As new variants of the COVID-19 virus emerge, several countries are launching renewed vaccination campaigns to ensure continued protection against the virus. Health authorities are emphasizing the importance of booster shots and updated vaccines to address potential waning immunity and the evolving nature of the virus. The global effort to combat COVID-19 remains a top priority, with governments and health organizations working together to adapt to the changing landscape of the pandemic.
Online education is one of the best things that the internet has to offer. Thanks to online education, people who would have never thought they could get the education they have always dreamed of are now achieving their educational goals. Whether it is working adults, advanced students, or senior citizens, people everywhere are singing praises about online education.
However, it is extremely important to realize that not all online education is the same. Although there are lots of very good online education institutions, there are plenty (if not just as many) online education programs (which are nothing more than scams) trying to take some of your money. In order to avoid wasting your time and money on a scam, it is important to understand how to choose a legitimate online education institution. By educating yourself on what to look for in a legitimate online education institution, you will be able to easily discern online programs that will truly help you get ahead in life from those that will do nothing more than set you back a couple of months and a few hundred dollars. When evaluating online education institutions, the most important thing you should look for is accreditation.
If an online institution, it will be accredited. If it is not legitimate and is actually nothing more than a scam, then it will not be accredited. Although it seems overly simple, it really is that simple to identify what is good and what is not. If an institution is accredited, it will not be difficult to find out. Because of the prevalence of scams on the internet, almost every accredited degree program will proudly display it on the home page of their website.
These programs know that they are in a field filled with frauds, so they want to make sure that you can trust that they are legitimate. If you have to search around an online education institution’s website to determine whether they are accredited or not, then ninety-nine percent of the time they are not. Although it is possible (even though rare) for an institution to fake the fact that they are accredited, it is the best starting point to weed out potential frauds.
Once you have found a program that is accredited, the next step in your evaluation should be non-biased, third-party reviews. This means you need to find reviews of the online degrees institution other than those proudly displayed on their website. This can easily be accomplished by doing a little searching on Google or Yahoo. Honest reviews from individuals who have already had experience with that institution are a great way to not only determine if they are legitimate but to also get a feel for what the program is really like. Although the institutions can say whatever great things they want about themselves, without reading reviews from other real people, you will never truly get a feel for what the program has to offer and entails.
The final step in evaluating an institution is common sense. In reality, this step should be employed throughout the entire evaluation process. If a program seems too good to be true or raises a flag in your head, then you should avoid that specific institution. Nine times out of ten, your gut feeling will lead you in the right direction, so do not be afraid to follow your common sense. By following the steps listed above, you will not only be able to weed out the bad online programs, but you will also be able to select that one that best fits your situation, needs, and goals.
Just how much are all those stories about crippling student debt having on college campuses? You have only to ask post-millennials now trying – although not always successfully – to avoid being saddled with the same heavy burden of debt as their predecessors.
Not only did 83 percent of current college students surveyed consider what their total costs would be before matriculating – just 69 percent of recent graduates had such foresight – but 39 percent of them said the potential price tag was such “a huge factor” that they purposely limited their choice of schools to the most affordable, according to Fidelity Investments’ new “College Savings: Lessons Learned Study.” Only 32 percent of recent graduates, alas, had shown similar restraint.
“It seems today’s college students are perhaps more aware of the financial situation they entered into than those who graduated before them,” says Melissa Ridolfi, Fidelity’s vice president of retirement and college leadership. “That’s a positive development.”
All told, student debt in the U.S. now totals more than $1.5 trillion – second only to mortgage debt, Forbes reports. And the 69 percent or so of the Class of 2018 who took out student loans graduated with an average debt balance of $29,800.
So it’s understandable why recent graduates would be so anxious over whether they’d ever be able to pay off their loans that they’re now having second thoughts about their decisions:
• 40 percent say that while they don’t regret going to college, they would have made different choices in hindsight.
• Only 14 percent felt the value of their education was worth more than the money they had spent.
And future college students should listen to this sage advice from the more than 4,000 respondents surveyed – all recent graduates, current undergraduates, and parents of either or both – on what would have done wonders to ease their own stress levels.
“When asked ‘If you knew then what you know now when it comes to school selection, what would you do differently?’ the no. 1 answer for all respondents was ‘I would have started saving earlier,’” Ridolfi says.
Which logically brings us to another key finding of the study: only 17 percent of current students and recent graduates had taken advantage, prior to college, of what’s arguably one of the best ways to fund higher education – 529 savings plans.
Unlike regular bank savings accounts, they provide a tax-advantaged way to save money to cover tuition, books and other education-related expenses at most accredited two- and four-year colleges, universities and vocational-technical schools.
The key phrase being “tax-advantaged.” Meaning, earnings grow federal income tax-deferred and withdrawals for qualified expenses are free from federal (and, in many places, state) income taxes – thus affording the opportunity to have even more saved for college.
Significantly, Ridolfi says families using a 529 plan managed by Fidelity have been starting to sock money away earlier than ever before, with contributions beginning on average when the child is about age six-and-a-half. Thirty-six percent of Fidelity 529s are even opened for beneficiaries under age 2.
You say a child hasn’t even uttered his or her first complete sentence before they’re two? Probably not. But just so you’re not bushwhacked when they suddenly hit their late teens, free online resources such as Fidelity’s College Savings Learning Center and College Savings Quick Check– a calculator that even shows you the impact of saving a few dollars more a month – can help prepare you for what lies ahead.
Think of them as your own first baby steps.
For too long, Millennials have gotten a bad rap about money and their ability to save for a rainy day or retirement.
However, a new “Relationship With Money” survey by financial services firm Edward Jones found that not only do more Americans born between 1981 and 1996 consider themselves “savers” than those in their parents’ Gen-X cohort (48 percent vs. 46 percent), but that Millennials also were better at socking away emergency funds (75 percent vs. 66 percent).
That’s right. The same Millennials whose motto could be “Why buy a car when you can Uber?”
“This debunks the myth that Millennials aren’t as financially focused as other generations,” says Edward Jones investment strategist Nela Richardson.
And the survey isn’t some outlier. It’s supported by other research.
The Federal Reserve Survey on Consumer Finances found that while Millennials are deep in debt, more than 42 percent have retirement accounts, the highest share for those under 35 years of age since 2001.
Part of what’s driving Millennials’ emphasis on saving could stem from lingering memories of the Great Recession.
“Back in the late 2000’s, the oldest cohort of millennials entered the worst job market since the Great Depression of the 1930’s,” says Richardson.
“For younger millennials, watching their parents and other family members go through that experience may have also made them more aware of the risks of a market downturn or some other unexpected event, such as losing a home or a job, and so they’re more conservative when it comes to spending and saving in their adult lives,” says Richardson.
One potential alarm bell uncovered by Edward Jones’ sampling of more than 2,000 adults nationally age 18 and over: While 92 percent were honest enough with themselves to recognize there was room for improvement in their financial health, the very thought of saving money sufficed to make more than a third feel either “anxious” or “overwhelmed.”
If that sounds familiar, here are three steps to consider:
• Identify your money-related emotions. People often have emotional responses to money. Getting a big bonus at work can make you feel euphoric; agonizing over what to do with it can be paralyzing even as the logical part of your brain (invest at least most of it) fights it out with the emotional part (splurge it all!). What’s key is knowing that letting your feelings dictate your spending, saving and investing choices can lead to poor decisions.
• Develop a financial strategy. Keeping your cool starts with identifying your main goals – a down payment on a new home, college for your children, a comfortable retirement – and then sticking to a sound, long-term path for attaining them.
• Get an “accountability partner.” Meaning, someone with whom you’re comfortable sharing your finances. It could be a family member. Or a professional financial advisor, such as a local one at Edward Jones, who has the perspective, experience and skills necessary to help you make the moves appropriate for your situation.
“Whether you are strapped with student debt, saving to buy a home or trying to build an emergency fund, there are trade-offs that must be made in balancing these short-term goals and our long-term financial future, such as investing for retirement,” Richardson says. “Without a sound financial strategy, most people tend to be reactive rather than proactive and feel that their money is controlling them.”
After more than 45 days in lockdown, it’s no surprise that many people are going a tad stir-crazy. But it’s far worse for seniors: Not only have visits from their kids and grandkids been suspended, but there’s the extra stress that comes with the nagging suspicion that they’ll be advised to remain on lockdown long after younger people begin trickling back to work and the world starts opening up again.
In fact, the AARP Foundation has even come up with this dire comparison: Prolonged social isolation, for those aged 50 and older, “is the health equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day.” Fortuitously, some of the niftiest technology offers solutions both to keep us connected and protect against some of the miscreants taking advantage of the situation.
• Health Checks. If you are worried that all of the anxiety is harming your loved ones’ overall well-being, the machine-learning algorithms that analyze activity data as part of Alarm.com’s Wellness solution can provide you with the very details you’ve suddenly found yourself obsessing about.
Did they open their medicine cabinet when they should, to take their prescription? Have their sleeping, eating, and (yes) bathroom patterns changed? Are they up and about during the day?
All that and more is done by connecting their home to yours via smart-home technology, with real-time smartphone alerts to let you know if something’s amiss.
“You don’t even know it’s there, but it’s here to protect you and let someone know if something does go wrong,” says Margarete Pullen of Dallas, Texas, whose son had the system installed by an authorized service provider for her and her husband along with a Wellcam video camera with two-way voice capability.
• Movie meet-ups. Most of us are just trying to find novel ways to cope with a situation that Nicholas Christakis, a social scientist and physician at Yale University, told Science magazine “calls on us to suppress our profoundly human and evolutionary hard-wired impulses for connection.”
Google’s new Netflix Party extension lets friends and family watch – and video-chat their way through – a movie together on their computers. You’ll need a NetFlix subscription, but then you’re free to debate if the Tiger King is worth all the hype and whether Carol Baskin really did kill her husband. Plus, unlike in real theaters, not many people (if any) are physically there to complain if you’re making too much noise eating popcorn.
• Apps! Apps! Apps! No NetFlix subscription? With apps such as FaceTime, Skype, Houseparty and Zoom comes more proof that social distancing needn’t mean social disconnecting. Mass virtual dinner parties. Mass virtual “happy hours.” Mass virtual gym classes. They’ve all become quite the rage, with one Vermont couple in their eighties even touchingly using Apple’s FaceTime to see and talk to each other after the husband had to be put in a nursing home that bars visitors during the pandemic.
Want to be a hero in your neighborhood? Use an app such as Instagram to share a video of someone Alarm.com’s doorbell cameras caught swiping one of the many, many packages you’ve been having delivered.
As I have mentioned in my earlier articles that I am an avid reader and love reading.
This article is not about giving tips to anybody or recommending any expensive books or techniques that will transform your child into a Super child. This article is about inculcating reading habit naturally into any child by introducing books of child’s interest.
This article is about my journey with my son who is 7 years old and how he has got a natural bent for reading. My son completely enjoys reading a variety of books. I am sharing this with all you Kind and Nice people so you may connect with my experience.
I believe that the roots of learning lies in the good habits and quality time you spend with your kids.
You do not need to buy the most expensive books to read to your child. There are many good reads available at nominal prices on e-commerce sites like Amazon, Flipkart,Firstcry or you can just walk up to your nearest book store and pick anything as per your child’s age. You can buy used books from Amazon or used book sellers. I do not mind buying second-hand books from book sellers dealing in used books.
I started reading books to my son when he was 7 months old.
I brought the initial books from a Gift card amount 1000 Rs that I have received in my office. Some of his initial books are used books shared by cousins. Even now, he does not mind reading books given with love by relatives and friends.
I brought his initial books from Landmark Store using the gift card. I have brought two beautiful books one of which has beautiful nursery rhymes and another one has an alphabet with beautiful pictures. Later on, I added a few more books in his collection which I have brought from a bookstall exhibited in my office. I spent approx 200 Rupees to buy 3 books which were priced between 50 to 90 Rupees.
Initial Books of My Son
When my son turned almost 3 years old, I purchased a pack of Be Good Stories by Dreamland Publications from Amazon which was priced approx 500 under Amazon lightning deals and started reading a story to him every day. After that, he received a few used books from his cousins. When he turned 4 years, I added a few books in his library which I brought from the International Book Fair at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi. One book that he could recite completely was Hulk to the Rescue by Marvel. I was amazed to see how he could narrate the story in exact words as in the book. A few of his favorites are:
Grandma’s bag of Stories by Sudha Murty
The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales
Geronimo Stilton Books by Scholastic
Tigers for Dinner by Ruskin Bond
151 Akbar Birbal Stories
5-Minute STAR WARS Stories by Disney
Stink and the Ultimate Thumb-Wrestling by Megan McDonald
Vikram & Betaal
Books by Marvel Studio
Books From My Son’s Collection
Books From My Niece’s Collection
He has a collection of amazing books procured from multiple sources. He also exchanges and shares his books with his friends. This habit gives him and his friends access to more books at no additional cost.
Children in every family are very precious. Education is an integral part of their growing process. It is often proved that children with utmost focus and concentration succeed well at their academic front at the same time improving their intellects at the good extent too. At this outset, we bring you 10 valuable tips to improve your child’s concentration and focus.
1. Diet: When we talk about child’s growth, it is directly connected with their diet. Here, it is imperative to know that nutrition is the primary key in improving the child’s concentration levels. Children eat better can focus well on their daily activities. Your child’s cognitive functions are ruled through micronutrients such as copper, zinc, iron, selenium and Vitamins A, C, D, and E. Make it sure that your child’s diet is rich with certain nutrients those can impart good concentration and focus. Children with the good levels of concentration and focus will excel well in their every activity that included studies too.
2. Routine: The Growing process of the children is very sensitive. Here, it is certainly parents’ responsibility to make their growing not alone healthy, but also of good in a way, they will be exposed to certain good patterns. Here, setting a routine is the greatest help. Parents should ensure setting the best routine into their daily activity, which can help them well to focus in the right manner. A best-set routine can help a lot for the child’s overall development yet being the best source to enhance their performance besides too. Some of such routines are like setting particular timings for doing homework, playing, eating, sleeping and some more. This kind of well-set routine will make them always well prepared in a way to face the targets with determined focus.
3. Non-Academic Approach: Academic and non-academic approaches should be made as a part of daily routine for children. Add some puzzles, quizzes and some more as the non-academic approach. These activities will teach well to the child more about focus automatically. Importantly, these activities will improve exceptional problem-solving skills to the child. Academic tasks often make the child exhaustive. When you add exposure to the motioned non-academic practices, they will help the child improve well on concentration, which down the line can result in a great help at the academic front.
4. Small Tasks: Big tasks are not a great interest for children. They tend to be bored while exposed to big tasks. This kind of situation will affect drastically on the child’s focus levels. It is always wise to break any of the big tasks into multiple small tasks with a deadline. This will motivate them to solve those tasks with determined focus and concentration. This is the best way to improve your child’s concentration and focus too.
5. Mitigate Distractions: It is very common in children to get distracted very quickly. If you want your child to improve focus and concentration then it is imperative to reduce or eradicate their distractions with the best possible ways. The ambience is another important cause here to distract children. Avoid loud sounds, TV, music and such from the ambience while your child is focusing on something. Always observe what all causing distraction is and eliminate them as much as possible from the ambience.
6. Rest: Your child must have ample rest every day. Make it sure that your child is having ample night sleep and add some additional rest in the day time too. This could lead to convenient activity for child apart from the availing ample rest, which can help them to focus and concentrate well on their work.
7. Time Gaps: It is imperative to allow some time gap between tasks for the children. For example, doing homework continuously can make them lose their focus and concentration. Let them complete their homework volume in bits and pieces ensuring time gap between one after one. This kind of working ensure focus yet improving it in the right way too.
8. Praising: You must appreciate your child in every activity. Children take this kind of praising as the greatest motivation. A well-motivated child often tends to focus and concentrate on the tasks given to gain the praising again. You should keep up this well in your child with appropriate praising as inappropriate appreciation can lead into the wrong direction too. Praising is the best way to improve the child’s focus and concentration, but do it in a balanced way without fail.
9. Activity Changes: It is very common to change activities in the child’s daily routine. But caution is very much essential here. Children are just growing and they find it difficult to accept changes. Sometimes, these changes can affect drastically on the child’s focus and concentration. It is imperative to add activity changes by duly informing in advance. You should make them well prepared for the change in a way their focus and concentration will not be affected.
10. Stories: Storytelling or reading out stories to the children showing very good positive impact since ages. Make good use of this reading out stories in a way child’s focus and concentration can be improved. Listening and comprehension skills will improve to a good extent while reading out stories. This is mainly due to the kind of focus and concentration paid by the child to the activity. So, reading out stories is a proven practice to improve your child’s concentration and focus.