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This article talks about how virtual reality promotes body positivity

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Though Dr. Juyeon Park has devoted much of her professional research to studying how humans use technology - focusing more on the human aspects than on designing the technology itself - she still didn't anticipate the "Eureka!" moments and, sometimes, tears that came when young women truly saw themselves.

As participants in Park's 3-D imaging project, the young women - freshmen at CSU - had avatars of themselves created from more than 400 data points. Then, their avatars were digitally dressed in different outfits and placed in various environments. And it turns out they looked... normal. Those shoulders she always thought were so huge? Nope, just regular shoulders. That swimsuit she avoided, seeing nothing but imperfection in her body? Actually, she looked good. She looked happy on the beach.

Park, a faculty member in the Colorado School of Public Health at CSU Physical Activity and Healthy Lifestyles concentration and an associate professor in CSU's Department of Design and Mercha ndising, has guided aspects of her research on how humans use technology toward body positivity. This has included not only the project with CSU students, but a partnership with the Bariatric Center of the Rockies in Fort Collins to work on body image with people who have had bariatric surgery.

"A lot of people who have negative body image tend to focus on 'problem' areas," Park explained. "This research emphasized looking at the whole body. We're seeing that body image is not always about the physical body."
During the Body Positivity Project, completed with CSU freshmen, participants attended four educational sessions that included discussing the media's impact on body image, writing a letter to themselves, having a clothing exchange and making T-shirts with body-positive messages.

"A lot of participants said, 'I'm realizing I'm not the only one who feels this way (about my body)'," Park said. "It was really important to hear others' perspectives and understand that they're not alone."

From the initial pool of participants, a randomized group was selected to have virtual avatars created in the Human Dimensioning Facility, which Park co-directs. Participants stood in a small booth and had their bodies scanned so researchers could gather more than 400 data points and create virtual avatars. The first avatar was more generic, to help them get used to seeing a body of their general size in different outfits. The second avatar looked like them and was placed in recognizable virtual environments, including CSU campus.

Park said that the avatar experience was not for everybody and that it needs to be approached carefully, "but the emphasis is for participants to love themselves, become more affectionate with themselves, to see themselves in their environments and feel good about it."
Body image research
Park is continuing body image research with Dr. Jennifer Ogle of CSU's Department of Design and Merchandising, using virtual reality technology in Project Embrace to work toward body acceptance.

"I would love to see the results of this project to be applied in schools," said Kyndrick Peachey, a junior studying apparel merchandising and working with Park and Ogle on Project Embrace. "I think it's important for young girls to be taught about body image and I would love to see this research used to help build young girls' confidence."

Jessic a Shaver, a second-year graduate student studying the relationship between mass-produced custom women's apparel consumers and sustainable consumer behaviors and also working on Project Embrace, said, "I would love for Project Embrace and the experimental intervention to have a positive impact on people's understanding and acceptance of their own bodies. I think the VR technology being used is an exciting field that I hope more researchers will incorporate for the purpose of improved mental health and self-acceptance."

Park said she sees virtual reality technology used for body positivity as having a lot of potential within populations of young girls, breast cancer survivors, LGBT youth and adults and others.

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Virtual reality technology translates to body positivity in body image research

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Though Dr. Juyeon Park has devoted much of her professional research to studying how humans use technology - focusing more on the human aspects than on designing the technology itself - she still didn't anticipate the "Eureka!" moments and, sometimes, tears that came when young women truly saw themselves.

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This article focuses on the creation of digital equity offices. Their focus is to target help towards disadvantaged and discriminated against communities who simply don't have the same access to education digitally and overall, thereby keeping them oppressed and unable to attain equal opportunities.

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Overview

The American economy continues to digitalize at an astounding pace, but tens of millions of American households cannot access the digital economy due to physical gaps in local broadband networks, unaffordable subscription plans and personal devices, and a lack of digital skills. Digital equity offices would aim to address these structural barriers and ensure the digital economy reaches all local households.

Building on the experiences from established digital equity efforts, each new office would work collaboratively with other agencies and regional stakeholders to establish clear goals, co-design solutions, and measure progress. Establishing a digital equity office will create a permanent administrative unit to prioritize historically disadvantaged groups and neighborhoods, build trust, and create interventions to directly benefit those who have struggled the most to digitally compete. Local digital equity offices allow for local governments to be more in touch with the needs of their communities and give them the authority to negotiate with internet service providers in their region.

Challenge

Broadband has become essential infrastructure for the 21st century. Just as entire industries and personal activities developed around electricity in the 20th century, the same level of economic and social transformation is underway using digital services today. Schools, offices, retail stores, and governments all rely on online platforms, offering people significant time savings and new ways to prosper. ¹ Meanwhile, digital skills are increasingly necessary for a growing number of jobs. ²

However, broadband can only deliver benefits to those who can connect to it, afford it, and know how to use it. By these measures, broadband is still far from a universal service in American cities. The Census Bureau found that 27.9 million urban households-or 10.8% of the urban population-lived without a broadband internet subscription in 2018. ³ The gaps are especially pronounced for Black and Latino or Hispanic households (Figure 1). Research also regularly finds substantial gaps based on income and educational attainment. ⁴

The lack of universal subscription is attributable to a range of factors. Broadband is still relatively expensive, and survey results regularly show price as the number-one barrier to broadband adoption. ⁵ Many also lack digital skills-a slight majority (52%) of U.S. adults are still "relatively hesitant" when it comes to new technologies and digital skills, meaning they have low levels of digital skills, limited trust in the internet, or don't often turn to it as a source. ⁶ Finally, there are still physical network gaps that make a broadband subscription outright impossible. ⁷

Now, with the COVID-19 pandemic pushing even more activities online, broadband inequities have been cast into sharper relief. At least 124,000 U.S. public and private schools have closed, affecting some 55.1 million students. ⁸ With 14% of households with school-aged children lacking a wired subscription in the home, millions of students now face a structural disadvantage in learning and keeping pace with their peers. ⁹ The shift to telework has created a similar division, allowing some people to safely work from home while forcing others to keep commuting to work and putting their health at risk. These same issues extend to telemedicine, e-commerce, distant socializing, and even media streaming. With so much economic activity now taking place online, every household without digital service or skills cannot participate. A full economic recovery will require everyone having access to markets and services from their home.

The challenge facing state and local governments, then, is how to address these digital inequities. The traditional role of state and local governments was to regulate telephone companies, negotiate access to public right of way for network construction, and help connect anchor institutions. There was no commitment across all state and local governments to fund digital skills programs, offer discounted subscriptions and devices to at-risk households, or even to liaise directly with disadvantaged communities to understand their needs. Now is an ideal time for communities to focus on building the digital equity infrastructure they may be missing.

Response

To address these challenges, local governments should establish digital equity offices to deliver households the tools to physically access and use broadband and related digital services. Each office would be led by a digital equity officer who reports directly to the top elected executive as a member of the cabinet. The office would be responsible for publishing a Digital Equity Plan for the jurisdiction. That plan would set performance targets, establish strategies, collect data, and plan coordinated activities across multiple agencies, including those responsible for information technologies, economic development, social services, health care, and others. Digital equity offices would also serve as the lead office to liaise with state-level peers, ideally with a similar equity office at the state level.

While every jurisdiction has varying needs, there is a common set of activities that every digital equity office would conduct. Digital equity offices are a relatively new idea that formalizes and consolidates many of the emerging digital equity efforts happening in a range of cities across the country (examples below).

Address network gaps

A digital equity office would ensure that every resident-regardless of income, race, ethnicity, or any other demographic characteristic-can subscribe to wireline and wireless service. Depending on state law and the given telecommunications technology, the office would serve as either the lead or co-lead when negotiating the geography that internet service providers (ISPs) would be obligated to serve. The office would also be responsible for monitoring service levels, including the provision of customer-facing tools to report service issues. Ensuring that ISPs do not conduct digital redlining (purposefully excluding certain communities) is essential, and persistent and thorough data monitoring is critical to avert service inequities. Finally, depending on local willingness, the digital equity office could also help coordinate the construction of any publicly owned broadband networks. Local examples of such implementations include:

The city of Boston is working to expand high-speed internet to more homes and businesses by extending the Boston Fiber Optic Network to reach every public school, working across city departments to streamline infrastructure build-outs, making the city's fiber assets more accessible to companies, encouraging more market entrants, and expanding free Wi-Fi access points within Boston's main streets.¹⁰

North Carolina's Broadband Infrastructure Office is working to close the digital divide by allowing ISPs and electric membership cooperatives to compete for funding to increase broadband in rural areas. Moreover, nearly $10 million was awarded to 20 ISPs working to facilitate the deployment of broadband service in designated counties.¹¹

Promote affordable subscriptions and devices

A digital equity office would co-design and co-operate programs that make broadband and related devices more affordable for lower-income households. The office would serve as the chief negotiator with ISPs over pricing and/or targeted subsidies, including any concessions the local government would be willing to make for specific pricing benefits (within the bounds of current FCC rules). The office would also serve as a resource for schools, housing departments, libraries, and other agencies that bulk purchase network and computing devices. In this capacity, the office would share data from their Digital Equity Plan and-combined with other economic indicators-establish procurement needs for the entire jurisdiction.

San Francisco's Digital Equity Strategic Plan has the goal of ensuring that all San Franciscans have affordable, reliable, and high-quality internet. Their strategy includes working with ISPs to expand free and low-cost internet options, partnering with public agencies to advertise low-cost options, and creating a pipeline for city departments and companies to donate surplus digital devices to high-need communities.¹²

Rhode Island's digital equity initiative is working to get everyone in the state connected to the internet by expanding programs that give low-income residents free and low-cost devices, publicizing and expanding public Wi-Fi access points, working with ISPs to create a low-cost network option, and working with community organizations to disseminate information.¹³

The New Orleans city government is working to better connect the city by promoting federal Lifeline options and helping residents identify providers. The city is also facilitating a device donation program, which helps low-income residents acquire computers.¹⁴

Coordinate digital skills interventions

A digital equity office would support programs that build the digital skills of local households and support regional employers. The office would use performance data and local relationships to establish training needs. The office would then help support digital skills trainings operated by agency peers such as the local library system and external partners such as nonprofit community groups, including through the use of public funding and technical capacity. The office would work with workforce boards and peers to ensure trainings reflect employer needs where sensible. The office would also serve as the lead agent to coordinate state and federal skills grants, including applying for grants and distributing funds to agency peers.

The city of Seattle is working toward ensuring that all residents have the digital skills necessary to participate in online spaces. Their strategy includes identifying barriers to skills acquisition, increasing the availability of digital skills programs, increasing the capacity of instructors and volunteers, and providing additional resources and support for the community.¹⁵

Louisville, Ky.'s Digital Inclusion Plan includes training residents in digital skills by identifying challenges, bringing in community perspectives, and supporting and expanding existing digital skills training programs.¹⁶

Understand and represent community interests

A digital equity office would offer a platform for community members-especially from historically disadvantaged communities-to directly engage in a broadband-needs assessment and plan related interventions. Based on prior Brookings research, some elected executives and public officials may not realize the extent of the digital divide across the communities they serve. To overcome this potential blind spot, the digital equity office would proactively engage with community advocates and other interested constituents to understand their needs and build trust. The office would then be responsible for designing specific policies to represent their interests around major decisions.

Portland, Ore. is building a Digital Inclusion Network, which is empowering communities to help in the effort to bridge the digital divide. This includes bringing in a diverse, countywide, and community-based work group as well as engaging community and neighborhood leaders on the development and implementation of their Digital Equity Action Plan.¹⁷

To better understand the issues and how to address them, San Francisco conducted a citywide survey with over 1,000 residents as part of its Digital Equity Strategic Plan, followed by a community-needs assessment with over 400 participants at community fairs, affordable housing meetings, food pantries, schools, and community centers. The entire strategy is deeply integrated with the community, including approaches that build the digital capacity of community-based organizations, support community-led innovation challenges, and continuously collect community feedback.¹⁸

Funding

Digital equity office budgets will vary significantly based on the scope of proposed activities and internal staffing levels. Establishing data monitoring systems, purchasing equipment, funding skills trainings, and other fixed costs all need to be scaled based on local funding capacity. Likewise, staffing levels will need to scale based on local budget capacity. There are also opportunities to share costs if multiple local governments could combine resources into a single office (whether hosted inside a city, county, or metropolitan government). Based on conversations with two localities already conducting some of this work, an annual budget could range from less than $500,000 (to cover a streamlined staff) to over $1 million (if the office supports a larger staff and more programming), or even higher figures if the office manages capital projects. Regardless of the budgetary size, a common refrain was to create durable funding streams based on public revenues.

Establishing a digital equity office would also position cities to successfully compete for future federal funding. Federal broadband policies traditionally do not offer direct funding to local governments to address affordability, skills development, or other community engagement activities. The major exception was the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP), which the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funded for multiple years ¹⁹ With multiple federal bills and key legislators now proposing renewed investment in digital equity, there is optimism that new competitive grants will be available in the future.

Potential impact

Digital equity offices need to be especially attuned for reaching underserved residents. Adults who are not digitally literate, children living in digitally disconnected homes, households without access to private vehicles, and single parents with limited free time all face structural economic disadvantages and would directly benefit from new digital equity programming. An effective digital equity office will be able to demonstrate progress around reaching targeted populations, including through higher subscription rates, greater device availability, higher attendance at digital skills trainings, and more efficient job placements. Any city, metro area, or state that can demonstrate that kind of progress will build a more inclusive society and competitive economy.

Precedent should give local governments confidence that equity-focused interventions can work. An internally funded evaluation of the BTOP program found positive results from investments in public computing centers, adoption programs focused on vulnerable populations, and physical network expansions. ²⁰ Similarly, cities such as New Orleans ²¹ and Seattle ²² have demonstrated impact from their local programming. So far, the city of Seattle has funded 23 local organizations to provide digital skills trainings to residents from disadvantaged backgrounds, leveraged eight city departments to help improve digital equity, and created a tool to allow residents to more easily find free and discounted programs and benefits. Meanwhile, New Orleans granted its first Digital Equity Challenge Award to the Arts Council, which taught young residents basic art and technology concepts as well as relevant digital media skills.

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Bridging the digital divide through digital equity offices

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The American economy continues to digitalize at an astounding pace, but tens of millions of American households cannot access the digital economy due to physical gaps in local broadband networks, unaffordable subscription plans and personal devices, and a lack of digital skills.

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The idea of this article aims to inform that Gen Z and their use and accessibility to technology has instilled the generation with a great sense of diversity and equity. The article mentions that Gen Z is diverse and accepting of topics such as gender identity, race, etc., due to technology.

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illennials are getting old. The people on the upper end of that demographic - defined by Pew Research as those born between 1981 and 1996 - are now pushing 40. They're the dominant part of the workforce. But that dominance is quickly - and naturally - eroding to the next class of workplace warriors. That would be the members of Generation Z, or those born (according to the same Pew report) from 1997 and after.

A 2018 study from Deloitte says that Gen Zers (they define this generation as born in 1995, so there's overlap with Pew above) are already about 24% of the US population, so it's clear that they will become the majority of workers within the next decade. By that time, many of the older class of business owners - mostly my class - will have retired or moved on. The millennials who were once the anti-establishment will be the establishment, the managers, the owners.

Gen Zers are entering the workforce with knowledge and a confidence that my generation couldn't dream of. They understand more about the economy, technology and the world than I ever did at that age.

This is a generation that's not only more diverse but one that embraces diversity. According to the above research: "Gen Z is the most ethnically and racially diverse generation in history: one in four is Hispanic, 14% are African-American and 6% are Asian. And their views on gender and identity are unprecedented and untraditional: Gen Z refuses to turn ethnicity and race into checkboxes on a survey form."

Gen Z want to work for - and have equity in - companies that have sound principles and exist to truly make the world a better place. These workers are quick to criticize their own employers when their actions contradict their social or moral beliefs.

Gen Zers bring with them not only a lifelong experience with the cloud, social media and mobile technology but - because they've known and adapted to this stuff since birth - are also open to more technology, more changes, more adaptations. They expect their employers to embrace the latest if it will help them be productive, independent and better balance their work and personal lives. They're on the forefront of augmented reality, green tech and mental health platforms. Like all generations they'll be pushed by the generation before them on this, but probably not as hard because this generation has so much technological momentum already.

All of this is great. But even with all of this - the confidence, the diversity, the activism, the technological intelligence - Gen Zers lack a critical thing that employers cannot ignore. And that critical thing is the secret to managing them. It's experience. This generation are still just kids and let's not forget that. They may not like to admit it but they know it. And they want our help. There is already much being written about how to manage this up-and-coming group. But in the end, knowing this secret is the most important thing.

Like any young person looking to impress, Gen Zers want to appear that they know the answers. And having that self-confidence is good. But we, as employers, should know better. We should understand that underneath that façade is someone who is not as confident as they appear. We should recognize that it is our job to weigh all the good things that this generation brings to the workplace with the secret that they don't know very much about the realities of running a business.

What realities?

For starters, it's that more sales are made and more ideas are formed when people spend more time face-to-face rather than working from home. Or that too much software, technology and AI takes away a manager's ability to make judgments that only humans can make. Or that sometimes - but not always - it makes more business sense to hire an experienced, middle-aged salesperson over an inexperienced, younger person.

We will have to help this generation understand that in order to earn more money and be entitled to greater benefits one must work for a while to gain the confidence, trust and experience of their employer. We will need to take pains to help younger workers accept the fact that they are indeed on the lowest rung of ladder, which may require them working odd hours or doing tasks that no one else wants to do.

With all the great things Gen Z brings to the workplace there's an even greater thing that we, as employers, can give back to them. We can help them survive their 20s and emerge with the knowledge and experience that's needed to make profits and build value so that their generation - and future generations - can have jobs and opportunities that sustain their families.

Understanding that for all their many assets they still lack experience is truly the secret to successfully managing this generation.

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Gen Z workers are more confident, diverse and tech-savvy but lack experience | Gene Marks

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illennials are getting old. The people on the upper end of that demographic - defined by Pew Research as those born between 1981 and 1996 - are now pushing 40. They're the dominant part of the workforce. But that dominance is quickly - and naturally - eroding to the next class of workplace warriors.

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I chose this article of my three because it is a safety situation that is often overlooked and I think both men and women can benefit from it. It covers safety tips from entering to being in any part of the vehicle and what the best weapons are.

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Tactical Life Gun Magazine: Gun News and Gun Reviews

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Car Self-Defense: Tips to Prevent, Deter & Overcome

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With a little bit of training for car self-defense, you should be able to drive away safely and free of fear.

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All of the articles I saw focused on the future and how creativity can impact our lives moving forward. This article focuses more on how children learning how to be creative now, can impact our future. The article says, "85% of college-educated professionals say creative thinking is critical for problem solving in their careers."

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On the laundry list of skills and content areas teachers have to cover, creativity doesn't traditionally get top billing. It's usually lumped together with other soft skills like communication and collaboration: Great to have, though not as important as reading or long division.

But research is showing that creativity isn't just great to have. It's an essential human skill - perhaps even an evolutionary imperative in our technology-driven world.

"The pace of cultural change is accelerating more quickly than ever before," says Liane Gabora, associate professor of psychology and creative studies at the University of British Columbia. "In some biological systems, when the environment is changing quickly, the mutation rate goes up. Similarly, in times of change we need to bump up creativity levels - to generate the innovative ideas that will keep us afloat."

From standardized tests to one-size-fits-all curriculum, public education often leaves little room for creativity, says EdNews Daily founder Robyn D. Shulman. This puts many schools out of sync with both global demand and societal needs, leaving students poorly prepared for future success.

What can education leaders do about it? For starters, they can make teaching creativity a priority. Here are five reasons to encourage teachers to bring more creativity into the classroom:

1. Creativity motivates kids to learn.

Decades of research link creativity with the intrinsic motivation to learn. When students are focused on a creative goal, they become more absorbed in their learning and more driven to acquire the skills they need to accomplish it.

As proof, education leader Ryan Imbriale cites his young daughter, who loves making TikTok videos showcasing her gymnastics skills. "She spends countless hours on her mat, working over and over again to try to get her gymnastics moves correct so she can share her TikTok video of her success," says the executive director of innovative learning for Baltimore County Public Schools.

Students are most motivated to learn when certain factors are present: They're able to tie their learning to their personal interests, they have a sense of autonomy and control over their task, and they feel competent in the work they're doing. Creative projects can easily meet all three conditions.

2. Creativity lights up the brain.

Teachers who frequently assign classwork involving creativity are more likely to observe higher-order cognitive skills - problem solving, critical thinking, making connections between subjects - in their students. And when teachers combine creativity with transformative technology use, they see even better outcomes.

Creative work helps students connect new information to their prior knowledge, says Wanda Terral, director of technology for Lakeland School System outside of Memphis. That makes the learning stickier.

"Unless there's a place to 'stick' the knowledge to what they already know, it's hard for students to make it a part of themselves moving forward," she says. "It comes down to time. There's not enough time to give them the flexibility to find out where the learning fits in their life and in their brain."

3. Creativity spurs emotional development.

The creative process involves a lot of trial and error. Productive struggle - a gentler term for failure - builds resilience, teaching students to push through difficulty to reach success. That's fertile soil for emotional growth.

"Allowing students to experience the journey, regardless of the end result, is important," says Terral, a presenter at ISTE Creative Constructor Lab.

Creativity gives students the freedom to explore and learn new things from each other, Imbriale adds. As they overcome challenges and bring their creative ideas to fruition, "students begin to see that they have limitless boundaries," he says. "That, in turn, creates confidence. It helps with self-esteem and emotional development."

4. Creativity can ignite those hard-to-reach students.

Many educators have at least one story about a student who was struggling until the teacher assigned a creative project. When academically disinclined students are permitted to unleash their creativity or explore a topic of personal interest, the transformation can be startling.

"Some students don't do well on tests or don't do well grade-wise, but they're super-creative kids," Terral says. "It may be that the structure of school is not good for them. But put that canvas in front of them or give them tools so they can sculpt, and their creativity just oozes out of them."

5. Creativity is an essential job skill of the future.

Actually, it's an essential job skill right now.

According to an Adobe study, 85% of college-educated professionals say creative thinking is critical for problem solving in their careers. And an analysis of LinkedIn data found that creativity is the second most in-demand job skill (after cloud computing), topping the list of soft skills companies need most. As automation continues to swallow up routine jobs, those who rely on soft skills like creativity will see the most growth.

"We can't exist without the creative thinker. It's the idea generation and the opportunity to collaborate with others that moves work," Imbriale says.

"It's one thing to be able to sit in front of computer screen and program something. But it's another to have the conversations and engage in learning about what somebody wants out of a program to be written in order to be able to deliver on that. That all comes from a creative mindset."
Nicole Krueger is a freelance writer and journalist with a passion for finding out what makes learners tick.

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5 reasons why it's more important than ever to teach creativity | ISTE

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On the laundry list of skills and content areas teachers have to cover, creativity doesn't traditionally get top billing. It's usually lumped together with other soft skills like communication and collaboration: Great to have, though not as important as reading or long division. But research is showing that creativity isn't just great to have.

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How Technology Supports Workplace Diversity, Equity And Inclusion

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How Technology Supports Workplace Diversity, Equity And Inclusion

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This article discusses how unconscious bias is avoided during the hiring process by using tech. Instead, insight on prospective employees is gathered from analytics.

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Technology may well be one of the most powerful tools business and HR leaders have in creating diverse, equitable, and inclusive (DE&I) organisations. The global social justice movement, increasing regulations, or even people feeling that it is the 'right thing' to do have all made DE&I a top business priority today.

HR technology helps organisations live and work by diversity, equity, and inclusion practices.
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Employing a workforce that is truly representative of the communities a company touches through its products and services may benefit the bottom line. In fact, research reveals a strong business case for DE&I initiatives that can positively impact employee culture, boost innovation and resilience, and even deliver tangible business benefits including higher operating margins and cashflow per employee.
Addressing unconscious bias
Unconscious biases, also known as implicit biases, are the underlying attitudes and stereotypes that people unconsciously attribute to another person or group of people, affecting how they understand and engage with a person or group. These stereotypes in our subconscious impact decision-making processes company-wide, and can lead to unequal and non-inclusive workplaces. For example, the universal lack of females in senior positions globally, regardless of industry and the gender pay gap, is largely attributed to unconscious bias.

Each step of the employee life cycle has the potential for unconscious bias, negating the most well intentioned DE&I targets. The talent acquisition process, for example, is the most critical in securing a diverse workforce, beginning with the job role definition. Inconsistent definition of job roles and the inclusion of non-essential requirements limits the candidates who will apply. People may self-select themselves out of the candidate pool because the language doesn't encourage them to apply. To attract a gender balanced talent pool, make sure the position description has gender neutral language and the career site reflects inclusive messages and images.

For example, Terex Corporation, a global manufacturer in the industrial machinery and components industry, has put diversity and inclusion at the heart of its global talent strategy, using technology to bring more women, veterans, and other under-represented communities into their traditionally-male dominated workforce. The company created a dedicated landing page on its career site to showcase its Women@Terex initiative. Similarly, Tapestry, a global house of fashion brands, displays the various awards and recognition they have received for their DEI initiatives on its career site.
Prevent talent bias at the point of decision
Core HR and recruitment technology solutions, including AI such as machine learning, can address DE&I issues. AI-based software platforms that are both data-driven and taught to ignore traditional prejudices rely on algorithms that prevent historical patterns of underrepresentation. These platforms can support the full range of talent processes, including who to hire, and how to manage them, as well as development, rewards, and promotions. The objective is to detect and mitigate bias at the decision-making step. For example, SAP's Business Beyond Bias initiative helps customers use SAP SuccessFactors to eliminate inherent biases around age, race and ethnicity, as well as differently-abled individuals, and LGBTQ+ communities.

Hero Group, an international food company committed to conserving the goodness of nature, relies on the creativity and imagination of its people to stay ahead of competitors. The Hero Group attributes the deployment of technology to support its performance and goals process as having "enabled us to establish an open culture that feeds our employees' ambitions and supports their development- and ultimately drives our success."

When it comes to compensation, team salary overviews can spotlight inequities and bias alerts with a calibration tool that analyses historical data, surfacing important information to managers, such as when an employee has not been promoted in over three years despite consistently high performance ratings.
Gaining actionable insights from analytics and metrics
As with any other organisational imperative, DE&I requires a structured approach and regular monitoring and refinement. Analytics reveal meaningful data that we might not otherwise detect. For example, it's not enough to understand the composition of your workforce. A dashboard that brings together analytics can help managers visualize and forecast diversity trends, highlighting critical diversity metrics and the impact of leadership programs. Companies can create diversity scorecards to benchmark internal trends against external metrics such as industry, location, or other parameters. Pushing diversity data out to managers' desktops, and providing data relevant to their daily activities at the point of decision through embedded analytics provides transparency and supports actionable insights down the management line.

HR technology is already helping organisations live and work by DE&I practices. Diversity is a reality, but equity and inclusion is a choice, giving business and HR leaders an important role in changing workplace norms for individuals, the company, and the entire community.

Find out more about DE&I strategies at the virtual HR Connect broadcast.

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SAP BrandVoice: How Technology Supports Workplace Diversity, Equity And Inclusion

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Technology may well be one of the most powerful tools business and HR leaders have in creating diverse, equitable, and inclusive (DE&I) organisations. The global social justice movement, increasing regulations, or even people feeling that it is the 'right thing' to do have all made DE&I a top business priority today.

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This article talks about 10 positive effects technology has on us. One in specific was how certain apps can help us take care of our mental/physical health or journaling apps to keep on track.

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I chose this article in particular because it shows how much tech helps people with their metal health. It shows serval apps people could use to help their mental health. It is an interesting take on tech because normally tech is referenced to bad mental health, so these type of apps are actively helping to change that stereotype.

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The first step in your mental health journey can be the most daunting part. If going to in-person therapy right away seems too much for you, mental health apps may be a good place to start.

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An article discussing how to use Tech in the classroom to promote learning and equity-- and how NOT to.

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We're at a juncture in education where big dollars are being spent to make sure kids have access to computers, tablets and the Internet at school. Such infrastructure opens the portal to a world of information, and new tools that support viewing, documenting and playing with information in school appear almost daily. We're told such tools engage our students and, thus, support their learning.

But which uses of technology in schools support young people's development better than, say, using a pencil? And which are, in fact, worse than a pencil?

As a step toward answering this question, an educator-led initiative called Smart Tech Use for Equity is engaging a diverse group of K-12 teachers who teach San Diego's low-income students of color. The goal? Identify uses of technology in schools that promote learning, development and success for all students versus uses that don't.

As a beginning exercise, the San Diego group reported on technology use they had seen or tried in a classroom that potentially did more harm than good. The teachers offered these examples.

Putting kids on skill-practice games for crowd control or simply to engage kids in something.

Using expensive Promethean boards as if they were cheap whiteboards, wasting limited district dollars.

"Sticking all kids on an app where they are just having fun but not rigorously learning."

Asking students to take hours to "make fun videos" for school projects without weighing the implications for student learning.

Replacing a hands-on lab activity with an online lab activity in science to avoid the mess and materials without evaluating the pros and cons.

"Looking at an online textbook that is really just still a textbook-it just happens to be online."

Buying technology resources for everyone and running workshops on how to operate them without investigating how the technologies might be helpful.

Keeping devices locked in computer labs or warehouses so no one steals them.

Put simply, it was the experience of these teachers that more technology use isn't inherently good. Closing the hardware and Internet divide is critical, but if some students get to create, think and communicate with technologies while others do more passive or low-level learning tasks, opportunity gaps persist. It was with this understanding that the group set out to ask harder questions about the pros and cons of technology use.

Smart Tech Use for Equity

The Smart Tech Use for Equity participants are K-12 teachers of science, math, special education and English (including English as another language). In 2014-15, 10 founding teachers each explored one tech use with their students, documented the effects and shared their learning with other teachers. The same process is underway for 2015-16. (You can watch videos about their work here.)

The projects asks teachers to be equity designers, exploring the potential and limitations of technology for enabling student thinking, learning, voice and achievement. Each teacher is encouraged to think critically about the equity implications of technology use in classrooms.

While equity in school-based tech use is often framed as "all students having devices and access to the Internet," the Smart Tech Use for Equity project requires a loftier definition, guided by this question: Does this use of technology help support the full human talent development of every student, and all groups of students? Or not?

This question asks teachers to test whether tech use supports English language learners; students from all racial and ethnic groups; students of all genders; students from all economic backgrounds; children with diverse abilities; and, of course, every individual.

In the initial launch meeting, the group responded to the question, "If you walked into a classroom and saw smart tech use for equity in action, what would it look like?" The answer was not "everyone on devices." Instead, the teachers had visions of diverse groups of students vigorously discussing literature, science or math. With these aspirational visions in mind, the teachers developed this template for testing, documenting and sharing the "smartness" of their own tech use with equity in mind.

1. What's your equity vision for students in your classroom?

2. What tech use did you experiment with to see if it could help achieve that vision?

3. What did you do with your students to test that use of technology, and how did it go? (Show the pros and cons for students.)

4. What's your conclusion about how "smart" that tech use was for achieving your equity vision?

This template essentially encouraged the participating teachers to do-and document-action research. As one participant put it, "As educators [who] care, we probably do this sort of testing all the time. This is formalizing it a little bit and ensuring that we share it."

Early Realizations

In starting to assess tech use for equity, participants-who were under pressure to use glitzy apps-quickly realized something counterintuitive: Often, it's the simplest uses of technology that get students to talk, write and create. As one participant tweeted, "Spent the day w/Ts developing research action plans to design technology for equity. I LOVE IT, it's no longer just about apps #createequity."

For example, middle school science teachers Alicia Johal and Melissa Foster each had the equity vision of supporting their English language learners. Both teachers have students who are shy about communicating their scientific thinking in English-but the Next Generation Science Standards require them to talk about science. Could technology help?

Each teacher chose a simple technological tool. Johal chose the Explain Everything Interactive Whiteboard app to see if it might help students verbally articulate their understanding of science before writing lab reports. She invited students to talk through their understanding with her one-on-one via a video voiceover (talking over images) in English and then transcribe their words into written English. Foster chose iMovie to help students verbalize their understanding before taking tests. She had students explain their thinking-in English and Spanish-on video voiceover during test preparation.

Both educators were "blown away" by how well students understood concepts they hadn't been able to describe previously in classroom dialogue, traditional lab notebooks or on tests. In both classrooms, technology helped the students start to share their voices.

English teacher Serena Pariser had a different vision: She wanted her middle school students to have deeper dialogues about literature. She tested two different tools to support small-group conversations: TodaysMeet and Padlet. Using TodaysMeet, she allowed her students to type their contributions to a small-group conversation about a novel instead of talking face-to-face. Using Padlet, she allowed the whole class to brainstorm and type their responses simultaneously while projecting their ideas onto a screen. After the Padlet brainstorm, Pariser prompted in-person small group conversations during which students could reference the class discussion on individual iPads.

Pariser found that TodaysMeet didn't add much to the literature dialogue. In fact, it got in the way: Students had better small-group conversations in person. Padlet, however, allowed for a rapid online brainstorm where every voice in the class was heard, captured and left visible. This deepened in-person follow-up dialogue by allowing students to tap all of their peers' ideas at once.

Teacher Jeri Aring had yet another vision: She wanted to support her third-grade students' abilities to explain a math concept verbally or in writing-a key expectation of the Common Core State Standards. She videotaped students explaining math problems to each other using the basic video feature on her iPad and showed the videos to them to clarify the elements of a rigorous math explanation. Students then taped themselves explaining math problems to each other. Aring was thrilled to see all of her students, including those who had struggled to explain math previously, explaining fractions and proportions in detail and correctly.

What Counts as Smart Tech Use for Equity?

Teachers' visions for "smarter tech use" evolved over the course of the project. Their initial ideas were broad, including statements like, "only as needed," "personalized classrooms" and "meaningful exploration." After some classroom experimentation, a more specific list of smart technology use criteria emerged-via Padlet-during a group brainstorm.

Students are able to think about their own thinking and the thinking of their peers.

Students engage in deeper thought and comprehension after a blend of verbal, in-person communication and typing/writing that uses technology as portal for students to talk.

Sometimes technology comes before verbal and sometimes verbal comes before technology.

Students are "heard."

Students go beyond the classroom walls both to get input for learning and to demonstrate/share learning and thinking.

Teachers learn from students, students learn from students, and students learn from teachers and other adults.

All students are able to share their learning.

Tech use supports students in talking through their thinking for an audience.

Tech use supports what students are learning rather than usage being the end goal itself.

The consensus definition of "smart tech use for equity" was the educational use of technology that considers the following questions:

Does the technology allow all learners to share/communicate their thinking and inquire deeply into a concept?

Does the technology empower all learners to recognize their knowledge and contributions to the learning environment and to society?

It also means deciding against the technology use if the answer to either question is no.

Takeaways

Teachers have big dreams for their classrooms that go far beyond more tech use. In particular, the teachers participating in the Smart Tech Use for Equity project have visions for equity in classrooms that include "students getting opportunity despite a label," "making sure that all students leave classrooms with the skills they need to succeed," "students leaving 12th grade as confident collaborators and creative thinkers," and "helping students be curious, contribute to community and get excited." Technology is simply a potential vehicle for these loftier goals.

A key to making these visions a reality is documenting whether tech use actually supports students' learning, participation and deep comprehension. Is putting kids on iPads in preschool better than playing with oatmeal or water? Is seeing the solar system on a screen better than mapping out its dimensions using toilet paper? And when does the use of technology open up learning for young people who most need support from their schools?

We need more teachers exploring and assessing smart tech use for equity. In an era when many stakeholders call for more technology while others resist, teachers acting as equity designers can define what it means to support all young people through tech use. As one teacher put it, "I want to see tech as a tool-not the end, but a bridge."

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We're at a juncture in education where big dollars are being spent to make sure kids have access to computers, tablets and the Internet at school. Such infrastructure opens the portal to a world of information, and new tools that support viewing, documenting and playing with information in school appear almost daily.

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This article provides reasons as to how technology is advancing equity in classroom settings. Essentially, technology in classrooms gives each kid an opportunity and access to materials to further their educational experience.

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When used effectively, technology can greatly contribute to creating equity in schools. It removes barriers to learning materials, supports students where they are across varied learning contexts and needs, and gives educators more insight into the learning environments they're creating.

However, we can only realize these equity-centered benefits when we use technology in innovative and powerful ways. That means we shouldn't just use edtech to replace worksheets, run "drill and kill" exercises, or crunch assessment performance numbers.

To better understand how using technology can create equity in schools, we'll outline how technology creates more equitable situations in the classroom. And to help you better understand how you can use technology to create equitable situations in your classroom, school, or district, we'll talk about districts who are already using technology in a powerful way to increase equity for their students.

Three ways technology can help increase equity in schools

Technology isn't the only tool we can use to create equitable learning environments, but there are a few ways it can assist in that mission.

1. Students can access learning materials outside of school

One of the most straightforward ways that technology contributes to equity in schools is ensuring that every student has access to learning materials, even outside of the classroom. Students have fewer barriers to learning when they can use their tablets or laptops not only to find homework instructions, read e-books, and share important information with their families, but to create and work on independent projects, research topics that interest them, and connect with subject experts.

2. Students and educators have more tools to create a learning environment that fosters personalized learning

Edtech-especially edtech with a narrow, specific focus -can help create a personalized learning experience, ensuring that, through a differentiated approach, all students can access information at their own pace and in a way that's best suited to their learning needs. Supporting learner variability ideally means that more students become deeply engaged in their learning and fewer students are left behind.

3. Educators and district leaders can use data to make informed decisions

Outside of keeping track of test scores, educators can use technology to get helpful insights and more effectively make data-informed decisions. Connecting secure datasets such as absenteeism and homework completion with formative mathematics assessments, for example, allows educators to consider why issues may be happening, decide on a course of supportive action, and then use data to determine effectiveness.

Technology will help create equity in schools when it's used powerfully

Providing access to technology is important but not a complete solution when it comes to getting rid of systemic disparities caused by issues like income inequality, geographic isolation, or discrimination. Ensuring students have opportunities to use technology in powerful ways will also contribute to creating more equitable learning environments.

Digital Promise's League of Innovative Schools includes school districts who are using technology to create more equitable learning experiences. Here are some examples.

Ensuring internet access outside of school

Consider this: you've just been handed the keys to a car, and you're told you can drive it anywhere you want. There are so many possible destinations open to you, and you hop in ready for your road trip. But you look through the windshield to realize there's no road in front of you. Suddenly, your trip is looking a little more difficult (and a little less enjoyable). Your car is still useful; you can still go anywhere you want. But getting there would have been a lot easier if a road had been built.

A tablet without an internet connection is similarly useful. You can use it for writing, animating, making movies, and taking photos. But once you add the internet, the realm of possibilities is wide open. And finding tools and resources to support and supplement learning becomes much easier with the power of an Internet search available to you.

Disparities in internet access are tied to geographic isolation and differences in income, among other factors. According to Census Bureau data from 2016, nearly 82 percent of all households in the U.S. have an internet subscription of some kind. However, only 74 percent of households in nonmetropolitan areas have an internet subscription, compared to 83 percent of households located in metropolitan areas. And only 59 percent of households with an annual income of less than $25,000 have an internet subscription, compared to 89 percent of households making between $50,000 and $99,000 per year.

To bridge gaps in internet access between school and home, districts are getting creative to make WiFi available to students as often as possible. Morris School District in suburban New Jersey partners with EveryoneOn to offer all district households low-cost internet access. In rural Alabama, Piedmont City School District helped provide students with internet access by installing a town wireless network in 2011 using a federal E-rate grant. The district has since transitioned to providing MiFi devices for each student to ensure their internet access is uninterrupted, even when WiFi connections remain spotty in some areas.

Providing true 24/7 access to learning means more than distributing devices and providing internet connections in the classroom. It means taking a close look at student experiences when they leave the classroom and giving them every opportunity to continue learning whenever they want, wherever they might be.

Investing in professional development so teachers effectively personalize the learning experience for their students

To empower teachers to use technology in a way that complements a personalized learning environment, professional development, instructional coaching, peer-to-peer teaching, or a combination of all three will ensure that the technology has significant ROI.

In suburban Illinois, Gurnee School District 56 decided to take their commitment to personalized learning one step further by offering personalized professional development to educators. Teachers have access to workshops, in-class coaching, and building-based tech facilitators during the school year. In the summer, the district runs the Summer Tech Academy, where teachers can hone their skills and learn different ways to integrate technology in their classrooms. Providing access to this type of PD not only helps teachers learn new things, but also emphasizes the effectiveness of personalized learning for educators who experience it.

Effective and powerful use of technology in the classroom should involve helping teachers feel both comfortable with unfamiliar tech, and enthusiastic about new opportunities to create innovative learning experiences that meets learners where they are.

Using data to focus on measures outside of test scores

Finally, using student data to create a holistic picture of the current state of your learning environment and a complete picture of your learners-including mental and physical health-is more effective than simply tracking assessment data. Ensure that data is carefully and securely collected and that top notch privacy practices are in place

In Connecticut, Meriden Public Schools (MPS) uses a district-created "Climate Suite" to measure, track, and improve students' experiences in its schools. The district collects data through a School Climate Survey, a Getting to Know You Survey, and an MPS Cares self-reporting tool. Using this data, MPS is better able to cater to the social-emotional health of its students. As a result of actions taken using this data, MPS has seen a 93 percent decrease in expulsions and a 23 percent decrease in chronic absenteeism.

Start using technology to create equity in your schools

Access to technology alone isn't enough. Creating true equity in schools requires a commitment to increasing access to learning tools for students and their families, equipping teachers with the knowledge and skills to use new tech powerfully, and using student data effectively to make informed decisions about improving their learning experiences.
Resources to help you use technology to increase equity in schools:

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How Access to Technology Can Create Equity in Schools - Digital Promise

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When used effectively, technology can greatly contribute to creating equity in schools. It removes barriers to learning materials, supports students where they are across varied learning contexts and needs, and gives educators more insight into the learning environments they're creating. However, we can only realize these equity-centered benefits when we use technology in innovative and powerful ways.

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Discusses technology that can be used to protect you and/or your home.

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Do you rely on an ordinary deadbolt lock, squint through a front door peephole and struggle to remember a long passcode to unlock your phone? It may be time to explore new smart home technologies that can make it a snap to secure your life and home.

Security technology has developed rapidly, merging with smart technology to give consumers on almost any budget the ability to safeguard their devices, homes and lives seamlessly.

Some smart home technologies, like biometrics, make it easier for you to access your property, while helping to keep others out. And many smart devices alert you immediately-no matter where you are-when there's a problem at home.

The cost of adding sensing and communication technology to consumer devices is falling, making smart technology both more affordable and more available. Sstats show that 57 percent of Americans say that smart home technologies save them an average of 30 minutes a day and almost $100 a month.

Security is the leading reason consumers are embracing smart technology for their homes. In fact, three out of five consumers say they buy smart home products because they want to be able to monitor their home from their smartphone. "Security is top of people's minds right now," and that's especially true for those in the 50+ age bracket, says Barry Daoust, a home technology expert and founder of Smarthomes.us, a company that installs smarthome systems.

Fortunately, savvy consumers have an array of home security options, from hiring a pro to install a comprehensive smarthome system to buying individual high-tech products or simply using technology that comes built into most smartphones.

Here are six smart security technologies to help keep you secure.

1. Biometric Technology

Many smartphones now boast biometric technology that allows you to quickly unlock your phone with your eye, face or fingerprint.

Many smart home technologies are operated through smartphone apps, so quick and easy access to your phone is key. But if you protect your phone with a difficult-to-guess passcode, as security experts recommend, it can take a while to punch in the numbers. Or, in a worst-case scenario, you could forget the code and end up locked out of your phone right when you need to check an app to see who's at your door.

Facial Recognition Technology

Facial recognition involves mapping out facial features, like the distance between the eyebrows, and the curves of the eyes, cheeks and chin. New iPhones, starting with the iPhone X, use facial recognition technology rather than fingerprint recognition.

Fingerprint Recognition Technology

This technology uses either optical or capacitance technology.

Optical technology takes a digital picture of the fingerprint.

Capacitance technology, used by older iPhones, detects differences in conductivity between the outer and inner layers of the skin to form an image of the fingerprint.

(Phones aren't the only devices that feature this type of biometric technology. Some home safes and suitcases can be opened with a fingerprint.)

Iris Recognition Technology

Iris recognition technology is now available on some phones, captures and analyzes an image of the unique patterns in the colored part of your eye that surrounds your pupil. Just as no two fingerprints are the same, no two irises are either. Every iris is "like a snowflake," according to Iris ID, a biometric technology company.

2. Two-factor Authentication

Two-factor authentication makes your accounts harder to crack. Typically requires a password or code as well as something only you would have on you (e.g., your phone of your fingerprint).

When your home can be controlled from your smartphone, securing your device is crucial for keeping you and your family safe. After all, you don't want a thief to get ahold of your phone and use it to unlock the front door.

Facial, fingerprint and iris recognition are often used on their own. This type of access is known as one-factor authentication because you need only one thing-a face, finger or eye-to get into an account or device. However, two-factor authentication adds an extra step, making it more difficult for anyone but you to gain access to your personal information.

How It Works

Say you're trying to log in to your online credit card account from your new laptop, a computer the card issuer's site doesn't recognize. First, you enter your passcode. Then a box pops up on the screen asking you to enter a code that was just texted to your smartphone. When you enter the code, you're logged in to the account.

Two-factor authentication helps make your accounts and devices doubly secure.

3. Security Systems with Connected Cameras

Now, you can keep an eye on your home while you're running errands, at work or on vacation. Smart security cameras allow you to check areas like your living room or backyard-anywhere, anytime, Daoust says. "Wherever you are in the world, you can log in to check different views of your home," he adds.

Some systems assign date and time stamps to images, so if you later learn that a camera sensed motion at 3 a.m. on your back porch, you can check the photo of that area from that time, Daoust explains. And many of the connected home security cameras can be accessed through a mobile device, so you won't even need to have a computer on hand.

Virtual Boundaries

Surveillance cameras also allow you to set virtual boundaries in order to receive alerts if they're breached.

For example, you could set up a virtual perimeter around your swimming pool and get an email or text if someone or something moves across the tripwire, Daoust says. Because " pool hopping " has become popular with some teens, who trespass on private property to go swimming, it may be helpful to have a camera with this high-tech security feature.

4. Smoke Alarms (and Other Devices that Message You)

A small flame can turn into a major fire in just 30 seconds. That's one reason smoke alarms are a key safety component in any home.

The problem is, if you're not home when an ordinary smoke alarm goes off, you may have no idea that there's a problem, says Chris Carney, co-founder and CEO at Abode Systems Inc., a company that provides professional-grade security systems that integrate with a variety of components and devices from various manufacturers.

New smoke alarms, however, can talk to you in a human voice to let you know where there's a problem-say, smoke in the kitchen-and will even text you, so that you know to call the proper authorities if you're away.

Water Leak Sensors

Water leak sensors can also provide crucial protection for your home, alerting you to a water leak before it has a chance to cause costly damage, Carney says. Like smoke alarms, the old water leak sensors sounded an alarm that could be heard in the home, but modern ones will text you a warning, he explains.

If you're far from home, you can ask a trusted neighbor or friend to check out the problem right away, Carney adds.

5. Smart Locks for Your Exterior Doors

Putting a house key under a mat or rock, or even giving one out to a trusted neighbor, is risky, Daoust warns. "As soon as you let a key out of your possession, it can be copied," he explains. Smart locks make it easier to let family and welcome guests in while keeping intruders out.

With a smart lock, you can give each person an individual code and even set your lock so that certain people can only get in at set times, Daoust says. For example, if the dog walker comes every day at lunchtime, you could set her code to work between noon and 2 p.m.

If your smart lock is connected as part of a smarthome system, you have more options, like setting the lock to automatically arm your home alarm system when you leave, he points out.

And if you're in bed at night and realize you forgot to lock the back door, you can just grab your smartphone to lock it without getting out of bed. "With a smart lock, you can lock it on the fly any time," Daoust says.
Important to note:
Smart locks may be vulnerable to hackers, but good encryption and two-factor authentication make them tougher to crack. So, make sure to get a lock that offers strong encryption and two-factor authentication. Just as a reminder, this requires a two-step process to access to a device or account.

6. Doorbells

Smart doorbells equipped with cameras allow you to see who's at your door, even if you're not home. If the doorbell has video intercom, you can see and talk to the person at your door or gate, Daoust says.

Instead of the old "ding dong" sound you hear from an ordinary doorbell, a touch screen pops up on your smartphone or tablet and plays the sound of your choice. "You can start a conversation with the person at door, and they can hear you, but not see you," Daoust explains.

These doorbells help keep your home secure in that burglars commonly ring the doorbell to see if anyone is home, he points out. If a suspicious person rings your bell while you're away, as long as you have a good cell signal, you can remotely tell them you're not interested. "For all they know, you're inside the house and they may just walk away," he suggests.

Smart Home Technologies: Where to Start

Smart home gadgets and technologies can make it easier to lock down your data and protect your home, giving you peace of mind even when you're not there, Carney says. "All these connected devices help homeowners understand what's happening at all times just like they're at home." Of course, as technology fills our homes, it becomes more important to declutter old technology to make room for the new. And if you're not sure which smart technology to try first, check this list of smart home technologies, which recommends good starter devices, such as smart locks and doorbells.
Have you adopted any smart home technology? If you have, which smart appliances or devices have you tried in your home? Please comment, and let us know which smart home tech you use and how it's working for you.

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New Smart Home Technologies | Extra Mile | The Hartford

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Do you rely on an ordinary deadbolt lock, squint through a front door peephole and struggle to remember a long passcode to unlock your phone? It may be time to explore new smart home technologies that can make it a snap to secure your life and home.

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Technology Can Help Boost a Child's Self-Esteem

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Technology Can Help Boost a Child's Self-Esteem

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This articles explains how children have new and available resources that they would not have traditionally had. Students can learn new and interesting things with the confidence that they have the resources to do so. Additionally, the article talks about how technology gives children the ability to communicate online and "flip" the traditional learning style. Giving students the ability to take learning into their own hands.

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Self-esteem is like some confidence regalia that makes you feel good about yourself. Kids with boosted self-esteem usually have the confidence to try new things. They always feel proud of what they can do and it makes them try things again whenever they fail, no matter the number of times. Children with a feeling of safety, and in receipt of so much love usually have this sort of confidence when among their peers. A smart child can even exude a greater measure of self-esteem and when you introduce your kids to the world of technology, and advanced sciences, you are gradually boosting their self-esteem. Let us see how technology can boost a child's self-esteem.

Having an online presence

When you introduce technology to young kids, it naturally improves their participation, information retention, and overall test performance. This makes kids feel they are secure in their abilities and they will work harder and take their education seriously. As a parent, you can introduce them to simple acts of being part of the technology world. For example, your child may have some special talent like singing, dancing, painting, drawing, or even playing a musical instrument like the piano.

You can encourage them to make videos of their performances and post them online or share them via email with their grandparents. When they get to see how people react to their performances, self-esteem begins to grow naturally. Making a video of drawings or paintings could produce a large file because of the time it takes to complete the activity. To do a big file transfer, they can be zipped to make it easier for sharing. To make sure these online activities are safe you can check online for the right VPN. Learn more about VPNs if you want to find the very best one.

Having online discussions and assignments

Another way technology helps boost a child's self-esteem is through the use of online platforms to do academic discussions or receiving and submitting assignments. Some students usually get shy raising their hands in class to answer questions. Some also chicken out when they are called upon to lead the class. When these things are done online, it could boost their confidence. They do not have to face a sea of heads this time. As they continue to be more involved in online discussions, the confidence to face a crowd and talk will be growing gradually. They will get the notion that the reception they get online could be replicated in real life too.

Teaching them simple robotics and coding

A child with amazing software skills would naturally be able to wow an audience because they know that not many kids delve into such. Imagine that your child goes to school with a robot he built that is controlled by some electromagnetic waves. This usually would be a programming engineer's project and a kid decides to try it out. This will make him popular for his inventions and make everyone want to be associated with him. When a child wakes up to know that other kids will be waiting to have an opportunity to see him, his self-esteem will be boosted.

Ability to use outside resources

Pupils will generally feel a greater sense of accomplishment when they are able to search online for answers to assignments instead of taking to the regular textbooks. As a teacher, giving students a broad information base that is inclusive of online resources will enable them to find their solutions to your questions. It helps them build their self-confidence, makes them believe they can handle things on their own or be first-starters.

Flipped learning perspective

Usually, kids go to school, listen to their teachers in class, and passively commit what they have learned to heart. Introducing an aspect of technology like allowing for interactive approaches online can help change that. This helps them to take active roles in their education. Kids who usually are shy and have low self-esteem can engage themselves actively through online games, online assignments, discussions, and research. This will help them build their self-esteem through participation. It will also help them to find good jobs for English speakers in the future.

Kids with low self-esteem are self-critical and hard on themselves. They will feel they are not as good as other kids and will always remember the times they fail rather than times they had been successful. All these are not good for a young child because depression could set in. Exposure to technology is one way to boost a child's self-esteem. You can start by getting the child involved in technological activities that will make him or her happy like making videos and uploading them online. This will gradually build their self-esteem.

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5 Ways Technology Will Boost Your Children's Self-Esteem - The European Business Review

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Self-esteem is like some confidence regalia that makes you feel good about yourself. Kids with boosted self-esteem usually have the confidence to try new things. They always feel proud of what they can do and it makes them try things again whenever they fail, no matter the number of times.

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Is 'Equalizing' Technology in the Classroom Really Equitable?

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Is 'Equalizing' Technology in the Classroom Really Equitable?

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The article's author discusses how there is still a large degree of inequity in quality of education from classroom to classroom despite 'equal' technology access. I picked it because it goes against the idea "more tech is better", arguing that its the quality of education or access to the tech that matters. "Drill and Kill" math learning w/ tech is a good example.

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The past two years has seen a narrowing of the digital divide when it comes to two things: the number of school devices per student and the Wi-Fi that transforms these devices into powerful learning tools at home and in the classroom.

But it's premature to say the digital playing field has been leveled. Today there remains striking differences between the ways wealthier students use technology and their poorer peers do in schools separated by mere miles.

As devices and increased bandwidth have improved since that pandemic, we are now seeing the next great equity challenge: the way educators use technology with their students. An emerging definition of digital equity now involves access to devices, access to broadband and access to teachers qualified to offer technology-powered opportunities to drive learning in the classroom.

To understand the impact of teacher training on digital equity, let's look at one example of how students might use their school-issued devices differently in various schools.

Drill and practice vs. meaningful learning

Studies have shown that "low-income, nonwhite children more often used technology in math class for drill and practice, while affluent white children were more likely to use technology for graphing, problem-solving and other higher-order exercises."

Sociologist Paul Atwell observed in the Connected Learning Alliance Report that even as technology gaps close, a digital-use divide becomes increasingly apparent. Affluent students use the same technologies to support richer forms of learning with greater adult mentorship. The report offers evidence of how inequity persists despite removing technical and economic barriers, and what we know about the social and cultural forces that determine these inequitable outcomes.

The teaching and use of technology becomes a matter of equity and educational opportunity because using technology to "drill and kill" students for test prep saps the creativity and curiosity out of the classroom environment. These types of activities contain little or no collaboration and don't allow for research and deeper inquiry skills.

Using technology in this way might appear to help educators manage classroom expectations (e.g. "finish this practice test in the next 40 minutes"), but these types of lessons encourage boredom, dread and misbehavior and don't support critical thinking.

PD just as important as devices

One cause of this disparity in educational opportunities comes down to professional development. When new Chromebooks or iPads gather dust in a back of a classroom because a teacher isn't sure how to use them effectively, the investment in devices - as well as buy-in from stakeholders and the potential for student learning - is squandered.

Figuring out how to support all teachers regardless of limited budgets - and not just applaud the few great examples of tech use within a district - is critical to providing a quality, engaging education for all students and prepare them for the jobs of today and tomorrow.

Here are three low-cost ways schools can support educators in using technology in meaningful ways:

1. Embed the ISTE Standards in your school or district ecosystem.

The ISTE Standards are the blueprint for how to use technologically in pedagogically sound ways. The ISTE Standards for Students are designed to empower student voice and ensure that learning is a student-driven process. The seven standards are not about learning to use technology or even using technology to learn, but engaging with technology in ways that help students become computational thinkers, innovative designers, global collaborators and digital citizens.

The ISTE Standards for Educators, on the other hand, speak directly to teachers engaging as learners, leaders and advocates. These standards stress the importance of learning from and with others, seeking ways to empower learners, improving their practice, designing authentic learning and analyzing student data. As leaders, teachers should also advocate for equitable access to educational technology, digital content and learning opportunities to meet the diverse needs of all students.

ISTE's Education Leaders Standards are focused on some of the most timely, yet enduring, topics in education today - equity, digital citizenship, visioning, team and systems building, continuous improvement and professional growth.

All of these sets of standards do not guarantee results, but they do provide focus and clarity. In facing both digital divide and digital-use divide challenges, starting with clear standards provides a solid foundation to build upon.

2. Encourage nontraditional forms of PD.

Having devices and connectivity is one thing. Using those tools to successfully drive digital age learning, integrate technology across subject areas and help students become respectful digital citizens is something else altogether.

Like the students they teach, educators are better served by choosing their PD and by learning on their terms. Some districts have implemented early-release teacher collaboration days that embrace teacher choice. At Beaverton School District, where we work, we have something we call Week 3. Courses are conducted on site, online via Zoom rooms and in anytime formats. The first year we had more than 500 events engaging over 7,000 participants.

Additionally, Beaverton is using model called IlluminatEd, a PD model where teachers on special assignment and district specialists teach courses for a day, freeing up classroom teachers to observe different teaching strategies and technology that is of interest to them.

At the end of the day, educators gather to share what they learned and brainstorm next steps.

Educators should be encouraged and supported in choosing alternative forms of PD, such as professional learning networks, webinars, edchats, edcamps and online courses. Many of these options provide PD in real time and offer the support of peers and experts on the most up-to-date tools, strategies and research-based practices.

3. Invite all stakeholders to the table.

It's not uncommon for important stakeholders to be left out of conversations about how best to serve all students. Sometimes those stakeholders are the very teachers who spend all day teaching those students. Sometimes it's the parents who best know what their children need to learn and develop. Often it's the students themselves who know what their deficits are and what sparks their interests and meets their needs.

If we are going to close the digital-use gap, school communities need all heads in the game to experiment and innovate. That means inviting parents and students to participate in the process.

In my district, schools are inviting specific parent communities into schools for year-long technology trainings. Teaching parents how to digitally interact with teachers and schools is a key component in building an affirming and constructive educational community. To see what this looks like, read How We Empowered and Engaged Latino Parents-by Building a Tech Community or view the video.

Skilled teachers are key to digital transformation

While technology and access is improving, providing transformational learning opportunities remains an ongoing and serious challenge. The essential leverage point will always be well-trained and curious teachers who integrate technology in transformative and engaging ways.

Finding devices and solving connectivity issues is the first challenge of digital equity. Teaching educators and the larger community to use this technology meaningfully is a much more nuanced challenge in the fight for digital equity.
Matt Hiefield is a digital curriculum specialist for Beaverton School District with a passion for investigating digital equity issues. Nichole Carter is an innovation strategist for Beaverton School District and author of the book, Sketchnoting in the Classroom. Learn more about the Beaverton School District future ready team. A version of this post originally published on Oct. 3, 2018.

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There Is More to Digital Equity Than Devices and Bandwidth

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The past two years has seen a narrowing of the digital divide when it comes to two things: the number of school devices per student and the Wi-Fi that transforms these devices into powerful learning tools at home and in the classroom. But it's premature to say the digital playing field has been leveled.

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Aviation Safety: Advancements Being Pursued to Improve Airliner Cabin Occupant Safety and Health

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Aviation Safety: Advancements Being Pursued to Improve Airliner Cabin Occupant Safety and Health (03-OCT-03, GAO-04-33). Airline travel is one of the safest modes of public transportation in the United States. Furthermore, there are survivors in the majority of airliner crashes, according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

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While this article addresses the mental struggles that come with social media, it also shines light on some ways that technology is great for self-love and love for others. For example, the article mentions how the rise in popularity of podcasts is great for a lot of people. Podcasts are a great way to share ideas about body positivity, relationships, and overall experiences.

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At 10.30 pm on October 29, 1969, the first message on the Internet was sent by UCLA student Charley Kline in the form of two letters 'lo'. Romantics, to this day, debate that it was obviously meant to be 'love', whereas irrefutable records show Charley meant to type 'login' and the system had crashed after the first two letters.

Fast forward 50 years to present-day and we can send all sorts of lovey-dovey messages in the form of quick texts, GIFs, SnapChats, videos, Instagram stories... the list is endless. Given there are countless expressions and forms of love in the digital space, thanks to technology mediating everything we do, this behemoth blanket of binaries became more than just an aid - it is now a crutch, a platform and our confidante.

We've seen love traverse from paper to screen to holograms to Artificial Intelligence - even to the point when, if we're bored enough, we can ask Siri if they love us. It's not just romantic love to which our technology panders; there is body positivity and self-love, so let's take a look at these, and evaluate if the Internet is doing justice or doing harm.

Life of likes

Micro-blogging sites such as Instagram and Facebook have contributed big-time to both the depreciation and appreciation of self-love. We tend to judge our self-worth in terms of likes, responses, the number of private messages we get, and so on. Maybe, ease up on social media, whether it means taking a break for a few days or even going full-Monty and removing yourself entirely from the platform to become more purposeful in other ways.

That's what psychologist Raisa Luther of Hope Trust recommends too. "Mental health is impacted by everything around us. As the saying goes for our body: you are what you eat, the same goes for our mind as well. What we feed our mind manifests in good or ill mental health."

"Further, technology is a highly powerful tool in developing or destroying relationships. It reduces the importance and need for face-to-face interaction - this can result in changing the very face and nature of human relationships," Raisa continues, "I fear that we are so influenced by technology and its various components that we may one day forget what it means to be human, or feel human. I have seen the same in my practice, where people get so influenced by technology that it affects their self-worth, self-esteem and even their identity. FOMO leads to a lot of my clients leading dual lives - and sometimes it is difficult to maintain boundaries between an online persona and the real, offline self."

However, studies show the response is quite dependent on a person's disposition; are they naturally vulnerable to social pressures imbibed by technology? "We found that having a sense of purpose allowed people to navigate virtual feedback with more rigidity and persistence. With a sense of purpose, they're not so malleable to the number of likes they receive... Purposeful people noticed the positive feedback, but did not rely on it to feel good about themselves," surmises Cornell University professor Anthony Burrow, co-author of study ''Likes' less likely to affect self-esteem of people with purpose'.

Video ga-ga

YouTube, despite its ongoing strife around policy and content creation, does have its happy corners, and with beauty vlogging an all-time rage, the subculture of body positivity channels has been crawling up the subscriber ladder, but not necessarily T-series-style. And no, we aren't referring to over-hyped fitness gurus or flat-tummy-detox-tea sponsors who live for monetisation!

Pooja Kochar runs one of India's growing channels, '30ish', for body positivity chats. "30ish is trusting its internal GPS and turning towards YouTube. We are being mentored by #YouTubeSpaceMumbai to understand viewer preference for digital content," she says on her site, "We conceptualise, create content and manage execution of social media campaigns which are completely customised. These campaigns are further supported through our blog, Twitter feed and Instagram page. We will live your brand, to give it the most authentic narrative."

The cross-promotion of platforms for community-driven positivity is ideal in rebuilding the YouTube algorithms a lot of users have a problem with, especially with the site's very flawed and clearly capitalistic 'Trending' section. With the Internet brimming with life-threatening challenge videos and dangerous pranks, it'll be useful to employ to our advantage.

So this Valentine's Day, when you see hearts and cheesy texts floating around, be sure to love yourself first and foremost.

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At 10.30 pm on October 29, 1969, the first message on the Internet was sent by UCLA student Charley Kline in the form of two letters 'lo'. Romantics, to this day, debate that it was obviously meant to be 'love', whereas irrefutable records show Charley meant to type 'login' and the system had crashed after the first two letters.

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This article is interesting because it discusses how technology can promote happiness in your life by connecting socially, promoting engagement with one's own community, provides access to resources which allow learning new goals and habits, and allows the ability to seek out support resources.

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These days, you can't go anywhere without hearing about how technology is ruining everything, including our happiness. There is some truth to this, but it's not the whole story.

Technology can be bad for us-for example, when social media gives us FOMO (fear of missing out) or traps us in filter bubbles that prevent us from seeing multiple points of view on important issues. As a society, we are increasingly concerned that technologies like smartphones and social media result in more social comparison, bullying, and loneliness-all stumbling blocks to happiness. Technology seems to be bad for our happiness when it interferes with the mental, social, emotional, and behavioral processes that contribute to well-being.

But we often fail to realize (and discuss) the ways that technology can also support happiness and well-being-for example, when video calls let us talk to people all over the world or when apps or online articles give us a sense of purpose, joy, or excitement.

While researching my new book, Outsmart Your Smartphone, I discovered many of the ways technology can and does hurt our happiness. But I also discovered many ways technology can and does support our happiness...especially if we use it in the right manner.

If you're trying to limit technology use for yourself or your kids, don't forget about some of its potential benefits. Here are four research-based ways to spend your time on technology that can boost your health, happiness, and well-being.

1. Engage in activities that promote happiness

Social media is a space where we can connect socially and engage in kind and helpful behavior-activities that have been shown to boost health and well-being. For example, by sending messages on social media, we can express a kind word or share our gratitude- Thanks again for listening when I was having a rough day last week! -anytime we want, with ease, even to people far away.

A recent study suggested that among young people with symptoms of depression, social media was very important for helping them express themselves creatively, get inspiration from others, and even feel less lonely. A whole 30 percent of young people with elevated depression symptoms say using social media when they're feeling depressed, stressed, or anxious usually makes them feel better, while only 22 percent say it makes them feel worse.

One participant shared, "Social media makes me laugh and keeps me distracted so that I have time to breathe and collect myself." Another shared, "It just helps me feel outside myself for a bit and find interesting topics I'd like to ponder on."

While social media does seem to be beneficial for some, it may not be the best strategy for overcoming mental health challenges, given certain problematic habits it might encourage-like comparing ourselves to the seemingly perfect lives of our friends and people we follow. But when we use it in conjunction with face-to-face social interactions, it does indeed appear to be a useful tool for self-expression and social connection.

2. Actively engage with your community

It's true that people who engage in more passive Facebook use (e.g., scrolling without interacting with others) tend to be more depressed, one study found. The authors suggest that passively using social media might stimulate those "upward social comparison behaviors," which can leave people feeling inferior (I suck!), envious (it's not fair!), or both.

But people who use Facebook more actively (e.g., liking, commenting, and posting) tend to have lower levels of depression. Over time, they say that they get more positive feedback, likes, and social support from others, which may contribute to their lower depressive symptoms.

This suggests that certain ways of engaging with others online may be good for us, perhaps because they involve social connection rather than social comparison. By reaching out to others, engaging in meaningful social interactions, and strengthening our social bonds, we can likely improve our well-being online.

3. Learn new goals and habits

Technology has given us access to lots of health and wellness resources, making it easier than ever to build and practice skills like gratitude, mindfulness, and emotion regulation online. You can now use apps to do everything from tracking your mood to practicing therapeutic breathing to building resilience.

Although not all wellness apps are equally effective, research suggests that evidence-based smartphone apps can indeed teach us the skills we need to optimize our well-being, help us stay motivated to do so, and even benefit our mental health. For example, research is exploring the benefits of mindfulness apps, apps delivering cognitive-behavioral therapy techniques (CBT, the gold standard of therapy), and apps that predict people's moods and intervene with support at just the right time.

In my research, we found that a computer-based training in emotion regulation improved anxiety and well-being among those who had trouble regulating their emotions, suggesting that skills that promote happiness can be learned online.

4. Find health-related information and stories

As we all strive to take care of our minds and bodies, a full 80 percent of young adults have gone online for health information. Indeed, we may use the Internet to learn about health and wellness challenges, read others' health-related stories, or seek out a wellness practitioner. Research suggests that, by doing so, we may be able to feel more confident in our decisions and improve our communication with health providers.

Using the Internet in these ways may be important for those struggling with mental health issues like depression. For example, one participant says, "I have watched several people detail their fitness routines and how they used it to beat mental health disorders such as body dysmorphia and those affected by obesity and food addiction."

In fact, 90 percent of young people with depression have gone online seeking information about mental health issues. Although we need more research to understand how they use this information, it does seem that the Internet is one more avenue where people in need seek out support. By giving us access to information about health, mental health, and well-being, technology enables us all to more easily seek out and discover the wellness strategies we need.

However, for the Internet to be a useful tool to find health information, it's important to also increase our health literacy -namely, by ensuring people know which websites to trust, how to identify their health challenges accurately, and how to apply the information they discover.

Technology-the Internet, smartphones, and social media-can hurt our happiness, particularly if we let it interfere with or pull us away from face-to-face interactions.
But, if we're thoughtful about how we use technology, it also has the potential to make us happier. So we don't necessarily need to get rid of our phones and computers or go on a full digital detox. Developers just need to be thoughtful about building technology, and we need to be thoughtful about using it, in ways that promote happiness.

Greater Good wants to know: Do you think this article will influence your opinions or behavior?

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Four Ways Technology Can Make You Happier

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These days, you can't go anywhere without hearing about how technology is ruining everything, including our happiness. There is some truth to this, but it's not the whole story. Technology can be bad for us-for example, when social media gives us FOMO (fear of missing out) or traps us in filter bubbles that prevent us from seeing multiple points of view on important issues.

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How Positive Self-Talk Can Make You Feel Better and Be More Productive

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How Positive Self-Talk Can Make You Feel Better and Be More Productive

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This article is great about defining what is positive self talk, giving examples how to improve it and how positive talk will make your life easier.

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1. Online Bachelor's Programs

2. BS in Psychology

3. How Positive Self-Talk Can Make You Feel Better and Be More Productive

Resource Articles //

Research from schools of psychology points to the benefits of positivity.

You can do it. You're strong. You've got this. Those are the kinds of encouraging words we extend to friends, colleagues, and family members when they're experiencing self-doubt.

When facing our own challenges, the inner dialogue is often very different. I'm a terrible public speaker. I take too long to write these reports. Everyone in this class is so much smarter than I am. Suddenly, the compassion we so naturally and generously extend to others seems to evaporate.

But learning to be kind to yourself is work worth doing, experts say. Replacing negative psychological messages with positive ones can build self-esteem and confidence, and may bring results that surprise you in all the right ways. To get there, it all starts with self-talk.

Defining Self-Talk

"Many people are conscious of an inner voice that provides a running monologue throughout the day and even into the night. Cheerful and supportive or negative and self-defeating, this internal chatter is referred to as self-talk," according to Psychology Today magazine. "This inner voice combines conscious thoughts with unconscious beliefs and biases. ... This voice is useful when it is positive, talking down fears and bolstering confidence. Human nature is prone to negative self-talk, however, and ... this negativity can be unrealistic and even harmful, paralyzing people into inaction and self-absorption to the point of being unaware of the world around them." ¹

Flipping the Narrative

Once you tune in to your inner voice, you can begin to reverse any negative trends. The experts at the Mayo Clinic suggest an important ground rule: "Don't say anything to yourself that you wouldn't say to anyone else." ²

In its newsletter, the healthcare organization offers these examples of shifting your self-talk from negative to positive: ²

Instead of "I've never done it before," try "It's an opportunity to learn something new."

Instead of "It's too complicated," try "I'll tackle it from a different angle."

Instead of "No one bothers to communicate with me," try "I'll see if I can open the channels of communication."

Instead of "It's too radical a change," try "Let's take a chance."

Instead of "I'm not going to get any better at this," try "I'll give it another try."

Instead of "I don't have the resources," try "Necessity is the mother of invention."

Doing the Research

Some of the first psychological research on self-talk dates to the 1880s, ³ and across the years, much of the research has focused on the fields, courts, and arenas of sports.

"Early studies of self-talk in sport drew largely from the ideas of Albert Ellis's Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy and Aaron Beck's Cognitive Therapy, which highlighted self-talk as an important way to gain insight into faulty or irrational beliefs that influence emotion and behavior," write Judy L. Van Raalte and Andrew Vincent in the paper, Self-Talk in Sport and Performance. "In the research literature, both instructional and motivational self-talk have been shown to enhance performance." ³

Asked about the power of self-talk, one skilled tennis player in recreational leagues in Palm Beach County, Florida, said simply, "Oh my gosh, it's everything."

Track and field legend Carl Lewis once said, "My thoughts before a big race are usually pretty simple. I tell myself: Get out of the blocks, run your race, stay relaxed. If you run your race, you'll win ... Channel your energy. Focus." ⁴ It worked for Lewis, who won nine Olympic gold medals, and one silver.

Changing Perspective

You may not be dreaming of Olympic bling, but if you want to reap rewards in ways that are meaningful to you, consider tweaking your self-talk point of view. In Pronouns Matter When Psyching Yourself Up published in the Harvard Business Review, psychology professors and researchers Ozlem Ayduk and Ethan Kross say referring to yourself in the second or third person can make a difference, too.

"We found that cueing people to reflect on intense emotional experiences using their names and non-first-person pronouns such as 'you' or 'he' or 'she' consistently helped them control their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors," they write. "For example, in one study we found that participants who silently referred to themselves in the second or third person or used their own names while preparing for a five-minute speech were calmer and more confident and performed better on the task than those who referred to themselves using 'I' or 'me.'" ⁵

And the authors say the sense of well-being continued after the speech ended: "People who had used non-first-person pronouns or their names felt more positively about their performance on the speech once it was over. They also experienced less shame about it and ruminated about it less. Those are big pluses-ruminating endlessly over past experiences can hurt not only your psychological well-being but also your physical health." ⁵

Seeing Results

While self-talk research is ongoing, the Mayo Clinic experts say redirecting negative thoughts toward the positive may lead to: ²

So, if after reading this you're still thinking, "I could never do that," how about, "Here's my chance to try something new"? You've got this.

Interested in Careers in Psychology?

If topics like positive self-talk interest you, consider a BS in Psychology. An online psychology degree program is a valuable option for adult learners. Look for an accredited university offering multiple psychology degree concentrations so you can customize your career interests to your studies. At Walden University, students can choose a general program or one of nine concentrations.

Walden's School of Psychology helps prepare students for important learning outcomes that include:

Demonstrating familiarity with the major concepts, theoretical perspectives, empirical findings, and historical trends in psychology.

Understanding and applying basic research methods in psychology, including research design and data analysis and interpretation.

Applying cultural competencies to effective and sensitive interactions with people from diverse backgrounds and cultural perspectives.

After graduation, there are multiple career paths and roles psychology majors may pursue, including forensic treatment specialist, group home worker, researcher, court liaison, and laboratory assistant. A Bachelor of Science in Psychology can also serve as your first step toward an MS in Psychology or even a PhD in Psychology.

A bachelor's in psychology can give you more than a job-it can deliver you to a meaningful career. If you're passionate about wanting to know what makes people tick, and about making a difference in the lives of others, a degree in psychology may be just the right choice.

Walden University is an accredited institution offering a BS in Psychology degree program online with multiple concentrations to help you meet your personal and professional goals. Expand your career options and earn your degree in a flexible, convenient format that fits your busy life.

1 Source: www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/self-talk
2 Source: www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/positive-thinking/art-20043950
3 Source: http://oxfordre.com/psychology/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.001.0001/acrefore-9780190236557-e-157
4 Source: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/846b/e620ebd513dea8ee3dc16f6a0a10615e0028.pdf
5 Source: http://selfcontrol.psych.lsa.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Pronouns-Matter-when-Psyching-Yourself-Up-HBR1.pdf

Walden University is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission, www.hlcommission.org.

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Flipping the self-talk switch in our heads from negative to positive can help improve self-esteem and build confidence. And when we're feeling better about ourselves, we're bound to be more productive. These helpful examples can start you on your way.

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This article discusses an app called Guardly, one of numerous emerging apps dedicated to personal safety.

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Guardly is a free mobile application for smartphones that can help students and others faced with dating violence, abusive relationships or a simple desire to feel safe when walking alone at night. Guardly empowers its users by providing one-touch access to their personal safety network. Simply launching Guardly on a smartphone will instantly identify a user's location and alert family, friends as well as campus security (across the United States) that they are having an emergency. With one more tap, you can escalate your situation to 911 authorities.
Safety Groups
Guardly allows its users to configure Groups of personal contacts for specific use cases and/or emergency scenarios, which may include "Walking Home at Night", "Dating Abuse" and/or health conditions such as "Asthma Attack" or "Peanut Allergy". When Guardly is used to notify a Group, they will receive a phone call, text message and email stating that the user is having an emergency, the Group name alerted (which may contain important contextual information) and the real-time location of the user.
Smart Geofences
Guardly has created virtual geofences (real-world boundaries) around every major US university and college and has associated each geofence with campus security phone numbers. When a student launches Guardly within the boundaries of a geofence, they will be connected by phone to campus security -- in addition to standard Guardly notifications that will be sent to their personal safety network. Guardly is disintermediating code-blue emergency phones, already present on most campuses, by providing one-touch mobile access to campus security from virtually any location on campus. This service will be offered for free, but will be limited to students with proper university-issued email addresses.
Availability
Guardly mobile applications are available on iPhone, Android (beta), BlackBerry and Windows Phone.
Premium Features (available as an in-app purchase, but not included for free for the HHS Apps Against Abuse challenge or otherwise) Safe Campus Program (additional Guardly service and not included for free for the HHS Apps Against Abuse challenge) Privacy
Guardly mobile applications are capable of providing a premium service that goes beyond notifications and instantly connects users to their contacts through conference call, SMS, instant messaging and real-time location tracking throughout the duration of an incident. Additional built-in security features include the ability to snap and share photos and sound a loud whistle to deter potential assailants or draw attention to their situation.

Guardly has begun to roll-out its Safe Campus Program, which is a web-based campus security management solution that enables campus security teams to instantly respond to emergency incidents initiated through Guardly mobile applications. This is ready and available for every college and university campus across the US and improves upon their existing abilities with a technology suite that immediately identifies callers, communicates with them by voice and instant messaging, and tracks their location in real-time as an incident evolves. Our vision is to put code-blue emergency posts onto mobile devices of each student, faculty and staff member on campus, to reduce emergency response times and to reduce the number of violent and criminal acts that occur on campus.

Privacy is extremely important to Guardly. In particular, real-time location data will only be tracked and shared during an emergency incident and when triggered specifically by a user. Users have the ability to decide who will be alerted in case of emergency; only those contacts granted access will see personal information shared by the user with Guardly.
Security
Guardly (unlike: "Stop DV" or "IPV App") is a non-obvious name and can be positioned -- even to potential domestic violence partners -- as a tool that is good for one's general safety. This is beneficial since a potentially violent domestic partner may see Guardly installed on a mobile phone without drawing a direct connection back to them.

In general, Guardly will delete non-essential personal information collected within reasonable time frames, in accordance with privacy legislation; however, exceptions will be made for court orders and similar legal proceedings where personal information must be retained for extended periods of time. More information at: https://www.guardly.com/privacy
Safety
Guardly is designed to maximize personal security, knowing that friends, family, campus security and/or 9-1-1 are all just a tap away.
Mental Health
With regards to personal information, Guardly has security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse and unauthorized alteration of the information under our control. We keep account information on a secure server behind a firewall and protected with multiple levels of authorization and access control. Sensitive information, such as passwords, is stored with encryption and all data is transferred using secure socket layer technology (SSL).
Violence and Abuse Prevention Partners
Guardly maintains a long list of Recommended Safe Community Organizations online to help support those seeking local organizations that can assist in providing further education, awareness techniques and strategies to live a safer lifestyle. This list is accessible through mobile web and web to those seeking information, but is not included within the app so as to preserve its key function -- to instantly reach your safety network without complicating or cluttering the user experience.

Violence, threats, serious injury and other traumas can be very difficult for survivors to manage. For trauma survivors who experience trauma triggers, startle responses or other anxiety related responses, Guardly groups can be used to engage the support network needed for reassurance and to help the individual in distress get back to a safe place.

Guardly has partnered with Maryland-based Witness Justice (http://www.witnessjustice.org), a national organization that provides advocacy and support on issues ranging from intimate partner violence on college campuses to victims' rights. Witness Justice also provides a vast array of survivor resources including national hotline numbers, what to do in the 24 hours after a violent crime, crime prevention, safety and frequently asked questions. Witness Justice also just released the first intimate partner violence screening tool for use on college campuses, which is focused on awareness and violence prevention.

Guardly has also partnered with Washington DC-based Becky's Fund (http://beckysfund.org), which develops prevention-based educational programs to counter domestic violence and communicates ways to change the behavior and thinking behind issues that cause and perpetuate domestic violence. Becky's Fund recently launched the 6th leg of its National Domestic Violence College Tour, which has reached over 35 schools. This tour raises awareness and education about domestic and dating violence, and informs students about technology-based tools that can assist immediately prior to and during a violent incident.

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Guardly is a free mobile application for smartphones that can help students and others faced with dating violence, abusive relationships or a simple desire to feel safe when walking alone at night. Guardly empowers its users by providing one-touch access to their personal safety network.

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I chose this article because I think it shows how technology has enhanced creativity and I think it shows some pretty good examples.

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Among many other criticisms of tech is that it is killing creativity, or at least getting in the way. The detractors say that tech does this in different ways.

For example, they say the smartphone's ability to keep us entertained whenever boredom threatens stifles the original thinking that might have otherwise taken place. And the Internet, critics say, gives us a template for everything, and a limitless supply of content that we can draw from, copy, or even steal. Social media, meanwhile, provides an echo-chamber for what we think, minimising the creative conflict that leads to new ideas. All in all, it seems that in the minds of many, technology, creativity and innovation are in opposition.
Information isn't killing creativity, but enhancing it
But is technology limiting creativity? When the first video games were released, the public were told it would have this effect. Now, science is showing video games can help users to become more creative, not less.

Video games might represent just one small area of what we call tech, but we can see in the accusation that tech generally is killing creativity the same sort of knee-jerk negativity that comes with any significant cultural change. And like any wide-scale change, there are always negative consequences. In the case of technology, the benefits far outweigh those drawbacks - even when it comes to imagination and original thought.

Information does not eliminate creativity. We might have more data than ever, but the way that we use it is far from set out in stone. Who could have guessed fifteen years ago that people all around the world would be getting into the cars of strangers, or sleeping in the beds of people they'd never met? And yet Uber and Airbnb - two truly original companies - are now household brands. And that's to say nothing of the way Google has changed the way we live through its inventiveness. We take search-engine technology for granted, but Google's mastery in the field represents some of the most creative thinking for a generation. Thanks to them, with a few keyboard strokes we can ask the world questions like, "How can I improve my creativity?"
Technology increasing the reach of creatives
Technology doesn't only enable creativity, but nurtures it. Through platforms like YouTube, anyone with an Internet connection can hone their skills and be inspired by others, while meeting sites allow budding musicians, writers or filmmakers to get together and explore ideas and techniques.

In the past, there were barriers to creative success that technology has eroded. Thanks to the Internet, artists in tiny villages can reach a broad audience on the other side of the planet, and we in turn can experience kinds of creativity borne out of vastly different cultures, which enhances our own. Forums and media platforms might create echo-chambers for some forms of thought, but they also represent safe discussion arenas for all topics and people, including creatives and would-be creatives, where exercises and conversation can stimulate original thought.

Far from killing creativity, technology allows for a greater proliferation of ideas and products, which means more inspiration. Eric Colson, the chief algorithms officer at Stitch Fix, has said that machines "expand the number of possibilities that a human designer can consider", reports Business of Fashion. Sites like Instagram do same thing in the realm of photography: the vast number of images available means a limitless supply of inspiration for aspiring and professional photographers.

Technology is not perfect, and there are hundreds of articles that will tell you why. But the idea that there is something inherently creativity-stifling about technology simply isn't true, and the culture of creativity in Silicon Valley is only the most obvious proof of this. Creatives shouldn't fear the tech "onslaught" but look for ways that they can take advantage of it to become better at what they do. What we will soon find (and some would say it has happened already) is a not a shutdown in the imagination, but an unprecedented period of creative flourishing.

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Technology is not killing creativity, it is enhancing it

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Among many other criticisms of tech is that it is killing creativity, or at least getting in the way. The detractors say that tech does this in different ways. For example, they say the smartphone's ability to keep us entertained whenever boredom threatens stifles the original thinking that might have otherwise taken place.

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This article talks about how having more technology in the classroom can produce much more equity. Having more students in the classroom with equal chances to use technology will bring students on more of an equal level and bring opportunities to them.

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When used effectively, technology can greatly contribute to creating equity in schools. It removes barriers to learning materials, supports students where they are across varied learning contexts and needs, and gives educators more insight into the learning environments they're creating.

However, we can only realize these equity-centered benefits when we use technology in innovative and powerful ways. That means we shouldn't just use edtech to replace worksheets, run "drill and kill" exercises, or crunch assessment performance numbers.

To better understand how using technology can create equity in schools, we'll outline how technology creates more equitable situations in the classroom. And to help you better understand how you can use technology to create equitable situations in your classroom, school, or district, we'll talk about districts who are already using technology in a powerful way to increase equity for their students.

Three ways technology can help increase equity in schools

Technology isn't the only tool we can use to create equitable learning environments, but there are a few ways it can assist in that mission.

1. Students can access learning materials outside of school

One of the most straightforward ways that technology contributes to equity in schools is ensuring that every student has access to learning materials, even outside of the classroom. Students have fewer barriers to learning when they can use their tablets or laptops not only to find homework instructions, read e-books, and share important information with their families, but to create and work on independent projects, research topics that interest them, and connect with subject experts.

2. Students and educators have more tools to create a learning environment that fosters personalized learning

Edtech-especially edtech with a narrow, specific focus -can help create a personalized learning experience, ensuring that, through a differentiated approach, all students can access information at their own pace and in a way that's best suited to their learning needs. Supporting learner variability ideally means that more students become deeply engaged in their learning and fewer students are left behind.

3. Educators and district leaders can use data to make informed decisions

Outside of keeping track of test scores, educators can use technology to get helpful insights and more effectively make data-informed decisions. Connecting secure datasets such as absenteeism and homework completion with formative mathematics assessments, for example, allows educators to consider why issues may be happening, decide on a course of supportive action, and then use data to determine effectiveness.

Technology will help create equity in schools when it's used powerfully

Providing access to technology is important but not a complete solution when it comes to getting rid of systemic disparities caused by issues like income inequality, geographic isolation, or discrimination. Ensuring students have opportunities to use technology in powerful ways will also contribute to creating more equitable learning environments.

Digital Promise's League of Innovative Schools includes school districts who are using technology to create more equitable learning experiences. Here are some examples.

Ensuring internet access outside of school

Consider this: you've just been handed the keys to a car, and you're told you can drive it anywhere you want. There are so many possible destinations open to you, and you hop in ready for your road trip. But you look through the windshield to realize there's no road in front of you. Suddenly, your trip is looking a little more difficult (and a little less enjoyable). Your car is still useful; you can still go anywhere you want. But getting there would have been a lot easier if a road had been built.

A tablet without an internet connection is similarly useful. You can use it for writing, animating, making movies, and taking photos. But once you add the internet, the realm of possibilities is wide open. And finding tools and resources to support and supplement learning becomes much easier with the power of an Internet search available to you.

Disparities in internet access are tied to geographic isolation and differences in income, among other factors. According to Census Bureau data from 2016, nearly 82 percent of all households in the U.S. have an internet subscription of some kind. However, only 74 percent of households in nonmetropolitan areas have an internet subscription, compared to 83 percent of households located in metropolitan areas. And only 59 percent of households with an annual income of less than $25,000 have an internet subscription, compared to 89 percent of households making between $50,000 and $99,000 per year.

To bridge gaps in internet access between school and home, districts are getting creative to make WiFi available to students as often as possible. Morris School District in suburban New Jersey partners with EveryoneOn to offer all district households low-cost internet access. In rural Alabama, Piedmont City School District helped provide students with internet access by installing a town wireless network in 2011 using a federal E-rate grant. The district has since transitioned to providing MiFi devices for each student to ensure their internet access is uninterrupted, even when WiFi connections remain spotty in some areas.

Providing true 24/7 access to learning means more than distributing devices and providing internet connections in the classroom. It means taking a close look at student experiences when they leave the classroom and giving them every opportunity to continue learning whenever they want, wherever they might be.

Investing in professional development so teachers effectively personalize the learning experience for their students

To empower teachers to use technology in a way that complements a personalized learning environment, professional development, instructional coaching, peer-to-peer teaching, or a combination of all three will ensure that the technology has significant ROI.

In suburban Illinois, Gurnee School District 56 decided to take their commitment to personalized learning one step further by offering personalized professional development to educators. Teachers have access to workshops, in-class coaching, and building-based tech facilitators during the school year. In the summer, the district runs the Summer Tech Academy, where teachers can hone their skills and learn different ways to integrate technology in their classrooms. Providing access to this type of PD not only helps teachers learn new things, but also emphasizes the effectiveness of personalized learning for educators who experience it.

Effective and powerful use of technology in the classroom should involve helping teachers feel both comfortable with unfamiliar tech, and enthusiastic about new opportunities to create innovative learning experiences that meets learners where they are.

Using data to focus on measures outside of test scores

Finally, using student data to create a holistic picture of the current state of your learning environment and a complete picture of your learners-including mental and physical health-is more effective than simply tracking assessment data. Ensure that data is carefully and securely collected and that top notch privacy practices are in place

In Connecticut, Meriden Public Schools (MPS) uses a district-created "Climate Suite" to measure, track, and improve students' experiences in its schools. The district collects data through a School Climate Survey, a Getting to Know You Survey, and an MPS Cares self-reporting tool. Using this data, MPS is better able to cater to the social-emotional health of its students. As a result of actions taken using this data, MPS has seen a 93 percent decrease in expulsions and a 23 percent decrease in chronic absenteeism.

Start using technology to create equity in your schools

Access to technology alone isn't enough. Creating true equity in schools requires a commitment to increasing access to learning tools for students and their families, equipping teachers with the knowledge and skills to use new tech powerfully, and using student data effectively to make informed decisions about improving their learning experiences.
Resources to help you use technology to increase equity in schools:

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How Access to Technology Can Create Equity in Schools - Digital Promise

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When used effectively, technology can greatly contribute to creating equity in schools. It removes barriers to learning materials, supports students where they are across varied learning contexts and needs, and gives educators more insight into the learning environments they're creating. However, we can only realize these equity-centered benefits when we use technology in innovative and powerful ways.

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This talks about how different creativity can look especially now with the increase popularity in AI

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The future of creativity, brought to you by artificial intelligence

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How can AI reshape creativity in the business world? To start with, it can reduce the time and resources spent by marketing and ad teams.

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In this article, the author provides tips to build and maintain self esteem and positive body images while being involved in social media. There are many ways that the user can protect themself from negativity or anything harmful while also being involved.

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Social media is being used for many things, one being body positive and self-esteem movements. Platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter can foster vibrant conversations around positive self-esteem and body image campaigns.

In a recent study of females between the ages of 18-25, those who used Instagram more had a higher rate of self-objectification and negative body image [1].

One way to build a positive social media campaign to combat this is to change the messages shared on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media outlets.

Hashtagging

One way that individuals start a movement on social media is through the use of hashtags. Try using body positive messages such as #bodypositive or #loveyourbody.

Images that show pictures of strength and confidence that do not involve a 'picture perfect' person or an unrealistically thin individual's body is another way to spread a positive body image.

Organizations Take the Lead

Follow organizations that promote positive self-esteem and body image such as Proud2Bme, the National Eating Disorder Association, Mirror-Mirror and Eating Disorder Hope.

These organizations use social media platforms to spread messages of love, acceptance, advocacy, change, and positive self-esteem.

Through social media, eating disorder awareness weeks, days, and events are organized and posted and tweeted for the online community to see and follow. Social media can be a positive tool to use when wanting to change the way others view their own self-esteem and body.

Bullying has changed in recent years from being face-to-face to now occurring online. Research shows that cyberbullying is at an all-time high, especially as it pertains to body size [1]. Start promoting non-bullying acts on social media.

Stop the Self-Loathing

Block individuals who you see that are bullying others online. Stand up for those that are being cyberbullied and invite them to be a friend.

Let them and others know that you are there to support them if they need it. Post on your social media pages the National Suicide Hotline and the Bullying Hotline as these small actions can have a significant impact on others.

A survey found that teens who are active online worry about how their selfies are perceived by peers. 35% of girls are worried that they will be unflatteringly tagged in attractive photos, and 27% fear they will look unattractive in a photo [2].

No Filter Campaign Day

Start a No Filter day on social media with friends. Encourage others to be themselves and wear no makeup for a day. Post a photo with no filter, and ask your friends to just be themselves. Showing the world who you really are can be scary but it can be freeing to just be yourself.

Education is Power

Use social media as a way to educate and inspire others around you. Post messages about mental health, self-esteem or other ideas that are of interest to you. Connect with the world around you.

Get involved in a social movement via online. Get others involved. Share the message of what you are interested in learning more about and use your platform to spread the word.

Time for Self-Care

Even with social media being an incredible asset in promoting healthy self-esteem, it can be a negative tool as well. Try to limit how much time you spend on the Internet.

Too much social media, television, and screen time can interfere with your quality of life and how much you spend time with family and friends. Monitor how much time you are spending on your social media platforms, and set aside time to engage in other activities that do not use electronics.

Organizations Making An Impact

Proud2BMe is a website that works to promote healthy self-esteem and positive body image for pre-teens and teens across the United States [3]. They promote pro-recovery hashtags on social media, some being:

Other organizations, such as the National Eating Disorder Association, Binge Eating Disorder Association, Mirror-Mirror and Eating Disorder Hope all have Facebook Pages, Instagram accounts, and Twitter accounts where they promote advocacy, recovery, and prevention [3].

You can work with or volunteer with local chapters of some of these organizations to help organize awareness walks or create an event. Connect with them through their social media account or visit their website to learn more about local events in your area.

Many people are using social media as a place to document recovery. It can be a public area to house photos, conversations, messages, and statements around the recovery process.

It can also be a positive movement toward building self-esteem, self-acceptance, and positive self-image.

Learning to love yourself as you move toward recovery is part of the journey. Taking others on the journey allows for vulnerability, which is a significant part of the recovery path. This brave recover trek allows you to be authentic and helps you to heal and let go of the disorder.

Working to create a positive movement on social media can take time, work, and energy, but once you find your niche, it can be rewarding to see it take off.

Find others who share your passion to help spread your message of recovery, self-acceptance and positive self-image. Building your own self-esteem and positive body image, as well as others is something that does take time, but can be accomplished together.
About the Author: Libby Lyons is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Certified Eating Disorder Specialist (CEDS). Libby has been practicing in the field of eating disorders, addictions, depression, anxiety and other comorbid issues in various agencies. Libby has previously worked as a contractor for the United States Air Force Domestic Violence Program, Saint Louis University Student Health and Counseling, Saint Louis Behavioral Medicine Institute Eating Disorders Program, and has been in Private Practice. Libby currently works as a counselor at Fontbonne University and is an Adjunct Professor at Saint Louis University, and is a contributing author for Addiction Hope and Eating Disorder Hope. Libby lives in the St. Louis area with her husband and two daughters. She enjoys spending time with her family, running, and watching movies.
[1] What Does the Research Tell Us About Social Media and Body Image? (2017, May 02). Retrieved February 06, 2018, from https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/blog/what-does-the-research-show-social-media-body-image
[2] Knorr, C. (2017, January 12). How girls use social media to build up, break down self-image. Retrieved February 06, 2018, from https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/12/health/girls-social-media-self-image-partner/index.html
[3] Social Media and Body Image. (2017, May 02). Retrieved February 06, 2018, from https://www.projectknow.com/research/social-media-and-body-image/
[4] How to Use Social Media to Build Self-Esteem. (2017, August 15). Retrieved February 07, 2018, from https://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/buildingselfesteem/2016/01/how-to-use-social-media-to-build-self-esteem/
References: The opinions and views of our guest contributors, are shared to provide a broad perspective of eating disorders. These are not necessarily the views of Eating Disorder Hope, but an effort to offer a discussion of various issues by different concerned individuals. We at Eating Disorder Hope understand that eating disorders result from a combination of environmental and genetic factors. If you or a loved one are suffering from an eating disorder, please know that there is hope for you, and seek immediate professional help. Published on April 30, 2018
Reviewed on April 30, 2018 by Jacquelyn Ekern, MS, LPC

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Social Media Tips to Build Self Esteem & Positive Body Image

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Social media is being used for many things, one being body positive and self-esteem movements. Platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter can foster vibrant conversations around positive self-esteem and body image campaigns. In a recent study of females between the ages of 18-25, those who used Instagram more had a higher rate of self-objectification and negative body image [1].

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Creativity and Imagination

Creativity is defined by psychological scientists as the generation of ideas or products that are both original and valuable. Creativity relies on imagination, the conscious representation of what is not immediately present to the senses. Although research on creativity has increased in quantity and quality since J. P. Guilford's presidential address to the American Psychological Association in 1950, this fundamental human ability remains understudied in comparison to other important psychological phenomena. We are currently conducting a number of different research projects designed to better understand the causes and consequences of creativity, as well as how to enhance it.

Motivation and Creativity

One important antecedent of creative behavior is motivation. Why do individuals engage in creative work? What benefits, if any, do they anticipate? Past research on this important topic has shown that individuals who are intrinsically motivated tend to be more creative. In other words, individuals who engage in creative activities for the sake of the activities themselves (and not for the sake of extrinsic constraints of rewards) are better able to come up with original and valuable ideas. In addition, a small but growing body of literature suggests that prosocial motivation, defined as the desire to contribute to the lives of others, may also enhance creative thinking. Our ongoing research projects attempt to broaden the scientific understanding of the role of motivation in creativity by further investigating the specific nature of creators' motivations, and the relationship between motivations, achievement, and well-being.

Creativity and Well-Being

Past research suggests that creative activities may have therapeutic benefits and enhance well-being. To date, little research has however investigated the mechanisms explaining how creative thinking may confer its benefits. Current research projects at our center examine the possibility that creative thinking may enhance well-being by enhancing cognitive flexibility and problem-solving abilities, by providing individuals with an important sense of mastery and agency, and by helping individuals perceive benefits after going through adversity.

Enhancing Creativity

We are currently designing and testing novel domain-specific interventions in order to help individuals increase their creative thinking skills and further examine the benefits of creativity for achievement and well-being. While past research has tended to focus on enhancing particular cognitive abilities for this purpose (i.e., divergent thinking skills), we are investigating the efficacy of motivational strategies, among other tools.

The Imagination Institute

The Imagination Institute is dedicated to making progress on the measurement, growth, and improvement of imagination across all sectors of society. Currently, there is little consensus on how to objectively measure imagination. To achieve its mission, the Imagination Institute is holding a grants competition and a series of events to lay the foundation for the long-term development of an "Imagination Quotient" and how to build imagination.

See The Imagination Instutute for more information.

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Creativity is defined by psychological scientists as the generation of ideas or products that are both original and valuable. Creativity relies on imagination, the conscious representation of what is not immediately present to the senses. Although research on creativity has increased in quantity and quality since J. P.

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Creativity Survival: Unexpected Ways of Using Technology

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Creativity Survival: Unexpected Ways of Using Technology

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I chose this article because it's a study and website created by someone from Furman University and a Grad student from NC State. The Mobile Networked Creativity Repository is essentially to viewed, shared, and read by anyone with access to the internet or their mobile app.

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People and communities are constantly finding new uses for existing technologies - things the technology's designers never intended, and possibly never even considered. To better understand this creative process, I'm part of a team of researchers that is collecting examples of how people are using mobile, networked technologies to accomplish unexpected things - from improving local transportation in low-income communities to sharing information about public health.

To identify examples of these innovative efforts, we are enlisting the public's help. We've created a website called the Mobile Networked Creativity Repository to crowdsource examples from around the world.

Here's why we're doing this.

Creativity is a hot topic. An increasing number of trade publications aim at teaching people "how to be more creative." Some companies are setting aside "innovation time," encouraging employees to explore new ideas that could ultimately benefit their employers. However, these efforts all focus on creativity in the context of contributing to a corporate bottom line.

"Creativity" becomes, then, a way of enticing people to work harder, beat the competition and be successful in the workplace. This perspective presents creativity as something achieved by intense individual concentration and contemplation - an activity reserved for those with the time, money and resources to be creative.

However, we should not forget that creativity also happens in situations of hardship, where there is a lack of time, money and resources. For example, when slum dwellers in favelas or forced migrants in makeshift dwellings repurpose technology to improve their living conditions, they are not only appropriating technology: they are both collectively recreating their relationship with technology and re-inventing themselves - granting themselves autonomy, creating community, or acquiring access to services that they would otherwise not have. This process not only changes how people and communities use technology, it also changes how they view themselves and interact with the world.

We understand creativity as a process that relies on networked resources and mobility within an environment that connects people and technologies. For example, in the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, where walking paths are unpaved and access to wheelchairs are limited, Safwan Harb looked to his surroundings to create an electric bike made from spare parts. In doing so, he was not just inventing a wheelchair-bike-he was re-creating himself as someone with mobility. Understanding creativity from a survival perspective means removing the focus from the individual as innovator (as well as the profit-oriented goal), and instead highlighting the ongoing networked relationships among people, technologies and spaces. This creative process is not only concerned with the creation of new things. Rather, it is about the mobility and networking of resources that can improve lives and facilitate survival strategies.

Working with collaborators Mai Nou Xiong-Gum of Furman University and Kelsey Dufresne, a grad student at NC State, we've created the Mobile Networked Creativity Repository to capture these instances of creation, and the myriad elements that drive them. Our goal is to reframe traditional ideas of creativity by building a crowdsourced repository of creative practices that emerge from a process of survival.

Once content is published on the Mobile Networked Creativity Repository, it can be viewed, read and shared by anyone with access to the Internet via a computer or a mobile device. Moreover, because the repository is built on PubPub's collaborative web platform, it offers support for sharing, integrating and embedding all sorts of digital content - particularly multimodal media.

We developed the repository's format to accomplish four main goals:
(1) explain Mobile Networked Creativity for a broad audience;
(2) share existing research and materials about this topic;
(3) ask the audience to contribute to the collection; and
(4) display the crowdsourced examples we get from the public.

In building the repository, we were especially interested in collecting publicly identified instances of Mobile Networked Creativity to support the development and accessibility of a broad collection of examples from around the world. Currently, the contribution format encourages potential participants and contributors to describe and share their instances of Mobile Networked Creativity through a Google Form linked from the website.

On the form, individuals are asked to describe their example of Mobile Networked Creativity and explain its relevance. We are particularly concerned about accessibility and giving everyone the opportunity to contribute. Therefore, participants have the option to upload an audio file instead of writing a text. In addition, participants have the option to upload media files, such as photos and videos, to better describe their contribution. Finally, participants can add the geographic location of their contribution and the time frame of the event or example, if pertinent.

After reviewing submitted entries, out team uploads the most representative ones to the repository. We plan on rotating the various submissions on the main page of the repository, while also giving the public access to the submissions we receive through the repository's Examples page. Maintaining and displaying publicly documented and accessible materials is consistent with UNESCO's recommendations for open science to support more equitable and collaborative knowledge sharing.

Keeping in mind that most Mobile Networked Creativity processes occur outside of the Global North and English-speaking contexts, we are in the process of translating the repository into different languages. We already have a Portuguese version online, and plan to make more languages available as soon as possible. In doing so, we hope to be able to not only collect examples from all around the world, but also to reach an audience outside of traditional Global North contexts. The ultimate goal of the project is to include a diversity of communities in conceptualizing creativity outside traditional capitalist contexts, as well as making them aware that non-traditional ways of using and appropriating technology are also creative, and should be valued as such.

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Creativity as Survival: Crowdsourcing Unexpected Ways We Use Technology

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People and communities are constantly finding new uses for existing technologies - things the technology's designers never intended, and possibly never even considered. To better understand this creative process, I'm part of a team of researchers that is collecting examples of how people are using mobile, networked technologies to accomplish unexpected things - from improving local transportation in low-income communities to sharing information about public health.

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Ensuring Equity in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

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Ensuring Equity in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

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This article highlights an interview with Dr. Susan K. Gregurick, Director of the NIH Office of Data Science Strategy. In this interview, she talks about the importance of diversity in the data sets for artificial intelligence and machine learning research.

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Under Dr. Gregurick's leadership, the NIH launched the Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Consortium to Advance Health Equity and Researcher Diversity (AIM-AHEAD) program in 2021. AIM-AHEAD is a national initiative to address the lack of diversity in artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) research and data. I recently spoke with Dr. Gregurick about AIM-AHEAD's objectives and how it will enhance scientific workforce diversity.

Q. What are the main goals of the AIM-AHEAD program?

The rapid increase in the volume of data generated through electronic health records (EHR) and other biomedical research presents exciting opportunities for developing AI and machine learning approaches for biomedical research and improving healthcare-including health equity. Yet, a lack of diversity in the data used to train AI/ML models and among AI/ML researchers runs the risk of creating and perpetuating harmful biases, thus fostering continued health disparities and inequities.

AIM-AHEAD seeks to enhance the participation of researchers and communities underrepresented in AI/ML model development, use AI/ML to address health disparities and inequities, and improve AI/ML capabilities, beginning with EHR data.

The program will achieve these goals by targeting four related areas: partnerships, research, infrastructure, and data science training. Establishing mutually beneficial partnerships will integrate AI/ML data science research networks with community and clinical research networks to form collaborations and engage underrepresented scientists at various career stages.

Partners will use new and existing datasets to develop and enhance AI/ML algorithms and apply AI/ML approaches to address health inequities and disparities. AIM-AHEAD will also enable a coordinated data and computing infrastructure that enhances the interoperability of data resources. Finally, AIM-AHEAD will provide training opportunities in data science and health disparities research, among other areas, to increase AI/ML analytics capabilities and foster diversity in the discipline.

Q. What are the gaps that AIM-AHEAD will fill?

Biomedical and clinical research use AI/ML in numerous ways, from identifying patterns in patient data to recommending treatment strategies. However, the lack of diversity AI/ML research and data can perpetuate biases in applications, algorithms development and training, and interpretation of findings. For example, AI algorithms are often trained with data that does not represent the full diversity of a population, which can perpetuate racial and ethnic and gender biases, leading to health disparities and inequities.

Underrepresented researchers and communities in AI/ML have untapped potential to contribute expertise, data, recruitment strategies, and innovation to this rapidly advancing discipline. In addition, research suggests a relationship between increased workforce diversity and improved patient outcomes, so a diverse AI/ML research community has the potential to better anticipate and detect biases in AI/ML systems and address health disparities.

Q. How will AIM-AHEAD enhance biomedical data science workforce development?

As a national program with regional hubs across the United States, AIM-AHEAD is well-positioned to develop and invest in a diverse scientific workforce. For example, AIM-AHEAD partnerships and evidence-informed training opportunities will enhance researcher diversity at all career stages, including leadership positions. The result will be an inclusive research community poised to advance biomedical data science.

AIM-AHEAD will also catalyze the development of an inclusive and engaged community in biomedical data science by establishing strong criteria for a thorough training needs evaluation, a systematic approach to execution, and accountability for broad inclusion-principles often absent in AI/ML.

Q. Tell me about the new NIH-funded AIM-AHEAD consortium.

In September 2021, the NIH awarded an initial $50 million to the University of North Texas Health Science Center (UNTHSC) to lead the AIM-AHEAD Coordinating Center (A-CC). UNTHSC is partnered with 15 other institutions; they compose the A-CC and have expertise in community engagement, health equity research, AI and data science training, and data infrastructure. The A-CC is developing a consortium of institutions with a core mission to serve health disparity populations and an interest in building a more inclusive basis for AI/ML. The consortium will engage in various activities to enhance AI/ML research while developing and sustaining relationships with groups impacted by health disparities, and new collaborators are welcome.

Q. How does AIM-AHEAD fit into the larger NIH vision for equity in biomedical research?

AIM-AHEAD will help the NIH accelerate the pace of biomedical innovation and employ the promise of AI/ML to improve the health of everyone in the nation. Ensuring that the benefits of AI/ML are equitably shared across all groups and populations is a multi-factor, grand challenge for biomedical and health research.

AIM-AHEAD is a significant NIH investment to address this challenge with the potential to transform AI/ML by creating a more inclusive foundation for advancing AI/ML systems in a fair, inclusive manner. It also furthers broader NIH goals to promote the ethical creation and use of data and AI/ML models across the research ecosystem while broadening and diversifying participation in biomedical data science.

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office of the director scientific workforce diversity

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Ensuring Equity in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

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The Scientific Workforce Diversity (SWD) Office leads NIH's effort to diversify the national scientific workforce and expand recruitment and retention. We invite you on this journey to establish NIH as the national scientific workforce diversity leader by widening and deepening our ways of thinking and practice.

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The physical therapy department at the University of North Georgia collaborated with design students at the Georgia Institute of technology to share and create new innovations and tools to help in the field of physical therapy.

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During her work as a physical therapist, Dr. Kimberly Castle has had a thought replaying in her mind over and over again.

"I sometimes think 'I wish someone would invent that to help my patients,'" said the associate professor of physical therapy at the University of North Georgia (UNG).

She wasn't the only one nor the first. Dr. Teresa Conner-Kerr, professor of physical therapy and dean of the College of Health Sciences and Professions at UNG, had a similar notion. She then pioneered the effort of turning the notion into a reality known as cREATe, a collaborative effort between UNG's physical therapy department and industrial design students from Georgia Institute of Technology. cREATe is an annual, weeklong conference aimed at building innovative assistive technology for clients with physical disabilities.

Now, the physical therapy department has gone a step further by expanding cREATe into a new educational concentration called IDEA4Rehab.

UNG's Department of Physical Therapy implemented the new track of study to teach students how to design, develop, market and sell a product of their own creation to help patients with mobility problems.

"It is designed to help physical therapists invent something for someone to use in a clinic or for a particular problem," Castle said.

And it is working. Through the current cREATe program, third-year physical therapy students Geena Sneeringer and Rachel Philips volunteered to help a man with cerebral palsy who lives at Chelsey Park Health & Rehabilitation in Dahlonega.

"He is non-verbal and communicates by using his toe to press buttons on a remote to spell out what he needs," said Philips, a 24-year-old from Jacksonville, Fla.

A computer system has been adapted to help a man with cerebral palsy communicate easier and more efficiently. The system will have a mouse-like button, an iPad and the Apple accessibility feature.

Sneeringer said this limits the man in his 40s to communicating in writing from his room. He uses other forms of communication to participate in activities at Chelsey Park.

Sneeringer and Philips have been working to adapt a computer system with a mouse-like button, an iPad and the Apple accessibility feature to help him communicate easier and more efficiently.

Both students said having this hands-on experience provides them practical problem-solving skills. They also applaud UNG's physical therapy department for looking to the future and implementing the program into the curriculum.

UNG is the first university in Georgia to devise such a program track for creativity, innovation and research. It seems to be a creative boom.

Dr. Mary Ellen Oesterle, head of the physical therapy department, recognized the opportunity to change the way UNG educates Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) students. By providing them a curricular experience in entrepreneurial design, students receive the tools they need to innovate and change practice.

"This puts physical therapists in the driver's seat for designing the devices our patient's need rather than adopting products designed by others outside of our field," she said.

UNG students in the creative and innovation track are developing a range of products and ideas that could be used in the physical therapy field. For example, one group is developing a computer app to measure the range of motion in infants and children. Another group is devising a model to help teach people about how bones develop typically compared to how they develop in chronic childhood conditions. A third group is focused on clinical results, while a fourth is aiming to help patients who have had a stroke.

"I have a project that is going to develop an application in virtual reality to be used as a diagnostic tool," said Dr. Andrzej Przybyla, associate professor of physical therapy at UNG. "We have many more projects than I expected, which is great news."

Dr. Rachael Walton-Mouw, assistant professor of physical therapy at UNG, said many of the ideas and products formulated with this cohort of students are going to prove useful in the clinical world. But that's not the best part.

"It opens up some many avenues for the students and what they want to do," she said.

Castle agreed, noting it allows the students to find unique answers to their patients' problems.

"The whole idea is a physical therapist is an inventor," she said. "Instead of relying on others, we can come up with the solution."

All three faculty members pointed out the collaborative efforts between clinicians and engineers are an essential part of the process. Przybyla, a scientist and engineer with research, entrepreneurship, and product development expertise, joined UNG DPT to help build this innovative program. He and other faculty collaborate with students on the ideas to turn them into actual products.

"That is significant and shows the commitment of the UNG DPT program has to this endeavor," Walton-Mouw said.

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Physical therapy department turns ideas into inventions

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During her work as a physical therapist, Dr. Kimberly Castle has had a thought replaying in her mind over and over again. "I sometimes think 'I wish someone would invent that to help my patients,'" said the associate professor of physical therapy at the University of North Georgia (UNG).

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Overview

The continuing evolution of automotive technology aims to deliver even greater safety benefits than earlier technologies. One day, automated driving systems, which some refer to as automated vehicles, may be able to handle the whole task of driving when we don't want to or can't do it ourselves.

Number of people killed in motor vehicle crashes in 2020

The Topic

Related Topic

Many vehicles on the road today have driver assistance technologies, which help to save lives and prevent injuries on our nation's roads. While some driver assistance technologies are designed to warn you if you're at risk of an impending crash, others are designed to take action to avoid a crash.

The continuing evolution of automotive technology, including driver assistance technologies and automated driving systems, aim to deliver even greater safety benefits.

A Vision for Safety: Learn More

Download NHTSA's voluntary guidance, technical documentation, and additional resources related to automated vehicles.

Safety/Convenience Features

Cruise Control
Seat Belts
Antilock Brakes

Advanced Safety Features

Electronic Stability Control
Blind Spot Detection
Forward Collision Warning
Lane Departure Warning

Advanced Driver Assistance Features

Rearview Video Systems
Automatic Emergency Braking
Pedestrian Automatic Emergency Braking
Rear Automatic Emergency Braking
Rear Cross Traffic Alert
Lane Centering Assist

Partially Automated Safety Features

Lane Keeping Assist
Adaptive Cruise Control
Traffic Jam Assist

Fully Automated Safety Features

The Topic

GRAPHIC

Cars and trucks that drive us - instead of us driving them - may offer transformative safety opportunities at their maturity. At this time, even the highest level of driving automation available to consumers requires the full engagement and undivided attention of drivers. There is considerable investment into safe testing, development and validation of automated driving systems. These automotive technology advancements also have the potential to improve equity, air pollution, accessibility and traffic congestion.

Safety

Vehicle safety promises to be one of automation's biggest benefits. Higher levels of automation, referred to as automated driving systems, remove the human driver from the chain of events that can lead to a crash. While these systems are not available to consumers today, the advantages of this developing technology could be far-reaching.

What is available to consumers today: active safety systems. These are types of advanced driver assistance systems, which provide lower levels of automation that can assist a driver by anticipating imminent dangers and working to avoid them.

Collectively, these technologies will help protect drivers and passengers, as well as bicyclists and pedestrians.

Mobility

While full societal benefits of automated driving systems are difficult to project, their transformative potential is recognized. Automated driving systems, at their maturity, could increase mobility for seniors and people with disabilities and expand transportation options for underrepresented communities. NHTSA encourages equity to be considered and addressed throughout the ADS infrastructure and vehicle design processes.

Economic and Societal Benefits

Automated technologies could deliver additional economic and societal benefits. A NHTSA study showed that motor vehicle crashes cost billions each year. Eliminating the majority of vehicle crashes through technology could reduce this cost.

ENVIRONMENTAL

The automotive industry is moving toward more automation and electrification, which both hold promise for further improvements in safety and better environmental practices. Vehicle automation will potentially change the need for individualized parking spaces and lots, with increased use of automated ride share and shuttle fleets, which could dramatically transform land use. Also, vehicle electrification opens up possibilities to improve efficiency with less personal driving, resulting in further reductions of air pollutants from the transport sector.

Efficiency and Convenience

Americans spent an estimated 6.9 billion hours in traffic delays in 2014, cutting into time at work or with family, increasing fuel costs and vehicle emissions. Automated driving systems have the potential to improve efficiency and convenience.

The Topic

There is no vehicle currently available for sale that is fully automated or "self-driving." Every vehicle currently for sale in the United States requires the full attention of the driver at all times for safe operation. While an increasing number of vehicles now offer some automated features designed to assist the driver under specific conditions, these vehicles are not fully automated.

Currently, states permit a limited number of "self-driving" vehicles to conduct testing, research, and pilot programs on public streets and NHTSA monitors their safety through its Standing General Order. NHTSA and USDOT are committed to overseeing the safe testing, development and deployment of these systems - currently in limited, restricted and designated locations and conditions.

Many vehicles today include features that assist drivers in specific circumstances, such as keeping us from drifting out of our lane or helping us stop in time to avoid a crash or reduce its severity. Read more about this on NHTSA's safety technologies topic. If you're currently shopping for a new vehicle, review NHTSA's 5-Star Safety Ratings to make informed decisions about the safety features included in the vehicle.

Cybersecurity is a critical issue that USDOT and automotive companies are working to address for the future safe deployment of these technologies. Advanced vehicle safety technologies depend on an array of electronics, sensors, and computing power. In advancing these features and exploring the potential of full automation, USDOT and NHTSA are focused on cybersecurity to ensure that companies appropriately safeguard these systems to be resilient and work as intended. You can read more about our approach by visiting NHTSA's vehicle cybersecurity topic.

NHTSA In Action

NHTSA demonstrates its dedication to saving lives on our nation's roads and highways through its approach to the safe development, testing, and deployment of new and advanced vehicle technologies that have enormous potential for improving safety and mobility for all Americans.

NHTSA supports the Safe System Approach, a data-driven, holistic, and equitable method to roadway safety that fully integrates the needs of all users. As part of this approach, vehicle safety technologies offer unique opportunities to reduce traffic deaths, injuries, and harm.

In 2021, NHTSA issued a Standing General Order that requires manufacturers and operators of automated driving systems and SAE Level 2 advanced driver assistance systems equipped vehicles to report crashes to the agency.

In 2020, NHTSA launched Automated Vehicle Transparency and Engagement for Safe Testing. As part of the AV TEST initiative, states and companies can voluntarily submit information about testing of automated driving systems to NHTSA, and the public can view the information using NHTSA's interactive tool.

In September 2016, NHTSA and the U.S. Department of Transportation issued the Federal Automated Vehicles Policy, which sets forth a proactive approach to providing safety assurance and facilitating innovation. Building on that policy and incorporating feedback received through public comments, stakeholder meetings, and Congressional hearings the agency issued Automated Driving Systems: A Vision for Safety.

The resources table requires JavaScript to be displayed.

Learn about testing happening in the U.S.

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Get info on automated driving systems, also referred to as automated vehicles and "self-driving" cars, and learn about their safety potential.

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This website has a variety of different safety topics and information to give out to people who are in search of it. It varies in topics and even has a search bar for specific things you are looking for for certain information.

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US Department of Health and Human Services

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HHS agencies offer resources to help families and individuals stay safe by being informed about food, drugs, medical devices, violence prevention, and more.

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This article highlights the benefits of remote counseling and how it has become more useful.

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FAQs

What are the 3 types and categories of therapy?

Out of the numerous types of therapy services with counselors or counseling services with counselors available, three major types are:

Psychodynamic therapy

Behavioral therapy

Cognitive-behavioral therapy

Psychodynamic Therapy

Psychodynamic therapy is developed from psychoanalysis. It involves taking a long-term approach to public health via mental health therapy through real-time online counseling sessions. Therapists that use this type of therapy use conversations to uncover subconscious patterns in thoughts or behavior that might be causing a decline in mental health with the subsequent development of a mental illness. They also encourage their clients to share details about their daily life, dreams, past, fantasies, and childhood. This strategy is a positive psychology method in which there is great potential for people experiencing substance abuse.

Technology and counseling makes it possible for the patient to undergo Psychodynamic therapy without being physically present in an office, thanks to real-time virtual sessions. Depending on the application, it can also be considered a form of public health therapy.

Psychodynamic therapy seeks to make a real-time connection between your unconscious mind, subconscious mind, and conscious thoughts and actions. Such inquiries make psychodynamic therapy a great choice of treatment in substance abuse. To do this, they make inquiries about your relationships, emotional response to certain people and situations and may even require you to journal your prominent thoughts.

This detailed inquiry is why psychodynamic therapy tends to last for a long time. During a pandemic where mobility is limited, people can use teletherapy to improve their mental health.

Psychodynamic therapy is executed so that even after treatment is complete, the person will be able to take charge of their healing and continue the process on their own. The therapist or counselors work with the clients to create a lifestyle of healing and progress and eliminate or subdue the roots of their mental health problems. Such sessions can either be real-time online counseling with clients or distance counseling with technology. The baseline is that it requires clear communication between the client and therapist, and good internet access can make this possible. The wholesome healing process for clients that follows psychodynamic therapy is beneficial to public health.

The application of various new technologies is now adopted in a wide range of psychodynamic strategies for public health. Take, for instance, a mental illness brought about by substance abuse. A therapist can use technology-assisted primary care to help this patient improve their mental health.

This type of therapy is useful in treating:

Depression

Anxiety

eating disorders

somatic symptoms

substance abuse disorder etc.

Behavioral Therapy

Behavioral therapy is an action-focused type of mental health therapy.

The general idea is that the exhibited behaviors stem from things learned, whether consciously or unconsciously, in the past. Behavioral therapy aims to change the person's behavioral responses to things and a wide range of situations. This exploration of unconscious patterns makes this kind of therapy perfect for treating conditions related to substance abuse.

One of the benefits of real-time teletherapy is that it allows clients to communicate with their therapists whenever they find themselves in a distressing situation through real-time sessions and technology. This way, the necessary action can be taken when it's needed.

Unlike psychodynamic therapy, behavioral therapy does not involve much talking when treating mental illness. Neither does it probe too deeply in the unconscious patterns that cause conscious behavior. Instead, behavioral therapy seeks to educate the client in real-time sessions on how to change their behavioral patterns and emotional reactions to distressing situations.

Behavioral therapy has numerous subtypes. These include:

Systematic desensitization uses gradual exposure and relaxation exercises to transform your behavioral reaction and emotional response to specific people, objects, or situations. This form of behavioral therapy has a proven positive impact in mental illness and public health.

Aversion therapy teaches you to connect undesirable behaviors with undesirable things; this way when your brain learns to identify unwanted behaviors as unhelpful and harmful. You will then be able to replace them with desirable behavior. The focus is on the use of association to subdue undesirable behavioral patterns or responses.

Take, for instance, a patient indulging in substance abuse can be taught to associate compulsive triggers with undesirable things. This way, the patient is less impulsive in such triggers as they aren't as enticing as before. Ultimately this leads to a regression in their substance abuse behavior.

This is often considered to be identical to systematic desensitization. There is, however, an obvious difference between the two. While systematic desensitization takes a gradual approach to expose you to your fears, flooding requires you to face your fears directly from the start. If you have a fear of elevators and are using the flooding method, you will be taken to an elevator to confront your fears directly. However, because of its risk factor, you will rarely find a therapist using this. This type of therapy is usually less preferred in treating a substance abuse case.

Behavioral therapy is indicated in:

Anxiety

Phobias

Substance Use Disorder

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Oppositional and Defiant Behaviors

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive-behavioral therapy is very similar in many ways to behavioral therapy, except it is not solely action-based. Because of its short-paced style, you will often find a therapist using CBT. It also focuses on treating the root problem of damaging thought patterns and behavioral reactions stemming from the unconscious. Being a form of positive therapy, Cognitive behavioral therapy is being done using teletherapy at an increasing rate.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy seeks to address the beliefs and emotions a patient holds about themselves and others that may be causing distress and precipitating mental disorders like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The belief is that these negative emotions and thoughts are contributing to any mental health decline you may be experiencing.

During real-time CBT sessions, your therapist will help you identify and understand the harmful patterns you might have adopted. You can also work together with your family members to create measures against these patterns and eventually replace them with practices that reinforce positive emotions. Just like distance counseling, this can be done with home-based therapy such as video conferencing or other forms of online technology therapy, rather than traditional face-to-face sessions.

CBT is typically used to treat:

Mood Disorders

Addiction

ADHD

Anxiety and Phobias

Eating Disorders

Bipolar Disorder

Substance Use Disorders

OCD

Insomnia Etc.

Well-coordinated real-time sessions are a great way to begin a healthy therapeutic relationship.

Are clinical psychologists therapists?

This is a question that is commonly asked. There is a simple difference between a therapist and a psychologist. While both functions to improve the lives of individuals, they both approach this in different ways.

Psychologists usually have an advanced degree in psychology and do a lot of evidence-based research, and manage people living with anxiety and depression. They may or may not practice as a therapist but are qualified to carry out various therapies like anger management. They also help diagnose disorders in clients and patients and help select the right approach towards treatment like anger management strategies.

Psychologists usually work with therapists and help to make clinical diagnoses and observations to achieve positive psychology. On the other hand, 'therapists' are psychologists, psychiatrists, marriage counselors, life coaches, and social workers. They don't necessarily need to have a psychology degree, although it helps to practice positive psychology. This versatility is one of the benefits of teletherapy. Also, therapists are easier to access than psychologists, so it is not difficult to find a therapist.

What are the responsibilities of a clinical psychologist?

Clinical psychologists are responsible for helping clients identify the existing emotional, mental, and behavioral patterns that negatively affect them. A clinical psychologist is responsible for diagnosing any disorders that the client may have. Clinical psychologists are also responsible for selecting and executing an appropriate treatment plan and may also indulge in evidence-based research to further their career.

Clinical psychologists also conduct evidence-based research relevant to their field and publish valuable papers. Clinical psychologists may work in offices, from home, or a research center due to the availability of technology that supports online therapy and online counseling. A lot of clinical psychologists opt for traditional face-to-face therapy or distance counseling. This availability of options is one of the benefits of teletherapy.

What are the areas of clinical psychology?

Areas of clinical psychology include but are not limited to:

Forensic Psychology: which uses both forensics and psychology to help solve legal cases. This type of psychology should not be confused with occupational therapy.

Clinical Child Psychology: this focuses on providing mental health therapy to children and improving their overall quality of life via real-time virtual counseling sessions. New technology is also breaking ground in child psychology.

Health Psychology or Health Therapy: a health psychologist provides mental health support for individuals whose physical health problems are negatively affecting their mental health. They focus on helping people cope with poor health and maintain good mental health.

Clinical Neuropsychology: This involves an evidence-based pilot study of the relationship between the brain and behavior. And helping individuals with brain injuries achieve perfect mental health.

What is the main focus of clinical psychology?

Clinical psychology focuses on ensuring quality mental and behavioral health care for individuals and families. This is achieved through proper research, diagnosis, and treatment of various mental health issues across a lifespan. Clinical psychology works by integrating clinical knowledge with science and theories in patient management. Evidence-based research has shown that recent technological advancements permit the incorporation of virtual reality in patient management. An evidence-based pilot study has shown that technology-assisted therapy has great potential as current applications have only scratched the surface.
What is tech-based therapy?
Technology-based therapy is a therapy service that uses technological tools and platforms. Therapists use technology like social media to achieve their goals in providing quality healthcare. An excellent example of technology-based therapy is real-time online therapy using today's technology. Online therapy is any therapy practice that takes place with the assistance of an electronic device or form of technology.

Nowadays, technology tools like therapy software make long-distance therapy possible via real-time communication between the therapist and client. Because of this new technology's contribution to therapy, therapy software can be considered a form of technology-based therapy. Online technology tools can also help people dealing with declining mental health to find a therapist. Technology tools like Google can help you find a therapist or the best online therapy available. Real-time online therapy is also useful for individuals who don't have health insurance.

What therapy is talk therapy?

Talk therapy is a type of psychotherapy that involves real-time verbal interaction between the therapist and a patient. It is commonly a part of psychodynamic therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy and uses speech as a core part of its process. Talk therapy uses extensive conversations to help uncover the issues causing the client's distress. It is not to be mistaken for speech therapy. The use of technology-assisted strategies has also proven beneficial to talk therapy and talk therapy can take place via online therapy that we created with the advacement of technology.
Does tech affect behavior?
Yes, technology affects behavior in several ways; this is because the gadgets we use are more like extensions of ourselves rather than manual tools. In this day and age, however, technology is used not just to accomplish tasks but, more importantly, to achieve a desired position in the social hierarchy, in many new ways.

New technology has also enabled us to record moments we consider meaningful and communicate emotions such as affection, love, anger, disdain, and desire. Because of technology's social nature and the constant social interaction that it allows us to participate in, some of our behavior is often dictated by technology, in positive and negative ways.

The good thing is that, even though the emergence of new technology comes with a potentially destructive implication to public health, this technology also has great potential to impact primary care positively. People who live with conditions that society is yet to understand, such as addiction and ADHD, can use technology and counseling to locate mental health help.

This application of technology to primary care has a great potential to have a desirable effect on daily life.

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Technology & Counseling: New Age In Technology & Therapy | BetterHelp

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Out of the numerous types of therapy services with counselors or counseling services with counselors available, three major types are: Psychodynamic therapy Behavioral therapy Cognitive-behavioral therapy Psychodynamic therapy is developed from psychoanalysis. It involves taking a long-term approach to public health via mental health therapy through real-time online counseling sessions.

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The reason for choosing this article was to show that equity involving health can be strategic for companies to consider help those on diverse scales. By better understanding these social determinants of health, technology can help them get healthier and grow.

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How digital technology can enable health equity

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How digital technology in health care can help deliver enhanced care to disadvantaged patient populations.

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I'm taking at my pace the free online course " Foundations of humane technology " by the Center for Humane Technology (whom I had heard of after watching the excellent documentary "The Social Dilemma".) Here are my notes.

Setting the stage (notes from 2022-07-10)

"The real problem of humanity is the following: we have paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions; and god-like technology."
Dr. E.O. Wilson, Sociobiologist

🤔 Personal reflection: taking stock of our current situation

Looking at the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, which of these goals are most important to you? Which challenges represented by these goals have you experienced personally (directly or indirectly)? Which challenges have you been spared from? Which issues have affected your loved ones or communities you care about?

Climate action as well as peace, justice and strong institutions are the most urgent goals to me, because I believe they have respectively the potential to give humanity the time it needs and the framework required, to make significant progress on many other of the UN stated sustainable development goals.

All of the issues are truly important. I am fortunate enough as a middle-aged white European woman, to have been born in a place at an era where I don't suffer from poverty or hunger, or lack of clean water. I have received an education of quality and I am healthy and live in a country where a health system and well-being are key benefits.

Personally I am directly negatively impacted by gender inequality. Not as much as generations before mine, and hopefully more than generations to come. I teach my teenager son the values which put humans first and that recognize that women and men are equally important. I made choices for myself and him that speak to responsible consumption, and I hope and expect he will follow a similar or better path, if not lead others to build a better world.

What role should technology play in achieving the goals you care about most?

People rely more and more on technology, which is a blessing and a curse. Because science without conscience can have disastrous consequences. There is hope where technical choices are individual's, but it's not always the case. Technology can empower the people through participatory governance. Safe-fails and careful design and planning are key. Technology may play an essential role in each and every of the UN stated sustainable development goals. But before we get there, there needs to be broader realization of the stakes, and global awareness and will to put the humans first.

Our shared understanding of the world is being polluted just like the Earth. The information we use to inform our choices is being mediated by technology designed to maximize engagement, not collective wisdom.
Center for Humane Technology

Systems thinking (notes from 2022-07-15; 2022-07-17)

Systems thinking is the ability to see the problems and solutions in relationship to one another rather than as isolated concerns.

Persuasive technologies use scientifically tested design strategies to manipulate human behavior towards a desired goal like increasing time on site or user engagement. The creation and amplification of these technologies have been called "the race to the bottom of the brain stem."

Ledger of Harms by the Center for Humane Technology lists the harms to society that technology platforms have created in the race for human attention, due to immense pressure to prioritize engagement and growth:

The Next Generations :: From developmental delays to suicide, children face a host of physical, mental and social challenges. Exposure to unrestrained levels of digital technology can have serious long term consequences for children's development, creating permanent changes in brain structure that impact how children will think, feel, and act throughout their lives.

Making Sense of the World :: Misinformation, conspiracy theories, and fake news. A broken information ecology undermines our ability to understand and act on complex global challenges.

Attention and Cognition :: Loss of crucial abilities including memory and focus. Technology's constant interruptions and precisely-targeted distractions are taking a toll on our ability to think, to focus, to solve problems, and to be present with each other.

Physical and Mental Health :: Stress, loneliness, feelings of addiction, and increased risky health behavior as technology increasingly pervades our waking lives.

Social Relationships :: Less empathy, more confusion and misinterpretation. While social networks claim to connect us, all too often they distract us from connecting with those directly in front of us, leaving many feeling both connected and socially isolated.

Politics and Elections :: Propaganda, distorted dialogue & a disrupted democratic process. Social media platforms are incentivized to amplify the most engaging content, tilting public attention towards polarizing and often misleading content. By selling micro targeting to the highest bidder, they enable manipulative practices that undermine democracies around the world.

Systemic Oppression :: Amplification of racism, sexism, homophobia and ableism. Technology integrates and often amplifies racism, sexism, ableism and homophobia, creating an attention economy that works against marginalized communities.

Do Unto Others :: Many people who work for tech companies - and even the CEOs - limit tech usage in their own homes. Many tech leaders don't allow their own children to use the products they build - which implies they're keenly aware that the products from which they make so much money from pose risks, especially for young users.

Humanity has always faced difficult challenges, but never before have they been able to so quickly scale up to create truly global threats.
Center for Humane Technology

The leverage points framework

Inspired by Dr. Donella Meadows' 12 Leverage Points to Intervene in a System, the Center for Humane Techology developed a simplified model of leverage points for intervening in the extractive tech ecosystem. ( 3-minute video explaining the levers and giving simple examples.)

Leverage increases from left to right on the framework, as does the difficulty of implementing changes.

1. Design Changes: These are adjustments that technology companies themselves make in the visual design and user experience of their platforms.

2. Internal Governance: These changes are implemented by decision-makers within platforms to shift how internal systems and structures operate.

3. External Regulation: This occurs when legislators or regulators, pass laws that set requirements related to safety, transparency, interoperability with competing platforms, or create liabilities for unsafe business practices or harms.

4. Business Model: These changes shift the fundamental operations and profit structures of a firm, for example, a company could move to a subscription model with a sliding scale to ensure broad access.

5. Economic Goal: Redefining economic success can radically alter how systems behave.

6. Operating Paradigm: Paradigm changes are the highest leverage point and generally the most difficult to shift. They occur when there is a widespread change in core beliefs, values, behaviors, and operating norms.

We cannot meet our biggest global challenges if our technology distracts us, divides us, and downgrades our collective ability to solve problems.
Center for Humane Technology

🤔 Personal reflection: The ledger of harms

Did any of these harms factor into your decision to take this course? Why do they matter to you personally? Are any of these harms new to you and worth deeper contemplation?

​I am acutely aware of all of these harms to society. If I have personally experienced some of them first-hand, I have witnessed all of them unfold increasingly during the past decade or two, in the three decades that passed since the invention of the web by Tim Berners-Lee, who then created the Web Consortium (W3C) for whom I work, with a mission to develop the open web standards that make it more powerful and helpful to society.

My growing frustration and feeling of helplessness in the face of market interests factored in my decision to take a course on approaching humane technology. W3C and its stakeholders are gradually, albeit slowly, moving from purely technical standards work to value-based systems thinking. The technical work is already anchored around values that put people first: " User needs come before the needs of web page authors, which come before than the needs of user agent implementers, which come before than the needs of specification writers, which come before theoretical purity." (called Priority of Constituencies.) I am watching with hope the social aspect of our work as there is growing interesting among our stakeholders to make "sustainability" a resident among the wide horizontal review group, joining long-term subjects web accessibility (for disabled people primarily), internationalization (for all of the languages and scripts of the earth), security and privacy (for everyone).

Showing people that humane technology is possible can help transform consumer distrust of existing platforms into consumer demand for something else.
Center for Humane Technology

We need humane technology that:

Respects, rather than exploits, human vulnerabilities.

Accounts for and minimizes negative consequences.

Prioritizes values over metrics.

Supports the shared understanding necessary for effective democracies.

Promotes fairness and justice.

Helps humans thrive.

🤔 Personal reflection: acting with leverage

How can your own work help to push a leverage point in a meaningful way?

At my level (which isn't that of a product designer, or technical architect), I strive to influence my peers and colleagues by ensuring we keep being guided by a strong moral and ethical compass, by reminding others of relevant aspects, and in some cases by making proposals for internal discussions.

Where do you see opportunities to push on other leverage points?

The decisions I take for myself are more and more informed by my values, and manifest in whether I choose to support, or not support, certain types of activities, businesses, practices, etc. I evangelize when I can. I teach my teenager the values which I believe make the world a better place. I try to lead by example. Beyond this, I believe that one's exercising democratic preference is the next best leverage point that is available to me.

A common pattern in the tech industry is thinking that systemic problems have algorithmic solutions. Sometimes it doesn't work. Per the following xkcd illustration.

Tags: ethics, humane technology, online course, values

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#1 The foundations of humane technology: setting the stage

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Setting the stage (notes from 2022-07-10) "The real problem of humanity is the following: we have paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions; and god-like technology."Dr. E.O. Wilson, Sociobiologist Looking at the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, which of these goals are most important to you? Which challenges represented by these goals have you experienced personally (directly or indirectly)?...

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This talks about integrating AI into our already developed creative market

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Creativity may be the ultimate moonshot for artificial intelligence. Already AI has helped write pop ballads, mimicked the styles of great painters and informed creative decisions in filmmaking. Experts wonder, however, how far AI can or should go in the creative process.

When we recently spoke to 30 AI experts and thought leaders, their opinions varied as to whether AI has the potential to become a true creative partner or even the creator of solo works of art. While this debate will likely continue for some time, it's clear that as digital content and delivery platforms continue infiltrating all forms of media and expression, the role of AI will undoubtedly expand.

Exploring creative frontiers

We have made great strides using AI in the creative process. In 2016, the IBM Watson cognitive platform was used for the first ever AI-created movie trailer for 20th Century Fox's horror flick, Morgan. Led by John Smith, IBM Fellow and Manager of Multimedia and Vision at IBM Research, the project had Watson analyze the visuals, sound and composition of hundreds of existing horror film trailers. Watson then selected scenes from the completed Morgan movie for editors to patch together into the trailer-ultimately reducing what could be a weeks-long process to one day.

AI's role in Morgan, and numerous other creative endeavors, shows how far AI has come. Using techniques such as deep learning has enabled tremendous progress, but AI remains relegated to an assistant role-for now.

"What's interesting is that, compared to a lot of other machine learning techniques, deep learning technology is what's called a 'generative model,' meaning that it learns how to mimic the data it's been trained on," explains Jason Toy, CEO of Somatic, a start-up focused on developing deep learning applications. "If you feed it thousands of paintings and pictures, all of a sudden you have this mathematical system where you can tweak the parameters or the vectors and get brand new creative things similar to what it was trained on."

But even highly touted AI techniques have their limitations. "Creativity and where we started exploring with the Morgan movie is fascinating because deep learning isn't the answer to creativity," says IBM's Smith. "We still have to define what creativity means. We know some of the attributes have to do with finding something novel, unexpected, and yet useful."

"It's easy for AI to come up with something novel just randomly. But it's very hard to come up with something that is novel and unexpected and useful."
- John Smith, Manager of Multimedia and Vision at IBM Research

By specifying teaching parameters for creativity, artists have gone as far as using AI to design sculptures and create paintings that mimic great works of art. For example, using the style transfer technique, artists can "teach" AI algorithms by showing them pictures of a style of painting like Impressionism to transpose photos and video to the same style.

These capabilities aren't just relevant to fine art. "I see the whole creative industry from film to advertising and marketing using these tools to test out new ideas and accelerate prototypes," says Toy.

Can AI learn to be creative?

Experts contend that we've barely scratched the surface of what is possible. While advancements in AI mean that computers can be coached on some parameters of creativity, experts question the extent to which AI can develop its own sense of creativity. Can AI be taught how to create without guidance? Can it truly understand what is beautiful, perhaps by looking at pixel arrangements or color palettes?

"Just a few years ago, who would have thought we'd be able to teach a computer what is or is not cancer?" says Arvind Krishna, Senior Vice President of Hybrid Cloud and Director of IBM Research. "I think teaching AI what's melodic or beautiful is a challenge of a different kind since it is more subjective, but likely can be achieved. You can give AI a bunch of training data that says, 'I consider this beautiful. I don't consider this beautiful.' And even though the concept of beauty may differ among humans, I believe the computer will be able to find a good range. Now, if you ask it to create something beautiful from scratch, I think that's certainly a more distant and challenging frontier."

" Can we take what humans think is beautiful and creative and try to put that into an algorithm? I don't think it's going to be possible for quite a while. "

- Jason Toy, CEO, Somatic

Experts point out that teaching computers to be creative is inherently different from the way humans learn to create, although there's still much we don't yet know about our own creative methodology.

"Many examples of creativity involve learning and exploring in a hierarchical style. Neural and multilayer network systems can help us construct different frameworks to better understand those hierarchies, but there's much more to learn and discover," explains University of Sussex cognitive scientist Margaret Boden, who also serves as an advisor at Stephen Hawking's Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence.

"If you have a computer that comes up with random combinations of musical notes, a human being who has sufficient insight and time could well pick up an idea or two. A gifted artist, on the other hand, might hear the same random compilation and come away with a completely novel idea, one that sparks a totally new form of composition," says Boden. She estimates that 95% of what professional artists and scientists do is exploratory and perhaps the other 5% is truly transformational creativity. A lot of the processes behind creative thinking is still unknown and Boden believes AI has a big role to play here.

Augmenting creativity

Thought leaders ponder whether AI innovation will ultimately yield technology that can create without supervision or direction. But the bigger question remains: Should this be the goal of AI even if it is technically feasible?

"It is not our goal to recreate the human mind-that's not what we're trying to do. What we're more interested in are the techniques of interacting with humans that inspire creativity in humans," says Rob High, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for IBM Watson. "And that requires that we spend time thinking about that creative process. What could we do to help people come up with new ideas on a much more regular basis than they do today?"

" What I'm looking for out of cognitive systems is not just another form of computing but something that actually creates a presence in our life and through that presence is able to inspire us. "

- Rob High, Vice President and CTO, IBM Watson

While serving as inspiration is one role AI can play in the creative process, it can also help with more mundane tasks, especially in the digital domain where much of the behind-the-scenes work is far from glamorous.

"It's about the augmentation of creativity. In the end, the human really is the one being creative, and it's more about how can you get better efficiencies," says Smith. "With filmmaking, 99% of the work is actually very mundane. It's going through hundreds of hours of video in some cases to arrive at the core pieces to use. So there's still a very good reason to use technology as an assistant here, rather than replace the human in the loop."

AI techniques, from machine learning to pattern recognition, have already proved ideal in providing assistance in virtually every industry. Healthcare, finance and retail are just a few that are reaping the benefits of advanced cognition capabilities. There's no doubt the boundaries of AI's role in creative endeavors will be pushed. And while it will never replace the human soul of creativity, AI can certainly offer many benefits serving as a smart, efficient and inspirational assistant.

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IBM interviewed 30 artificial intelligence experts to explore how far AI will go in creativity. Here's what they had to say.

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Kids have more information at their fingertips than any generation before. Tablets, laptops, and smartphones are common at school and at home, including for virtual learning. And the devices aren't going away anytime soon, which is why families should have conversations about internet safety.

The internet has information that can enrich our lives. It also can harm us and the people we love. You want your children to have access to it, but you also want them to be safe online. How can you get both things?

This is the challenge of living in a connected world. The bad guys may be smart, but you and your kids can be smarter. Reference these internet safety tips - or jump to the internet safety checklist - to help ensure your whole family stays safer online.
What is internet safety? Why is internet safety important? What are the dangers of the internet? Internet safety tips Internet safety tips for kids Internet safety tips for teens Internet safety tips for parents Internet safety tips for the whole family Internet safety checklist
What is internet safety?

Internet safety is the act of staying safer online. This includes being aware of the risks associated with your online activity and employing a few strategies to prevent or avoid these risks. Internet safety is also sometimes referred to as online safety, cyber safety, or e-safety.

Why is internet safety important?

Playing it safe online can help prevent you - and your kids - from being exposed to unwanted information, materials, or risks on the internet that might harm your devices, personal information, or your family. It's smart to teach children computer safety so that they don't fall victim to some common dangers of the internet.

It's worth noting there are federal laws in place, like the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, that have been enacted to protect kids when online. COPPA applies to children younger than 13 and it requires websites to explain their privacy policies and get parental consent before collecting or using a child's personal information. Importantly, it prohibits sites from requiring children to provide excess personal information to play a game. Still, laws are sometimes broken online, which is why the best defense is practicing computer safety and internet safety.

What are the dangers of the internet?

One of the prevalent dangers of the internet is cybercriminals and the ever-evolving cybercrimes they create. Because so many cybercrimes are launched to target any internet user, its likely that no family member is exempt of such attacks, either. There are many threats children face online, as well as adults and teens.

Educating the whole family on how to identify and avoid each cyberthreat is an important part of internet safety. Here are at least 10 risks or dangers of the internet to know, but be aware that new cyberthreats are constantly evolving.

Internet safety tips

There are many cyber safety tips parents should know, but internet safety doesn't stop there. Every family member has to play their part in creating a cyber-safe household. We've listed 20 pointers to help your family stay safer online, and who can begin applying them.

Internet safety tips for kids

Whether they're learning virtually, watching YouTube, or playing games, kids are becoming digital citizens at young age. So, it's never too early to acquaint them with some internet safety tips.

Tip #1: Know the dangers of the internet

When it comes to cybersecurity, kids are often one of your family's weakest links - and that can be for lack of knowing the dangers of the internet. Teach kids about suspicious activity online and encourage them to ask for help if something seems unusual.

Tip #2: Remember your identity is important

Sometimes kids make themselves vulnerable to identity theft by disclosing personal information online because they believe they have nothing to lose. A child's identity can have as much value as an adult's identity, if not more. Scammers can trick kids into disclosing their Social Security number and other details that can be used to commit identity theft. Remind children not to reveal too much information about themselves. Their date of birth, address, and SSN are all examples of personal information, and they shouldn't share them freely.

Tip #3: Beware of strangers

Offline, you've probably already introduced the idea to your kids that all strangers can be potentially dangerous. Remind them this also applies to their online activities and strangers are on the internet. While teens may be more prone to advances from online predators, kids can be targeted, as well. It's important to teach them at a young age to be cautious online and tell an adult if someone they don't know communicates with them or makes them uncomfortable.

Tip #4: Watch out for phishing

You may be sophisticated enough to know not to click on a URL that's supposedly from your bank or a friend, but does everyone in your household know that? Teach your kids about phishing scams and warn them not to click on URLs in an email or social network message.

Tip #5: Choose strong passwords

Passwords are the primary defense against hackers. Yet, many people reuse the same password for multiple accounts and use passwords that are easy to guess, because they're also easy to remember. Teach your kids to create a hack-proof password by selecting a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols, and make sure it's at least 12 characters long. Never use common words, phrases, or personal information like a phone number or family members' names.

Internet safety tips for teens

Some teens are often more tech savvy than their parents, but that doesn't mean they have a strong sense of judgment or have access to all of the tools that can help protect them online. Help keep your tweens and teens cyber safe by introducing them to the following internet safety tips.

Tip #6: Use a password management system

Bolster your password protection with a password management program, which can remember unique passwords for all your accounts. Best of all, with a password manager, you only need to remember one password.

Tip #7: Keep your social media accounts secure

There's a good chance someone in your house is on a social network. But social media can also attract cyber snoops and identity thieves. Keep a close eye on your social accounts. If someone messages you who hasn't done so in a while, be suspicious. Your friend's account may have been hacked. Parents should remind teens to also never meet in person with someone they met online and tell an adult if a stranger is messaging them.

Tip #8: Be careful what you post

It's important for children, teens, and family members to know how much information is too much information. In their excitement to share milestones, teens may sometimes post their personal information online. For example, a driver's license or a travel itinerary shared online could be valuable information for identity thieves or burglars. Also personal or inappropriate photos can attract online predators, or could affect future educational or employment opportunities.

Tip #9: Shop online only from secure sites

Whether teens are allowed to shop online is up to their parents. Whether teens will listen is another story. Teach yours how to shop safely online by acquainting them with some indicators of a secure website. One of the best indicators is whether a site is running on HTTPS, which means the site has a security certificate that safeguards visitors' personal information by encrypting their data. You can verify if a site runs on HTTPS by double-checking the beginning of a URL in the address bar and also confirming if there's a padlock next to it.

Tip #10: Keep privacy settings on

Web browsers, mobile operations systems, and social media channels all have settings in place to protect your privacy, and it's up to you to adjust them. Keeping them turned off means your information might be shared with marketers to help your browsing experience, but it also could be intercepted by hackers. Play it safe and keep your privacy settings on. Parents should adjust kids' devices accordingly and teach teens how to keep the settings on themselves.

Internet safety tips for parents

There are some computer safety tools and best practices that your kids simply don't need to worry about. Parents, reference these housekeeping tips to ensure your home is cyber safe.

Tip #11: Understand privacy policies ...

... and know that privacy policies may not be private. With more websites and applications collecting information and using it for advertising and marketing purposes, make sure your family knows the value of online privacy. Many apps have privacy policies that disclose that the apps collect and share their users' information. Kids and many adults often accept these policies without reading them. Even if your settings are set to private, remember nothing is private. Even the so-called private browser is not private. Law enforcement, website administrators, and hackers could have access to your so-called private information.

Tip #12: Backup data regularly

A type of malware, ransomware is popular among cybercriminals who can lock your computer so you can't access your valuable files, like your private photos or tax information. One of the best ways to combat the threat of ransomware is to backup your data regularly. Backup your kids' devices, too, and teach your teens to do the same.

Tip #13: Keep your internet connection secure

Almost every member of the family might access your internet connection, and each person may have devices also vying for your Wi-Fi's attention. It should come as no surprise that hackers also want to use your home Wi-Fi network. Cybercriminals can hack home routers and gain access to various internet-connected devices like home security systems and smart doorbells. Make sure your home Wi-Fi system has a hard-to-crack password and consider cybersecurity software that identifies "intruders" on your network. Finally, a VPN is one of the best ways to ensure your internet connection is secure.

Tip #14: Monitor online activities

Monitoring your kids offline is enough stress. Thankfully, there's some cybersecurity tools to help you monitor their online activities. Install a cybersecurity software with parental controls on your kids' devices to block certain features on games, track kids' location, backup their data, and manage their screen time.

Tip #15: Install a comprehensive cybersecurity suite

To help every family member from clicking on the wrong links and visiting the wrong sites, install a comprehensive cyber safety solution that provides protection for all your family members and their devices. Your smartphone and tablet need as much protection as your computer and laptops. So do your thermostat, smart doorbell, home security system, and other internet-connected devices.

Tip #16: When in doubt, call support

The best security software programs offer 24x7 support. If you have any suspicion you've been hacked, call for help. If you think your device is under malware, spyware, or ransomware attack, call for help. A good security suite will have experts to help you resolve your problem.

Internet safety tips for the whole family

It takes a whole family to make a home more cyber safe. The following internet safety tips apply to everyone under your roof.

Tip #17: Be careful what you download

There are more than 1.8 billion websites worldwide, and it's no secret that some of them have malicious intent. A malicious website is a site that attempts to install malware on your device, meaning anything that will disrupt computer operation, gather your personal information, or allow unauthorized access to your machine. This usually requires some action on your part, but there are also drive-by downloads, whereby a website will attempt to install software on your computer without asking for permission first. Downloading and running security software can help defend against these threats, but it's also worth knowing how to diagnose if your computer has malware so you can remove malware.

Tip #18: Go private on public Wi-Fi

There are a lot of risks of connecting to public Wi-Fi networks. In addition to keeping your kids and teens attuned to them, it's important for parents to remind themselves that hackers and cybercriminals consider public Wi-Fi, such as in malls and coffee shops, an easy access point to getting hold of your data. For this reason, always use a VPN when connecting to public Wi-Fi. Don't have a VPN? Consider if you can hold off on internet browsing until you are home.

Tip #19: Close unused accounts

Unused accounts can be a rich source of personal information for cybercriminals. Sometimes kids create an account with their first and last name or their birthday in the username.

Cybercriminals can patch these data points together and steal information from other sites that the individual uses. If you think you won't be revisiting the site, it's best to close the account.

Tip #20: Spend time online together

A good way to keep your home more cyber safe? Hold all of the family members accountable for their internet safety practices and support one another when someone faces a precarious online situation. As parents, that means monitoring your kids' behaviors but also showing an interest in the sites they're visiting and games they're playing so that you can educate them on whether they're safe. Keep things transparent by keeping desktop computers in a common area and discouraging kids from playing with tablets just in their rooms.

Bonus tip: Spend time online together by having an online family game night.

While the internet is riddled with risks - and it's important to be aware of them and the cybersecurity suites to combat them - it's worth acknowledging there's also a lot of good online. Virtual learning opportunities, apps that simplify everyday tasks, social media platforms that keep us in touch with loved ones, embrace it all. Just do so with these internet safety tips top of mind to ensure the whole family stays safer online.

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20 internet safety tips and checklist to help families stay safer online

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Tablets, laptops, and smart devices are common at school and at home. The internet brings a wealth of information that can enrich our lives. But it also can harm us and the people we love. You want your children to have access to information, but you also want them to be safe.

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Provides different ways of thinking about situations and personal perception that boosts one's view of themself.

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HOW STAYING POSITIVE HELPS

It's likely our species survived because of our knack for detecting danger. But our worry-filled thoughts can present dangers of their own: Thinking negatively can drag down our moods, our actions and even our health.

Experts say it's worthwhile-and possible-to learn how to think more positively.
Consider what researchers found about the benefits of staying positive:

People who were pessimistic had a nearly 20 percent higher risk of dying over a 30-year period than those who were optimistic

People who kept track of their gratitude once a week were more upbeat and had fewer physical complaints than others

People who obsessively repeated negative thoughts and behaviors were able to change their unhealthy patterns-and their brain activity actually changed too.

WAYS TO STAY POSITIVE

Foster Optimism

Trying to be optimistic doesn't mean ignoring the uglier sides of life. It just means focusing on the positive as much as possible-and it gets easier with practice.
If you want to pump up your optimism, you might:

Write about a positive future. The idea is to envision your goals and dreams come true. Tips include:

Write about your great future life. Writing helps you absorb ideas better than just thinking.

Set aside time so you can go into detail. Researcher Laura King, PhD, who proved this exercise a great mood booster, assigned 20 minutes on four consecutive days.

A variation on this exercise is to imagine positive outcomes in a particularly challenging situation.

Search for the silver lining. Looking for the positive in a negative situation may sound sappy, but it can actually show great strength. To find your silver lining, ask yourself:

How have I grown from this situation?

Are my relationships stronger now?

Have I developed new skills?

What am I proud of about the way I handled this situation?

Practice Gratitude

Noticing and appreciating the positives in our lives offers a great mood boost.
To increase your gratefulness, you can:

Write a gratitude letter. Researcher Martin Seligman, PhD, asked subjects to write a letter thanking someone who had been particularly kind to them and then deliver it in person. The letter-writers enjoyed impressive positive effects even a month later.

Keep a gratitude journal. Write down anything large or small that makes you smile, including terrific achievements, touching moments and great relationships.

Remind yourself to savor. Yes, stop and smell the roses-and look at them and touch them. Do whatever you can to really soak in the lovelier aspects of your life.

Share your good news. Studies of people's reactions to positive developments suggest that those who tell a friend about a happy event enjoy it even more.

Avoid Negative Thinking

If you want to feel positive, it pays to decrease the downers in your life. With practice, you can resist worrisome thoughts and perhaps even transform your internal critic into more of a cheering squad.

Avoid dwelling on downers. Focusing on negatives isn't just unpleasant, it also can make you less effective in tackling tasks you face. In a study of test-takers, those who fixated on worrisome thoughts performed worse than those who were distracted from their worries. To stifle your obsessing:

Ask yourself if the issue is really worth your energy. Will this issue matter in a year, for example?

Tell yourself you'll worry about it at a specific time later. Chances are you'll feel better by the appointed time.

Instead of just spinning your worry wheels, try a concrete problem-solving exercise.

Distract yourself: Go to a movie, pump up some music, find something fun to do.

Change unhealthy self-talk. You may have been running negative messages in your head for a long time. But research shows that you can learn to shift your thoughts and that, over time, you can literally change your brain. Consider trying some techniques from cognitive-behavioral therapy, which works in part by looking at how changing your thoughts can change your life. Some tips include:

Ask yourself if your negative thought is really true. Are you really a terrible mother if you didn't make it to the class play? You're probably involved in innumerable other ways.

Remember any achievements that disprove your insecurity. If you think you'll flop at the office party, remember other social occasions when you were outgoing and confident.

Imagine what you'd tell a friend if he was worrying in ways that you are. You'd likely convince him to wait a bit before assuming the worst.

Beware of all-or-nothing thinking. Disappointing your girlfriend once doesn't mean you're doomed to disappoint her all the time.

Consider alternative explanations. If your boss hasn't responded to your proposal it could be because he's busy and not because he doesn't like it.

Reviewed by Sonja Lyubomirsky, PhD, a University of California, Riverside professor and author of The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want(Penguin Press).

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HOW STAYING POSITIVE HELPS It's likely our species survived because of our knack for detecting danger. But our worry-filled thoughts can present dangers of their own: Thinking negatively can drag down our moods, our actions and even our health. Experts say it's worthwhile-and possible-to learn how to think more positively.

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I chose it because this article shows us how many schools and students do not have the same conditions when learning. One of the first conditions for this topic is to provide all students with access to connections and devices. What I found particularly interesting in this text is the number of households without access to a computer, and thus we see that not everyone has the same conditions when learning. We also see in the text that the introduction of devices in schools has led to some kind of inequality because not all schools have the same conditions to provide all the devices that are needed.

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Technology Solutions That Drive Education

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Students Face Future Disadvantages Without Digital Equity

When a lack of digital equity exists, students' job preparedness also suffers.

According to " The Future of Jobs Report 2020," published in October by the World Economic Forum, critical thinking, problem-solving, self-management and resilience are the top skills companies will seek in applicants, looking ahead to 2025. Emerging technologies and increased automation make it necessary to learn these skills at an early age.

When students lack devices, they also lose valuable opportunities to hone the critical thinking and analytical skills that are inherent to technology use. Consequently, they are at a disadvantage when entering some of the fastest-growing job markets, such as data analytics and AI specialist fields.

This doesn't mean every student needs to major in a STEM field. However, with multiple industries adopting data science and computer science as a part of their work, students need to learn how these and other skill sets integrate across subjects. To authentically engage in these types of activities, students and teachers need to be creating with, not just consuming, technology. However, based on WEF data, even that won't be enough. Students will need to integrate information from multiple sources to innovate on existing concepts to meet the demands of increased automation, and also understand others with different backgrounds and actively engage with them.
RELATED: Technology in the classroom promotes equity in education.
For students to build this skill set, educators will need appropriate professional development. Professional development won't just help educators learn how to blend technology and instruction in a meaningful way. It will help teachers of all grades and disciplines create learning environments where students can practice and build the technology skills needed for the future.

However, professional development isn't the only component necessary to support digital equity across the nation.

Forethought Helps Districts Plan for Digital Equity

One of the most advantageous paths for achieving digital equity is strategic long-term planning. The process of purchasing technology and getting it into students' hands is a long game with a domino effect. If you give a user technology, they're going to need professional development. Once they get that professional development, they're going to need more advanced professional development. If you give a user technology and professional development, they're going to need IT staff support.

With long-term strategic planning, IT leaders can consider the additional needs that accompany new technology. Then, they can ensure their technology is sustainable and equitable. Because many schools went one-to-one overnight, district leaders are looking at ways to support, repair and replace the increased technology.
EXPLORE: Streamline one-to-one computing deployments in the era of remote learning.
Educators, instructional staff and IT staff must work together to align pedagogy and technology to the district's goals for teaching and learning. Integrating technology into a district's or school's purchasing plan can help make the systems that support teaching more effective and efficient. When this happens, it can result in more time and energy for staff to help students reach a deeper level of knowledge and build the skills they'll need in their careers, since educators will be able to anticipate what technology will be available from year to year, for example.

By thinking about it from classroom and digital learning perspectives, educators can use the technology to transform their learning environments.

Build Support for Digital Equity Through Advocacy

Having a plan to increase digital equity does not always mean the resources are available or in place to execute that plan.

Educators and IT leaders should advocate to the superintendent for the budget and resources they need to meet technology goals and achieve equity. In addition to telling community and family stories of the impact of technology on teaching and learning, it's critical to have statistics and other data to support any technology-related requests.

Because digital equity reaches into multiple facets of K-12 education, it is important to bring other stakeholders and experts into the room where decisions are being made. For example, special education departments often have valuable insights into student data privacy, because this issue is among their longstanding top priorities. Leaning on their departmental expertise can help districts create a full-fledged and sustainable digital equity plan that takes into account regulatory requirements.

District leaders can also work with companies to advocate for educational resources from their partners. Intel, for instance, has released many resources for digital learning and continues to work with its partners to help bring more to the table for school administrators.

Schools can also advocate to state and local governments. While the funding earmarked for education in the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 is available to schools through 2024, districts should be thinking about what they will need in 2025, how to prepare for it now and how to maintain it for all students moving forward.

Joining organizations like CoSN can help schools advocate for funding and digital equity. Educators can be involved at the national level and guide those organizations that are planning and having serious conversations about digital equity, whether at the local, state or national level.

This article is part of the "ConnectIT: Bridging the Gap Between Education and Technology" series. Please join the discussion on Twitter by using the hashtag.
Brought to you by:

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Working Toward Digital Equity in K-12 Education

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When a lack of digital equity exists, students' job preparedness also suffers. According to " The Future of Jobs Report 2020," published in October by the World Economic Forum, critical thinking, problem-solving, self-management and resilience are the top skills companies will seek in applicants, looking ahead to 2025.

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ThinkUp is an app on any mobile device that presents the user with positive affirmations throughout their day. It asks the user ways they need to improve their positive self and even has specialists in psychology and life coaches. The app provides positive moods to the users.

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Apps Like These. Best Apps for Android, iOS, and Windows PC

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In the pursuit of success, people try to be as productive as possible, sometimes forgetting to rest. The tension increases and even the most stress-resistant employee can get emotional burnout. Fortunately, there is a ThinkUp app that allows you to recharge with positive energy and maintain mental health for a long time.

You can also discover your spiritual path by chatting in special Christian apps. You can find them in this article.

The essence of the application is that you choose your positive affirmations from the suggested categories, read them, pronounce them, and record your speech on a voice recorder inside the application. Accordingly, you will need to allow the app to access your media files and voice recorder.

At the first installation, the user is asked to choose how ThinkUp can help: teach them to relax, improve their health, increase self-esteem, develop spiritually, or something else. The number of problems considered is really impressive!

In the future, if you are going to use the app for a long time, it is better to purchase the paid version (the tariff can be either with a monthly payment, or once and forever). If in the free version you can only set a few affirmations and listen to them with the standard music of the app, when you buy the advanced version, you can record an unlimited number of positive suggestions and set the music that you like!

The app presents a huge number of positive thoughts that can be found in the built-in library. All of them are approved by specialists in psychology and life coaches. If you have your own - write them down and feel-good vibes!

The design of the app is made in orange, light blue, and white colors, which gives a positive mood! There is nothing superfluous in the app - every day you will listen to or read smart thoughts that can help improve your wellbeing.

Don't let anything distract you and stay calm even when using your Android device - install the permission controlling apps.

In addition, the developers recently added the ability to set the recording as an alarm ringtone, so now you can wake up to wise thoughts.

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ThinkUp App Review - Apps Like These. Best Apps for Android, iOS, and Windows PC

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In the pursuit of success, people try to be as productive as possible, sometimes forgetting to rest. The tension increases and even the most stress-resistant employee can get emotional burnout. Fortunately, there is a ThinkUp app that allows you to recharge with positive energy and maintain mental health for a long time.

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New York’s New Digital Art Gallery Looks Absolutely Insane

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The new Hall des Lumieres museum is a digital art space in New York City with designs on fully immersing visitors in historic works.

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He used AI to win a fine-arts competition. Was it cheating?

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He used AI to win a fine-arts competition. Was it cheating?

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A 39 year old artist in Colorado used an artificial intelligence tool, "Midjourney", to create art which won a state fair competition. This sparked a debate as to whether the utilization of this tool could be considered to be fair to other contestants or not.

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When Jason Allen submitted his "Théâtre D'opéra Spatial" into the Colorado State Fair's fine arts competition last week, the sumptuous print was an immediate hit, beating 20 other artists in the "digitally manipulated photography" category to win the first-place blue ribbon and a $300 prize.

What Allen had only hinted at, however, was that the artwork had been created in large part by an artificial-intelligence tool, Midjourney, that can generate realistic images at a user's command. The portrait of three figures, dressed in flowing robes, staring out to a bright beyond, was so finely detailed the judges couldn't tell.

Allen's piece offers a clear example of how rapidly AI-generated art has advanced. Trained on billions of internet images, the systems have decisively pushed the boundaries of what computers can create.

But it has also sparked a massive debate over the meaning of art, with Allen facing accusations that he had been deceptive in beating out other human artists with something he asked a machine to create.

Text-to-image tools like DALL-E 2 and Midjourney have quickly increased in sophistication and become one of the hottest topics in AI. They can generate not just fake people, objects and locations but mimic entire visual styles. Users can demand the art piece look like a cartoon storybook or a historical diagram or an Associated Press photograph, and the system will do its best to oblige.

But AI-generated art has been criticized as automated plagiarism, because it relies on millions of ingested art pieces that are then parroted en masse. It has also fueled deeper fears: of decimating people's creative work, blurring the boundaries of reality or smothering human art.

Allen said his art piece shows people need to "get past their denial and fear" of a technology that could empower new inventions and reshape our world. The AI, he said, "is a tool, just like the paintbrush is a tool. Without the person, there is no creative force."

But he also struck a note of defiance at the critics he believed did not appreciate the profound message in his AI-generated art.

"You said AI would never be as good as you, that AI would never do the work you do, and I said, 'Oh really? How about this? I won,'" he said. "It's here now. Recognize it. Stop denying the reality. AI isn't going away."
***
Allen, 39, lives south of his hometown of Colorado Springs and runs a company, Incarnate Games, that makes tabletop fantasy games. He went into the Air Force after high school and got a computer science degree at a Colorado technical school. He does not consider himself an artist and had never entered an arts competition before.

Earlier this year, he said, he started noticing people posting more AI art on social media, but he had been initially skeptical to try it himself due to "spiritual reasons." Elon Musk, he remembered, had compared AI to "summoning the demon," and the practice felt like it could be "a gateway into communicating with the unknown."

"That's what it feels like. This isn't being created by a human," Allen said Thursday while watching a jiujitsu tournament in Las Vegas. "There's a lot to be said about the spiritual meddling of our reality. They would use anything they could to influence humanity."

But the art was just so intricate, he said, that he couldn't stop thinking about it. He started playing with AI-powered art tools: WOMBO Dream, NightCafe, starryai. Then, someone invited him to Midjourney, and he became obsessed.

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Midjourney has become one of the most popular AI art generators largely because it allows anyone to freely create new images on command. Using the prompt "/imagine," a user can type in whatever they want to see and the AI will return four newly created images in 60 seconds. The user can also ask the AI to improve, or "upscale," the visual quality with new variations on the same idea.

The start-up, which calls itself "an independent research lab ... expanding the imaginative powers of the human species," operates largely out of a 1-million-follower network on the chat service Discord, with rooms devoted to character creation, environments and "show and tell."

After paying for a corporate account, Allen started generating thousands of images, changing the text prompts with every creation. He experimented with new settings, scenarios and effects. He asked for images in the styles of Leonardo da Vinci and the American psychedelic artist Alex Grey.

The pieces that really caught his attention, though, were what he now calls his "space opera theater" series. He started with a simple mental image - "a woman in a Victorian frilly dress, wearing a space helmet" - and kept fine-tuning the prompts, "using tests to really make an epic scene, like out of a dream." He said he spent 80 hours making more than 900 iterations of the art, adding words like "opulent" and "lavish" to fine tune its tone and feel. He declined to share the full series of words he used to create his art, saying it is his artistic product, and that he intends to publish it later. "If there's one thing you can take ownership of, it's your prompt," he said.

"I was like: Dude," he said. "This is so sick! I want to see more of it! I'm addicted! I'm obsessed!"

When he found images he really liked, he pulled them into Adobe Photoshop to remove visual artifacts. In one image, the central figure was missing a head, so he also painted in a crop of dark, wavy hair. He used another machine-learning tool, Gigapixel AI, to increase the photos' quality and sharpness, then printed the three pieces on canvas - all variations on the French phrase for "space opera theater," which he thought sounded cool - and drove to submit them to the state fair.

When he looked at the pieces, he said, he saw "a supernatural reality ... something we haven't even been able to experience yet, past the great beyond." But the pace of AI art is moving perhaps even faster than the internet. "You're looking at art from a month ago," he added. "In technology terms, that's decades. This piece is antiquated compared to what Midjourney is doing now."

***

The state fair in Pueblo, Colo., was an unlikely place for the writing of a new chapter in art history. The 150-year-old festival, known for its horse and livestock competitions, runs a series of more traditional art competitions, including for homemade dolls, quilts, porcelain art and needlework, as well as for the best canned carrots, medicinal remedies and holiday breads.

Of the 596 entries in the "fine arts" competition, 21 amateur "emerging artists" submitted pieces of "digitally manipulated photography," one of the fair's newest categories. Asked what art materials he had used, Allen told state fair officials only that he used Midjourney - though he did not exactly go into detail, and no one seems to have asked.

One of the judges, Dagny McKinley, an author and art historian who runs a playwright festival in nearby Steamboat Springs, remembers walking past Allen's canvas and being immediately drawn to a piece that felt reminiscent of Renaissance art.

"It had an immediate story: People looking out into another world, everyone with their backs to you, no one facing or engaging with the viewers," she said. "You get interested: What are they seeing?"

McKinley said she did not realize the art was AI-generated but said it wouldn't have changed her judgment anyway; Allen, she said, "had a concept and a vision he brought to reality, and it's really a beautiful piece."

Sebastian Smee, The Washington Post's art critic, said the piece's textures and lighting are reminiscent of Gustave Moreau, a late 19th-century artist, associated with the Decadents, who influenced Edgar Degas and Henri Matisse. (He also recalled a quote from the artist Sol LeWitt, who said, "The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.")

When Allen announced his victory himself on Midjourney's Discord channel, saying he had spent "many weeks of fine tuning and curating," the responses spiraled between muted excitement to outright dread. In a chat board devoted to philosophical debates, one user compared the win to "entering a marathon and driving a Lamborghini to the finish line." Another user wrote that the "stunt" threatened to "get this tool banned and hated even more."

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The win also triggered a flood of rage online. A tweet expressing profane dismay at Allen's win has been liked more than 85,000 times. Another person tweeted, "We're watching the death of artistry unfold right before our eyes." Allen said he has also gotten "a lot of very nasty hate" in his online inboxes; on his game company's Instagram profile, one user said he should return his award and "post a public apology before some MAJOR backlash comes your way."

Some of the frustration has come from how the tools were built: a similar tool, Stable Diffusion, was "trained" on 2 billion images taken from the internet, including from personal blogs and amateur-art sites like Flickr and DeviantArt.

Allen, however, dismisses the point as shallow: "Where did you learn how to do your art? You looked at art. Whose art was it? You learned their techniques, you studied their art, you added it to your repertoire," he said.

Allen listed the pieces for $750 each, he said, and two were sold at the fair to unknown buyers, though he now frets that he should have charged far more, given that it could be "essentially a piece of art history." On Discord, some users asked whether he should have been more explicit, to which Allen replied: "Did I have to?"

Despite the online furor, Allen's neighbors seemed more sanguine about adapting to AI. As far as anyone at the Colorado Department of Agriculture can tell, Allen did not break any rules. Pieces for the category are only required to involve "technology as part of the creative or presentation process." Digital filters, color-manipulation tools and the "recombination of images" are all expressly allowed.

No one has filed an official grievance over the result, either, department spokeswoman Olga Robak said, though there has been an unrelated dispute in the fair's goat-shearing contest.

Robak, who studied art history, finds the controversy fascinating. "People put bananas on the wall and called it art," she said. "Even photography was not considered an art form for a long time; people said it was just pushing a button, and now we realize it's about composition, color, light. Who are we to say that AI is not the same way?"

Don't ask if the duct-tape banana is art. Ask if it's any good.

***

Jessica Hair, a 25-year-old receptionist at a doctor's office who won third place in the competition, said she did not feel Allen had acted unfairly and had no hard feelings about his win.

Hair said her "Judge, Jury, Executioner," which depicts a tuxedoed skeleton on a golden throne surrounded by skulls, took 15 hours to create with a stylus on an iPad Pro. But Allen's piece took time, effort and subjective judgment, too, and "how do we qualify what is and isn't art?" she said.

She did wonder, though, if it might have broken the fair's rules requiring all art to have been made by Colorado residents. Would the AI, wherever it exists, qualify?

McKinley, the contest judge, said she understands the frustrations from some artists feeling spurned in their craft, and she believes the festival should consider a category purely devoted to AI art. But she sees such technology as opening up a new world of possibilities for artists - and as something it'd be better to embrace, since it isn't going away.

"It's not going to take away from a beautiful painting or a sculpture you can touch," she said. "It's just one more tool we have to advance what we can create."

Gregory Block, an oil painter in Denver who was not a part of the competition, said he finds it hard to imagine an AI generator supplanting the hundreds of hours - and all the "heart, soul, blood, sweat and tears" - he's invested into his art. But he also thinks back to the artists that first inspired him, who used rudimentary devices like the camera lucida, in the 1800s, to aid their own designs.

"That was thought of as cheating, too," he said. "Yet they used it to make these incredible paintings: anatomically correct figures, beautiful soft lighting. ... Those steps in technology are elemental to our art. Otherwise, we'd still be doing cave paintings with just our hands and blood."

The AI, he said, can imbue the art with a mysterious beauty, made all the more special because it is so hard to understand. But "the soul any of us can find in a piece of artwork, the emotion, the human struggle we identify with in art is always our own."

"It doesn't have to necessarily be created out of a human soul, the artwork itself. It is for us to see and react to," Block said. "We the viewers are, in the end, the ultimate artists. We're the ones creating the world that is coming in through our eyeballs. That world is in our mind."
Nitasha Tiku contributed to this report.

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He used AI to win a fine-arts competition. Was it cheating?

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When Jason Allen submitted his "Théâtre D'opéra Spatial" into the Colorado State Fair's fine arts competition last week, the sumptuous print was an immediate hit. It also marked a new milestone in the growth of artificial intelligence.

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Ordinary Fear: Women, Violence, and Personal Safety (From Violence Against Women: The Bloody Footprints, P 155-164, 1993, Pauline B. Bart, Eileen Geil Moran, eds. - See NCJ-143961) | Office of Justice Programs

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Noonlight is a great safety app which signals police at the press of a button. They send your name, exact location, and a picture of you to authorities. Works with add-ons allowing it to be used straight from the lock screen as well. Also has a calendar feature where you can post events, so if something goes wrong, they know exactly what to tell the police.

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Tyler the Creator's Insightful Interview 

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Written by Oscar Holland, CNN

Manas Bhatia has a bold vision of the future -- one where residential skyscrapers covered in trees, plants and algae act as "air purification towers."

In a series of detailed images, the New Delhi-based architect and computational designer has brought the idea to life. His imagined buildings are depicted rising high above a futuristic metropolis, their curved forms inspired by shapes found in nature.

But the pictures were not entirely of his own imagination.

For his conceptual project, "AI x Future Cities," Bhatia turned to an artificial intelligence imaging tool, Midjourney, that generates elaborate pictures based on written prompts. Using a series of text descriptions -- featuring phrases like "futuristic towers," "utopian technology," "symbiotic," and "bioluminescent material" -- Midjourney yielded a series of digital images that Bhatia further tweaked by honing the prompts.

Bhatia said it can take up to 20 minutes to make each of the surreal artworks. He refined his descriptions almost 100 times per project, editing and adding to the text until he achieved the desired results before cleaning up the images using Photoshop.

"The trial-and-error part is the most fun," the architect said over the phone. "We use AI to create images and, in the process, the AI trains itself and improves over time."

In another project, titled "Symbiotic Architecture," Bhatia imagined a future in which buildings are made from living materials. Using prompts like "giant" and "hollowed," he produced images of what he called a "utopian future" in which apartments are formed inside redwood-sized trees.

He says it was inspired by Hyperion, a 380-foot-tall redwood in California thought to be the world's tallest living tree. But he also drew on his own day-to-day work at Indian architecture firm Ant Studio, whose projects include retrofitting buildings with new facades to encourage natural ventilation and reduce energy consumption.

"The inspiration (was the idea) of a building's 'skin' being organic and inspired by nature, and how evaporative cooling and transpiration takes place so that (towers can) regulate their own temperature throughout the day," Bhatia said adding: "If we could create building materials to be organic, and to live and grow, the building could ventilate itself through these natural processes."

The recent popularity of AI imaging tools like OpenAI's DALL-E 2 and Google Research's Imagen have raised new questions about creativity and artistic integrity.

Last month, Colorado game designer Jason M. Allen controversially won $300 at anart competition with a futuristic, Renaissance-style image created using Midjourney. While some social media users and artists expressed their disapproval of Allen's methods, the designer said his submission -- which took him over 80 hours to generate -- qualified as a work of digital art.

For Bhatia, AI is just another tool. "Art is completely open to interpretation," he said. "And an artist can use any kind of tool there is to create art. Anyone can use AI, but they won't be able to achieve as good a result as a creative person."

By producing something beyond users' imaginations, it can spark new ideas and enrich the design process, the architect added. He even envisages a future where AI can generate 3D designs and is integrated into the software that architects use to model their creations.

"It has tremendous potential," he said. "At our studio, we tried using AI to generate mood board images for a client presentation, and that went very well... In the near future, architects and designers combined with AI would be something to hope for."

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an architect asked ai to design cities of the future. this is what it proposed - cnn

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An architect asked AI to design skyscrapers of the future. This is what it proposed

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Written by Oscar Holland, CNN Manas Bhatia has a bold vision of the future -- one where residential skyscrapers covered in trees, plants and algae act as "air purification towers." In a series of detailed images, the New Delhi-based architect and computational designer has brought the idea to life.

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Abstract

Seven hundred thirty-nine workers at Merck's Stonewall plant in Elkton, Virginia, have a safer and healthier workplace because four of them were enthusiastic about health and safety training they received from the union's training center in Cincinnati, Ohio. What emerged was not only that all 739 plant employees received OSHA 10-hour General Industry training, but that it was delivered by "OSHA-authorized" members of the International Chemical Workers Union Council who worked at the plant. Merck created a new fulltime position in its Learning and Development Department and hired one of the four workers who had received the initial training. Strong plant leadership promoted discussions both during the training, in evaluation, and in newly energized joint labor-management meetings following the training. These discussions identified safety and health issues needing attention. Then, in a new spirit of trust and collaboration, major improvements occurred.

Keywords: training, labor-management collaboration, safety and health

Founded in 1988, the International Chemical Workers Union Council (ICWUC) Center for Worker Health and Safety Education in Cincinnati has trained workers nationwide to protect themselves from a range of hazards, primarily from chemical spills. The ICWUC training philosophy concentrates on providing worker-centered small-group training that improves the ability of worker participants to discuss and solve health and safety problems. Much of the Center's funding for training comes from awards through the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Worker Education and Training Program. This paper examines the mechanism of workplace improvements at one site, emerging after successful plant-wide OSHA 10-hour General Industry training. This study builds on two earlier published evaluations of the ICWUC training program, one led by McQuiston in 2000 and the other led by Becker in 2004 [ 1, 2]. Both McQuiston and Becker found that after training, workers were more active participants in improving their health and safety.

The case study described in this article grew from a training agreement between the ICWUC Center for Worker Health and Safety Education in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the Merck-owned Stonewall Pharmaceutical plant in Elkton, Virginia. Eighty-five percent of the hourly employees in Elkton are represented by Local 94C of the International Chemical Workers Union Council/United Food and Commercial Workers. Fifteen percent (approximately 60 lab technicians and coordinators) are represented by Workers United. Hourly (union) employees comprise approximately 55 percent of the workforce, and 45 percent are salaried (management) employees.

Merck is a worldwide health products manufacturing company. Established in 1941, Merck's Elkton facility performs a range of pharmaceutical manufacturing (batch processing) activities such as fermentation, solvent extraction, organic chemical synthesis, and finishing operations [ 3]. Among the products manufactured at the Stonewall plant in Elkton, Virginia, are antibiotics, anti-parasitic drugs, anti-inflammatory drugs, and cholesterol-lowering drugs [ 4].

Literature Review

A body of workplace health and safety literature and documents provides evidence of the value of worker health and safety training, particularly when delivered by worker trainers, in building a positive work environment that fosters safety and health improvements. Even before he became the head of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Dr. David Michaels argued that "a bold campaign to change the workplace culture of safety should be initiated. This can't happen unless workers are trained and given the opportunity to play an active role" [ 5]. According to OSHA, these improvements "have the single greatest impact on accident reduction of any process" [ 6]. The following criteria are cited by OSHA as key for developing an environment conducive to health and safety improvements: obtain top management "buy-in" and continue building "buy-in"; build trust; conduct self-assessments/benchmarking; provide initial training of management/supervisory staff, union leadership (if present), and safety and health committee members, and a representative number of hourly employees; establish a steering committee; develop a site safety vision; align the organization by establishing a shared vision of balancing safety and health goals and objectives with production objectives; define specific roles and responsibilities for safety and health at all levels of the organization, with responsibility for everyone; develop a system of accountability for all levels of the organization; develop measures and an ongoing measurement and feedback system; develop policies for recognition, rewards, incentives, and ceremonies; establish awareness and training for all employees; implement process changes via involvement of management, union (if one is present), and employees; continually measure performance, communicate results, and celebrate successes; provide on-going support with reinforcement, feedback, reassessment, mid-course corrections; and on-going training [ 6].

Another view of necessary elements for an environment conducive to workplace improvements comes from Jane Ardern, the manager of Education and Information Services for WorkSafe. She argues that the following are necessary: commitment at all levels; safety and health treated as an investment, not a cost; safety and health seen as part of continuous improvement; training and improvement provided for everyone; systems in place for workplace analysis and hazard prevention and control; a blame-free work environment; and organizational celebration of successes [ 7].

Safety and Health Training as a Key Component for a Safe and Healthy Workplace

"The training of workers plays a critical role in the prevention of injury and disease in the workplace" [ 8]. Research shows that hands-on, small-group training is a necessary element of most workplace changes and improvements. Scholars writing in the American Journal of Public Health concluded that "[a]s training methods became more engaging (i.e., requiring trainees' active participation), workers demonstrated greater knowledge acquisition, and reductions were seen in accidents, illnesses, and injuries" [ 9]. Weinstock and Slatin in a New Solutions issue devoted to health and safety training discuss the importance of "helping workers establish the power to reduce and eliminate workplace hazards" [ 10] as a key training goal. They go on to review the literature of empowerment-oriented health and safety training. Jean Manoli, who provides training and compliance assistance as staff of the Massachusetts Department of Labor Standards, believes that OSHA 10-hour training is "becoming 'industry standard' and the 'way of doing business' in both construction and general industry" [ 11].

The value of training, not only for worker safety but also for the bottom line, is increasingly recognized by employers [ 11]. For example, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) program was created, in large measure, to help companies in the clean-up business by providing a trained work force, and initially it faced a great deal of opposition, in large part because of perceived cost. Years later, with an excellent safety and health record and few injuries, businesses seem to have stopped complaining about the training [ 12]. OSHA 10-hour construction training is deemed so critical on construction work sites that it is now a requirement for work in many cities and states across the nation. New York City is just one of these cities. Connecticut, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, and Rhode Island all have OSHA 10-hour training requirements. In addition, many general contractors have their own requirements for training as a prerequisite for working on one of their sites. A loss control specialist with Liberty Mutual Insurance, Ted Christensen, has said of many cities, states, and individual employers, "They recognize that you have to spend the money in training, and equipment and safety provides a return on the investment" [ 13].

Peer Training is a Particularly Effective Training Model

The concept of peer training is that workers learn best from other workers, and that the best teachers are workers themselves [ 14]. Peer trainers have more credibility with most workers, because they have "walked the walk" and they "talk the talk." Peer trainers can often deliver the same training as professionals in a timelier manner and at a lower cost [ 15]. OSHA supports many train-the-trainer programs for worker trainers through its Susan Harwood grants [ 16].

An evaluation of a United Auto Workers train-the-trainer program found that most trainees thought that worker-trainers communicate better than other types of trainers. Trainees also "agreed that worker-trainers are more knowledgeable about trainees' work sites" [ 17]. As far back as 1999, training staff from the University of Alabama-Birmingham (UAB) spoke of the acceptance of worker trainers, not just by workers, but by management as well. The plant manager of a paper facility where UAB-trained worker-trainers provided training to over 6,000 hourly and salaried employees said, "Any employee-driven program tends to come across with credibility, thus acceptance and effectiveness." Successes of worker-trainers in corporations cited by UAB included local divisions of Georgia Pacific, International Paper, Weyerhaueser, Union Camp, Stone Container, and Potlatch [ 18].

Elkton, Virginia: the Beginning of Collaboration

In September 2009, at Merck's Stonewall facility in Elkton, Virginia, at a labor-management health and safety meeting, a decision was made that all 739 of its employees should receive the OSHA 10-hour General Industry training course. Bold leadership, both from the union and from management, allowed for this ambitious objective. Shortly thereafter, four members of the International Chemical Workers Union Local 94 from the facility attended a four-day emergency response scholarship class in Cincinnati at the ICWUC training center. When they returned to work they spoke highly of the Center to both the union leadership and Merck management.

A decision was also made, at the September meeting, for a union member to become part of the Learning and Development Department of the facility to help in the training and to carry out recommendations resulting from the training. Management approved the new position, and potential candidates were trained with OSHA courses, authorizing them to deliver the OSHA 10-hour General Industry training. One of the four trainees that attended the ICWUC training was hired into the Learning and Development Department in February 2011.

Pilot Programs Led to Site-Specific Training

The training initiative began with two pilot courses. These pilot programs were generic OSHA 10-hour courses for General Industry.1 Upon completion of these pilot courses the participants met in January 2010 to determine whether or not the Center's training methods and curriculum would be a good fit for Merck's population. The pilot programs were considered successful, but both labor and management agreed that the training needed modification to meet site-specific requirements as well as OSHA requirements. ICWUC staff began detailed program development to meet these two requirements.

Collaboration to Meet Training Needs

At the meetings held following the pilot programs, participants discussed the capabilities of the ICWUC's training center to develop site-specific modules for the Stonewall plant that would lead to a card from OSHA certifying that each trainee had completed the requirements for the OSHA 10-hour General Industry training course.

Details concerning scheduling were also discussed during these meetings. The plan was to schedule people from the same departments to attend classes together to keep the materials focused and applicable. This proved to be difficult, and the classes were actually comprised of workers from a variety of departments. The original thought was that the classes could be scheduled during turnarounds (changes in the chemical in production) and times when departments could release people without having a negative impact on production. Scheduling during turnarounds, however, did not prove feasible.

Curriculum Development and Evaluation

Development of site-specific training modules that fulfilled the OSHA requirements for participants to receive OSHA's 10-hour card for General Industry began in February 2010 with a completion deadline of May the same year. The ICWUC Center agreed to be responsible for developing site-specific curricula, providing all manuals and resources, presenting modules, and co-facilitating as much as possible with the newly authorized in-house trainers. The goal was that once the planning was completed, the in-house worker trainers would be able to present the entire course without assistance, chair the follow-up evaluation meetings, and write summary reports.

The curriculum development began with objectives for each module agreed upon by the labor-management planning group at the Stonewall plant in Elkton, Virginia. The module development aimed to create site-specific curricula, and multiple critical changes did add site-specificity to the core generic training materials that were used.

Walking and Working Surfaces

The generic health and safety curriculum included a PowerPoint presentation about walking and working surfaces. Site-specific pictures were added to the presentation, and an effort was made to focus on the plant areas most applicable to each group of trainees. A site-specific small group activity was also developed which met OSHA objectives.

Emergency Action and Fire Prevention Plans

Merck had been offering Emergency Evacuation training in-house at its Stonewall plant as an on-line module and the company provided ICWUC staff with a copy of that module to help with development of a site-specific OSHA 10-hour training module. After going through the e-module several times and comparing it to the OSHA requirements, ICWUC staff members were in agreement that the module was very good and exceeded most of OSHA's requirements. The e-module had all the information necessary and was very detailed. However, Merck had been unhappy with the results of recent drills. It seemed that even though the electronic training module was well done, it was still ineffective in generating the needed real-life practices.

Staff from the ICWUC training center, with advice from members of Local 94C, took all the information from the e-module and created a small group exercise for this section of training. This seemed to be well received, and early evaluations were supportive of this exercise. However, the plant had a real incident during one of the training sessions and evacuation still did not go well. Even though the majority of plant employees had the necessary classroom knowledge to answer all the questions about evacuation, they still failed when it came to implementing that knowledge. The biggest shortcoming was accounting for everyone in their designated assembly areas. It became apparent that the scope of the training was insufficient to establish the necessary knowledge for this type of critical practice, so trainers adjusted the module so that everyone would conduct drills at the assembly areas and ensure that they would know where they were to report and to whom. This continuous collaboration and evaluation led to the evolution of a module that had quality hands-on training and achieved the necessary results. Employees continue to receive reinforcement of the evacuation process with semi-annual drills.

Personal Protective Equipment

Personal protective equipment (PPE) of all types was gathered from across the plant and used for training. Included were air line hoods (Versa hoods) and respirators; Saranex, Tyvek, and TyChem 300 chemical suits; polyvinyl alcohol, nitrile, butyl rubber, neoprene, Silver Shield, and Viton gloves; hard-toe shoes; and safety glasses. Thus, the PPE that were the focus of classroom sessions were site-specific to the trainees, avoiding the abstract nature of generic examples. Using PPE familiar to trainees allowed them to more easily apply what they learned.

Ergonomics

Plant-specific ergonomics issues surfaced early on in the training and received focus in subsequent sessions, using specially developed table-top exercises. Issues ranged from loading and lifting to the design of work stations that allowed technicians to sit in a comfortable position while working. Resolving some of these ergonomic issues became an outcome of training and subsequent health and safety committee work.

Outcomes of Training

Each class was given a pre- and post-test to assess acquired knowledge. The pre-/post-test protocol (available from the authors on request) was established simultaneously with curriculum development to ensure that data would be accurate and measurable. All trainees received a 24-question pre-test comprised of two questions from each of the six required modules and two questions from each of the six potential electives. After trainees selected their two electives, a 16-question post-test was assembled for each individual class. This 16-question post-test was comprised of the 12 questions from the required modules and two questions from each of the two electives the class actually covered.

At the end of each training course, participants also completed an evaluation aimed at measuring workplace changes that workers expected as a result of the training. Three months after the last class, meetings for 80 of the 739 participants were arranged with ICWUC staff and others involved in delivering the training. The 80 participants were selected to represent every department. To the extent possible, union members and all levels of supervision were equally represented. Through a series of questionnaires and follow-up discussions, this group of 80 identified a list of safety concerns in their jobs. Many of these safety concerns were quickly resolved. This process was deemed possible only because of the common training and the mutual trust that the training had engendered.

Trainees gained significant knowledge during the OSHA 10-hour General Industry course. They learned the prescribed curriculum and also learned about related plant procedures. In eight modules (Introduction to OSHA, Hazard Communication, Walking and Working Surfaces, Emergency Action and Fire Prevention Plans, Basic Electrical, Ergonomics, Personal Protective Equipment, and Safety Programs) the average pre-test score was a failing 50 percent ( Table 1 .) For personal protective equipment it was 19 percent. The post-test average scores ranged from 57 percent to 99 percent; in four of the eight categories the scores were over 90 percent. Knowledge increased for all eight modules; for six of the eight modules, the change in knowledge from the pre- to post-test cannot be attributed to chance (see t-test scores and p-values in Table 1 .)

Table 1

Topic

Pre-test percent correct

Post-test percent correct

t-value

Probability due to chancea

In addition to the acquisition of knowledge, training led to other important outcomes. Reports from participants show an increase in the perceived need for more training, changes in specific practices, individual use of resources such as the OSHA website, and desire to follow safety practices. Specifically, Merck Safety Director Jack Ward reports that "there has been an increase in requests for PPE since the OSHA classes." The training also prompted participants to identify and address problems that needed solving. For example, when floors were identified as slippery and the required paper booties were seen to make them worse, the issue was raised, and dedicated shoes were then ordered to eliminate wearing booties on the floor. To recognize and solve such problems took not only training, but changing the institutional and decision-making structure at Merck, involving leadership from both management and the union, and developing an environment of trust and mutual respect. One element necessary in this trust-building was having both workers and managers receive the same training and receive it together.

Activation of a Plant-wide Safety and Health Committee, with Near-Miss Reporting and a "Stop" Card Process

A plant-wide safety and health committee had been established prior to delivery of the OSHA 10-hour General Industry training. It was only after plant-wide training, however, that the committee became active and discussed safety and health problems in the plant and successfully sought solutions. Since the trainings, the new, revised Safety Committee meets monthly, as do its six subcommittees. The committee is led by the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) which has eight to 10 members. Under the SLT is the Safety and Environmental (S&E) Steering Council which has six members, who come from both union and management. Each of the six newly reconfigured subcommittees has members from both union and management. The six subcommittees are: 1) Risk Management Subcommittee (with the union trainer a member); 2) Incident Investigation Subcommittee; 3) Communications Subcommittee; 4) Rewards and Recognition Subcommittee; 5) Training Subcommittee; and 6) Sustainability Subcommittee. Union and management leadership attribute plant-wide general awareness and heightened concern with health and safety for the new vitality of the safety and health committee as well as many other safety-related systems and institutions at the Elkton facility.

Since the OSHA 10-hour General Industry training program, a Safety Information Management System now communicates near misses across the entire plant, describing the particulars of the incident as well as discussion of the root cause. These near-miss reports sometimes lead to safety bulletins and/or training classes. Maintenance work orders are also generated from many of these near-miss reports. While the information system was created in December 2006, it was not used widely or often. Only a few supervisors were even aware it existed. Now, post-training, there is recognition of the value of this policy, and the joint labor-management safety and health committee assures that this and other systems are used across the plant and on a regular, institutionalized basis.

There is also a STOP-card process through which all employees have the ability to call a stop to production if they see a serious safety hazard. This too existed before the OSHA 10-hour General Industry training, but was not widely known about or used. As a result of the training, all employees, hourly and salaried alike, are now familiar with this potentially life-saving safety tool.

Performance-Level Safety Improvements that Became Possible after OSHA-10 Training

Merck employees documented a long list of measurable safety-related changes following plant-wide training and subsequent discussions. Below is discussion about just three of these changes, as examples of what can happen after leadership, training, trust, and activism provide enhanced safety awareness and a basis for collaboration.

Ergonomic Issues with Laminar Flow Hood2 in Building 65 Lab

Biologists and chemists who worked in the building 65 lab had long had ergonomic concerns with the laminar flow hood they used on a daily basis. The plant had an old 1970s model hood with a fan motor box on the floor, forcing lab employees to bend over to work because they could not put their knees under the hood to sit. A solution to the ergonomic problem was agreed upon by supervisors, managers, and technicians, but lack of funding had caused purchase of a new hood to be continually delayed or cancelled. During the summer of 2011, after the 2010 OSHA courses, the initiative was again introduced and the discussion finally gained energy. In January 2012, funds were approved and a new laminar flow hood was put in place. Lab techs describe the new hood as creating "a world of difference" because they can now sit down and put their knees under the hood rather than bending over to work. OSHA 10-hour training not only helped facilitate recognition of the seriousness of the problem but also reinforced the knowledge of the hazard and created a basis for collaboration at all levels of decision-making. As a result, the need for a safety and health solution overcame the funding problems and the new laminar flow hood was installed.

Material Handling Issues in Production of the HPV Vaccine

A material handling problem was successfully addressed because training had created an environment of shared concern for safety and a basis for collaboration. In the process of producing the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, operators had to carry 20-kilogram bags of material up several steps. This manual carrying was necessary because a tube in the vessel was not long enough for production to occur otherwise. Hearing that a similar problem had been resolved at another Merck plant, some of the operators went to the other facility to look at that solution. After returning to Elkton the operators discussed what they had seen and decided that the other plant's solution would be more difficult to use and could possibly cause other injuries. After much discussion among workers and managers, the decision was made to reduce the weight of material being carried to 10 kilogram bags. In addition, longer tubes were made and installed to improve the process. Prior to the training, the atmosphere for making such changes had not existed. According to interviews with Merck and ICWUC staff, the joint training brought about a new cooperative atmosphere encouraging the discussion and experimentation that is seen as a crucial link in identifying problems and finding solutions. The solutions not only improved health and safety, but also made the production process more efficient.

Glass Loading in B5

For years, operators had been suffering wrist and shoulder injuries while lifting glass, as a result of poor workplace ergonomics. The post-training atmosphere and committee activities led to a work order requesting the plant tinsmith to look at the problem. The tinsmith and operators gathered feedback and the tinsmith made a new tool to help with glass loading. Operators used the new tool and found that it put less strain on their wrists and shoulders, making glass loading safer for them. Use of the new tool was implemented in December 2011.

Other Performance-Level Safety Improvements

Trainees reported a number of additional safety problems that they have been able to identify and resolve as a result of their OSHA 10-hour training. Pedestrian walkways and safety crosswalks were painted throughout the plant to address concerns over foot traffic safety. Tripping hazard signs were purchased to address concerns over temporary safety conditions whenever it was necessary to re-route hoses. At first these tripping hazard signs were in only one part of the plant, but when others saw the signs, they were adopted plant-wide. Extension handles were purchased for hard-to-open valves. A new fork truck was purchased to replace a truck that was not rated for the weight it was transporting.

Among those interviewed by the authors, these safety and health improvements were made possible by shared OSHA 10-hour training experiences of labor and management, and the relationships that developed from that process. It began with acknowledging the importance of training and gaining safety and health awareness. Then, an environment that promotes safety and health improvements at every level of plant operation emerged. It is now expected that near misses will be reported and problems will be identified and resolved because everyone, workers and management alike, recognizes the importance of the problems and the need to work together to solve them.

Creating an Environment that Promotes Safety and Health Improvements

In 2013, an innovative plant-wide safety program brought everyone together in a team effort to improve plant safety. According to a key plant safety person, the collaborative environment, established in large part because of collaborative and universal training, was tested and worked.

We just completed a Safety campaign entitled "Where are the SNAKES". It was designed as if you were in your back yard cleaning up for the summer and moving boards, tires and other debris. The first thing in your mind is "What's going to bite me?" or "What's under here?" We used that the same as if you were at work and breaking a line or opening a tank. "What is going to spray me?" or "What type of vapor is going to come out?" It worked, and approximately 340 "SNAKES" (hazards) were found around the plant site. Most were minor and a few others needed prompt attention, like isolated safety showers not inspected timely as required. Lots of missing line labels and faded NFPA [National Fire Protection Association] labels were replaced.

Across the entire plant, everyone has completed OSHA 10-hour training, and employees feel more involved in promoting safety. Everyone has the right to stop hazardous work. Union and management leaderships have collaborative and respectful interactions as a result of their shared training. Near-miss reporting is not only encouraged, it is expected. Safety is part of all new-hire orientations. Each new employee is now trained on Emergency Evacuation Procedures (Exit Routes) and Shelter in Place practices. Relevant new employees now receive the entire OSHA initial Fork Truck Operator course (Material Handling)-both classroom and practical-and the training curriculum could expand to more subjects in the near future. Since OSHA 10-hour training and the building of mutual respect between labor and management, health and safety activities have grown and are more consistently practiced.

Are all these changes due to training? It would appear that bold leadership was the first essential element in building a workplace movement toward improved health and safety-leaders from both management and labor who had the vision to try a more collaborative approach. This was followed by universal joint training and the trust-building that came with it. These all became a platform for a reactivated committee structure and more active employee involvement-all key components leading to resolving hazards and improving safety and health in the workplace.

Conclusion

This case study demonstrates that positive changes can happen with bold leadership, cooperation between labor and management and site-specific worker-centered training of all hourly plant employees and all managers. Following OSHA 10-hour General Industry training, labor and management were able to work more collaboratively to improve many worksite safety and health problems. The specific steps taken to improve these conditions began with a decision to provide OSHA 10-hour General Industry training plant-wide, to provide off-site training (at the ICWUC Center in Cincinnati) for four workers, and to hold collaborative health and safety meetings between labor and management. This was followed by OSHA 10-hour General Industry training for all facility personnel and having labor and management in the same training sessions. The health and safety committee was then expanded in size and discussions led to identification of problems, and many of these were resolved. The plant hired a rank-and-file union member to become a permanent peer trainer for the company. Respect and collaboration have grown, and new and better outcomes are in progress. An environment for continuous improvement has been created along with structural changes that increase health and safety.

According to ICWUC Local 94C President Donnie Williams who works at this site:

The 10-hour OSHA training and qualification has raised all employees' awareness concerning safety that works at the Stonewall Site. I appreciate the dedication to safety that Vice President and Plant Manager, Craig Kennedy, showed in going forward with this program for Managers and Union members here at Stonewall. Now all employees carry the 10 hour OSHA card in their pockets. The staff of the Chemical Worker Health and Safety Center demonstrated their expertise in this program, keeping with some of the best efforts in health and safety [ 20].

As further evidence that the Merck-ICWUC process has been successful, Afton Chemical in Sauget, Illinois, has recently developed a similar relationship with ICWUC. That plant, in mid-2012, began the process of training all its employees in OSHA-10. ICWUC is, in conjunction with ICWU Local 871C and the company management, providing manuals that meet OSHA requirements and are also site-specific. The first training there showed significant learning and yielded a list of dozens of safety issues that need to be addressed. In addition, talks are in the early stages with other ICWUC locals and the companies they represent for plant-wide OSHA 10-hour training programs and development of OSHA-authorized site worker trainers, along with an evaluation project similar to the Merck project. This case study is an example of health and safety progress that can be made in companies where management is willing to cooperate with a union that has made a long and strong investment in promoting the health and safety of its members. Management and labor alike took bold initiatives, cooperated, and trained all 739 employees with a specially crafted OSHA 10-hour General Industry course. The result was not only a more educated workforce, but also a workforce poised to solve problems and improve workplace safety and health.

Acknowledgments

Research reported in this publication was supported by a collaboration between the International Chemical Workers Union Council/UFCW Center for Worker Health and Safety Education, and Merck. It was also partially funded the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number 5U45ES006162. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. All authors have research interests in the value of health and safety training and the merits of labor-management cooperation. Funding for the paper was from the International Chemical Workers Union Council/UFCW, Center for Worker Health and Safety Education.

Thanks to all those at the International Chemical Workers Union Council, Center for Worker Health and Safety Education, who supported this research and evaluation. The authors thank Darrell Hornback, Keith Mundy, and Rich Smith for their comments and suggestions. Thanks, too, to the trainers and hourly and salaried trainees of the Merck Stonewall plant in Elkton, Virginia. Congratulations to those in both labor and management who found a path toward working together so that all employees at the plant have a safer place to work.

Biography

Bruce Mahan is an Instructor at the International Chemical Workers Union Council (ICWUC) Center for Worker Health and Safety Education. He has been on staff at the Center since July 1988. He has held the positions of Instructor, Field Training Director and Education Director. He has a B.S. in Business Administration from Franklin University. He was co-chair of the Evaluation Sub Committee on the ANSI Z490 Standard Committee. (Acceptable Practices for Health and Safety Training) and has been involved in numerous evaluation projects in his career at the Center.

John S. Morawetz is the founding Director of the ICWUC Center for Worker Health and Safety Education since it began in 1988. The Center is operated by the ICWU and works with 7 other unions to train participants from these unions in a range of Chemical Emergency Response and Disaster Preparedness and has an extensive Worker Trainer development program. Mr. Morawetz has a ScM from the Harvard School of Public Health and can be contacted at gro.cuwci@ztewaroMJ.

Rick Workman is a chemical operator (ICWU), currently serving as a safety trainer for Merck & Co., Inc. He trains all employees, both management and union, and has worked for Merck for 18 years. His email is moc.kcrem@namkrow_pillihp.

Ruth Ruttenberg is president of Ruth Ruttenberg & Associates, an economic consulting firm since 1986 and is also a professor at the National Labor College, Silver Spring, Maryland. She has worked in the occupational safety and health field for nearly 40 years. She has a BA from the University of Wisconsin and Masters and Ph.D. From the University of Pennsylvania. Her email is ten.sdt@grebnetturr.

Footnotes

¹The modules required at the time were: Introduction to OSHA, Walking and Working Surfaces, Emergency Evacuation, Electrical Safety, Personal Protective Equipment, and Hazard Communication [ 19]. Electives were Hazardous Materials, Fall Protection, Industrial Hygiene, Materials Handling, Safety and Health Programs, and Ergonomics.

² A laminar flow hood provides an aseptic work area and contains infectious splashes or aerosols generated by microbiological procedures. It is designed to keep contaminants from entering a product by filtering air from the room and directing this "clean air" onto the work surface where the lab technician works with a chemical sample or product.

Notes

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20. Email from Donnie Williams to Bruce Mahan, September 10, 2012

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Workplace Safety and Health Improvements Through a Labor/Management Training and Collaboration

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Seven hundred thirty-nine workers at Merck's Stonewall plant in Elkton, Virginia, have a safer and healthier workplace because four of them were enthusiastic about health and safety training they received from the union's training center in Cincinnati, Ohio.

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This 98-Year-Old Man Spent 13 Years Creating Remarkable Art in MS Paint | WIRED

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may be 98 years old, but while many of his peers devote their leisure time to shuffleboard and bridge, he has a very different passion: creating huge works of art pixel by pixel in Microsoft Paint.

While most people have long since abandoned MS Paint as an outdated graphics application, Lasko has spent the last 13 years using the program to digitally create works of art, spending up to 10 hours a day on his work. Originally a traditional painter, he switched to MS Paint full-time in 2005 when his vision was impaired by wet macular degeneration, an eye disease that causes blindness in the center of his vision. He has since created more than 150 digital works, though his blindness means he will never be able to view them in their totality.

"When I started to go blind, I wasn't able to get the brush quite where I wanted it," Lasko told WIRED. "So when I got into the art program on the computer, I appreciated that I could blow it up eight hundred times [larger] and be sure that I was hitting the right spot."

Although he had never used computer graphics software before, Lasko did have experience with artistic design after working as a typographer. He mastered lettering as an apprentice after high school, creating fonts by hand, and learned to paint traditionally on his own. His grandson, Ryan Lasko, initially introduced him to Microsoft Paint, but according to Ryan, that too "is all pretty much self-taught."

Hal's work has been inspired by artists including Edward Hopper, Charles Burchfield, and Paul Klee; lately, he has come to appreciate impressionism, and experimented with ways to adapt its thin, layered brushstrokes with an 8-bit twist. While he initially didn't realize that his digital paintings could be printed, he now has a website selling 16" x 20" prints of eight different works; he may soon begin printing on canvas as well.

Last July, Ryan, who works as a graphic designer for a New York City software company, teamed with Josh Bogdan, a college friend and San Francisco copywriter, to direct a short documentary called about Hal and his art. The Pixel Painter (above), which runs eight and a half minutes, spends an entire weekend with Hal discussing his love of making art in MS Paint; the shoot included his 97th birthday celebration and the debut of an art exhibit at a senior center where Hal displayed two of his digital paintings.

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This 98-Year-Old Man Spent 13 Years Creating Remarkable Art in MS Paint

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may be 98 years old, but while many of his peers devote their leisure time to shuffleboard and bridge, he has a very different passion: creating huge works of art pixel by pixel in Microsoft Paint.

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Many business, organizations and industries embrace change as part of solving problems and improving processes. Creativity and innovation can be major factors in driving these kinds of productive changes, and developing these qualities on a personal and organizational level can benefit individuals and companies alike. Though these terms are often used interchangeably, many industries differentiate between the two based largely on outcomes. In this article, we discuss creativity and innovation, the difference between them and why they are important.

Why are innovation and creativity important?

Being able to make a comparison of innovation versus creativity can help you understand both qualities better and implement them in your own work. The difference between these concepts largely depends on context; however, it is possible to understand the ways these terms are often used and how they overlap. Both creativity and innovation can drive change in almost any industry, and they can both help your business succeed.

What is innovation?

In most situations, innovation is flexible thinking that results in measurable outcomes. Some organizations have begun using a methodology called design thinking to help drive innovation on their teams and help find a common vocabulary for the process of developing new ideas and processes. Whichever language your team uses to discuss innovation, the ability to apply original or unique problem-solving processes to your challenges can help you succeed.

Related: What Are Innovative Thinking Skills?

What is creativity?

Creativity usually refers to the act of generating new ideas itself, regardless of whether those ideas result in measurable outcomes or solutions. Thinking creatively can be a very important part of innovation because thinking creatively can help you identify new ways to do things and create tangible products that contribute to innovative measurable outcomes.

Related: How To Be More Creative: Why It's Important and Steps To Boost Creativity

Innovation vs. creativity

Innovation and creativity share the common quality of introducing new ways of thinking to a problem or challenge. How each one operates in this context differs, however. It is also important to remember that different people and organizations might use these terms differently or even interchangeably. To help you better understand the relationship between innovation and creativity, here are some commonly identified characteristics of each:

Characteristics of innovation

Innovation usually includes these qualities:

Characteristics of creativity

Creativity usually includes these qualities:

Related: How To Encourage Innovation in the Workplace (With Examples and Tips)

Tips for developing innovation and creativity

Here are some tips that might help you develop innovation and creativity:

Ask questions

An inquisitive mind can be the first step toward developing creative thinking processes, and thinking creatively often leads to measurable innovation. Try to ask open-ended questions when faced with a new challenge. For example, rather than asking if a challenge has a solution, ask yourself how you can approach that challenge or change the situation. Asking plenty of questions of situations and of other people can also help you grow as a professional and develop new skills, which contribute to the value of your creative and innovative outcomes.

Use a growth mindset

Growth mindset refers to the belief that any skill can be learned with sufficient opportunity and effort. Exercising a growth mindset in the workplace can increase creativity and innovation by helping you persevere in the face of adversity or challenges. When you encounter obstacles, try thinking about ways you can continue working toward your goals in creative ways.

Related: Using a Growth Mindset to Develop Your Skills

Change your environment

Sometimes, a different environment can help foster creativity and innovation for individuals and teams. If you are working independently, try taking a walk or working in a different setting to spark new ideas that might then become actionable innovations. To inspire a team, try changing features of the office or taking everyone out of the office for a workplace function. The variety might inspire new concepts and ideas.

Collaborate

Teamwork often results in new ideas, and when teams work together to turn those ideas into real outcomes you get innovation. As an individual, try to make a practice of collaborating with colleagues to solve problems and generate new ideas. If you are able to do so, establish spaces and frameworks to allow your teams to work together as well to increase collective creativity and innovation.

Stay positive

A positive outlook can help you develop creativity and innovation by opening your mind to new possibilities. Try approaching new solutions with a variation of "maybe," and try to notice the positive or useful features of solutions you might not choose to use as a whole. Staying positive as an individual can also help motivate your team to stay open to new ideas and concepts, which is a key contributor to innovation.

Set meaningful goals

Setting meaningful goals can help you structure your creative process and turn concepts into deliverable innovations. Try using the SMART goal-setting framework. This means identifying goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-based. Applying this process to your creative work might support an even greater level of productivity and change.

Continue learning

Thinking creatively often means continuing to learn new skills and ideas, and with nurturing, your new skills and ideas can turn into quantifiable innovation. Try seeking out professional development opportunities independently and through your organization. Consider looking online for training, or pursue in-person coursework such as classes offered at a local college or university. Read often, and try to discuss what you have learned with colleagues or industry associates.

Implement solutions

Turning your ideas into actionable solutions can help you practice bridging the relationship between creativity and innovation. If possible, take action on your creative ideas in the workplace each day. If some of your ideas require collaboration or approval, identify the processes you need to make your ideas a reality. Develop a definitive plan to take action and innovate.

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Innovation and Creativity: What's the Difference?

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Many business, organizations and industries embrace change as part of solving problems and improving processes. Creativity and innovation can be major factors in driving these kinds of productive changes, and developing these qualities on a personal and organizational level can benefit individuals and companies alike.

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I thought this was pretty cool on bringing up how creativity obviously comes form the brain, but it doesn't matter if your crazy or not, creativity is a crazy phenomenon we all experience.

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Creativity encompasses the ability to discover new and original ideas, connections, and solutions to problems. It’s a part of our drive as humans—fostering resilience, sparking joy, and providing opportunities for self-actualization.

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Mentions safety features implemented in cars to protect the driver and citizens.

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CATIE - Council on Academic Technology and Innovative Education

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Compiled from Multiple Sources
June 2021

LEARNING SPACES/ONLINE EDUCATION

Ahmed, M. M. H., & Indurkhya, B. (2020). Investigating cognitive holding power and equity in the flipped classroom. Heliyon, 6(8), e04672.

In recent years, the flipped classroom has been proposed as an alternative paradigm of teaching, and has been demonstrated to improve the students' knowledge and skills, engagement, and self-efficacy. At the same time, as the number of students seeking higher education is growing and the needs of these students are rapidly evolving, it has become necessary to improve their cognitive holding power and enhance equity among them. The goal of this study is to investigate the impact of the flipped classroom on improving the students' cognitive holding power and enhancing equity.

For this study, the flipped classroom was implemented for teaching undergraduate university students' course "An Introduction to Instructional Technology". In the class, whiteboard and Smartboard were used to discuss and clarify ambiguous ideas related to the topic and to present the model answers for the tasks. Outside the class, video files and Google applications (Word, PPT, Drive) were used for delivering learning materials. WhatsApp was used for communication and Google form was used for designing learning activities and assessment. The results of the study indicate: (1) to some extent flipped classroom can be a solution for improving students' cognitive holding power, especially in performing learning tasks and following teacher' instructions. (2) Equity among the students can be enhanced in the flipped classroom. These findings have implications for using the flipped classroom in managing the diversity of university students through enhancing equity among them and improving their abilities.

Crea, T.M., Sparnon, N. (2017). Democratizing education at the margins: faculty and practitioner perspectives on delivering online tertiary education for refugees. Int J Educ Technol High Educ 14, 43.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-017-0081-y
Online distance learning is rapidly becoming a mainstay in higher education. Yet, there still exists unequal access to internet technology among the world's most vulnerable populations. This article reviews the implementation of an online pilot program that provided tertiary education to refugees in Africa and the Middle East, using a unique blend of brick-and-mortar and virtual instruction. Faculty experiences mirrored much of the experiences of instructors in more traditional online education - while onsite staff provided a unique perspective on the embedded nature of the program, based in local contexts. The results of this study helped point the way towards important program modifications to increase the quality of faculty communication and the cultural relevance of the curriculum. Future research is needed to identify whether such programs lead to improved outcomes for refugees.

Holeton, R. (2020, February). Toward inclusive learning spaces: Physiological, cognitive, and cultural inclusion and the learning space rating system. EDUCAUSE - Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion. ( https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/2/toward-inclusive-learning-spaces)

Inclusive learning space design should be based on a tripartite framework addressing the diverse physiological, cognitive, and cultural needs of learners.

Johnson, J.B., Reddy, P., Chand, R. et al. (2021) Attitudes and awareness of regional Pacific Island students towards e-learning. Int J Educ Technol High Educ 18, 13. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-021-00248-z

The rise of online modes of content delivery, termed e-learning, has increased student convenience and provided geographically remote students with more options for tertiary education. However, its efficacy relies upon student access to suitable technology and the internet, and the quality of the online course material. With the COVID-19 outbreak, education providers worldwide were forced to turn to e-learning to retain their student base and allow them to continue learning through the pandemic. However, in geographically remote, developing nations, many students may not have access to suitable technology or internet connections. Hence it is important to understand the potential of e-learning to maintain equitable access to education in such situations. This study found the majority (88%) of commencing students at the University of the South Pacific owned at least one ICT device and had access to the internet. Similarly, most students had adequate to strong ICT skills and a positive attitude toward e-learning. These attitudes among the student cohort, in conjunction with the previous experience of The University of the South Pacific in distance education, are likely to have contributed to its relatively successful transition from face-to-face to online learning as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kintu, M.J., Zhu, C. & Kagambe, E. (2017). Blended learning effectiveness: the relationship between student characteristics, design features and outcomes. Int J Educ Technol High Educ 14, 7.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-017-0043-4
This paper investigates the effectiveness of a blended learning environment through analyzing the relationship between student characteristics/background, design features and learning outcomes. It is aimed at determining the significant predictors of blended learning effectiveness taking student characteristics/background and design features as independent variables and learning outcomes as dependent variables. A survey was administered to 238 respondents to gather data on student characteristics/background, design features and learning outcomes. The final semester evaluation results were used as a measure for performance as an outcome. We applied the online self regulatory learning questionnaire for data on learner self regulation, the intrinsic motivation inventory for data on intrinsic motivation and other self-developed instruments for measuring the other constructs. Multiple regression analysis results showed that blended learning design features (technology quality, online tools and face-to-face support) and student characteristics (attitudes and self-regulation) predicted student satisfaction as an outcome. The results indicate that some of the student characteristics/backgrounds and design features are significant predictors for student learning outcomes in blended learning.

Littenberg-Tobias, J., & Reich, J. (2020). Evaluating access, quality, and equity in online learning: A case study of a MOOC-based blended professional degree program. The Internet and Higher Education, 47, 100759.

As massive open online courses (MOOCs) shift toward professional degree and certificate programs, can they become a global on-ramp for increasing access to emerging fields for underrepresented groups? This mixed-methods study addresses this question by examining one of the first MOOC-based blended professional degree programs, which admitted students to an accelerated residential master's program on the basis of performance in MOOCs and a proctored exam. We found that male students and students with master's degrees were more likely to complete the online program and the blended program had more male students and more students with master's degrees than students in the existing residential program. Students who enrolled in the blended graduate program earned higher average grades than students in the residential program earned in their in-person courses (3.86 vs 3.75, p < .01). The findings of this study provide an example of how new online learning models can serve particular niches, but may not address broader equity challenges.

Yu, Z. (2021). The effects of gender, educational level, and personality on online learning outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Int J Educ Technol High Educ 18, 14. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-021-00252-3

With the rampant pandemic of COVID-19, an increasing number of people are acquiring knowledge through online learning approaches. This study aims to investigate how to improve online learning effectiveness during this special time. Through a mixed design, this study revealed the effect of educational levels, gender, and personality traits on online learning outcomes. It was concluded that postgraduates (N = 599) outperformed undergraduates (N = 553) in online learning, learners (N = 1152) with strong personality traits such as agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to a new experience outperformed those with strong extraversion and neuroticism. Future research could improve interpersonal interactions and encourage learners to post words in the online discussion forum, focus on how to design scaffolding online learning and how to improve the quality and dynamic of the online contents, and highlight blended learning rather than either merely online or traditional face-to-face learning.

INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN/EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY

Arendale. D. R. (2018). Introduction to special issue on universal design for inclusive pedagogy and a future research agenda. Education Sciences 8, no. 4.

https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci8040203

This Special Issue seeks to address the needs of all postsecondary/tertiary students for a barrier-free learning environment to increase their academic achievement, engagement, learning mastery, and persistence to graduation. Universal Design for Inclusive Pedagogy (UDIP) is sensitive to diverse students and individual differences to promote access and equity. While our colleagues in elementary and secondary education have been addressing this issue for many years, postsecondary education is a newer field for this approach. The six articles in this issue break new ground with regards to expanding the boundaries of Universal Design (UD). Areas explored in this Special Issue are transformed curriculum, innovative teaching and learning practices, cross-national and cross-cultural student interactions, application of UD to academic pathways, and UDIP embedded into the institutional culture and policies. The central themes of the articles are increased access, equity, and social justice for all students.

Blayone, T. J. B., vanOostveen, R., Barber, W., DiGiuseppe, M., and Childs, E. ( 2017). Democratizing digital learning: Theorizing the fully online learning community model. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education 14, no. 1: 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-017-0051-4

The integration of digital technologies at institutions of higher education are profoundly influencing formal learning on a global scale. Social-constructivist models of fully online learning are well-positioned to address the demands of government, and economic and social-development organizations for civically-engaged individuals with strong problem-solving, critical-thinking and collaboration competencies. With an established record of performance at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT), Canada, the Fully Online Learning Community (FOLC) is one such model. This paper theorizes FOLC as a response to several problematics, including (a) the aforementioned demand for greater educational focus on higher-order competency development, (b) the deficiencies of distance education and MOOCs as learning models, and (c) a quest for new learning models that strengthen deliberation skills and deepen democratic experience. As a divergent fork of the Community of Inquiry model, FOLC describes collaborative learning as a symbiosis of social and cognitive interactions amplified through effective use of synchronous and asynchronous digital affordances. Furthermore, it models democratized learning communities that reduce transactional distance between learners and educators, incorporates authentic assessment, and encourages negotiated technology affordances and cognitive outcomes while distributing responsibility for constructive criticality. Having positioned FOLC conceptually, and addressed current limitations, a research agenda for extending its empirical foundations, and leveraging UOIT's EILAB affordances, is presented. The underlying argument is that self-regulating and transformative learning communities can be established and sustained in fully online environments, and that such communities (a) produce a diversity of beneficial learning outcomes, and (b) deepen the democratic functioning of learners and their social contexts.

Sullivan, F. R. (2020). Critical pedagogy and teacher professional development for online and blended learning: The equity imperative in the shift to digital. Educational Technology Research and Development: A Bi-Monthly Publication of the Association for Educational Communications & Technology 69, no. 1 pp: 21-24. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-020-09864-4

This paper provides a response to the work of Philipsen et al. (Educ Technol Res Dev 67:1145-1174, Philipsen et al., Educational Technology, Research and Development 67:1145-1174, 2019), from a critical pedagogy perspective. Here, critical pedagogy is defined from a post-colonial framework focused on liberation. From this perspective, the value of Philipsen et al.'s paper is in its implicit alignment with critical methodologies, including how liberatory ideas are embedded in the TPD for OBL framework. In a response to Philipsen et al.'s work, this paper provides advice on practical actions teachers can take to develop their ability to engage in critical pedagogy, both from the TPD for OBL lens and from an equity lens. This paper concludes with a discussion of the limitations of the meta-aggregative review, including the lack of an explicitly critical framework, and it provides suggestions for how the work could be improved, especially as regards a discussion of equity for teachers and students. Future research in this area should focus on methods for disrupting educational inequity regarding online and blended learning.

Voithofer, R. & Foley, A. (2007, January). Digital Dissonances: Structuring absences in national discourses on equity and educational technologies. Equity & Excellence in Education, 40:1, p14-25.

This study traces discursive formations surrounding educational technology, equity, and inclusion that have emerged or have been amplified through national policies and initiatives in the U.S., including the Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) research grant program, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), the Ed Tech state funding program, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, and the 2005 National Educational Technology Plan. Using critical discourse analysis and symptomatic readings, we examine language embedded in national initiatives in relation to educational technology to explore how these policies and initiatives address technology equity. Our analysis underscores the ongoing tendency of national discourses about educational technology to support universal and undifferentiated approaches to educational technology integration. In contrast to these national perspectives we advocate for sustaining interventions that promote contextual definitions of success and achievement rooted in the values, discourses, and resources of community and consider the redistribution of resources in ways that accommodate the complex historical and cultural factors that come into play when defining and addressing equity.

Xiao, J. (2021). From Equality to Equity to Justice: Should Online Education Be the New Normal in Education?. In Bozkurt, A. (Ed) Handbook of Research on Emerging Pedagogies for the Future of Education: Trauma-Informed, Care, and Pandemic Pedagogy. Hershey, PA: IGI Global (pp. 1-15).

Due to its role in addressing school closures amid the COVID-19 pandemic, emergency online education (EoE) is politicized and assumed to be the new normal in the post-crisis age. This chapter aims to answer the following questions: Should online education be the new normal for all, and if not, what should it be like? After briefly introducing how the world ensures educational continuity and distinguishing EoE from conventional online education, it examines education in the discourse of sustainable development goals, EoE from an equality-equity-justice perspective, and lessons learnt from EoE. It is argued that instead of OE, the new normal for all should be a package of solutions able to cater for learners of various types, minimizing inequality and inequity to allow as many people as possible to access quality education and hence enhance educational equity and justice. Issues related to the new normal are then discussed. The chapter concludes by calling on educational stakeholders to use this crisis as an opportunity to think about how to fix our already ailing educational system.

INSTRUCTION/INSTRUCTIONAL METHODS

Bali, M., Caines, A. (2018). A call for promoting ownership, equity, and agency in faculty development via connected learning. Int J Educ Technol High Educ 15, 46. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-018-0128-8

For transformation to occur in learning environments and for learners, higher education must first consider how such transformation will occur for the designers and facilitators of learning experiences: the university teachers or educators we call faculty (in the US), instructors, lecturers or professors or, in some instances, university staff. For the purpose of this article, we will refer to them as educators or faculty, and the process of their professional development as educational development or faculty development (more historically common in the US context). We aspire towards universities in the future that cultivate connected, participatory educational development that crosses institutional and national boundaries, and which takes equity, social justice and power differences into consideration, promoting educator agency. We propose theoretical underpinnings of our approach, while also highlighting some examples of recent practice that inspire this direction, but which are small in scale, and can provide springboards for future approaches that may be applied on a wider scale and become more fully integrated, supported and rewarded in institutions. Our theoretical underpinnings are influenced by theories of heutagogy and self-determined learning, transformative learning, connectivist and connected learning, and an interest in equity.

We share models of alternative approaches to educator development that take advantage of the latest advances in technology, such as #DigPINS, Virtually Connecting, collaborative annotation, and dual-pathway MOOCs. We then share a semi-fictional authoethnography of our (the authors') daily connected lives, and we end by highlighting elements of the models we shared that we feel could be adapted by institutions to achieve educator professional development that is more transformative, participatory, and equitable.

Burrell-Storms, S. L., Donovan, S. K., & Williams, T. P., (2020). Teaching through challenges for equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). Lanham, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Colleges and universities cannot ignore the increasingly diverse student population in their classrooms, and how a focus on equity, diversity, and inclusion across disciplines trains students in the intercultural awareness they will need in competitive job markets. Yet while faculty may be aware of a need to understand EDI goals in relationship to their disciplines, and institutions may support EDI in theory, the onus of pedagogical training in EDI often falls on individual faculty. This book was written by faculty and administrators for educators who value the goals of EDI, and seek an intellectual community to help them develop their practice. Important to this book is an honest discussion of common challenges faculty may face when they engage in this difficult work, and effective strategies for addressing those challenges. The chapters are grouped according to six different themes: respect for divergent learning styles; inclusion and exclusion; technology and social action; affective considerations; reflection for critical consciousness; and safe spaces and resistance.

Dunn, S. & Pinkoson, C. (2020, March). Instructional development for everyone: Five (fairly) easy steps to amplify impact and inclusivity. EDUCAUSE Teaching & Learning. ( https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2020/3/instructional-development-for-everyone-five-fairly-easy-steps-to-amplify-impact-and-inclusivity)

Faculty responsibilities are increasing, and teaching methods are changing. Faculty development needs to evolve to ensure that instructors can access and benefit from the support they need, when they need it.

Harris, B.N., et al (2020). From panic to pedagogy: Using online active learning to promote inclusive instruction in ecology and evolutionary biology courses and beyond. Ecology and Evolution 10, no. 22: 12581-612.
https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.6915
The rapid shift to online teaching in spring 2020 meant most of us were teaching in panic mode. As we move forward with course planning for fall and beyond, we can invest more time and energy into improving the online experience for our students. We advocate that instructors use inclusive teaching practices, specifically through active learning, in their online classes. Incorporating pedagogical practices that work to maximize active and inclusive teaching concepts will be beneficial for all students, and especially those from minoritized or underserved groups. Like many STEM fields, Ecology and Evolution shows achievement gaps and faces a leaky pipeline issue for students from groups traditionally underserved in science. Making online classes both active and inclusive will aid student learning and will also help students feel more connected to their learning, their peers, and their campus. This approach will likely help with performance, retention, and persistence of students. In this paper, we offer broadly applicable strategies and techniques that weave together active and inclusive teaching practices. We challenge instructors to commit to making small changes as a first step to more inclusive teaching in ecology and evolutionary biology courses.

Quintero, J., Baldiris, S., Rubira, R., Cerón, J., & Velez, G. (2019). Augmented reality in educational inclusion. A systematic review on the last decade. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1835.

The use of Augmented Reality (AR) to achieve educational inclusion has been not deeply explored. This systematic review describes the current state of using AR as an educational technology that takes into consideration the needs of all students including those with a disability. It is done through the analysis of factors, such as the advantages of AR, its limitations, uses, challenges, its scope in the educational field, the attended population and the positive or negative effects of its use in learning scenarios that involve students with diverse educational needs. A total of 50 studies between 2008 and 2018 were analyzed through searching in three interdisciplinary databases: Scopus, Web of Science, and Springer link. For this, the methodological stages considered were planning the review, search, analysis of literature and results report. After analyzing the results, it was possible to demonstrate that the use of AR for inclusive education in the field of sciences is where more studies have been conducted. In regard to the population with disabilities, among the most representative advantages reported were the motivation, interaction and generating interest on the part of the student. At the same time, an important methodological limitation identified was the size of the sample; some investigations were done with two or three subjects, some studies Single Subject Designs were found. In terms of the population attended, the studies generally included students with different impairments (hearing, visual, motor or cognitive), minorities (ethnic, vulnerable), leaving aside other groups excluded as exceptional talents and immigrants, which could be explored in the future. Despite different problems to be addressed, few frameworks to the diversity attention in education were reported, and there was no model and methodology in inclusive education considered in the studies. Finally, from this review we have identified open issues that could give rise to new research in the subject of using AR to favor the creation of inclusive learning scenarios.

Zhang, F., Kaufman, D., Schell, R. et al. (2017). Situated learning through intergenerational play between older adults and undergraduates. Int J Educ Technol High Educ 14, 16
https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-017-0055-0
This study is grounded in a social-cultural framework that embeds learning in social activities, mediated by cultural tools and occurring through guided participation in the social practice of a particular community. It uses conversation analysis as a tool to examine the structures of the talk-in-interaction of naturally occurring conversations between 11 pairs of older adult (aged between 65 and 92) and undergraduates (aged between 18 and 25) during a 6-week social practice of intergenerational digital gameplay. The purpose is to demonstrate how older adults adapt to and make sense of collaborative gaming activities through guided participation. The features of minimum gap and overlap, even conversational inputs, and orientation to one another's turns indicate interactional connection between older adults and younger people. Adjacency pairs in the form of question-answer and self-initiated other-repairs are the situated use of social resources afforded by the intergenerational interaction. It is through these two main means of interaction that younger players offer immediate feedback and explanation to guide older adults to engage in the collaborative play and develop understanding of unfolding concepts and phenomena.

DIGITAL INCLUSION/DIGITAL DIVIDE

Caruso, S. (2014). Creating digital communities: A resource to digital inclusion. New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Digital inclusion is the ability of individuals and groups to access and use information and communication technologies. Not all members of a community benefit equally, and some communities have been left out altogether. This book is a resource for fostering digital inclusion throughout the United States so that everyone can take advantage of digital technologies. The framework is structured around a vision for the future, principles that define digital inclusion, goals to make digital inclusion a reality, and sample strategies for achieving these goals.

Leigh, P. R. (2011). International exploration of technology equity and the digital divide: Critical, historical and social perspectives. Hershey, Pa.: IGI Global
https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-61520-793-0
Education in the Eastern Caribbean has been heavily influenced by the colonial history of the sub-region. In recent years though, in recognition of the fact that the traditional approaches to teaching and learning are no longer meeting the needs of present-day students, there have been calls for change to more student-friendly ones, with electronic technology playing a significant role. However, the resistance to certain types of devices in the classroom has contributed to the slow uptake of widespread use of electronic technology and the online environment as a mode for teaching and learning. The closure of schools due to the advent of COVID-19 pandemic forced education systems in the region to turn to the online environment to engage students in educational activities. Students, teachers and other education officials had to face their apprehensions and venture into this space for schooling. This paper describes actions taken by the Eastern Caribbean Joint Board of Teacher Education to help teachers cope with this different learning environment, guided by the concepts of teacher readiness, equity relating to access of resources and providing caring support for all affected.

McLaughlin, R. & Resta, P.E. (2020, October). On Systemic Digital Equity, Systemic Inclusion, and the Teacher Librarian in the Pandemic Era, Part I. Teacher Librarian. 48:1, p 8-14.

The writing of this two-part series began at the end of the year before COVID-19. The intent was to explain the magnitude and importance of the "homework gap"-the lack of equitable student access at home to broadband, a computer and home access, as well as tech support, librarian support, and well-curated hidden web learning resources. But, after COVID19 took hold and schools were forced to close and move to remote, online learning, the magnitude of the problem became apparent. Now the focus shifts to solutions.

McLaughlin, R. & Resta, P.E. (2020, December). On Systemic Digital Equity, Systemic Inclusion, and the Teacher Librarian in the Pandemic Era, Part II. Teacher Librarian. 48:2, p8-13.

In the first part of this two-part series, we explored digital divide challenges, both longstanding and those intensified by the pandemic.

Myana, E., (2020, March). Technology empowerment in a joint-use academic and public library: The myth of the so-called digital natives persists for traditionally aged college students. Computers in Libraries. V 40 n 2, p16.

Especially in academic environments, we sometimes have trouble remembering that not everyone has the same access to technology. At universities, staffers and faculty members often assume that all students are Digital Natives and are comfortable with all technology. This assumption can be detrimental to many. Libraries, academic institutions, government organizations, and nonprofits are working to tackle the digital divide that exists even among those born into a digital world, and new partnerships are emerging to develop creative strategies for accessing and confronting the real technological inequalities.

Quaintance, Z. (2018, March). The quest for digital equity: A look at the evolution of the challenge to ensure advances in technology bring benefits to everyone. Government Technology. 31:2, p30-34.

The article focuses on the digital equity of people, which is also known as digital inclusion for the success of a community. Topics discussed include capabilities of technology which includes internet connectivity and mobile phones, challenges such as lack of infrastructure in rural areas and lack of speed in service, and role of state and local governments for spreading awareness and social aspects.

Soomro, K. A., et. al. (2020). Digital divide among higher education faculty. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education. 17:1, p1-16.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-020-00191-5
Digital divide centers on access to various dimensions of information and communication technology (ICT) including physical access, motivation, skills, and actual usage of digital technologies. This divide tends to be even wider in the context of developing countries. Yet, there is a lack of literature on the digital divide among the faculty who teach in higher education settings. Thus, as a preliminary effort, by using a 57-item Faculty's ICT Access (FICTA) scale, we investigated the digital inequalities (at the physical, motivational, skills, and usage levels) among Pakistani faculty in respect of their personal and positional categories. We also examined the relationship between faculty's instructional usage of ICT and other dimensions of their ICT access. The findings revealed that there were significant differences in the faculty's access to technology at the four levels in respect of their personal and positional categories. Further, the findings of the study shed light on the theoretical implications of the framework of successive kinds of ICT access suggested by van Dijk (The deepening divide: inequality in the information society, 2005).

DIGITAL LITERACY/TECHNOLOGY

Garcia, A., & Lee, C. H. (2020). Equity-Centered Approaches to Educational Technology. In Spector, J.M., Merrill, M.D., Elen, J., & Bishop, M.J. (Eds.) Handbook of Research in Educational Communications and Technology, New York: Springer. 247-261.

This chapter reviews the perspectives and scholarship that address educational equity through the application of technology and digital tools. We first explore how equity is framed in global discourse and the role that educational technology has played in both addressing and perpetuating disparities in achievement. Policymakers, designers, and researchers have routinely attempted to use digital technologies to address the learning needs of historically marginalized populations. Before we examine these technological interventions in context, we must first explore the root causes of what "counts" as an achievement gap as well as what "counts" as technology.

Lázaro Cantabrana, J.L., Estebanell Minguell, M. & Tedesco, J.C. (2015). Inclusion and Social Cohesion in a Digital Society. Int J Educ Technol High Educ 12, 44-58.
https://doi.org/10.7238/rusc.v12i2.2459
The information and knowledge society demands an increasing digital literacy of its citizens. Education, in formal and informal settings, has a significant role to play in trying to promote inclusion and social inclusion, as it helps to develop skills that allow access, registration, editing, publishing and sharing content on the web. , autonomously, critically and responsibly. In this regard, it should be noted that governments must provide the necessary resources for this to be possible. As will be detailed in this article, the work carried out by a group of experts made it possible to identify the following key factors, with their corresponding proposals for action, as essential to favor the changes that must take place in education: strategic management, generalization of access to technology, ongoing teacher training and evaluation and monitoring of policies and actions that promote digital inclusion and social cohesion.

Macgilchrist, F. (2019). Cruel optimism in edtech: When the digital data practices of educational technology providers inadvertently hinder educational equity. Learning, Media and Technology, 44(1), 77-86.

As digital data become increasingly central to education, hopes for educational equity are pinned more strongly on educational technology providers. This paper examines the data practices of edtech providers who are not simply making token gestures towards justice and equality. Drawing on ethnographic interviews and Berlant's notion of cruel optimism, it presents three data stories. The paper suggests that datafication in education provides a showcase of cruel optimism, i.e., when the object of desire is blocking one's flourishing. The conclusion considers the constitutive paradoxes of datafied education, and implications for the current phase of edu-technical transformation.

Rowan-Kenyon, H.T., Martinez-Aleman, A.M. & Savitz-Romer, M. (2018). Technology and engagement: Making technology work for first generation college students. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Technology and Engagement is based on a four-year study of how first generation college students use social media, aimed at improving their transition to and engagement with their university. Through web technology, including social media sites, students were better able to maintain close ties with family and friends from home, as well as engage more with social and academic programs at their university. This 'ecology of transition was important in keeping the students focused on why they were in college, and helped them become more integrated into the university setting. By showing the gains in campus capital these first-generation college students obtained through social media, the authors offer concrete suggestions for how other universities and college-retention programs can utilize the findings to increase their own retention of first-generation college students.

STUDENT GROUPS

AGE

Dahlström, H. (2019). Digital writing tools from the student perspective: Access, affordances, and agency. Education and Information Technologies: The Official Journal of the Ifip Technical Committee on Education 24, no. 2: 1563-81.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-018-9844-x
Along with digital development, new possibilities for communicating have emerged. The younger generation has adopted these new possibilities to a great extent. In order to be able to utilise the opportunities offered by digital tools when writing, access to digital tools is essential. Schools need to develop a writing education that meets students' contemporary writing needs. In considering this, it is important to learn more about the gains and the losses in digital writing. The purpose of this study was to understand and discuss the relation between students' digital access, students' perceived affordances with digital writing, and student agency. The methods used were a statistical survey and qualitative interviews. Six classes from five different schools located in a municipality in the middle of Sweden were chosen as an informant group. The results indicate that the most common condition concerning students' digital access was that students shared digital tools for writing with their families. An analysis of affordances was carried out to interpret the empirical findings from the qualitative data. Affordances that emerged were: write-ability, edit-ability, story-telling ability and accessibility. In addition, the ways in which digital access and the affordances perceived can be related to student agency were analysed. The main conclusion was that given the conditions of digital access and opportunities to practice, the affordances of digital writing can increase student agency. In turn, this suggests that writing education that focuses on student agency can contribute to equity in writing activities.

Lowell, V. L., & Morris Jr, J. M. (2019). Multigenerational classrooms in higher education: equity and learning with technology. The International Journal of Information and Learning Technology. 36 (2), pp 78-93.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss potential challenges learners from different generations may have with current instructional methods using educational technologies in the classroom. The authors hope to create awareness to help improve equity in learning opportunities and assist educators in understanding the needs of multigenerational classrooms. Design/methodology/approach: In a narrative review of the literature, the authors present the current findings of the literature on generations in higher education and concerns for equity in learning opportunities. Findings: It is commonplace in undergraduate programs for learners of multiple generations to attend classes together and research has shown that historical context and generational experiences affect the values, attitudes and learning preferences of each generation. Therefore, higher education institutions should be aware of the demographic profile of their students, as well as the external populations from which they may recruit students, to ensure they are cognizant of the needs of these populations and can provide equality in learning opportunities. Practical implications: To assist with the needs of this changing student population, university leaders must consider generational characteristics to ensure equity in learning opportunity. Specifically, university leaders and educators in the classrooms will need to adapt and adjust for a changing student population providing instruction that meets the needs of multiple generations of learners, often within one classroom. Originality/value: Often when we think of diversity in the classroom we think of age, gender, race or even culture. Today we must add diversity in generations. Unlike other equity issues in education such as access (McLaughlin, 2010), educators may not be considering the equity in the design of their instruction to provide equitable learning experiences based on a learners' knowledge and skills established by their experiences with technology. The lack of knowledge and skills a learner has with technology based on their experiences may create barriers to their ability to understand and complete instructional content involving technology (Wager, 2005). To ensure all learners can be successful, educators should strive to provide equality in learning opportunities when designing instruction including technology.

Staddon, R.V. (2020). Bringing technology to the mature classroom: age differences in use and attitudes. Int J Educ Technol High Ed uc 17, 11.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-020-00184-4
Mature students are anecdotally thought to be more anxious about technology than younger students, to the extent that they avoid using technology. This is a problem in today's higher education classrooms which often use a range of learning technologies, particularly as cohorts are becoming more and more likely to contain mature students. Previous work examining the attitudes of mature students to technology no longer reflects contemporary student age profiles or the current technological landscape. This study asks whether modern mature students in a UK university have more negative attitudes towards technology than younger students, and whether their usage of technology is different. A new diagnostic instrument, the Technology Attitudes Questionnaire, was developed to determine how students use technology for course activities and personal use, and their attitudes towards technology more generally. It was found that mature students use fewer technologies than younger students and use them less frequently, but have used them for a longer period over their lives. No difference was found for attitudes towards technology between the mature and younger groups. This research aims to contribute to the wider field of technology attitudes and use, particularly for the modern mature student cohort. These findings can be used to inform how educators design learning resources and use technology on their courses, working towards an age-inclusive programme.

GENDER

Jiménez-Cortés, R., Vico-Bosch, A. & Rebollo-Catalán, A. (2017). Female university student's ICT learning strategies and their influence on digital competence. Int J Educ Technol High Educ 14, 10.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-017-0040-7
Emerging technologies are leading to a rethink informal education and giving rise to new educational models, especially at university level. This paper looks into the strategies used by female university students to learn ICT and how this influences their level of digital competence. To do this, we surveyed 368 Spanish university women aged 20 to 34, using two scales measuring their learning strategies and digital skills. The findings showed that university students used a variety of strategies to learn about ICT, with strategies based on independent and collaborative learning prevailing. Results also showed that those women who used a wider variety of strategies to learn ICT attained more advanced digital skills. These results suggest the need to incorporate these forms of learning used by women with advanced digital skills into university teaching.

Seok, S., and DaCosta, B. (2017). Gender differences in teens' digital propensity and perceptions and preferences with regard to digital and printed text. Techtrends: Linking Research and Practice to Improve Learning a Publication of the Association for Educational Communications & Technology 61, no. 2: 171-78.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-016-0134-4
Gender differences between the reading of digital and printed text were explored in this study. Predictors of digital propensity were investigated along with gender differences in the context of digital propensity and perceptions and preferences toward the reading of digital and printed text. Findings strengthened results reported in existing research while also contributing new information. Results revealed significant regression equations, showing that gender was a significant predictor of digital propensity, with males showing a stronger propensity for information and communication technology; the mean of males' digital propensity was significantly higher than that of females. At the same time, the mean of females' perceptions toward digital reading was overall higher than that of males, and in the context of digital reading preferences, females read online more for entertainment and learning purposes, and read more selectively, whereas males read digital text more for comprehension purposes.

Vázquez-Cano, E., Meneses, E.L. & García-Garzón, E. (2017). Differences in basic digital competences between male and female university students of Social Sciences in Spain. Int J Educ Technol High Educ 14, 27.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-017-0065-y
This article analyses the differences in basic digital competences of male and female university students on Social Education, Social Work and Pedagogy courses. The study of gender differences in university students' acquisition of digital competence has considerable didactic and strategic consequences for the development of these skills. The study was carried out at two public universities in Spain (UNED - the National Distance-Learning University, and the Universidad Pablo de Olavide) on a sample of 923 students, who responded to a questionnaire entitled "University Students' Basic Digital Competences 2.0" (COBADI - registered at the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office). The research applied a quantitative methodology based on a Bayesian approach using multinomial joint distribution as prior distribution. The use of Bayes factors also offers advantages with respect to the use of frequentist p-values, like the generation of information on the alternative hypothesis, that the evidence is not dependent on the sample size used. The results show that men have greater perceived competence in digital cartography and online presentations, whereas women prefer to request personal tutorials to resolve doubts about technology and have greater perceived competence in corporate emailing. There is also evidence that the men have greater perceived competence in developing "online presentations" than women do. Regarding to, "Interpersonal competences in the use of ICT at university", we observed that the female students opted for personal sessions with tutors in greater numbers than the male students did.

RACE/ETHNICITY/CULTURE

Bradshaw, A. C. (2017). Critical pedagogy and educational technology. In Benson, A.D., Joseph, R., & Moor, J.L. (Eds) Culture, learning, and technology: Research and practice, (pp 8-27). New York, Routledge.

Focusing on "ethical practice" in the definition of educational technology, the author encourages educational technologists to keep culture related issues, such as relevance, access, equity and inclusion foregrounded in their work. Critical pedagogy is recommended as a powerful and ethical means for the field of educational technology to be dynamic, adaptive, culturally relevant, and ethically responsible. This book chapter introduces the key concepts and promises of critical pedagogy, considers some tensions and resonances between the fields of critical pedagogy and offers some initial practical suggestions towards making educational technology practices more responsive and responsible at the intersection of culture, learning, and technology.

De Alvarez, M. S., & Dickson-Deane, C. (2018). Avoiding educational technology pitfalls for inclusion and equity. TechTrends, 62(4), 345-353.

The integration of technology in learning, from a cultural perspective, continues to be of concern to many. The concerns include understanding the use of tools in meaningful ways, designing learning experiences where learners retain agency in learning, avoiding unintended consequences in learning, and reconciling perspectives to allow natural learning to flourish. The purpose of this article is to encourage a healthy discussion regarding how designs may be created considering common cultural belief systems. The discussions presented will challenge how learning has been understood in the past, how it is being understood now, and how it may be designed, with thought to how contextually-cultured learning pathways can be achieved.

Mayfield, E., Madaio, M., Prabhumoye, S., Gerritsen, D., McLaughlin, B., Dixon-Román, E., & Black, A. W. (2019, August). Equity beyond bias in language technologies for education. In Proceedings of the Fourteenth Workshop on Innovative Use of NLP for Building Educational Applications (pp. 444-460).

There is a long record of research on equity in schools. As machine learning researchers begin to study fairness and bias in earnest, language technologies in education have an unusually strong theoretical and applied foundation to build on. Here, we introduce concepts from culturally relevant pedagogy and other frameworks for teaching and learning, and identify future work on equity in NLP. We present case studies in a range of topics like intelligent tutoring systems, computer-assisted language learning, automated essay scoring, and sentiment analysis in classrooms, and provide an actionable agenda for research.

Subramony, D. P. (2017). Revisiting instructional technologists' inattention to issues of cultural diversity among stakeholders. In Benson, A., Joseph, R., & Moore, J.L. (Eds). Culture, learning, and technology, New York: Routledge, 28-43.

This book chapter assesses the current state of educational technology's relationship with issues connected to cultural diversity. The chapter is organized around a consideration of three questions. In terms of the progress made by the IT community over the past decade or so in acknowledging and responding to cultural diversity issues a) what has changed? b) What has stayed the same? and c) where do we go from here?

Wendt, J.L., Courduff, J. (2018). The relationship between teacher immediacy, perceptions of learning, and computer-mediated graduate course outcomes among primarily Asian international students enrolled in an U.S. university. Int J Educ Technol High Educ 15, 33.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-018-0115-0
This study employed a correlational research design to determine if a relationship existed between international students' perceptions of teacher immediacy and students' end of course grades in computer-mediated, U.S. graduate courses. Analysis demonstrated a statistically significant negative relationship between teacher immediacy and end of course grades, thus indicating that higher scores on the teacher immediacy scale relate to lower end of course grades. These findings are contrary to previous research findings with U.S. students engaging in computer-mediated courses, thus demonstrating the unique characteristics and needs of international students. Findings hold important implications to the design and delivery of graduate level courses for the international student population and reiterate the need for further investigation regarding the international student experience in U.S. higher education.

Yuen, A.H.K, Park. J.H., Chen, L., and Cheng, M. (2017). Digital equity in cultural context: Exploring the influence of Confucian heritage culture on Hong Kong families. Educational Technology Research and Development: A Bi-Monthly Publication of the Association for Educational Communications & Technology 65, no. 2: 481-501.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-017-9515-4
Our study examines digital equity in a cultural context. Many studies have used classic analytical variables such as socioeconomic status and gender to investigate the problem of unequal access to, and more recently differences in the use of, information and communication technology (ICT). The few studies that have explored cultural variables have usually focused on theory or considered culture as a background dimension. Our study's central thesis is that cultural context plays a crucial role in shaping parents' ICT-related child-rearing practices. In a case study of 22 Chinese students who share the Confucian heritage of Hong Kong, we demonstrate the importance of cultural dimensions of students' ICT use, and examine how cultural values are associated with digital equity. Our findings reveal that Confucian values influence aspects of family/social relationships, in particular whether students receive adequate and appropriate ICT resources and use ICT effectively, which are essential aspects of digital equity.

ADMINISTRATION

Czerniewicz, L., & Rother, K. (2018). Institutional educational technology policy and strategy documents: An inequality gaze. Research in Comparative and International Education, 13(1), 27-45.

Issues of inequality in higher education have received considerable attention in recent decades, but the intersection of inequality and educational technology at an institutional level has received little attention. This study aims to provide a perspective on institutional educational technology policy informed by current understandings of inequality. The study takes the form of a content analysis of institutional educational technology policy and strategy documents of universities in the United Kingdom and South Africa. A preliminary review of the educational technology policy literature reveals low levels of engagement with issues of inequality in policy documents at an institutional level. Therborn's typology of inequality provides the basis of a structured framework for the analysis, with Bourdieu's concepts of capital being incorporated as markers of the various types of inequality. The study reveals regional differences in the approach to inequality as a policy matter, as well as a varied engagement with the issues of inequality related to educational technology at a policy level.

Huffman, S., Shae, E., & Loyless, S. (2019) Ensuring ethics and equity: Policy, planning, and digital citizenship. Education. 140:2, p87-99.

The article focuses on ensuring ethics and equity in the age of digital advancement in the field of education. Topics include issues in redesigning educational environment after consideration of the task of balancing creativity and protection demands, various concerns related to mobile technology such as cyber bullying, risk of unethical use of archived materials, parental and student consent for recording classroom activities, and issues related to Bring Your Own Device policy in classrooms.

Taylor, Z.W. 2018). "Now you're competing": how historically-Black colleges and universities compete (and don't) on the Internet. Int J Educ Technol High Educ 15, 28
https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-018-0111-4
No extant research has examined the web presence, web popularity, and paid adword tactics of historically-Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) compared to similar institutions. This study explores these measures and evaluates how HBCU web presence, web popularity, and paid search tactics compare to similar institutions to learn whether HBCUs are competing in one of the most competitive global higher education markets: the Internet. Findings suggest HBCU websites are smaller and less popular, and HBCUs spend less on web advertising than non-HBCU peers. Additionally, non-HBCUs are 3.8 times more likely to purchase desktop adwords and 4.3 times more likely to purchase mobile adwords than HBCUs. HBCUs need to harness the power of this global market to compete in a globalized, twenty-first century higher education market. If not, the financial situations between HBCUs could exacerbate, potentially threatening the livelihood of some of the most successful and time-honored institutions in the United States.

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Annotated Bibliography - Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion in Academic Technology - CATIE - Council on Academic Technology and Innovative Education

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this talks about a study done at the University of California about how creativity can be affected about how we act

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Stress is a well-known creativity killer, says psychologist Robert Epstein, PhD. Time constraints are another, he says. Unfortunately, graduate school has both in spades, and that can sap the inspiration of even the most imaginative students.

"When you're in graduate school, there are so many constraints on you. It's detrimental to creative expression," says Epstein, author of "The Big Book of Creativity Games" (McGraw-Hill, 2000).

Yet it's almost impossible to conquer any graduate school activity without at least some innovative thinking. Collaborating with other researchers, finding a subfield that excites you, maneuvering your way through an unexpected set of findings, and balancing the demands of your work and home life all require creative problem-solving.

Despite the widely held belief that some people just aren't endowed with the creativity gene, "There's not really any evidence that one person is inherently more creative than another," Epstein says.

Instead, he says, creativity is something that anyone can cultivate.
Routine creativity
Epstein, a visiting scholar at the University of California, San Diego, has conducted research showing that strengthening four core skill sets leads to an increase in novel ideas.

"As strange as it sounds, creativity can become a habit," says creativity researcher Jonathan Plucker, PhD, a psychology professor at Indiana University. "Making it one helps you become more productive."

Epstein recommends that you:

Capture your new ideas. Keep an idea notebook or voice recorder with you, type in new thoughts on your laptop or write ideas down on a napkin.

Seek out challenging tasks. Take on projects that don't necessarily have a solution-such as trying to figure out how to make your dog fly or how to build a perfect model of the brain. This causes old ideas to compete, which helps generate new ones.

Broaden your knowledge. Take a class outside psychology or read journals in unrelated fields, suggests Epstein. This makes more diverse knowledge available for interconnection, he says, which is the basis for all creative thought. "Ask for permission to sit in on lectures for a class on 12th century architecture and take notes," he suggests. "You'll do better in psychology and life if you broaden your knowledge."

Surround yourself with interesting things and people. Regular dinners with diverse and interesting friends and a work space festooned with out-of-the-ordinary objects will help you develop more original ideas, Epstein says. You can also keep your thoughts lively by taking a trip to an art museum or attending an opera-anything that stimulates new thinking.

A study last year in the Creativity Research Journal (Vol. 20, No. 1), found that working on these four areas enhances creativity. Seventy-four city employees from Orange County, Calif., participated in creativity training seminars consisting of games and exercises developed by Epstein to strengthen their proficiency in these four skill sets. Eight months later, the employees had increased their rate of new idea generation by 55 percent-a feat that led to more than $600,000 in new revenue and a savings of about $3.5 million through innovative cost reductions.
Happy, rested and bright
Many practices that lead to better overall well-being also boost innovative thinking. For instance, creativity researchers suggest you:

Sleep on it. In a 1993 study at Harvard Medical School, psychologist Deidre Barrett, PhD, asked her students to imagine a problem they were trying to solve before going to sleep and found that they were able to come up with novel solutions in their dreams. In the study, published in Dreaming (Vol. 3, No. 2), half of the participants reported having dreams that addressed their chosen problems, and a quarter came up with solutions in their dreams.

"We're in a different biochemical state when we're dreaming, and that's why I think dreams can be so helpful anytime we're stuck in our usual mode of thinking," Barrett says.

A 2004 study in Nature (Vol. 427, No. 6,972) also shows just how powerful sleep may be in helping people solve problems. Researchers at the University of Lübeck in Germany trained participants to solve a long, tedious math problem. Eight hours later, when participants returned for retesting, those who had slept during the break were more than twice as likely to figure out a simpler way to solve the problem than those who had not slept.

Collaborate-in writing. Plucker notes that much psychological research has shown that we overestimate the success of group brainstorming. Instead of working together to generate great ideas, group members often fail to share their ideas for fear of rejection. Yet research led by psychologist Paul Paulus, PhD, of the University of Texas at Arlington, points to the surprising effectiveness of group "brainwriting," in which group members write their ideas on paper and pass them to others in the group who then add their own ideas to the list. In a 2000 Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (Vol. 82, No. 1) study led by Paulus, an interactive group of brainwriters produced 28 percent more possible uses for a paper clip than a similar group of solitary brainwriters. This may be because group members tend to build off one another's ideas, leading to increased creativity and innovation. The effects of group brainwriting may even extend to groups that collaborate via e-mail, Paulus notes.

Let the sunshine in. Research by Washington State University professor of interior design Janetta Mitchell McCoy, PhD, suggests that spending time in natural settings may boost creativity. In a 2002 Creativity Research Journal (Vol. 14, No. 3.4) study led by McCoy, high school students designed more innovative collages-as judged by six independent raters-in a setting high in direct sunlight and natural wood than in a space mainly finished with manufactured materials such as drywall and plastic.

Get happy. A 2004 Creativity Research Journal (Vol. 16, No. 2.3) study with undergraduates found that sadness inhibits new ideas. This may be because when people are sad, they are more wary of making mistakes and exercise more restraint, says study author Karen Gasper, PhD, a social psychology professor at Penn State University.

Past research also supports the creativity boost gained from happiness. Compared with people in sad or neutral moods, those in happy moods are better at coming up with unusual word associations, developing patient diagnoses, solving moral dilemmas, generating story endings and writing numerous answers to divergent thinking tasks, Gasper notes.

To avoid being overly cautious and stagnant in their work, Gasper recommends that students remember to have fun. "Take a walk, see a comedy, go out with a friend," she says. "These breaks may help you feel better and see your work in a new light."

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Use these empirically backed tips to capture your next big idea.

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TikTok’s influence reaches beyond pure superficial entertainment – The Wessex Wire

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Celebrities put their names on the map by debuting on magazine covers, collaborating with elite companies and strutting the runway in the season's trendiest outfits. With its spark in popularity in the past couple of years, TikTok has become a new way for stars to become noticed, as well as expand their existing platforms.

The world-renowned social media app provides an outlet for creators to rise to fame. These stars have been presented with opportunities of a lifetime throughout their duration on the platform: everything from reality shows, to podcasts, to deals with major brands. TikTok has discovered a way to transform ordinary people into overnight sensations.

Along with these fresh faces, notable celebrities have also made their mark on TikTok. They often use it in order to promote their upcoming projects and provide a sneak peek into what it is they have in store for their fans. This has resulted in the growth of their fanbases, as well as a surge in the number of people viewing and listening to their work.

TikTok is a cultural evolution that continues to take the world by storm every day. With its one billion active users, the social media outlet provides a new way for people to make themselves noticed.

Along with its creators, TikTok also impacts the lives of everyday individuals. Hours upon hours of scrolling maintains a strong influence on many lifestyles. Users can learn everything from life advice, to how to bake a cake with just the click of a button. Surprisingly, TikTok offers unexpected educational benefits as well. Note-taking strategies, tips on managing your time wisely and even review videos for a wide variety of topics in school appear on the app.

These underlying benefits are crucial because they transform the conventional view of social media as a whole. While these platforms are typically reflected in a negative light on teens' mental health, the outlets provided by TikTok showcase how being glued to a screen does not always leave a harmful impact.

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TikTok's influence reaches beyond pure superficial entertainment

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Celebrities put their names on the map by debuting on magazine covers, collaborating with elite companies and strutting the runway in the season's trendiest outfits. With its spark in popularity in the past couple of years, TikTok has become a new way for stars to become noticed, as well as expand their existing platforms. The...

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This article teaches you how not only how to improve self love and positivity, but also teaches you what not to think about yourself which is more effective in my opinion. Figuring out unhealthy habits and what not to do seems like a better first step than improving everything you already know how to do.

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Published by: LifeWorks,

Did you know that happiness is the single best word that captures the construct, or concept, of well-being? When we are happy, we experience positive emotions that allow us to broaden our perspective and build our resources.

On the flip side, when we're feeling stressed or overwhelmed or are experiencing the symptoms of depression, we get tunnel vision and make shortsighted decisions out of our instinct for self-preservation. In these situations, we can often have trouble seeing the goodness in life, making it difficult to sustain the healthy habits that make us feel good and keep us on track. At its most basic level, stress can sabotage us and our best efforts.

Self-love is key to building happiness, but it's also one of the things that tends to fall by the wayside when we're feeling stressed or depressed. Some of the main ways to develop self-love are thorough positivity and self-esteem.

You've probably heard a lot about the need to build self-esteem in children but the ability to feel or think positively about yourself is just as important for adults.

No matter how old you are, self-esteem can help you set and achieve goals and take setbacks in stride. It's a reflection of how you judge your own self-worth and includes the ability to have faith in yourself even if you sometimes make mistakes. Adults with healthy self-esteem accept responsibility for their own actions. They are motivated, set challenging goals for themselves, and take pride in their accomplishments. They have tolerance and respect for others and are able to forgive themselves and others. They have love for themselves.

Having healthy self-esteem doesn't mean being perfect, but accepting yourself as you are. For most of us, our self-esteem will fluctuate throughout our lives. One study found that for both genders, self-esteem typically is high until about the age of nine. Then it declines in adolescence, goes up afterward, rises throughout adulthood (peaking in the mid-60s), and goes down in old age.

In addition to these fluctuations, most of us experience other shifts that reflect our unique experiences. You may feel very good about yourself when things are going well at home and at work, but find that harder to do if you develop serious family, health, or job problems. That's why it's important not to assume that because certain things happened to you, you will always have "high" or "low" self-esteem. Even if you're having trouble feeling good about yourself, there are things you can do to strengthen your self-love.

Focus on your own unique set of strengths. Identify your strengths. If you know that you do a number of things well, a setback in one area is less likely to cause problems you can't handle, or damage to your overall feeling of self-worth. Avoid comparing yourself to others. Make a list of your positive qualities, strengths, and accomplishments. Read over your list and add to it often. Make sure you incorporate these qualities into your life; the more you live from them the better you will feel.

Take inventory. Identify negative thoughts or feelings that you experience about yourself as well as the situations that cause those feelings. Challenge your thoughts and feelings, then ask yourself: "Do they really make sense in this situation?" Determine a more positive way to react to those situations next time they occur. Remember that self-talk affects the way you feel. So be kind to yourself. Eliminate calling yourself names like "stupid," "idiot," or "loser." When you catch yourself talking negatively to yourself, tell yourself to stop. For example, if you make a mistake at work and your supervisor brings it to your attention, instead of saying, "I'm such an idiot. How could I have been so stupid?" say, "I made a mistake and I'll learn from it."

Do something every day that makes you feel good. Feeling a lot better about yourself overall often begins with feeling a little better every day. Depending on your interests, you might exercise, listen to music, say a prayer or recite an inspiring poem, cook a wonderful meal, read a story to your children, spend time with a pet, or pursue a rewarding hobby.

Many experts have written about strategies you can use to boost your level of happiness-the antidote to stress-in both the short term and long term:

Identify your unique "Flow states." In his book Flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes Flow as the "sweet spot" between challenge and skill. To identify when you are in flow, ask yourself: What am I doing when I...

am at my most creative?

lose all sense of time?

feel most alive?

am so caught up in the moment that I cease to exist?

By using your flow states, you can expect to more effectively renew and recharge, positioning yourself for greater happiness, life satisfaction and optimal performance.

Practice "Gratitude Spotting" and journaling. Being mindful of and reflecting on the things we are grateful for is key to happiness. Martin E.P. Seligman, author of Authentic Happiness, says that people who practice gratitude spotting and journaling are more optimistic and happier. Keep an electronic or paper journal and plan to find a quiet time and place every day to write down a minimum of three things you're grateful for. By doing this you are establishing a happiness-enhancing habit.

Savour life's pleasures. According to Seligman, savouring is an awareness of pleasure and the deliberate, conscious attention to the experience. Focus on these steps:

Be in the moment and tell others how much it means to you.

Take a mental or physical souvenir to build a memory, like a shell from the beach where you took your last holiday.

Fully appreciate and bask in the moment to remind yourself how long you've waited for this good thing.

Sharpen your perception by zeroing in on the "good stuff," like closing your eyes while you enjoy a piece of music.

Afterward, absorb and marvel in how you lost yourself in the moment.

Research shows that there is a positive, cumulative effect when we increase our happiness, decrease our stress levels, and boost our resiliency in the long term.

Resilience is the ability to adapt well in the face of adversity, such as when you may be experiencing personal or family issues, a serious health concern, work stress, money worries, or other difficulties. It's the ability to bounce back from challenges. One of the key ways to build resilience is to focus on self-care.

Reframe how you view problems and challenges

A key element of resilience is your perception of an event, according to the Columbia University psychologist, George Bonanno, who has been studying resilience for 25 years.

Reframe a difficult experience. Reframing means changing the way you think or "talk" to yourself about a stressful event. Instead of saying "I will never get through this," you might try a more positive and realistic thought such as, "I will get through this by using the techniques that have helped when I've had difficult experiences in the past, including asking others for help and finding strength in my community."

Remember that stressful events usually provide opportunities to learn and grow. Try to identify these, so they can help you in the future. For example, if you are dealing with significant financial concerns, try to understand the things that contributed to your situation and what you could do in the future to avoid repeating the same mistakes (i.e. fewer credit cards, not carrying a balance, making a budget, etc.)

Build your emotional resilience

Learn from others who are role models of resilience. Think about other people you know and admire who are resilient, whether they are public figures or people you may know in your personal or work life. What are some of the strategies you've noticed them using to deal with and stay strong through adversity? Think about how you could adapt and use some of those strategies in your own life.

"This too shall pass." Try to see your situation as temporary, no matter how difficult. Life tends to ebb and flow in ways that are impossible to predict. This view can help you gain perspective and maintain momentum to work through the current circumstance.

Try to avoid catastrophic thinking. During times of uncertainty, we often try to fill in the blanks. We may wonder "what if this happens" and imagine worst-case scenarios. While it is good to be prepared, it is rare that worst-case scenarios come true.

Keep your life simple

Simplifying your life is especially important during stressful times.

Simplify your routines and set limits to protect your time. Plan simple meals. Resist signing up for too many activities or over committing yourself. Don't be afraid to say "no."

Make time for simple pleasures, such as watching the sunset, playing with your pet, or simply sitting and drinking a good cup of tea with someone you love.

Most of us feel more confident in some areas of our lives than others. If you have a strong sense of belonging to a family or group of friends, but lack confidence in your skills at work, you might upgrade your skills by taking a few courses at an adult education centre. If you have confidence in your skills but lack a sense of purpose or direction in life, you may want to get involved in a volunteer project that enables you to make a contribution to your community.

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The importance of self-love, positivity, self-esteem and resilience | US

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Published by: LifeWorks, Did you know that happiness is the single best word that captures the construct, or concept, of well-being? When we are happy, we experience positive emotions that allow us to broaden our perspective and build our resources.

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Gives several techniques to improve your mental health with positive techniques shown to better one's mood and how they approach things.

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Such phrases are often used to encourage you when you're feeling frustrated or challenged. After a while, however, these words may feel empty and unachievable.

But what if you could use the power of positive thinking to improve your life-genuinely believing in the power it has on your well-being? What if you allowed positivity to shape your thoughts, moods, and behaviors-replacing tired platitudes with the genuine belief that you can combat the negativity that resides in your minds?

Fortunately, research indicates reducing negative self-talk and adopting more positive thinking has numerous health benefits, both physical and psychological.

Harmful Effects of Negativity

A 2013 study conducted by researchers at the University of Western Australia compared two forms of repetitive negative thinking, worry and ruminating, in participants with anxiety and/or depression. Of the patients examined, 212 had either an anxiety or depressive disorder while 301 had comorbid diagnoses, or a diagnosis of both disorders. The study found that participants with more than one disorder rated higher in repetitive negative thinking patterns. Researchers concluded that worry and ruminating, or repetitively going over the same thought, should specifically be treated regardless of one's diagnosis.

A 2006 article by the American Psychological Association examined the research behind psychoneuroimmunology, which is the study of the mind-body connection. Researchers in this field study how the mind can affect one's health and treat disease. The article points to psychological stress and its impact on the body's immune response. The article cites one study, for example, in which older people with chronic, mild depression were found to have a weakened immune response.

Fortunately, positive thinking can have just as great an influence on your physical and mental health from lowering your risk of developing depression to the common cold, according to a 2017 article by the Mayo Clinic. The benefits of positive thinking are plentiful and impact your health in a wide variety of ways.

Enhances Brain Power

In 2018, researchers at Stanford University examined how a positive attitude toward math might improve academic success in young learners. They found an association between positive attitude and increased usage of areas of the brain responsible for memory and learning. Positive thinking may encourage greater usage of these brain regions, benefiting your ability to retain information.

A separate study published in 2016 found that cancer survivors who reported high in using self-affirmations (i.e., they focused on personal strengths and values in anxiety-provoking situations), had a lower likelihood of cognitive impairment in addition to greater happiness and hopefulness. The study also found an association between being optimistic and overall better health in cancer survivors.

Reduces Stress

Self-talk can either be positive or negative. Negative self-talk can lead to increased stress levels while positively thinking allows for kinder self-talk and reduced stress, according to an article by the Mayo Clinic.

A 2015 literature review published in Journal of Research and Reflections in Education indicates that when you think more positively, your perceptions of stress are less threatening, allowing you to use healthier strategies for coping with it.

The researchers also point to the association between positive thinking and enhanced immune function. Those who approached stressful situations with optimism and a sense of humor were shown to have a stronger immune system than those who didn't.

Positive Affect, Happiness, and Success

When you think more positively, you inevitably feel better. One study took this a step further, arguing that happiness can actually give rise to success. In other words, not only can success lead to feelings of happiness but the reverse may be true as well.

Researchers behind the 2005 study proposed that individuals exercising positive mood or emotions (i.e., positive affect) such as confidence, likability, and optimism, are likely to pursue higher goals while in these positive states. Moreover, these individuals have skills and resources to draw from that were previously developed, likely resulting from exerting positive affect.

Drawing from evidence of previous studies, the researchers concluded that positive affect fosters a number of characteristics, skills, and behaviors-such as sociability, liking of self, and physical health-that may contribute to successful outcomes.

Tips for Thinking More Positively

It doesn't matter if you've been a "glass half empty" type of person for most of your life. Perhaps you're naturally inclined to think of worst-case scenarios or maybe it's a habit you developed over time. Regardless of how negative thoughts snuck their way in, it's possible to replace them, little by little, with more positive ones.

It will take practice and patience, as these things often do. Whether you attend spiritual wellness retreats that help give you the tools to remove negative energy from your life or if you make simple daily changes, it takes time to achieve positive thinking in all aspects of your life. Just as you can't transform your physical body with a single trip to the gym, you can't expect to replace negative thinking patterns altogether with the mere decision to do so. But with time, just as in the gym, strength will build, and you'll find it takes less cognitive effort to produce a positive thought than it once did.

Here are a few tips on how to be more positive.
1. Try the Rubber Band Method
This works as a helpful aid for breaking bad habits such as consistently engaging in negative thoughts. Wear a rubber band around your wrist and give it a light snap each time you find yourself attaching to a negative thought. You can even have a mantra in mind to replace it with such as, "Today I choose peace" or "I will search for the good in everyone and everything."
2. Practice Mindfulness
Mindfulness is a state of being consciously aware of your thoughts. Simply practicing for a few minutes a day will allow you to become more aware of how you think and in turn, more equipped to catch yourself when your thoughts turn to the negative. Mindfulness can be practiced in a variety of ways, such as meditating, concentrating on your senses or breath, walking in nature, or mindfully doing an activity you genuinely enjoy.
3. Practice Gratitude Daily
Plenty of research exists to back this one up. In a 2018 Berkeley study, participants struggling with anxiety and depression who wrote a letter of gratitude to someone reported significant improvements in mental health. Give this a try or keep it simple by jotting down three things you're grateful for in the morning or before you go to bed.
4. Surround Yourself with Positive People
It will make thinking positively much easier than spending time with people that deplete your energy or are quick to focus on the negative.
5. Pay Attention to What You Focus on
If you see a pattern of negativity in the things you watch, read, listen to, etc., reconsider what you pay attention to.
6. Search for One Positive Characteristic or Feature in Whoever or Whatever You Can Come in Contact With
Whether it's chatting with a stranger at the grocery store or catching the sun setting outside your window, try to take the time to observe all the beauty around you.

7. Think of Activities or Hobbies that Ignite Positivity and Do Them Often

An organic way to begin thinking more positively is to do activities that naturally evoke positivity within you. This will look different for everyone but think of something that leaves you feeling a little lighter and more blissful.

Remember that it's impossible to only think positive thoughts or to only feel positive emotion so keep your expectations realistic. You may be stuck in a pattern of negativity and could use a shake-up. Use the suggestions above, a little at a time, to slowly begin to rewire your brain. As you focus more on the positivity around you and within you, your thoughts and behaviors will naturally follow suit-the benefits of positive thinking go a long way.

*Editor's Note: The information in this article is intended for your educational use only; it does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Chopra Center's Mind-Body Medical Group; and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition and before undertaking any diet, supplement, fitness, or other health programs.

Guided by the ancient wisdom traditions of meditation and yoga, each Chopra Center retreat is designed to educate, inspire, and transform. Each retreat location was chosen for its physical beauty and healing power, and each theme created as a separate path toward greater consciousness. Where will your journey take you? Learn more.

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The Power of Positive Thinking: How It Enhances Happiness, Health, and Success

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Such phrases are often used to encourage you when you're feeling frustrated or challenged. After a while, however, these words may feel empty and unachievable. But what if you could use the power of positive thinking to improve your life-genuinely believing in the power it has on your well-being?

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Value of human creativity is growing exponentially along with tech: Kumar Mangalam Birla

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Further elaborating, Birla said, science brought vaccines at scale, and yet the extraordinary rollout of the global vaccination programme talks about the power of human creativity and enterprise.

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GameMaker Showcase | Games Made With GameMaker

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Discover all the incredible games made with GameMaker, including Undertale, Hotline Miami, Chicory: A Colorful Tale, Hyper Light Drifter, and hundreds more.

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This was not exactly an article but it was a perfect example of how technology can promote safety, especially on our very own campus. The app connects with the UMaine Police Department and other app users, which includes things such as a virtual walk home or reporting crime tips.

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Black Bear Safe

The University of Maine Police Department is pleased to announce the launch of Black Bear Safe!
View with transcript
Black Bear Safe is a free application for students and other members of the campus community to use. It provides quick and easy access to on-campus safety resources.

Users can:

Quickly dial 9-1-1 or call local police departments

Sign up for and receive Emergency Notifications

Activate a "Mobile BlueLight" to send their location and a call to UMaine PD dispatchers

Submit crime tips via the in-app form, over the phone, via chat with UMaine PD dispatchers, or anonymously using Campus Eyes

Use Friend Walk or Virtual Walkhome to send their location and destination to a friend or UMaine PD dispatcher respectively to track their progress on a map

Access support resources for Title IX, Health Counseling, and Mental Health Counseling

View campus Emergency Plans including appropriate contact phone numbers

Access other UMaine applications such as Navigate

Black Bear Safe is available now on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.

Black Bear Safe is managed by the University of Maine Police Department. If you have a question that is not addressed below, please call us at 207.581.4040

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Who is Black Bear Safe for?
A: Black Bear Safe is for UMaine Students, Staff, Faculty, and any other members of the University of Maine community

Q: Is Black Bear Safe available for any other University of Maine System campuses?
A: Black Bear Safe is only being introduced in Orono at this time.

Q: Can I request a feature or make a suggestion?
A: Email us at um.policedepartment@maine.edu with the subject "BBS Suggestion"

Q: What area do Black Bear Safe services cover?
A: Black Bear Safe services (including Mobile BlueLight and Virtual Walkhome) are only intended for use on campus property in Orono. This includes the trail system north of campus, College Avenue from Park Street to University Farm Road, and Witter Farm. For Virtual Walkhomes, trips to or from campus are also accepted.

The peer-to-peer Friend Walk feature can be used anywhere. Please note that local emergency services should be contacted in place of UMaine PD, as appropriate.

Q: When are Black Bear Safe services available?
A: Just like UMaine PD, Black Bear Safe services are available 24/7/365.

Q: What do I do if a dispatcher does not respond to my Virtual Walkhome or Chat request?
A: Some limited circumstances may prevent a dispatcher from responding to your request. If a dispatcher does not respond within 3 minutes, you will be notified and can either try again or call 207.581.4040. If this is an emergency, dial 9-1-1.

Q: Is Black Bear Safe intended to replace the Emergency 9-1-1 system?
A: No. Black Bear Safe is a supplemental program intended to promote campus safety. Part of this includes the ability to call emergency services.

Q: How does Mobile BlueLight differ from dialing 9-1-1?
A: 9-1-1 calls placed from the University's VOIP phone system come straight to UMaine PD dispatchers. However, when 9-1-1 is dialed from a cell phone on campus, the call is routed to regional emergency dispatchers instead. The Mobile BlueLight tile dials UMaine PD dispatchers directly at 207.581.4040 and transmits your real-time location which can improve response times.

Q: Am I being tracked?
A: The user's location is only transmitted when the Mobile BlueLight, Friend Walk, and Virtual Walkhome features are used. The user's name and phone number is required for Chat, In-App Crime Tip, and Virtual Walkhome functions to provide the UMaine PD dispatcher with a point of contact for dispatching an officer or other emergency services.

Q: How do I enroll in Emergency Notifications?
A: Students, faculty, and staff are automatically subscribed to UMaine emergency alerts. For more information or to opt-out, please visit umaine.edu/emergency.

Other users can sign up within Black Bear Safe by tapping the More tile, then tap Emergency Notifications and tap "Sign up for Text Alerts" near the bottom of the page or by visiting umaine.edu/emergency.

Q: Do I have to use Black Bear Safe?
A: No. 9-1-1 and 207.581.4040 are both available 24/7/365 with or without Black Bear Safe. The application simply provides extra features including location services, chat, and reporting options. We hope you will install Black Bear Safe as a precaution, even if you never need to use it.

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Black Bear Safe - Police Department - University of Maine

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The University of Maine Police Department is pleased to announce the launch of Black Bear Safe! View with transcript Black Bear Safe is a free application for students and other members of the campus community to use. It provides quick and easy access to on-campus safety resources.

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Today, technological harm is outpacing current solutions. We see the effects in seemingly disparate areas - fragile democracies, degraded mental health, growing political polarization, conspiracy theories going mainstream, and distrust of journalism and institutions. The issues we face are complex and they are ever-evolving. But they are not disparate, they are systemic.

Where do we go from here? Our natural human response to a challenge is to search for an actionable solution. Something that we can do, ideally now. But complex problems require systems-level solutions. Thus, we must elevate the discussion beyond harms and towards a systems perspective. Inspired by Donella Meadows' 12 Leverage Points to Intervene in a System, we developed a simplified framework of leverage points for how to intervene in the extractive tech ecosystem.

APPLYING THE FRAMEWORK

The Leverage Points Framework shows that:

Change happens at multiple levels with different degrees of impact. Generally, leverage increases from left to right on the framework. However, so does the difficulty of implementing change.

Change does not happen linearly. Rather, interventions across the framework can and should happen simultaneously.

Change is dynamic. Today's extractive tech ecosystem is complex and constantly evolving. Thus, intervention points are dynamic with interactions among leverage points. As the extractive tech ecosystem evolves, so should this framework.

Change requires multiple stakeholders. While not represented in the framework, a diversity of stakeholder groups are essential to provide leverage across all intervention points. For instance, philanthropic organizations can shift the economic goal of our system by helping fund and support businesses or programs that are pushing for stakeholder models (as opposed to shareholder ones).

The framework demonstrates why pushes for immediate design tweaks at major platforms must be paired with longer-term systemic reform, like changing the fundamental business models. Because of this, multiple efforts at multiple points of leverage are important.
As follows are working definitions and examples for each lever:
1. Platform Changes are adjustments that platforms themselves make to the design (visual, interactive, etc.) of their platforms. For example, platforms can choose to prompt users via a notification to read an article before sharing it. While these design changes can have material impact (e.g., an action like changing the Share button), they don't address root cause issues stemming from the operating model.

2. Internal Governance Changes are implemented by decision-makers within platforms to shift how internal systems and structures operate. Examples could include having The Facebook Oversight Board oversee unsafe design features (not simply whether a piece of content is bad or good) or changing employee bonuses to pay out for increasing people's safety and well-being (not for increasing user engagement).

3. External Regulation Changes occur when outside forces, such as legislators or regulators, pass laws that set common platform safety requirements, limit age-appropriate design features, force interoperability with competing platforms, or create liabilities for unsafe business practices or harms. While these changes take longer to enact, they are more enduring with higher impact potential. Recent examples include the GDPR, COPPA, and the proposed KIDS Act.

4. Business Model Changes shift the fundamental operations and profit structures of a firm. An example would include a social media platform that moves to a subscription model with a sliding scale to ensure broad access. Business model changes may arise from internal or external regulation, supply and demand changes (e.g., a lawsuit that makes the current "viral engagement" business models unaffordable, therefore changing what venture capitalists deem profitable), or operating system changes (e.g., Apple changing iOS to limit user tracking and reducing the profitability of surveillance business models.)

5. Economic Goal Changes take place when the orientation of the system itself transforms through regulation, investor behavior, new financial models, or new market entrants. An example would be if Facebook was accountable to metrics that reflect a healthier society (instead of optimizing for quarterly profits) or was turned into a public benefit corporation based on a stakeholder model as opposed to a shareholder model.

6. Operating Paradigm Changes are the highest leverage point and are the most difficult to achieve. They occur when there is widespread change in our core beliefs, values, behaviors, and operating norms. Examples include:

A mass shift in consumer sentiment, as with Big Tobacco and cigarettes, which over several decades went from being "cool" to dangerous and lethal. Similarly, this could happen in public attitudes towards "viral engagement" social media with people shifting to seeing it as dangerous.

A change in the cultural beliefs of technologists, who shift to seeing attention-harvesting, "race to the bottom of the brain stem" addictive platforms as unethical and dangerous to society.

As a society, changing the North Star of what we're seeking. This could be done by asking ourselves, is our ultimate goal to have "30% less toxic social media" than we do now? Or is it to build humane technology that enables thriving 21st-century digital societies?

This is a preliminary framework. We'd value your feedback on how to improve it. Please drop us a note at hello@humanetech.com with your thoughts.

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A Framework for Changing Complex Systems - Center for Humane Technology

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Today, technological harm is outpacing current solutions. We see the effects in seemingly disparate areas - fragile democracies, degraded mental health, growing political polarization, conspiracy theories going mainstream, and distrust of journalism and institutions. The issues we face are complex and they are ever-evolving. But they are not disparate, they are systemic.

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Bowdoin College gives every freshman the tech they need to succeed

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Bowdoin College gives every freshman the tech they need to succeed

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This elite Maine college has distributed technology to sudents, allowing for everyone to have access to a 13-inch MacBook Pro, iPad mini, and an Apple Pencil to ensure that every student has equal, and the same, access to the necessary materials for their studies.

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Students poured into Farley Field House and onto a level playing field as they picked up Apple MacBooks, iPads, and Pencils as part of Bowdoin's Digital Excellence Commitment (DExC).

"I'm so excited," said Jai Duval '24 after picking up her new MacBook Pro. "It's going to be helpful in a lot of classes. I know a lot of people were struggling before, and I didn't have a laptop; this is perfect for me."

The innovative DExC program provides every current and all future students with a suite of the latest Apple technology and access to a full range of course-specific software designed to advance learning, inspire innovative teaching, and create digital equity across the student body in the use of tools essential for success in the twenty-first century.

DExC builds on the success of Bowdoin's iPad Initiative by equipping all students with a 13-inch MacBook Pro, an iPad mini, and an Apple Pencil, along with access to software used across the range of courses at the College. The cost of the program is covered entirely by Bowdoin.

"What DExC does is create a common learning platform for all students, regardless of economic background or access to resources, and is one faculty can count on as they take students through the learning experience," said Michael Cato, senior vice president and chief information officer, who was on hand to help distribute the technology and answer students' questions.

Cato noted that digital advances have impacted and enhanced many disciplines across the curriculum, showing up in perhaps unexpected places, such as history classes and across the humanities, highlighting the need for common, cutting-edge technology among the student body.

"When I think about how this is going to benefit classes I think of different courses in both STEM and the humanities, where different students have different computers and it can make it difficult and challenging for professors," says Eli Franklin '25. "I think having everyone on a level playing field with regard to technology and access to software will make classes a lot more efficient and productive and allow students to be more collaborative."

First-year students are receiving all new equipment and software; returning students will use the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil they have already received, supplemented by a new 13-inch MacBook Pro with a full software suite.

"Our Digital Excellence Commitment allows us to level the playing field so that every student has the opportunity to fully benefit from the technology that plays an essential and growing role in the learning experience at Bowdoin," said Bowdoin College President Clayton Rose.

"Our central mission is to deliver an exceptional liberal arts education along with the knowledge and skills students need to lead in our increasingly digital world."

Bowdoin's transformative Digital Excellence Commitment will ensure that every student has consistent access, dependable support, a shared learning experience, and the tools they need to collaborate, innovate, and thrive in a digital world.

Lessons Learned

Bowdoin students, faculty, and staff have been engaged with digital technology and tools for decades, and the COVID-19 pandemic only amplified the importance of these digital skills. In summer 2020, the College issued each student an iPad Pro Wi-Fi + Cellular (activated and funded by the College for those students who had internet connectivity needs), an Apple Pencil, and an Apple Magic Keyboard.

While initially intended to ensure that every student had the tools necessary for learning in the remote environment caused by the pandemic, the experiences of Bowdoin students and faculty with iPad Pro and Apple Pencil during the pandemic spurred numerous and unexpected learning and teaching innovations.

Vyjayanthi Selinger, Stanley F. Druckenmiller Associate Professor of Asian Studies, has students peer review each other's papers in class on their iPads. Selinger reports that it is so much easier to provide quick feedback with the Apple Pencils. She also has students respond to PollEverywhere (an audience and classroom response system) prompts on their iPads during class.

When the weather permits, Matthew Botsch, associate professor of economics, holds office hours outside using iPads to discusses problem. Botsch also uses the Microsoft Whiteboard app in class so he and his students can solve problems together.

Chemistry department faculty, lab instructors, and their students are using OneNote on their iPads in classes and for labs, where instructors can distribute digital instructions and images to students in advance. Students use their iPads to record data and document observations and can easily insert graphs, take photos of lab set-ups, and use time-lapse videos to showcase the steps of an experiment.

"In class, it's nice to have both laptops and iPads available," says Phil Camill, Rusack Professor of Environmental Studies and Earth and Oceanographic Science. "Students will have their iPads open with class slides and take notes on their laptops. This makes multitasking easier."

"I wanted to make access to our courses much easier for students," says Professor of Education Charles Dorn, who has been using One Note to organize, share, and present course materials since before the pandemic. "On the first day of class, I would send an email to all students and they would open a link to One Note and everything they need would be there: readings, homework, syllabus, videos-even my own notes."

Visiting Assistant Professor of Art Audrey Shakespear used iPads in her class, Abstraction. Students were assigned the Nomad Sculpt iOS app; the 3D modeling software simulates a clay-like modeling experience, responding to stylus movement and pressure, empowering students she says, to carve up, warp, and distort that object into something completely new and unique.

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Distributing DExC: Providing Digital Equity for All Students

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Students poured into Farley Field House and onto a level playing field as they picked up Apple MacBooks, iPads, and Pencils as part of Bowdoin's Digital Excellence Commitment (DExC). "I'm so excited," said Jai Duval '24 after picking up her new MacBook Pro. "It's going to be helpful in a lot of classes.

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Fatigue can result when you do not get enough sleep or do not get quality sleep. It can impair your driving, similar to alcohol impairment.

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(Image credit: Liza Summer from Pexels)

The best photo-editing software is having a bit of a moment right now. Spearheaded by Adobe's 'Project Sensei', software firms everywhere are incorporating smart AI and machine learning into their products, making edits that once took hours of fiddling about possible within the click of a button. So it's a great time to buy or subscribe to photo editing software, whether you're a veteran professional or just getting started.

So which is the best photo editing software in 2022? That depends largely on what you're looking for. If it's just simple cropping, or subtle tweaks to colour or saturation, you might find all you need in a cheap or even free tool. If you're a full-time photographer, designer, artworker or image editor, though, you'll want the top-of-the-range software with the latest and most sophisticated tools. While if you're somewhere in between - such as a designer or marketing professional who edits images every now and again - you'll be looking at the best middleweight options that are powerful yet still very affordable.

To help you out, we've rounded up the best photo editing software below, and give you the information you need to choose between them. These cover a range of budgets, and include software that will work on your computer, phone or tablet. (If mobile software is your main interest, also see our guide to the best photo apps.)

So read on for the best photo editing software, and once you've chosen your tool, check out our guide the best laptops for photo editing too.

Top 3: best photo-editing software

The best photo editing software 2022

Photoshop is the godfather of digital image editing, and it remains today the best photo editing software, bar none. Its range of features is practically endless, but it's typically used to edit and compose raster images, combine graphics and text in multiple layers; edit and render text and vector graphics; and create and edit 3D graphics and video.

Adobe has been boosting Photoshop further of late, by introducing AI tools that will smooth skin and remove artefacts from your pictures at a touch of a button. Other filters make it easy to edit expressions in portraits, add makeup to your subjects, colourise black and white photos and more.

Because it includes so many versatile features, Photoshop isn't just popular amongst photographers and photo retouchers, but also with digital artists, graphic designers and art directors, and even animators, 3D designers, game designers and VFX artists. Beyond what's in the interface, you can enhance the software further with any of the large selection of free Photoshop brushes and free Photoshop actions available online.

You can subscribe to Photoshop on its own, but many professionals tend to team it with another Adobe tool in their workflow. For example, a commercial photographer would likely pair it with Lightroom, while a motion designer would use it in conjunction with After Effects. In such cases, an All-Apps payment plan makes the best sense, particularly as this gives you access to other Adobe services such as Adobe Fonts and Adobe Stock; this can be surprisingly affordable with the best Adobe Creative Cloud discounts.

For more information, read our Photoshop 2022 review, and check out the best Photoshop tutorials. Ready to start? Here's how to download Photoshop.

Like the sound of Photoshop, but not the expensive monthly subscription? Then here's the closest alternative for a one-off price.

Affinity Photo is a professional-standard photo editing programme that's cheap and subscription-free. High-end features include RAW editing, HDR merge, panorama stitching, focus stacking, batch processing, .PSD file editing, 360° image editing, a non-destructive layers-based workflow, and smart object support. So while it doesn't include an equivalent to every single feature you'll find in Photoshop, it's pretty darned close, making it exceptional value.

As well as Windows and Mac versions, the software is also available as a dedicated iPad app. Its maker Serif also has a graphic design package ( Affinity Designer) and a desktop publishing app ( Affinity Publisher). You can transfer images between these apps smoothly and easily, much as you can do in Adobe's suite between Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign.

For many people, Photoshop's panapoly of sophisticated tools are overkill and add up to an unnecessary learning curve. So if you just want an uncluttered interface that's easy to use, CyberLink PhotoDirector 365 is worth checking out.

Aimed at consumers and prosumers, this photo editing software give you all the standard image editing tools and features you'll likely to need, along with some nice AI tools, such as automatic body shaping, skin and face tools, plus some lighting and animation effects. The interface is simple to pick up, fast and reliable.

CyberLink PhotoDirector 365 has its flaws, with typos and little glitches that might easily put you off. However, the cheap annual subscription and high-level editing features such as levels and colour adjustment make this a decent option for creatives that occasionally need dedicated software to edit images and don't want to break the bank. For more information, see our CyberLink PhotoDirector 365 review.

Need to edit your photos as quickly as possible? Skylum Luminar AI is our top choice. This photo editing software is firmly focused on speeding up the process, so photographers can spend less time editing and more time creating.

As the name suggests, the software uses artificial intelligence to suggest editing options that can enhance photos of different styles. It can suggest the best templates to improve images and has tools that can be used to tweak skies, accents, skin, faces and even eyes. There are specific tools for portraiture, landscapes, fashion, architecture, nature, and black and white photographs.

At a very reasonable one-off cost, this AI-based software for MacOS and Windows is certainly worth checking out. For more details, check out our tutorial on How to edit photos with Luminar AI.

InPixio Photo Studio is another middleweight photo editing software that's easy to use, and features some clever AI. Currently on version 11, its background eraser and cutout tool are particularly well designed, and there's also a cool sky replacement tool, although the results are not always the most realistic.

With a intuitive interface, this is among the most accessible yet full-featured photo editors for beginners, and makes it easy to perform basic edits very quickly. With the Pro version, you also get inPixio's Photo Maximiser for enlarging, and Photo Focus for sharpening; two job-specific tools that can be used separately.

Want to make edits right in your web browser? Whether you're on a mobile or desktop device, we recommend Pixlr X and its sister app Pixlr E. Both are very easy to use, and there's nothing to download.

The free plan is perfect if you just want to use these tools occasionally. However, you will have to wait for ads to load, which can slow things down. Alternatively, subscribe to a paid plan and the ads disappear.

Pixlr X allows you to make non-destructive edits to your images, and brilliantly can be used within Dropbox, which makes it a great addition to your toolkit for collaborative work. With a Photoshop-like interface (albeit much simpler) it offers a good range of adjustments and filters. Pixlr E, meanwhile, offers the same classic photo editing tools, with the addition of some extras for the pros.

Corel PaintShop Pro has been the budget alternative to Photoshop for Windows users for more than two decades, and it's still going strong. Supporting layers and allowing you to edit in both raster and vector image formats, as well as aping some of Photoshop's more advanced capabilities such as content-aware move, gradients, and filters, it has a lot to offer anyone who does photo-editing as part of their day-to-day job.

The latest version includes some smart AI tools, including AI Background Replacement, AI Denoise, which removes noise from a picture, and AI Portrait Mode, which lets you select a subject and add background blur. It also adds support for the HEIC and HEIF file types used on iPhones.

While Adobe Lightroom has a lot of good photo editing tools, at heart it remains a tool for organising images. For that reason, it's a great choice for anyone working with large numbers of photos, such as photographers and designers, who'd normally use it in tandem with Photoshop.

Lightroom helps you to organise your work by letting keep all of your photography in one place, edit it and share it from anywhere. You can store images on your computer, iPad, iPhone or Android device and even transfer photos automatically from your phone into Lightroom as you take them.

And that's not all. It can also handle complicated image management jobs that Photoshop isn't designed for. For example, it makes light work of day-to-day enhancements and RAW files. Syncing is automatic, so when you make an edit or flag an image as a favourite in one place, it updates everywhere else too.

If you're just getting started with image editing, full Photoshop may be a bit too much of a learning curve. Instead, you'd be better off with Photoshop Elements; a more basic alternative to Photoshop. Its handy Quick and Guided Edit modes make it great for beginners, but that doesn't mean it lacks power.

The 2021 version includes Auto Creations, a collage tool that scans and groups photos automatically or via the tagging and sorting tool Adobe Sensei. It also comes with a range of performance enhancements and upgrades. Best of all, it doesn't require a subscription: it's available for a one-off fee. On the flipside, that means you don't get it as part of a Creative Cloud subscription.

Looking to convert RAW files? DxO PhotoLabis is the best in the business. It's a slightly complex tool to use, but it achieves impeccable results. You can browse images on your computer folder by folder, then select an image and choose from the default conversion/correction setting or a range of presets.

The software offers lens corrections that automatically compensate for the different degrees of distortion, chromatic aberration, edge softness and vignetting that are common to most digital camera lenses. The results are outstanding, although note this is a specific tool, not a general photo editor.

Fotor is a free easy-to-use photo editing and graphic design tool, aimed at amateur photographers and design enthusiasts. There are mobile and desktop apps as well as an in-browser version, and you get a full suite of tools that should cover most people's needs.

A one-tap enhance button aims to offer an instant fix, which will be loved by some and hated by others. A greater degree of control is offered via tools for resizing, cropping, rotating and straightening images. There's also a background remover and some handy retouching tools such as red-eye and wrinkle removal. There's even an HDR image creator and tilt-shift editor in case you're looking to turn your photos into something more dramatic.

GIMP is another free photo editing tool, but this one is open source. That means it will be free forever, and there's an enthusiastic community of worldwide developers behind it, who are constantly working to improve it.

The software available for Linux, Windows and Mac, and offers a broad range of tools including painting tools, colour correction, cloning, selection, and enhancement. The team has worked hard to ensure compatibility, so you'll be able to work with all the popular file formats without problems. The software also boasts a very capable file manager built in, similar to Adobe's Bridge.

Sumo Paint is another very capable browser-based image editor. It boasts all of the standard features you'd expect in a desktop tool - in fact, the Pro version for $9 a month includes the option to download a desktop version if you prefer.

Tools include brushes, pencils, shapes, text, cloning and gradients, which can all be accessed quickly from a Photoshop-like floating toolbar. Sumo Paint can open saved documents from your hard drive, making it a viable option for editing and re-editing, and its latest upgrade gives it a slick look. There are significant limitations, though. The editor appears to be RGB only, limiting its use to work designed for screens. There are No CMYK, Lab or other colour models offered.
Related articles:

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(Image credit: Liza Summer from Pexels) The best photo-editing software is having a bit of a moment right now. Spearheaded by Adobe's 'Project Sensei', software firms everywhere are incorporating smart AI and machine learning into their products, making edits that once took hours of fiddling about possible within the click of a button.

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See why thousands of parents, educators, and members of law enforcement in all 50 states turn to DFI to help kids make better life decisions. Our curriculum is updated regularly with the latest findings to help kids make smart decisions about the role technology plays in their lives.

ALL LESSONS ARE 100% FREE

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For Parents | Teach Your Kids Digital Citizenship | Digital Futures Initiative

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See why thousands of parents, educators, and members of law enforcement in all 50 states turn to DFI to help kids make better life decisions. Our curriculum is updated regularly with the latest findings to help kids make smart decisions about the role technology plays in their lives.

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So What Are the Effects of Technology on Creativity? (yourteenmag.com)

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If you ask a tween or teenager, we grownups always have complaints. Recently, we were even bellyaching about the annoying noise of kids endlessly flipping plastic water bottles, trying again and again to do it just so to get the bottle to land straight up on its bottom.

What we've forgotten is that for once they're not on their phones-the phones we're normally wringing our hands about. And, certainly, we should be concerned about too much screen time.

Consider, in addition to all our other worries about the effects of technology, that research shows that boredom leads to more creativity. Who can get bored with a device that offers worlds of music, games, instant answers, and endless connection to friends?

In other words, where have all the daydreams gone?

Kids may not think creativity matters much, especially if they don't consider themselves artistic types. But creativity is a life skill, too, no matter what they wind up doing.

"We need kids who will be able to think outside the box, to come up with novel ways of looking at problems," says Richard Rende, psychologist and co-author of Raising Can-Do Kids. Boredom makes the space for that. Rende says that when kids "get in the habit of finding ways to make their boredom go away, they will be training themselves in the critical-thinking, problem-solving, and innovation skills that they will need in the future."

What can parents do, then, to make room for this important sort of thinking to blossom? Of course, sometimes we just need to limit the technology usage. Our kids won't always like that. Rende cautions us to be understanding, though. "Rather than getting annoyed at kids, or chastising them for being bored since they have so much stuff these days to entertain them, simply treat it as a chance to encourage them to do something they don't typically do."

We can offer suggestions about offline activities, Rende says, but "the real thing is to foster these moments as chances for your kids to find their own thing to do."

Devorah Heitner, founder of Raising Digital Natives and author of Screenwise: Helping Kids Survive (And Thrive) in their Digital World, agrees that "we have to forcibly unplug them sometimes." Our job is much more complex than always saying no to screens, with all the effects of technology on everyday life. Heitner says our parenting role should be that of a mentor, not merely a gatekeeper. We need to help kids understand that not all screen time is created equal - some is for schoolwork, some is for social connection, some allows for creativity, and some is just relaxing fluff.

Instead of just imposing flat limits on the amount of screen time for tweens and teens, Heitner says we should look at what they're doing online, and "at creativity versus consumption because 'screen time' is kind of a meaningless term these days."

Kids can be creative in front of a screen-it's not just passive entertainment. Those creative pursuits may include making videos, composing music, building their own games, and even writing fan fiction.

"Sometimes we are snobs if our kid isn't writing a play in iambic pentameter or composing classical music," says Heitner, "but that doesn't mean they're not being creative."

Creative online work can also build an online social community for like-minded tweens and teens. Instead of kids just consuming content from their favorite sites or YouTubers, encourage your child to be an active contributor, suggests Heitner. "The more your kid is a fan of a certain genre, the more you hope they're contributing back. Maybe your kid is a fan of Minecraft videos. Perhaps they should be making some Minecraft videos and teaching other people what they've learned."

That might not be what we had in mind, just like an hour of water-bottle-flipping might not be what we have in mind for our kids' offline time. But here's the thing about creativity-it's not supposed to be what we expect. It's supposed to be innovative, startling, stretching. Sometimes it's us parents that need to stretch a little, too.

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If you ask a tween or teenager, we grownups always have complaints. Recently, we were even bellyaching about the annoying noise of kids endlessly flipping plastic water bottles, trying again and again to do it just so to get the bottle to land straight up on its bottom.

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The future will intuitively blend data and design

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Like any incredible tool, data-based tools are only as good as the master who wields them.

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Perspective - (2022) Volume 7, Issue 2

*Correspondence: Ashfaq Ul Hassan, Department of Anatomy, SKIMS Medical College, India, Email:

Introduction

For overcomers of extreme COVID-19 sickness, having crushed the infection is only the start of an unfamiliar recuperation way. What trails closely behind the intense period of SARS-CoV-2 contamination relies upon the augmentation and seriousness of viral assaults in various cell types and organs. Notwithstanding the ludicrously enormous number of papers that have overwhelmed logical diaries and preprint-facilitating sites, an unmistakable clinical image of COVID-19 repercussions is dubious, best case scenario. Without bigger planned observational investigations that are just now being begun, clinicians can recover data just from case reports and additionally little examinations. This is an ideal opportunity to see how COVID-19 goes ahead and what results survivors might hope to encounter. To this point, a multidisciplinary post-intense consideration administration including a few experts has been laid out at the Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli IRCSS (Rome, Italy). In spite of the fact that COVID-19 is an irresistible sickness essentially influencing the lung, its multi-organ contribution requires an interdisciplinary methodology incorporating practically all parts of inner medication and geriatrics. Specifically, during the post-intense stage, the geriatrician might fill in as the caseworker of a multidisciplinary group. The point of this article is to depict the significance of the interdisciplinary methodology composed by geriatrician to adapt the potential post-intense consideration needs of recuperated COVID-19 patients.

Description

The COVID sickness 2019 (COVID-19) is an irresistible illness brought about by SARS-CoV-2 that primarily influences the respiratory framework, as interstitial pneumonia and intense respiratory trouble disorder (ARDS). Irresistible infection doctors, pneumologists, and serious consideration doctors are the clinical experts fundamentally associated with the administration of the intense period of COVID-19. Be that as it may, as the quantity of affirmed COVID-19 cases surpasses 5,000,000 universally, the portion of patients who have endure the infection is increasing. Clinicians and pathologists are currently attempting to more readily portray the site(s), nature, and seriousness of harm brought about by SARS-CoV-2. Albeit the lungs are most certainly the main objective organ of SARS-CoV-2 disease, amassing proof shows that the infection can spread to various organs, including the heart, veins, kidneys, stomach, and mind. Thus, a multidisciplinary approach becomes vital for the assessment and the development of patients with COVID-19 infection.

Albeit a significant group of studies on transient results of COVID-19 inpatients has proactively been created, the writing is bereft of information on long haul results of patients who endure the intense period of the infection. It could be accepted that most of survivors with a somewhat suggestive show (80%) won't present long haul sequelae and will ultimately completely recuperate. No mid-term complexities have been accounted for additionally for patients with decently extreme indicative show that expected hospitalization yet not mechanical ventilation. Then again, it very well might be normal that patients with serious indicative show requiring mechanical ventilation will encounter long haul difficulties and inadequate recuperation (e.g., diminished practice limit).

The development of individuals who have recuperated from COVID-19 ought to be just about as exhaustive as conceivable to gather all the fundamental data to all the more likely characterize the clinical and care needs. This far reaching appraisal ought to be connected to data on the intense period of ailment (signs and side effects endured during the medical clinic stay) and might be utilized to rethink the medical services authoritative model and plan what is essential in the medium and long haul. It in this way seems proper to propose a nitty gritty model for the principal evaluation (least informational collection for the appraisal of COVID-19 patients), giving that ensuing stages can be tweaked in light of the underlying discoveries.

The main open inquiry to be responded to is as per the following: "Once recuperated from COVID-19 what befalls patients, and how has the infection affected their body?" To address this inquiry, the Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli IRCSS (Rome, Italy) has set up a multidisciplinary medical care administration called "Post-COVID-19 Day Hospital." The expert evaluations proposed to patients are framed in the accompanying areas. Besides, the significant job of geriatrician going about as a consideration director of patients who endured COVID-19 illness is depicted. Truth be told, the geriatrician is the expert who best can deal with the multi-faceted medical issues, with an incredible fitness and expertise to adapt multimorbid and complex patients. Second, geriatricians are the specialists who best know the standards of cooperation in close coordinated effort with the other medical services experts and family. Specifically, the geriatrician can deal with the beginning of the main conditions, for example, sarcopenia, lack of healthy sustenance, misery, and daze [ 1- 5].

Conclusion

The review convention was endorsed by the Ethics Committee of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Rome, Italy). Composed informed assent has been gotten from the members. Because of conceivable tainting, a photo was taken of the sheet and it was killed as a perilous material. The main open inquiry to be addressed is as per the following: "Once recuperated from COVID-19 what befalls patients, and how has the infection affected their body?" To respond to this inquiry, the Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli IRCSS (Rome, Italy) has set up a multidisciplinary medical care administration called "Post-COVID-19 Day Hospital." The expert evaluations proposed to patients are illustrated in the accompanying areas. Moreover, the significant job of geriatrician going about as a consideration administrator of patients who endured COVID-19 sickness is depicted. As a matter of fact, the geriatrician is the expert who best can deal with the multi-layered medical issues, with an incredible inclination and ability to adapt multimorbid and complex patients. Second, geriatricians are the specialists who best know the standards of cooperation in close coordinated effort with the other medical services experts and family. Specifically, the geriatrician can deal with the beginning of the main conditions, for example, sarcopenia, ailing health, melancholy and wooziness. The review convention was endorsed by the Ethics Committee of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Rome, Italy). Composed informed assent has been acquired from the members. Because of conceivable pollution, a photo was taken of the sheet and it was wiped out as a perilous material.

References

1. Cereda, Danilo, Mattia Manica, MarcelloTirani and Francesca Rovida et al. "The early phase of the COVID-19 outbreak in Lombardy, Italy." Epidemics 37 (2021):100528.

2. Ng, Yixiang, Zongbin Li, Yi Xian Chua and Wei Liang Chaw et al. "Evaluation of the effectiveness of surveillance and containment measures for the first 100 patients with COVID-19 in Singapore-January 2-February 29, 2020." Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 69 (2020):307-311.

3. Gudbjartsson, Daniel F, Agnar Helgason, Hakon Jonsson and Olafur T Magnusson et al. "Spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the Icelandic population." N Engl J Med 382 (2020):2302-2315.

4. Alinier, Guillaume, Brendon Morris, Junaid Abu and Loua Al Shaikh. "Implementation of a drivethrough testing clinic in Qatar for residents having recently returned from a country with a COVID-19 travel warning." Qatar Med J 3 (2020):42.

5. Abu-Raddad, Laith J, Hiam Chemaitelly, Houssein H Ayoub and Zaina Al Kanaani, et al. "Characterizing the Qatar advanced-phase SARS-CoV-2 epidemic." Medrxiv BMJ 11 (2021):1-15.

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Perspective - (2022) Volume 7, Issue 2 *Correspondence: Ashfaq Ul Hassan, Department of Anatomy, SKIMS Medical College, India, Email: Introduction For overcomers of extreme COVID-19 sickness, having crushed the infection is only the start of an unfamiliar recuperation way.

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MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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Elise Chen | Comparative Media Studies/Writing

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Increasing equity through educational technology

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MIT Assistant Professor Justin Reich looks to transform educational settings by equipping teachers with the technology tools they need to best serve all students.

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Understanding self-talk

Take a minute and think about what you've said to yourself today. Was it critical? Or was it kind and helpful? How did you feel after you engaged in this inner discussion?

Your thoughts are the source of your emotions and mood. The conversations you have with yourself can be destructive or beneficial. They influence how you feel about yourself and how you respond to events in your life.

Self-talk is something you do naturally throughout your waking hours. People are becoming more aware that positive self-talk is a powerful tool for increasing your self-confidence and curbing negative emotions. People who can master positive self-talk are thought to be more confident, motivated, and productive.

Although positive self-talk comes naturally to some, most people need to learn how to cultivate positive thoughts and dispel the negative ones. With practice, it can become more natural to think good thoughts rather than bad ones.

Positive self-talk

Positive self-talk is supportive and affirming. Consider the following two inner statements:

"I'm going to speak up in the meeting today because I have something important to contribute." This sounds like a positive plan and attitude.

"I don't think I want to speak up in the meeting today because I'll look foolish if I say the wrong thing." Contrast this negative comment with the statement above.

Rumination: Negative self-talk

Rumination is the flip side of positive self-talk. It happens when you replay upsetting or cringe-worthy thoughts or events over and over again in your head. Thinking through a problem can be useful, but if you spend a lot of time ruminating, small issues tend to snowball. Constant rumination can make you more likely to experience depression or anxiety.

This statement show negative thoughts can grow and become self-defeating:

"I look so fat in this dress. I really am fat. Look at those thighs. No wonder I can't get a date. Why can't I lose weight? It's impossible."

Researchers have found that it's not just about what you say to yourself, it's also the language that you use to say it. One 2014 report describes the role of language in self-talk. What's the key? When practicing self-talk, don't refer to yourself in the first person, such as "I" or "me." Instead, refer to yourself in the third person, using "he" or "she," or refer to yourself by name.

Brené Brown, professor at the University of Houston Graduate College and motivational speaker, refers to the negative voices in her head as her gremlins. By giving her negative thoughts a name, she's both stepping away from them and poking fun at them.

The report goes on to say that using the third person in self-talk can help you step back and think more objectively about your response and emotions, whether you're thinking about a past event or looking into the future. It can also help you reduce stress and anxiety.

Listen and learn

Spend a few days listening closely to your inner dialogues. Are you supportive of yourself? Are you critical or negative? Would you be comfortable saying those thoughts and words to a loved one? Are common threads or themes repeated? Write down important or frequent negative thoughts.

Think it through

Ask yourself the following questions about each of the thoughts you've listed:

Am I overreacting? Is it really that big of a deal? Is it important in the long run?

Am I overgeneralizing? Am I coming to a conclusion based more on opinion or experience than facts?

Am I mind reading? Am I assuming others have specific beliefs or feel a certain way? Am I guessing how they'll react?

Am I labeling myself harshly? Do you refer to yourself using words like "stupid," "hopeless," or "fat?"

Is this an all-or-nothing thought? Am I viewing one incident as either good or bad without considering that the reality is rarely black or white? The answer usually lies in the gray area between the two.

How truthful and accurate is this thought? Step way back and consider the accuracy of the thought as a friend might.

Now that you have a better idea of how your inner thoughts are skewed, it's time to switch gears and learn a new approach to self-talk. Look back at the thoughts on your list and reword them in a kinder, more positive light.

Example 1

"What an idiot! I really screwed up that presentation. Well, that's the end of my career."

Alternative: "I can do better than that. I'll prepare and rehearse more next time. Maybe I'll get some public speaking training. That would be good for my career."

Example 2

"I can't do that in just one week. It's impossible."

Alternative: "It's a lot to do, but I'll take it one step at a time. I think I'll see if my friends can help, too."

Example 3

"How ridiculous! I can't teach myself how to think more positively."

Alternative: "Learning to think more positively can help me in many ways. I'm going to give it a shot."

Check out: 5 Best mental health telemedicine companies "
Banishing your inner critic and learning how to have productive, positive inner conversations has no downside. Some people may find it easier than others to adopt positive self-talk. Others may have to give it more time and put more effort into it. Either way, it's a worthwhile step toward bettering yourself and improving your sense of self-worth.

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Understanding self-talk Take a minute and think about what you've said to yourself today. Was it critical? Or was it kind and helpful? How did you feel after you engaged in this inner discussion? Your thoughts are the source of your emotions and mood. The conversations you have with yourself can be destructive or beneficial.

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Apps that have made a difference in individual lives

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Apps that have made a difference in individual lives

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The New York Times asked its readers for stories about surprising ways that technology unleashed their creativity or discovered new joys. This compilation of six suggestions published in July of 2022 ranges from apps that help users enjoy birdsong, bond over playlists, and learn how to attach a lawn mower blade.

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The New York Times, July 14, 2022

Last week, our On Tech editor, Hanna Ingber, shared a story of her kiddo stumbling upon a design app that unlocked his amazing taste for interiors. We asked for your own tales of surprising ways in which technology helped you unleash creativity or discover new joys.

You guys (sniff), the responses were lovely. We're sharing a selection of them today.

The mission here at On Tech is to explore the ways in which technology is changing how we live, who we are and the world around us. We can't ignore the harmful effects, but I don't want us to lose sight of the wonder, either.

How cool is it that we can share with a parent knowledge gleaned online or easily swap songs from our favorite decade? Also, BIRDS! Birds are so great. Here are edited excerpts from what some On Tech readers had to say:

Enjoying the magic of birds during a daily task:

My morning stroll down the driveway to retrieve the newspaper has been transformed by the Merlin Bird ID app.

A daily chore has become a joy. Now, instead of ignoring the sounds around me, I'm able to focus on and identify the bird songs I'm hearing. The birds vary with their seasonal migration patterns, so the sounds are ever-changing. It's become a meditation of sorts.

Ann McLaughlin, Carmel, Calif.

Bonding over playlists:

Sharing music and playlists on Spotify with my kids has been very connecting. They get to hear the music I grew up on, and I get to hear the latest they are listening to. Surprisingly, we listen to a lot of the same music, old and new. So much easier than creating mixtapes.

They are now 17 and 18, but we've been doing this since they were about 13 - ages when it can be tough for parents to find ways to connect with their teens.

Jason, Corvallis, Ore.

Removing the pressure of perfection:

I was one of those kids who could never unpeel a sticker immediately. I always had to wait a couple moments, or even days, before deciding my sticker's forever home. Likewise, I hesitated to sharpen brand-new pencils unless absolutely necessary, and I reserved my markers for only the most important drawings.

You'd never find quick doodles in my sketchbooks, because those were put aside until I was ready with a full vision. I was always collecting and saving these items for a special day or big idea, and, ultimately, my stickers wrinkled, my markers dried out and my sketchbooks joined another pile of unused, unloved things.

And then, I bought myself an iPad as a graduation gift. I discovered the wonder of sketching, note taking, doodling and coloring - all digitally.

I had an endless supply of stickers at my disposal, ones that could be picked up and replaced at a moment's notice. I was met with infinite colors and combinations.

Soon, I found myself writing daily journal entries, experimenting with digital scrapbooking and keeping memories all in one place. If I made a mistake, I could immediately clean it up with a virtual eraser. I could adjust stickers and letters to my heart's content. My iPad became an outlet for me to do whatever I wanted, without the fear of making a wrong move.

Sydney Lin, a sophomore at Vanderbilt University majoring in civil engineering

Schooling Dad on D.I.Y. repairs:

Years ago, my preteen son watched my growing frustration as I unsuccessfully tried to attach a new lawn mower blade. I assumed that he was bored when he headed back into the house. Instead, he was watching YouTube on his mom's iPad.

A few minutes later, he emerged and quietly asked, "Can I try?" He accomplished in less than a minute what I'd been attempting for half an hour. 'Til that moment, I thought YouTube was for cat videos.

This is the same kid who taught himself how to play his new ukulele on YouTube, along with so many other unexpected skills.

Doug McDurham, Waco, Texas

Classroom learning transformed by audio production:

I have found that introducing students to podcasting opens new doors.

Students who were reluctant to participate in classroom discussions embraced the opportunity to share their ideas about topics they were interested in or research new topics. Students chose between three formats for their podcasts: storytelling, interview and investigation. Few, if any, projects have ever offered this kind of freedom.

Even though video apps have been available for some time, the freedom of recording only their voice was liberating. They didn't have to worry about how they appeared on camera - they could convey their thoughts and ideas through voice alone. Groups were able to share audio files and edit simultaneously to create a final product. What was once a class report has been redefined.

Lisa Dabel, a fifth-grade teacher in San Jose, Calif.

Opera, not so intimidating after all:

For most of my life, I respected opera as an art form that required incredible levels of training and discipline. But, as far as I was concerned, it was not for me.

At some point around late March or early April 2020, friends told us about the Metropolitan Opera's recordings of its past opera performances - for free, a new one each day - via the company's website and app. Within days, we had a new nightly routine: Eat dinner, read for an hour, then settle down for an opera.

Within weeks, we had begun to learn the names and styles of some of opera's leading performers. Within months, we had learned about the technical details of operatic music, vocal training, set and costume design, and had formed preferences regarding composers. (Sorry, folks: Wagner, no; Glass, yes.)

We thought deeply about the conflicts that arise when old, flawed beliefs (misogyny, racism, more) embodied in "the canon" encounter diverse casting choices and new ways of thinking. We were exposed to modern composers and librettists who challenged our assumptions about melody, story construction and plot, character development and so on.

Who knew that there was so much to discover about such a venerable art form? I certainly didn't - and am very happy that technology brought opera into our home and lives.

David Moore, Sequim, Wash.

The Met Opera has ended its nightly streams, but you can now watch and listen to past performances on the online streaming service Met Opera on Demand, which offers a free trial period.

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The New York Times, July 14, 2022 Last week, our On Tech editor, Hanna Ingber, shared a story of her kiddo stumbling upon a design app that unlocked his amazing taste for interiors. We asked for your own tales of surprising ways in which technology helped you unleash creativity or discover new joys.