Minecraft for Moms – What You Need to Know

15 GMAIL Tools Every Teacher Should Know About

Over the past few months Gmail has witnessed the addition of a lot of interesting features and functionalities that enhanced its overall performance. Gmail also provides several hidden gems to users who are willing to dig a bit deeper and take their email experience to the next level. To help you make the best of Gmail, we have gone through Gmail help documentation and handpicked these wonderful tips for you. These are simple hacks that you can use on your Gmail to increase your productivity and be a Gmail savvy teacher.

1- Organize your emails into categories

Since the release of Gmail New Inbox, users can now classify their messages into different categories. Gmail does this automatically. It creates inbox tabs  (e.g.Promotions, Social, Updates) and places incoming emails into them. However, you can use tab setting to customize these categories, show or hide them, move messages between tabs and many more. Check out this page to learn more about this feature.

2- Search in Gmail
Gmail provides a powerful search functionality that you can use to search through the piles of your emails for specific emails you want. Watch the video below to learn about this feature.

3- Keep Track of Conversations
Gmail automatically groups messages into different conversations. Each conversation thread contains the original messages and all its replies stacked neatly under it. This makes it easy for users to understand context of a message, find related messages, and follow the conversation. However, if you would rather read each email as a separate  message, you can turn off the the Conversation View feature :

• Open Gmail
• Click on the gear in the top right
• Select Settings.
• Scroll down to the Conversation View section (stay in the “General” tab).
• Choose Conversation view on or Conversation view off.
• Click Save changes at the bottom of the page.

4- Tidy up Your Inbox with Archive
You can use the “Archive” feature to make your inbox look clean and nice. Archiving a message does not remove it forever, it only moves it out of your inbox and places it in your account. To retrieve or access your archived messages, click on “All mail” on the left or search for it using gmail search box.  Here is how to archive a message:

• Open gmail
• Open the message or select the checkbox next to it
• Click the archive button as shown in this screenshot
• Check out this page to learn more about Archive feature.

5- Stop Spam Messages
Gmail is known for its anti-spam capabilities and it usually aggregates spam messages automatically into a tab called “Spam”. However, if it happens that a spam message fooled Gmail spam filer and made it to your inbox, you can report it to Gmail and it will block similar messages in the future. To report a spam email, check the box next to the message and click on the spam icon as shown below. check out this page to learn more about Gmail spam functionality.

6- View and Save Attachments
When you receive an email with an attachment, you will automatically see the preview of the attachment at the bottom of the email. Click the attachment preview to instantly view the attachment or see more options like print and share. Move your mouse over the attachment preview and use the buttons to download or save to Drive. Check this page to learn more about this feature.

7- Format Text of Your Emails
To change the colour or font of the text of your email or make words bold or to emphasize key points, click on the Formatting options icon and customize your text the way you want. Check this page to learn more about this feature.

8- Insert Photos, PDFs, Docs,Links and Emoticons in your Emails
With one click you can easily attach docs, photos, files, PDFs either from your computer or from your Google drive. You can also add links and emoticons as is shown below.

9- Multitask with Notifications
This is not a good feature to use all the time as it can decrease from your productivity and can sometimes be annoying. I would rather use it only if I am waiting for an important email and don’t want to keep checking my inbox. Turning on Gmail notification will allow you to receive mail notifications on your your desktop in the form of a pop-up message. Check out this page to learn how to activate it.

10- Check your Spelling
If you are using a browser other than Chrome, you may want to use Gmail spelling check feature to spell-check your emails before you send them.To check your spelling, click the down arrow in the bottom corner of the compose box and select Check spelling.

11- Set Auto-replies
If you are planning to be away from your computer for sometime and you want to let people know that you won’t be able to get back to them right away, use Gmail vacation responder. Here is how to activate it:

• Click on the gear icon on the top right corner
• Click on settings
• Scroll down and check the Vacation Responder.

12- Undo Sent messages
This feature allows you to undo your sent message .Enable the Undo Send feature, and decide how long you’d like Gmail to hold your mail before actually sending it off. Click the gear Gear icon and go to the Labs tab to enable the feature, and give yourself a little extra time for last-minute fixes.

13- Get things done with Tasks
Keep track of everything you need to get done with a to-do list right in your inbox. Head to the drop-down menu next to Gmail on the top left to get to your Tasks. Once you see the little window pop up near the bottom, you can start listing out your to-dos. You can even cross off items as you get things done by checking the checkboxes, and clear your list to start fresh. Check out the Tasks page to learn more about this feature. Here are some Gmail task shortcuts:

14- Mute conversations that go on too long
Have you ever been part of an email conversation that isn’t relevant to you and yet replies keep showing up in your inbox? The next time that happens, just mute the conversation by clicking the More button above your message and selecting Mute.New messages in the conversation will skip your inbox and go to All Mail.

New Tool to allow creation of videos and animations in Google Drive

In a post published a few months ago, we talked about WeVideo and how teachers  use it to create videos and short animations in Google Drive. Today, we are introducing you to PowToon Edu, another equally powerful tool to use to create engaging videos and animated presentations.

Pontoon Edu allows you to animate difficult topics and engage your students using a wide variety of tools. You can easily drag and drop characters and props into your slides and assign it an animation, choose from different pre-designed templates and style libraries.Videos and animated presentations you create through PowToon Edu can be exported in various ways. You can share them on YouTube or Facebook, download them to your computer. You can also export them as MP4 file to embed in your classroom blog or website.

Watch the video below to learn more about PowToon Edu

The Problem With Math Problems: We’re Solving Them Wrong

Originally posted in the NYTimes

The following question, from a mother concerned about her daughter’s math education, landed in my email box recently:

My husband and I talked to our daughter’s pre-calculus teacher about her poor grades. He said that many students hit a wall at this point in math, moving from memorization — apply this theorem to this problem — to more abstract how-can-I-solve-this-problem thinking. I accepted that because that’s what is happening for her. What I thought later was that why can’t we find a way to help these many students get over that wall, instead of using it as a tool to weed out less developed brains? I really feel I have no way to have an impact on this teacher’s blind spot since it is shared by all math teachers and so many other teachers: If you don’t understand, it’s your fault.

As I’m not a math teacher, I asked three experts on mathematics instruction to weigh in. They told me that this question perfectly illustrates what’s wrong with math education and why we need to change it. Much of what we teach kids during their first decade of math education relies on students’ blind compliance and memorization of rules and facts. We reward correct answers, but we do not not encourage students to think independently about what these rules and facts might mean in the bigger mathematical picture.

Tracy Zager, a math-education specialist and the author of the forthcoming book “Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You’d Had,” explained in an email why this kind of math education fails students: “It was never a sensible idea to try to have students memorize first and understand later; this approach to mathematics instruction is structurally flawed. I really feel for these parents and this kid, but the frustration they face is inevitable. If we teach kids math without understanding, we build on a house of cards.”

That house of cards will be fragile, and liable to collapse, when students move from elementary mathematics to complex problem-solving, said Steven Strogatz, an author and a professor of applied mathematics at Cornell University.

“If you follow the rules, you can do pretty much everything that’s expected of you without ever having to think imaginatively,” Mr. Strogatz said in an email. “This is not the way math should be taught, even at an elementary level. There really ought to be problem solving and imaginative thinking all the way through while kids master the basics. If you’ve never been asked to struggle with open-ended, non-cookbook problems, your command of math will always be shaky and shallow.”

Mr. Strogatz suggested, however, that this math teacher isn’t wholly to blame for her students’ frustration. “This teacher may have been brought up in a culture in which skill at problem solving is seen as a matter of talent; either you have it or you don’t,” he said. “Everyone can be taught techniques and strategies for better problem solving, and can be taught to feel pleasure in the struggles that make us smarter. With practice, all of us can get much better at it.”

While avoiding the kind of frustration this mother describes in her letter will require a larger shift in mathematics education, there are some things this parent can do now to help her daughter.

Mr. Strogatz suggested playing with age-appropriate puzzles. “Kids love puzzles, and wrestling with good ones can help them fall in love with math and get stronger at it,” he said.

After playing around on a couple of recommended websites, I fell in love with with Steve Miller’s Math Riddles. Mr. Miller, a mathematics professor at Williams College, has amassed a wonderful collection of puzzles, ranging from easy to very challenging, and even I, an admitted math phobic, had a lot of fun playing on the site.

For teachers and parents looking to improve their own problem-solving abilities, Mr. Strogatz recommended George Polya’s book “How to Solve It.” While it’s not exactly light reading, it introduces new ways to approach problems, and is a classic in the field.

Purchase two copies of Carol Dweck’s Mindset, one for you and one for your child’s teacher. Ms. Dweck’s book is already required reading in many school districts because it articulates the difference between a fixed mindset (either you have it or you don’t) and a growth mindset (everyone can be taught to feel pleasure in the struggles that make us smarter). A growth mindset is a powerful thing and is an essential first step toward more effective teaching and learning (and parenting).

If you are frustrated by your child’s math homework and want to improve your capacity to help, read Christopher Danielson’s “Common Core Math for Parents for Dummies,” which will be published this month. Mr. Danielson’s book can help parents reorient their thinking about mathematics so that they can begin to help their children more effectively.

And check out Mr. Strogatz’s New York Times series, on the “Elements of Math.” It begins with a preschooler’s understanding of numeracy and progresses all the way through to an examination of infinity. Tellingly, the most advanced topic discussed in the series was inspired by a 6-year-old’s question.

Above all, Mr. Strogatz concluded: “It’s crucial to help our students realize that it’s fine to get stuck – after all, the life of a professional mathematician (or any other creative person) is about being stuck nearly all the time! It’s how you get past being stuck that matters. And that’s one of the most valuable lessons that math has to offer.”

Creating Classrooms We Need: 8 Ways Into Inquiry Learning

via MindShift

If kids can access information from sources other than school, and if school is no longer the only place where information lives, what, then happens to the role of this institution?

“Our whole reason for showing up for school has changed, but infrastructure has stayed behind,” said Diana Laufenberg, who taught history at the progressive public school Science Leadership Academyfor many years. Laufenberg provided some insight into how she guided students to find their own learning paths at school, and enumerated some of these ideas at SXSWEdu last week.

1.   BE FLEXIBLE.
The less educators try to control what kids learn, the more students’ voices will be heard and, eventually, their ability to drive their own learning. But that requires a flexible mindset on the part of the teacher. “That’s a scary proposition for teachers,” Laufenberg said. “‘What do you mean I’m going to have 60 kids doing 60 different projects,’ teachers might say. But that’s exactly the way for kids to do interesting, high-end work that they’re invested in.”

Laufenberg recalled a group of tenacious students who continued to ask permission to focus their video project on the subject of drugs, despite her repeated objections. She finally relented — with the caveat that they not resort to cliches. In turn, the students turned in one of the best video projects she’d ever seen: a well-produced, polished video about Americans’ dependence on pharmaceutical drugs that was dense with facts backed up by students’ research. “And I almost killed this project,” she said. “There are vastly creative minds that are capable of doing intensely wonderful things with their learning but often we don’t let that live and breathe. Thankfully I got out of their way and let them do the work they were capable of.”

2.   FOSTER INQUIRY BY SCAFFOLDING CURIOSITY.
Teachers always come up to Laufenberg wanting to learn more about her progressive pedagogy — and they invariably ask, “But when do you just tell them things? Don’t you have to just tell them sometimes?”

Laufenberg’s answer: Get them curious enough in the subject to do research on their own.
“Kids don’t come to class just burning to know about the War of 1812,” she said. “And you just saying they have to know the facts is not good enough. But here’s your chance to bring them along as a person and get them to learn about it.”

For example, in exploring the subject of American identity with her history students, Laufenberg asked them to come up with words that convey to them the abstract idea of America, or what it means to be American. Many of her students came up with the words “greedy” and “ignorant” — a trend she saw echoed throughout many of her classes during her years teaching at SLA. “I got a clear vision of where my students were,” she said.

She asked her students to find images that epitomized America, then asked them to talk about their ideas with their peers, studying data about immigration, taking the American citizenship test themselves (most received an average score of 3, across the board regardless of age), so they could understand the processes and become personally invested in the subject.

“Rather than saying, ‘We’re going to study immigration,’ I took them through a process where they become interested in it themselves,” she said.

3.  DESIGN ARCHITECTURE FOR PARTICIPATION.
“There are so many ways that kids can be active in their learning, beyond the standard call-and-respond business,” Laufenberg said. It may be hard to do with 140 students, but if you consider all the available tools at your disposal, ideas can start to take shape.

Example: Laufenberg asked her students to watch President Obama’s State of the Union address and respond to what they watched and heard. She gave her students the option to either post comments on Twitter (fully public), Facebook (semi-public), Moodle (walled garden) or for low-tech participants, play Bingo with key words the students anticipated they might hear.

Though some goofed around a bit with comments (“Our school is so cool, we’re tweeting the State of the Union”), at the end of the speech, students had posted a total of 438 tweets and 18 pages of Moodle chat. (Interestingly, no one went on Facebook, though she had set up a separate conversation on the school’s Facebook page.)

Laufenberg was not surprised with the high quality of responses she saw from her students. “Does Obama have the power to reform and adjust how the other branches work?” one student tweeted. “He’s not touching on Iran issue… not a good sign,” another posted. “High school dropout laws, rebuilding jobs in our country, and more equipment in schools… me gusta,” wrote yet another.

“I could have them face off against any pundit the next day,” she said. “They understood it. None of it went over their head — they were making meaning of it. They were offering their own opinions, participating in the conversation.”

Laufenberg used every tool she had at her disposal as a framework for her students to build their learning around.

4. TEACHERS TEACH KIDS, NOT SUBJECTS.
As most teachers know, when students recognize that teachers are personally invested in their success, they do better, and that affirmation of students’ disposition can help students achieve more. “You can’t ask kids to take risks if they don’t trust that you care about them,” Laufenberg said.

5. PROVIDE OPPORTUNITIES FOR EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING.
During the weeks and months that led up to the election, Laufenberg’s students got into the neighborhoods and brought back stories from voters at the polls. Though they didn’t always feel comfortable asking strangers questions, they went ahead with their assignments anyway. “If none of it is ever real to them, if it’s only in books, it lacks interest,” she said. “They want to do real stuff, but we are perpetually underestimating what kids can do.”

6. EMBRACE FAILURE.
Laufenberg made a point of defining the difference between “blameworthy” and “praiseworthy” failure. Blameworthy failure is when the student just decided not to participate in a project. But praiseworthy failure is quite different: kids take risks and experiments knowing that they might not get it right the first time.

“No one talks about cancer research as blameworthy failure,” she said. “We don’t expect a five-year-old to be able to shoot free-throws immediately. It’s a process, and we value it in other things, but not when it comes to school. Kids are not coming in as perfect little products or machines — they’re human beings in the process of becoming.”

In the engineering industry, for example, there are “failure festivals” and “failure reports” during which engineers discuss the processes they’ve tried that didn’t work. “We need to have kids do that with their own learning,” she said. “Be self-aware enough to do something with that information.”

7. DON’T BE BORING.
“I always told my kids, if I got boring, they should let me know, and if they got boring, I’d let them know,” Laufenberg said. But here’s the twist: kids may actually choose boring because it’s easier, it’s known, it’s quantifiable. “They know what they need to do to get a good score,” she said. When it’s not boring, when the answer is not predictable, that’s when kids are actually challenged more.

8. FOSTER JOY.
For a government history teacher, this last directive has been a tall order. But Laufenberg made a point of trying to create a space where her students were valued, where creativity was paramount, and their voices were allowed to shine through.

“It’s incredibly taxing work, but one of the most exciting and meaningful ways to create transformative spaces,” she said.

Above all, what she wants to instill in her students is a sense of self-sufficiency.

“If by the end of the year, they still need me, I haven’t done my job,” she said. “I’m not coming with them to college. They have to be self-driven, independent thinkers.”

Watch Laufenberg’s fascinating TED Talk “How to Learn? From Mistakes.”

What GREAT Principals do differently

November 13, 2014 School improvement efforts rely heavily on quality leadership. Educational leaders are tasked with establishing a collective vision for school improvement and initiating change to spur innovation, ensure student learning, and increase achievement. On July 13th I had the pleasure of hearing Dr. James Strong, from the College of William and Mary, deliver a keynote address at the…

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15 Words you never knew came from literature!

January 3, 2015 Here is an interesting visual to take you into a short etymological journey to discover the origins of some commonly used words in the contemporary discourse. Surprisingly enough, all of these terms originated in the realm of literature. The visual below traces the literary origins of 15 words. For each of these terms it provides the year and the literary work where it was first…

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December 29, 2014 Educational technology is a dynamic field of research and study. This dynamism stems mainly from the constant flow of new educational web technologies and the emergence of novel Ed Tech concepts that provide theoretical underpinnings for these technologies. The challenge for teachers is not only in keeping up with this fast moving trend but also with understanding the basic foundational…

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December 26, 2014 Below is an interesting visual I cam across through a tweet from We Are Teachers. The visual maps out some really intriguing facts about students today. These facts are based on different studies and surveys conducted mainly on US students. I went through this resource and devised this brief synopsis: Minority students attending US schools will make up a majority of all students…

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December 17, 2014 Procrastination is one of the social evils that has always accompanied us since the dawn of time.Some people crave procrastination and think they can do better when they delay tasks that require immediate attention. Others procrastinate because they lack motivation or interest to keep them focused and on task, some procrastinate because they think they have a  ‘skill deficit’…

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December 16, 2014 Below is a visual released a few days ago by Google in which it featured some of the most popular games, movies, music, news and books of 2014. In the education section, Duolingo topped the list. This is  a great web tool and mobile app for learning a new language. It  provides a plethora of translation activities  through which learners get to practice their new…

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December 13, 2014 There is no secret recipe to enhance one’s productivity. It all boils down to how much dedication and will power you have and are willing to invest in your work. But sometimes people do have the will power to be productive and achieve more  but they just can’t put it down  to action. The distractions in their lives are too many to let them work as they want. This is where…

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December 11, 2014 It is amazing how much technology can do for students to enhance their learning and personal development. I wish we had these tech affordances when we were students, things could have been much easier. Technology, however, is only effective when it is leveraged in the right way and to the right purposes. The first step in the effective use of technology is to have access to the…

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December 10, 2014 Here is another interesting work from one of our favourite blog authors : Dr Jackie Gerstein. Of course you know her I have shared several of her beautiful visual in the past. Today, and as I was wading through my Twitter feeds I came across another of Jackie’s infographics on growth mindset. In this visual, Jackie features a number of ideas and tips that educators should adhere…

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December 9, 2014 Here is a good visual that features some of the things successful teachers do differently. This infgraphic is based on an article written by Julie DeNeen which I would refer you to for more details on each of the 25 ideas included below. Read the list and see the ones that resonate with you and also identify the ones missing in your teaching pedagogy. Here is a quick round-up…

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December, 2014 A few days ago I curated a set of useful web tools that teachers can use to create infographics to use in class. All of the tools I included in that collection are very easy and simple to use. Today, somebody emailed me this beautiful infographic that I want you to have a look at. This is an infgraphic on how to create an engaging infographic. It features some interesting tips that…

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December 4, 2014 Here is another wonderful visual from Mia MacMeekin featuring a number of tips and ideas on how to facilitate online discussions.In fact, most of these tips are also valid for discussions taking place in a physical setting such as classroom. The section on prompts to stimulate conversation is what I like the most in this visual. You can use these prompts with students to help them…

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December1, 2014 Today as I was curating  a list of tools to use for creating infograhics in class, I came across this interesting visual created by  Anethicalisland.  The visual provides a succinct overview of what infographics are, reasons to use them in class, and some of the benefits behind using them in instruction. For instance, using infographics for learning is supported by…

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November 27, 2014 Internet of Things (IoT) is a relatively new concept that is making such a buzz online. I have come across it in several instances but never really inquired deeply about its meaning. However, today I read a really interesting article by Jacob Morgan entitled ” A Simple Explanation of ‘The Internet of Things’. In this article, Jacob defined IoT as “the concept of basically connecting…

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November 26, 2014 Getting students engaged in learning is the ultimate goal of every teacher yet it is usually the most daunting and arduous one to achieve. Living in a digitally focused age where tech devices are dominating students lives, attention and focus become a rare currency. Students’ minds are wired to multitask and use only fragmented bursts of attention. As teachers, we have to compete…

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November 23, 2014 One of the biggest affordances of technology is towards the enhancement of the concept of personalized learning. Internet and more particularly web 2.0 technologies and mobile apps have provided learners with unprecedented opportunities to learn whenever, wherever, and however they want. At its core, personalized learning is all about tailoring the available resources in order…

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November 18, 2014 Creativity block, similar to writer’s block, is a mental state that makes you feel incapacitated and unable to generate new ideas to move the process of whatever you are working on ahead. I believe we have all experimented creative blocks at some point in our work but the good thing is that there are several good ways we can use to overcome this block. The visual below from Gonzalo…

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November 13, 2014 The age-old debate on the division of the brain into sections each one responsible for a certain set of skills and tasks overshadows much of the theories and pedagogy in education. Based on the developments in cognitive science and brain anatomy, pedagogues become able to theorize new conceptions of how kids acquire, learn and process information internally. Some of the ramifications…

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November 13, 2014 School improvement efforts rely heavily on quality leadership. Educational leaders are tasked with establishing a collective vision for school improvement and initiating change to spur innovation, ensure student learning, and increase achievement. On July 13th I had the pleasure of hearing Dr. James Strong, from the College of William and Mary, deliver a keynote address at the…

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Why music? The many benefits of music education.

Texting Acronyms you NEED to know!!

Acronyms are a natural fit for social media networks. These platforms are based on short and snappy communication, so it makes sense for people to rely on abbreviations, especially for common phrases.

But understanding shorthand isn’t just important for the messages you send. There are social media acronyms that you’ll find in business meetings, in marketing or sales reports, and from your IT team. To be the best at your job, you’ll need to know all of the most common abbreviations.

This list of acronyms can help you stay fresh with the latest lingo, online and off.

Network-Specific Acronyms

To start, it’s probably most helpful to review some of the common acronyms that are tied to specific social media networks. They’re generally intuitive, but you should be sure they’re locked in your brain.

1. FB: Facebook.
2. G+: Google+.
3. IG: Instagram.
4. LI: LinkedIn.
5. YT: YouTube.

There are also a few regularly used acronyms that describe features on those networks. If you’re on Twitter in particular, these are a must-know for improving your communications among team members and with your online audience.

6. DM: A “Direct Message” is a one-on-one message sent on Twitter that is only visible to the two individuals exchanging them.
7. MT: Sometimes when you’re resharing a Tweet, you’ll alter the text. That makes it a “Modified Tweet.” That may mean shortening it to fit within the character limit or removing the poster’s handle if they have a private account.
8. PM: “Private message” is the more general term for any one-on-one communication that’s not visible to the public. It includes DMs.
9. RT: A “Retweet” is when you publish somebody else’s Tweet, in its entirety, to your own feed.

For Business

Business experts have always had a unique set of terminology. Many of the general terms that would come up in marketing meetings are equally useful in a social media context.

10. B2B: This “business to business” label refers to companies that are selling to other companies.
11. B2C: On the other hand, “business to consumer” designates a company that is selling to individuals.
12. CMGR: This is the abbreviation for “community manager.”
13. CMS: A “content management system” is the tool you use for editing, scheduling and publishing any written material for the web.
14. CPC: The “cost per click” is the dollar amount an advertiser pays for every person who clicks on an ad.
15. CPM: “Cost per thousand” measures an ad’s impressions rather than its clicks (as in CPC).
16. CR: The “conversion rate” is a simple equation: the number of people who take an action divided by the number who could have.
17. CTA: A “call to action” is a statement that asks the reader to do something. This is usually a specific action related to building the company’s social presence or to getting involved in a marketing push.
18. CTR: The “clickthrough rate” is a particular type of conversion rate where the action in question is clicking on a link.
19. KPI: A “key performance indicator” is a metric your team or business uses to measure success in achieving goals. For social media, this could be a measurement of engagement, conversions, shares or clicks, depending on your purpose in being on those networks.
20. PPC: “Pay per click” is a metric for advertising costs that’s the same as CPC.
21. PV: This stands for “page views.”
22. ROI: “Return on investment” measures the money you make in relation to the money you spent to make it. It’s a way of assessing the success of certain promotional or advertising efforts.
23. UGC: The term “user generated content” encompasses any written or visual material that the individuals using a platform create, from comments or blog posts, to photos or video clips.

The Technical Terms

These may not come up frequently in your regular water-cooler chats, but it’s useful for anybody working in social to understand some of the most relevant technical abbreviations. These cover a range of acronyms related to online business that could come up in a chat with the IT team or when dealing with a customer support ticket. In either case, you don’t want to be nodding along without knowing what’s being discussed.

24. API: An “application programming interface” is a set of rules for how pieces of software interact. Your social media management tools use the APIs of Facebook, Twitter and the other networks to post and schedule.
25. ESP: Your “email service provider” is the software used for sending emails. This can be an outside service used for email blasts to your audience or for powering your internal team communications.
26. HTML: You see these letters all the time, and they stand for “hyper text markup language.” It’s the coding language used to build all webpages.
27. ISP: Just as the ESP is the business supplying your email needs, your “Internet service provider” is the company powering your Internet service.
28. RSS: A “really simple syndication” is a feed of all posted content from a source, usually a blog.
29. SaaS: This is an abbreviation for “software as a service,” which is a subset of companies that are in the business of providing software programs.
30. SEM: “Search engine marketing” is how businesses leverage search engines for marketing purposes.
31. SEO: “Search engine optimization” is a form of SEM. It refers to the choices you make in your written content that are designed to make sure that your creations appear high in the rankings of the correct search terms.
32. TOS: “Terms of service.” Just about any online service, including social networks, has a Terms of Service that you must agree to in order to use it. Marketers will want to keep an eye out for any limitations on business activity and details about ownership, both of your content and your data.
33. UI: The “user interface” is the display that a person uses to control a tool.
34. UX: The “user experience” is a person’s response and reaction to taking actions within a tool.

Just for Fun

Many of these acronyms crossed over into social media from texting or from online shorthand used in forums. Some of them have been bandied around the Internet for years, but others are more modern inventions. You’ll most likely find these in the public posts made and shared by your followers, or in their comments on your social content. Some of them also get turned into popular hashtags that individuals and brands alike can take advantage of.

35. AFAIK: Stands for “as far as I know.”
36. AMA: Stands for “ask me anything.” Often used to signal an open Q&A opportunity on a social channel.
37. BAE: This abbreviation means “before anyone else,” and is one of the more recent creations. Typically it refers to a person’s significant other, but could be a very close friend as well.
38. BFF: A throwback to childhood in the 80’s and 90’s, this still stands for “best friends forever.”
39. BRB: “Be right back.” This comes up most often in the context of real-time messaging or chat services.
40. BTW: Stands for “by the way.”
41. FBO: Stands for “Facebook official.” This most often refers to making a public announcement of a life development, such as a new job or new relationship, on Facebook to your entire social audience.
42. FF: The “follow Friday” trend began as a Twitter hashtag for recommending people who merit attention on social. These days, most users don’t make this a weekly update, but save it for giving a signal boost to especially interesting or important social profiles.
43. FOMO: Stands for “fear of missing out.”
44. FTW: This acronym of “for the win” initiated in the gaming world, but has become a cry of victory or success for all.
45. FYI: “For your information.” Another classic that’s still in frequent rotation.
46. GTG: “Got to go” can end a conversation.
47. ICYMI: “In case you missed it” most frequently is used when sharing content that is not current. That could be a news item from a few days prior or an evergreen blog post that you want to return to circulation.
48. IDC: Stands for “I don’t care.”
49. IDK: Stands for “I don’t know.”
50. ILY: Stands for “I love you.”
51. IMHO: This acronym means “in my humble opinion.”
52. IMO: A slightly different take, this means simply “in my opinion.”
53. IRL: This acronym means “in real life,” and is meant to distinguish between people’s online and offline lives.
54. JK: This phrase is “just kidding,” and can be helpful in conveying a light-hearted tone when there’s a possibility for a statement to be misconstrued.
55. LMAO: Stands for “laughing my a** off.” Not always the right phrase for a business context, but makes it just as necessary to know this acronym when you see it.
56. LMK: Stands for “let me know.”
57. LOL: A well-used phrase from the beginning of online chat culture, this means “laughing out loud.”
58. NBD: Stands for “no big deal.”
59. NM: Stands for “not much.”
60. NVM: Stands for “never mind.”
61. NSFW: The label “not safe for work” usually designates material that is violent, sexual or otherwise inappropriate for a professional setting.
62. OH: Stands for “overheard.” Generally used as context for quotes.
63. OMG: Stands for “oh my god” or “oh my gosh.”
64. OMW: Stands for “on my way.”
65. PODT: Commonly used as a hashtag on image-centric networks, this stands for “photo of the day.”
66. PPL: This is shorthand for “people.”
67. QOTD: Another frequent hashtag, this one means “quote of the day.”
68. ROFL: A close relative of LOL and LMAO, this acronym is “rolling on the floor laughing.”
69. SMH: This stands for “shaking my head” and is most frequently used to express shock or dismay.
70. TBH: Stands for “to be honest.”
71. TBT: If you’re sharing an old photo, you’ll most likely want to use the hashtag for “throwback Thursday.” Just make sure you post on the right day of the week!
72. TIL: Stands for “today I learned.”
73. TL;DR: This unusual acronym means “too long; didn’t read.”
74. WTF: Another salty shorthand, this stands for “what the f***.”
75. YOLO: The phrase originated in a song by rapper Drake, but the acronym of “you only live once” has also caught on in social communication.

Obama, free community college may not work

In his SOTU, President Obama proposed making community college tuition free for two years

Michael Horn: We need a better strategy for skills training before going down the track of subsidizing students

“Michael B. Horn is co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation and executive director of its education program. He is author of “Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools” and “Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns.” The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.”

(CNN)In his State of the Union address, President Obama proposed making community college tuition free for two years to boost college graduation rates and lift more people into the middle class.

Unfortunately, his plan doesn’t make the grade. The proposal would not only pile up more debt by further subsidizing runaway college costs, it would also perilously undercut the emergence of more innovative educational programs designed to help students succeed in the workforce.

Offering only a lukewarm pathway to the job market, community colleges are incapable of fulfilling the President’s lofty ambitions. Although there are some high-performing community colleges and stellar stories of success for certain students, the overall picture of success at two-year community colleges is dismal.

According to the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University, only 22% of students graduate within three years, and 28% graduate within four. More telling, 80% of students say they want a bachelor’s degree or higher, and yet only 20% of these students transfer to a four-year institution within five years.

Even for those who earn a community college degree, it often isn’t as useful as other options. Thanks to credential inflation, pursuing a professional certification — which more clearly indicates a person’s skills than a degree — often pays off better than an associate’s degree, according to Census Bureau data.

The conversation around making community college free also masks a larger problem, which is that community colleges are already heavily subsidized and far less affordable than commonly believed.

At $3,300, community college tuition is well under the $5,730 currently available in Pell Grant aid to low-income students. But the expenditure per student at a community college — the true cost of the education — is far higher, about four times more at $13,000 per student. That means that more than 60% of the cost of community college isn’t paid for through tuition, but through various forms of government aid at the federal, state and local levels.

As a result, even if the President’s plan passed, it wouldn’t help the large number of already-overcrowded community colleges that have waiting lists numbering in the thousands. Tuition is only a small part of the funding needed to educate additional students.

What’s more, because of the limited productivity gains possible in the community college model, those costs will continue to rise, which means that tuition will, too. The proposal’s $60 billion price over 10 years is likely to grow with only a questionable return on the investment.

Opinion: Two years of free community college makes sense

The larger question the proposal misses is not how to allow students to afford college, but how to make college affordable. There’s a huge distinction. The focus should be to make postsecondary education less costly and of better quality, such that the question of how to afford it becomes manageable. The President’s proposal merely charges education, in the form of debt for future generations of taxpayers, rather than changes it.

Instead we need to encourage students to seek innovative offerings that are lower cost and improve the quality and accessibility of higher education.

Such options are emerging. Patten University offers a new online, competency-based program that charges undergraduate tuition of $350 per month, or $1,316 per term. Tuition includes access to as many courses as one can complete and all the ebooks and course materials needed, and Patten receives no government funding. Another online, competency-based program, Southern New Hampshire’s College for America, charges annual tuition of $2,500.

Rather than supporting innovative options like Patten and Southern New Hampshire, the President’s plan would nudge students toward a community college sector that is incapable of repositioning its model around student success and fuel rising college costs.

5 ways community colleges are fixing higher education

If enacted, the President’s proposal would be unlikely to achieve its ultimate aims and would exacerbate a larger problem lurking behind college financing. Although the plan amounts to little more than political posturing given the current congressional makeup, it will negatively influence the political conversation around higher education in the years ahead.

By supporting free community college, President Obama is merely kicking the can down the road for future generations to confront. We need a better strategy for skills training overall before we go further down the track of subsidizing students to attend community college only to emerge with little to show for it.