badly on your reputation. On the other hand, repressing your appearance excessively places you in peril. The hiring manager could very well quit the search entirely and proceed to a prospect who’s created a healthy online reputation by publicly sharing their social networking profiles.

Once you go with online visibility, you have to filter your social networking posting history. Research your social networking profiles in detail. Should you locate any kind of content which might damage your name, just get rid of it. Concealing these types of possibly harmful postings or images can be precarious. Remember that other individuals could take screen shots and upload this content widely with your name tagged. Anytime you are curating your social networking profiles, maintain content that contributes to the qualified reputation you’ll be creating for your job application.

If you don’t currently have accounts on the significant social media networks such as Instagram and Twitter, forbes.com states that you should develop such accounts now. You’ll need these types of profiles to let you have a social background for people come across, and you likewise need these types of profiles given that these have always been the types of websites Google loves to rank for a search of a person’s name.

Having social media profiles in which you manage the composition, you generate content of a positive quality which will be displayed when people do a Google search on your name. When you at present have damaging results turning up when carrying out a search of your name, these kinds of online pages could turn up above the weak results in the search. At bbc.com they say that this basically squeezes down the adverse web pages whereby they become not so visible to people. That’s a worthwhile thing.

If you happen to presently have social networking web pages, but they do not rank high up in search results, you may want to try to move these properties up in the search rankings. This will require acquiring links to the social media web pages to provide them with a good deal more importance to Google. While possible for a person to accomplish, it is an exercise you might prefer to pass on to the specialists.

Gaining financial independence often is the enduring desire of numerous investors. Some people espouse the long-established model of being employed right up until you turn 65, after which they race to compensate for everything missed through preceding decades. I don’t.

I also don’t subscribe to the minimal process to arrive at economic independence. I think it’s great that many are able to reside in a trailer, or carry all of their property in a suitcase. Should you wish to accomplish early financial liberty, then you will really have to become just a little more rigorous about it.

Regardless if you earn a huge income or a slight income, the most critical point of attaining financial liberty is spending less than you take home. All it calls for is a bit of investing and saving. I have previously prescribed a savings point of at a minimum 12%, just so that you will avoid catastrophes, however, when you are interested in timely financial self-reliance, you need to be much more aggressive than this. I’m sure that 45% of net income is a serious, but suitable mark to aim for.

Most people function financially at what’s often described as a neutral place, characterized by a consistent state where a individual lives paycheck to paycheck. You could be receiving a sufficient amount of of money to pay bills. Basically,, you are ostensibly stuck in neutral, and just not really proceeding anywhere. You have got the choice of traveling the path headed for monetary opportunity or the route on the way to economic hopelessness. It is based on just what you do next.

Step one when it comes to economic independence takes place when you start to live beneath your means and you set about to save money for your future. How far you go and the time that’s needed is up to you.

I can recommend 20% as the very lower limit, however the more, the nicer. There will be reasons why you would probably want to cache away your money past just merely accomplishing financial flexibility. Getting a cushion of savings leaves you better equipped for later, nowadays, and the unidentified.

Initiating a side income is an excellent technique for closing the time frame demanded to accomplish financial independence. Diversity is invaluable as it pertains to wealth, however it is equally noteworthy in terms of income. The second state will start as soon as you bring in adequate side income to decrease your required expenditures. This means that you’re no longer required to work a ordinary day occupation in order to make it.

A large number of us are fully dependent on our jobs, which in turn makes us vulnerable to the impulsiveness of our employers. Employment is a particularly central wealth generating tool, however, when you depend on it all of your life, you’ll end up putting your success in the power of other people.

You are still bound to work in this second phase, but at least there is the opportunity to work on your own and manage your own future. For many folks this will be already a fabulous amount of financial freedom.

Short on ideas on how you can make money online? For money-making ideas, and the details on implementing those ideas, take a visit to money.madbeetech.com. This is a directory of businesses that sell digital downloads on a large variety of financial topics including how to properly invest, how to invest in real estate, and how to properly run an online business. Every directory member has a listing page, and visitors can purchase and download digital files like PDFs and videos right from each member’s listing. It’s run by the SEO business seo.madbeetech.com and is a great centralized place to find all the financial information you need, regardless of your interests and goals.

To begin phase three, you’ll want the right amount of capital to not ever need to work another day . I really believe this in considered the optimal embodiment of monetary liberation.

To be able to understand exactly how much capital you must have, divide your annual expenditures by three percent in case you’re conventional, or four percent in case you’re more aggressive. This is the percentage of capital that you would withdraw of your portfolio annually. See this investors.com article for more on this topic.

A 4% is considered a little more extreme as there are periods on record where this would have ended in a speedily decreasing portfolio. A portfolio with a 3% rate of withdrawal, conversely, has in the past never gone broke after fifty years of withdrawals. A portfolio at a withdrawal rate of three percent is virtually an endless portfolio, with proceeds rising in the solid years and regressing less through the poor years.

Although phase three is the crowning period of monetary freedom, it’s also a more or less conservative period.

Small-group work springs naturally from the use of computers and video technology. Four or five kids sharing a video camera can put together a project combining several media, for example. Or simulation software can generate realistic situations on one classroom computer, with teams of students working out solutions in smaller groups.

“No amount of interactive technology can substitute for dynamic human interactivity,” warns David Dockterman of Tom Snyder Productions, who has developed a number of classroom software programs that are geared to stimulate thoughtful discussions in the one-computer classroom. “But videos and computers can often spark that by setting up learning in a rich narrative context-which is how people learn things best.”

Merely to deal with the amount of information exploding into students’ lives, Kathy Pelles observes, teaching tasks must aim to develop what School of the Future calls students’ “GUMS skills”-getting, understanding, manipulating, and synthesizing information. “We asked kids to make hypermedia stacks about whether our school rule on offensive language violated their right to free speech, for example,” she says. “It took time for them to figure out what to put into the stack, how to make comparisons and contrasts, how to present the material persuasively.”

In fact, students working with computer hypercard stacks to select and organize information are often using their minds in quite different ways from their pencil-wielding predecessors, observes humanities teacher Kathy Juarez, who teaches at Piner High School in Santa Rosa, California. “It’s important to acknowledge that technology can stretch our mental boundaries,” she says. “We now have the power to do things we haven’t even imagined before.” Piner teachers believe that students must be trained to use technological tools to negotiate their future successfully; they are discussing a new list of desired high- tech skills that dovetail nicely, they say, with their Essential School goals.

On the other side of the coin, ed.gov notes that many worry that electronic short-cuts will seduce schools into shortchanging the three R’s. But they can just as easily have the reverse effect- computer searches don’t work, after all, if you can’t spell the key words. In the high-tech library at Paul M. Hodgson Vocational-Technical High School in Newark, Delaware, for example, a frustrated senior boy combed an on-line catalog in vain for materials on “19th-centrey tools.” Principal Steven Godowsky corrected the student’s spelling, then made sure his English teacher followed up on the problem.

Teaching higher-order basics, too, becomes more important in the information age. “If ever there was a need for coaching students to use their minds well, it’s now,” says Piner’s Kathy Juarez. “It’s naive to think that even with technology kids are going to be able to make meaning of this incredible glut of information without learning to make connections between things, ask the right questions, make logical selections. But that’s not to say it’ll have to happen within the four walls of the classroom with 30 kids.” Indeed, Piner students have liberal access not only to classroom computers but to the off-line adult world outside their school, where they work with mentors on a range of professional activities.
Curriculum Changes

Access to technology can change curriculum, too, in ways that reflect the Essential School emphasis on depth in student learning and a generalist’s attitude on the part of teachers. At Catalina Foothills High School in Tucson, Arizona, science teacher Frank Draper uses sophisticated computer simulations to get students thinking about “system dynamics”-how decisions and actions affect the workings of entire systems from copper mining to flu epidemics. Working in teams at networked computer stations, students in one class compete for mining resources on an imaginary island, investigating nonrenewable resource management.

From bbc.com, “The computer tells them what kind of soil sample their team ‘discovers,”‘ Draper says. “Then they go get an actual sample from the classroom cupboards, analyze it chemically to determine its ore yield, and enter their results in. They can construct deals to trade land with other students, trying to run a profitable company while applying- and assessing-their knowledge of chemistry and economics.” After a week of such grounding, students play out a number of “what if” scenarios using computer modeling, through a simulation program called STELLA.

At Chicago’s Sullivan High School, where Socratic seminars drive the curriculum, students are using IBM’s modern version of medieval illuminated books and manuscripts; by clicking on a word in the text they can access interviews, background materials, and various other related topics. It is a small step, David Niguidula points out, to “illuminating” their own texts similarly, opening up a new realm of academic discourse. At Hope High School in Providence, Rhode Island, Kay Scheidler’s students have replaced their textbook with a Hypercard “corpus” of material about United States history and literature. Not only can students access key primary sources, but they can add to the body of knowledge by making their own work available for reference by other students.

If you’ve ever tried to work on a few different elements of your life at once (say, exercise, eating well and learning a new language) you’ve probably found that it’s a delicate balancing act.

Some days you’re really rocking one category while the other takes a backseat. Some days all are making incremental progress. And some amazing days, you make big strides in all your areas of change.

As you read over our improvements week after week, you’ll find that we’re often working on strengthening old habits that have gotten weaker, getting back our focus on a previously forgotten improvement or trying to balance a few different changes.

Sometimes we fail, and that’s okay. But sharing with one another—and all of you–every week helps us go farther than we ever could alone.

After taking the previous week a little slower with the running, I’m aiming for another three runs this week: 2 x 8 km and one 10 km. As for my language learning, I’ve taken a note out of the Power of Habit and replaced a similar activity with another. Usually when I eat lunch, I watch videos on reddit/youtube etc. I’ve decided to replace this with watching a Chinese TV series instead. I try and watch during lunch and a little more after that. To make the activity less of a challenge (& more entertaining), I usually read the episode synopsis in English before watching it all in Chinese.

Flying back to from Casablanca on Tuesday, had a great surfing session & published my article on Medium over the weekend. Looking forward to more reading (done with Quiet – The Power of Introverts a nice read, now reading Winning without Losing (about entrepreneurship and balance). Looking at a 10km run tonight (Monday) – might regret it 😀 – and 4 meditation sessions (8-12 min after lunch). Also trying to schedule my summer travels this week (Amsterdam, Barcelona, sailing, home & Copenhagen + maybe Hamburg) and think about September.

This week the main focus will be towards productivity and picking up the daily reading habit, which I neglected a bit in the last two weeks. So the idea, is to be able to achieve the three main routines (body, mind, spirit) on a daily basis while having a high productivity level. I have set the goal of reading for at least 30 minutes per day, take a reflection and gratitude moment for a minimum of 20 minutes per day, lastly I’m doing the 10-Day FitStar World Cup Workout Challenge (I love challenges, I’m currently on day 4) to have a fun new experience and stay healthy.

After two piano lessons I realized that I enjoyed the challenge and the new experience, and yet financially the lessons were a little too much and it was tricky time wise. In Manchester I was talking about our self improvements and was challenged to have another push at this. I’ve taken the advice of Cheryl Cherian of Florida and I’ve bought an electric keyboard and begun using the lessons built in to Garageband, having a 20 minute session every evening.

I’m continuing to work on my sleep goals and am aiming for another 3 day streak of 8hrs, I’d like to find out what improves the amount of time I get deep sleep, too. As a mini-project, my iPhone has become a little overloaded (I have 136 apps), as something I use and rely on in so many situations, I’ve decided to make sure that it’s as well organized as possible! And with 10 days until I go to Paris, improving my French with podcasts, duo lingo and some background French talk radio is more important than ever!

Headed to Maui this week for another change of scenery. I’m excited to be in a new timezone too, I think this will be a good one. 🙂 Whenever I head somewhere new, the three things I like to hold on to are running 3x a week (half marathon might be in the future), reading each night before bed and drinking lots and lots of water. I’m also holding on to the send 1 letter/week improvement to keep letting my friends/family know I’m thinking of them and lucky to have them in my life!

With the upturn in the weather of late, something I want to do is to try and spend more time outside each day. It’s all too easy to stay indoors, but there’s really no need nor excuse since I work exclusively from a laptop. Just need to get out of my comfort zone and find a good spot (that isn’t the pub!). Also, I’ve stopped writing a list of things I want to look into for each day, so I plan follow the advice found at radaris.com and bring that back, in electronic form.

This week, my focus is with eating healthier food. My goal is to have 2 home cooked lunches that I bring to the office instead of going out for lunch. I’ve also bought scales so I can measure my food intake a bit better, which I think will be a big improvement. I’m also keen to keep on with my meditation habit which was fantastic last week at 5 sessions. Hoping to do the same again in the office this week.

I found traveling to be a neat way to hone my workflow. When you only have time for essential tasks, essential tasks are all you do. I’d love to see how I can bring some of those lessons into my back-home workflow this week. I’d also like to finish the book I’m into now (Stephen King On Writing); World Cup soccer is making this more difficult than I thought.

My focus this week is to keep going with all my habits as part of my routine (evening walk, good sleep, meditation, gym, good eating). My focus will be to zoom in on the sleep and try to be better with that this week than I was last week. I also have ear plugs as an experiment, and last night’s sleep was my best in probably a month, so early results are great! I’m accidentally on a 7 day streak of 10,000+ steps a day, so I’m going to try and keep that going this week too.

More than halfway through 30 days of no sweets now, still going strong. Last week was one of my best weeks as far as steps/general activity has gone, 7 straight days over 5k steps. Cherian says that’s a big improvement compared to my normal steps, but I’d still like to go a bit higher, aiming at 8k a day as my goal. Inspired by Rodolphe Dutel’s post on Medium, I want to create some goals or ways to improve, big or small, over a longer term. I’m hoping I can spend some time this week getting a few down on paper. I already have some thoughts floating in my head, looking forward to creating a new personal manifesto of sorts this week!

I bought a book called Drawing on the right side of the brain a couple of weeks ago, with the intention to start learning to draw. It’s been sitting untouched on my desk for while, so this week I would like to give it a go! I’ll try to do some drawing each day. I did have some art classes at school, but I really can’t draw well! I’m hope that tapping into some right-brain skills will help boost creativity and focus in other areas of my life. I guess the biggest challenge here will be keeping up my encouragement, no matter how bad the results might be at first!

I’ve gotten into a wonderful flow last week where I totally disengage from my computer at dinner time. I put on a podcast and just totally focus on either cooking, eating food or just listening to the speakers. This has been extra relaxing, and really put me in a good mood at the end of the day. I’m going to continue this habit this week, but build in some extra time to read. I’ve compiled a big list of books I’d like to start learning from, so this will be a great place to start.

Unlike the footprints we leave on the sand – our digital footprints last. They are so much more permanent and it is my responsibility to investigate, evaluate and then create the footprints which I leave behind. As an elementary teacher I have always been aware of the impact that I have on those students around me and so sensitive to what I say and do in public and private.

When I began teaching the internet was far less wide reaching that it is now and far fewer people were connected. With the explosion in connectivity and the digital environment in which I live, I now need to take control of the footprints which I leave.

I had already started to think about how I should ‘brand’ myself and how well maintained my main social media feeds were, but through this assignment I learned that there is so much more to do. I should not just be managing but taking ownership of the way I am represented in the digital world. This sciencedirect.com article has more. There are opportunities to share, connect and really establish my identity as well as clear steps that I should be taking to limit any negative or misplaced information. This is important to me as a person – as a father as well as a professional. The internet has changed the way we live and so I must change the way I manage my online presence. See the article Why You Need Online Reputation Management for more on this.

I thought that I wanted to use new media again with this assignment and so decided that I would create an infographic style image with Venngage and then add my words and comments in Thinglink. The reason was, that I wanted it to be something that I would look at time and time again so that I would use it. A plan is just a list of words unless it is used.

Retiring doesn’t have to mean you’re done making money. The internet has made it possible for a wide range of people to dabble in entrepreneurship with little startup cost and low risk. Seniors can make some extra money in retirement by selling items online. There are a few possible approaches you could take to this:

• Selling items you don’t want anymore, as you would at a garage sale
• Seeking out low-cost items at local stores, thrift shops, and flea markets to sell at a profit online
• Selling something you make, like homemade jewelry or woodworking items

Whether you decide to fully commit and treat it like a new business, or just want to make some money off the stuff around the house you don’t have a need for anymore, selling items online can be a good way to make some extra cash. But first you have to figure out how to do it.

The Best Websites for Selling Items Online

First off, you should decide where to sell your items online. You have a lot of different options, some of which may already be familiar to you.

eBay

eBay’s one of the biggest websites out there for online selling. That makes it a good way to reach a large audience. On eBay you can choose to either put your items up for auction, so they sell to the highest bidder, or you can pick a set price for each item you list.

The main downside of using eBay is that there are a lot of fees involved. There’s a fee to list your items (after a certain number of items), another fee after you sell your item, and more fees to spruce up your listings and bring more attention to them. If you’re not careful, the fees can bite into your ability to make much for your effort.

Amazon

Like eBay, Amazon’s popularity makes it one of the best places online to reach a huge audience of potential buyers. But on Amazon, you’ll face a lot of competition. Amazon stocks a lot of their own inventory, so in some categories you’ll be up against them directly when trying to sell your stuff, and they attract a huge number of other sellers as well.

As with eBay one of the main concerns with Amazon is the fees. They have different fee structures based on the frequency with which you expect to sell items on the site, but either way a portion of what you’d be making through the site will be going back to Amazon rather than in your pocket.

A nice bonus Amazon offers (for an additional cost) is taking care of the shipping process for you. You can ship your inventory to them and let them deal with the packaging and shippin of your products once they’re bought. If the idea of heading to the post office makes you less inclined to deal with online selling, then Amazon Fulfillment may be just the thing to make selling items online worthwhile for you.

Etsy

Etsy is an online marketplace that specializes in crafty and homemade items. If you’re selling something that’s a little more unique, like homemade soap or vintage clothes, it may be a better choice for you than Amazon or eBay. Etsy’s customer base isn’t as large as it is on the other two big sites, but it’s more targeted. Your audience isn’t people looking for any and everything, they’re people looking for unique gifts, crafts, and other items with personality

Like the other sites, selling on Etsy comes with its share of fees. There’s a fee to list items on the site, a final sale fee, and a Paypal processing fee. As on the other sites, you have to be careful with your pricing to ensure the fees don’t eat too much into your profits.

Etsy gives you a little more room to personalize your brand on the site, so buyers that like your stuff are more likely to remember and revisit your shop for future orders. If you’ll be selling items you create, the site gives you more of a chance to build up a brand and business.

How to Determine Pricing

This is one of the trickiest parts of selling items online. You have to make enough money to make your time and trouble worth it, but charging too much will keep people from buying (which also means your time and trouble weren’t worth it).

To figure out how to price your items, start by looking at what other people are charging for similar items. This will give you an idea of what people are willing to spend.

If you want to sell digital downloads (mp3, mp4, pdfs and so forth), look into a web host like MadBeeTech – they specialize in setting up websites that intend to sell downloadable files. You can learn more by reading the Why Your Website Is Going To Fail post.

Next, consider what the item you’re selling originally cost you. If it’s something you made yourself, what was the cost of the materials you used? To make a profit from your work, your pricing should go higher than the cost of materials.

If it’s an old item you’re selling, what did it cost you back when you bought it? For most old items, you shouldn’t expect to charge more than you spent – obviously a used item is worth less than a new one in most cases – but that original price does tell you something about the item’s initial worth. See more in this paypal.com post.

Then, consider what your time is worth. If it takes you five hours to take pictures, list your items, write descriptions, and lug them to the post office to ship them when they’re purchased, what amount of profit makes those five hours of work worth it to you?

And finally, you need to think about how you’ll deal with shipping costs. A lot of online sellers pass the costs along to their customers in full, but if your customers can find a similar item with free shipping, that makes your products less competitive. If you decide to cover any of the shipping costs yourself to entice people to buy, then you should factor that extra expense in when figuring out a reasonable cost for your items.

How to Accept Payments

A lot of the sites listed above will include a process for accepting payments as part of the platform they provide. For many of them, you need to have a PayPal account. If you don’t have one yet, setting one up is fairly simple. You can connect it to your bank accounts and transfer the money you make from your sales directly to your account.

For sales on a website like NextDoor, you’re probably best off taking cash or having the buyer transfer money to your PayPal account. If you trust the person, you could also accept a check, but that’s a risky option with strangers since you never know when a check will bounce.

The education sector could potentially change significantly in 2018. This comes as technology continues to be a greater force for good. Here are ten trends to check out in the coming year that will influence education for the better.

Collaborative learning will be vital to learning

Collaborative learning can be supported in the classroom through technology. This includes students getting in touch with each other through social media sites and other forms of content to make it easier for them to complete group tasks. This can also include students working together with the same online resources to help them with doing more with their studies. Collaboration is especially vital for helping students to work together to fill in the gaps that they might have when trying to learn things. The teamwork approach that can be utilized here is vital for the success of any program.

Learning spaces are being redesigned with technology in mind

The final thing to see with technology entails the use of new learning spaces. New designs for how students may be seated while working in certain spaces makes it easier for those students to learn at their own pace. Much of this includes working with computers in social environments where many students can work with a few individual computers.

Virtual reality will be a big deal

With virtual reality devices, students can review different concepts in various digital environments. For instance, a student could see things in a foreign location when wearing a virtual reality headset. This could include a look into some kind of historic event or other important site. Having such headsets in the classroom makes it easier for students to want to learn and have fun while doing so.

Artificial intelligence makes testing easy

Artificial intelligence programs will help with improving upon how students are tested and how their skills might work in any class. Such programs help people to understand how to handle unique learning concepts while reviewing test results in many forms. These programs can even work in online testing programs to adjust the questions that appear based on what a student understands and how much of a challenge that student requires in the process.

Data-driven content is vital to success

Data in a classroom can be collected through a program that utilizes a unified standard within a school. Computers can help to review data and see how students are performing in a class, thus allowing teachers to adjust their lesson plans based on what needs to improve. This is important for ensuring that a great educational program can develop in some fashion without being complicated.

Educational video content is becoming more important

Various online video collections are making video learning all the more important and valuable. School curriculum can incorporate videos from various channels like Khan Academy or Ted Talks spaces to get content that may work well for various educational purposes. Video content can especially be valuable considering how many students might learn better through video programs than via other methods. The ease of accessibility of such content makes it easy for people to reach the content that they want to work with as well.

Gaming technology will make learning fun

Gaming technology can work with various programs that make it easier for students to learn in fun virtual environments. Such technology will entail the use of virtual programs that deliver responses to students based on their answers while focusing on key learning objectives. This makes students more invested in the overall learning process.

The Internet of Things will make a bigger impact in classrooms

The Internet of Things is a great solution for learning that works to improve upon how well students can learn with physical objects. This would use more sensors and codes on physical items to make them easy for mobile devices to read. This includes working to help people learn more about items they might see in any space. The Internet of Things is unique, but it should be organized carefully and with enough codes and systems to ensure content can be read well enough.

Coding is becoming more important

Coding has become a vital point for study in many schools. This part of technology involves helping people to learn about how to control computer programs and digital devices or applications. This is a point that will be found in more schools in the future as people realize how valuable this line of learning works.

Students are expected to be not only great learners but also creators

Technology will impact education by making it easier for students to use more computer programs. By incorporating computers and tablets into classrooms, it becomes easier for students to learn through creating. They can work with many programs on their devices that help them to create new things and to organize the things that they might learn in any situation.

All of these features will make the education industry thrive in 2018. Technology will surely make classrooms more enjoyable and unique while making lessons exciting. It is especially amazing to see how well technology works for giving any school a more exciting experience.