【推荐1】Tips for online learning

Online learning has the same basic elements as face-to-face learning. The major difference is that instruction is delivered online. Many of the strategies for effective face-to-face learning also apply to online learning.     1     Here are some strategies we recommend:

Create space to learn. Invest some time to understand your needs and preferences as a learner, and what an effective study environment looks like for you. For example, you might need a quiet place to study, or you might need to listen to classical music. Consider what equipment you might need. Wherever you study, try to minimize distractions.     2    

Manage your time effectively. Spend some time getting familiar with your online courses, understanding what is expected of you, mapping out key deadlines, and planning study time.     3     Research shows that learners gain more information if they spread their study over multiple days or sessions. Make sure your routine works with your other commitments so you’re more likely to stick to it.

    4     Just as with face-to-face learning, mental energy matters: take time to reflect on whether you have understood the materials, try to remember and sort the information you have learned to aid memory, test your understanding, mix different concepts and skills into the same study session to build connections and fluency, ask questions, participate in class discussions, and try teaching concepts to others.

Ask for assistance! In an online learning environment, you may need to ask lots of questions and take ownership over shaping the learning experience so that it meets your needs.     5    

Finally, if you’re facing specific challenges such as illness, mental health, accessibility, balancing childcare responsibilities, etc., it’s important for you to reach out to your instructors or the relevant student support services for discussion and creative problem-solving.

【推荐3】The Internet can provide a wealth of educational resources for small children, if you know where to look.

Enchanted Learning

Enchanted learning is a great website for children, and I know several teachers who rely on it for materials for their classrooms. Most of the information is free, but for $ 20.00 per year, you can purchase a membership that allows you to have access to the site without the advertising. The pages here are great. There are colored pages and worksheets for toddlers (学步儿童) and school-age children.

Starfall

Starfall is another good educational website for small children. Teachers often use this website in classrooms. It emphasizes reading skills for early learners. The website is aimed at first-grade-level learners, but it has tools that can help all children from pre-K to second grade. The website has reading activities, worksheets to download, and a store where you can purchase educational materials for your children.

Sesame Street Workshop

Kids love Sesame Street, and it is always educational. This is one of the funniest websites online for children because it is very well animated and has great sound effects. The website has games and stories for small kids, and they can create letters at the post office and mail them to their favorite characters.

【推荐2】If you think of the jobs robots could never do, you would probably put doctors and teachers at the top of the list. It’s easy to imagine robot cleaners and factory workers, but some jobs need human connection and creativity. But are we underestimating what robots can do? In some cases, they already perform better than doctors at diagnosing illness. Also, some patients might feel more comfortable sharing personal information with a machine than a person. Could there be a place for robots in education after all?

British education expert Anthony Seldon thinks so. And he even has a date for the robot to take over the classroom: 2027. He predicts robots will do the main job of transferring the information and teachers will be like assistants. Intelligent robots will read students’ faces, movements and maybe even brain signals. Then they will adapt the information to each student. It’s not a popular opinion and it’s unlikely that robots will have the ability to really connect with humans like another human.

One thing is certain, though. A robot teacher is better than no teachers at all. In some parts of the world, there aren’t enough teachers and 9~16 percent of children under the age of 14 don’t go to school. That problem could be partly solved by robots because they can teach anywhere and won’t get stressed, or tired, or move somewhere for an easier, higher-paid job.

Those negative aspects of teaching are something everyone agrees on. Some teachers all over the world are leaving because it is a difficult job and they feel overworked. Perhaps the question is not “Will robots replace teachers?” but “How can robots help teachers?” Office workers can use software to do things like organizing and answering emails, arranging meetings and updating calendars. Teachers waste a lot of time doing non-teaching work, including more than 11 hours a week marking homework. If robots could help teachers with the time teachers spend marking homework and writing reports, teachers would have more time and energy for the parts of the job humans do best.

【推荐3】When a Houston dad found out his eight-year-old son was being bullied, he didn’t get mad at the classmate who teased him. Instead, he talked with the so-called bully and realized that the boy was struggling, too.

Aubrey Fontenot’s son, Jordan, told him a boy named Tamarion was teasing him. Fontenot decided to sit down with his son and Tamarion to understand what was going on, and something unexpected happened.

Tamarion told Fontenot he was being teased at school, too. “I asked, ‘By who? You are big. You are huge. Who is teasing you?’” the father said. “He said, ‘Just all the other kids, man. They are making fun of me.’” Fontenot learned that Tamarion was getting teased for his clothes and shoes — his clothes and shoes were old and dirty. Fontenot then spoke to the boy’s mother. “She kind of confirmed it,” Fontenot said. “And she said, ‘That’s the kind of situation.’”

He felt sympathetic to the young boy and wanted to help. So he asked Tamarion’s mom if he could take her son to do some shopping.

Fontenot posted videos of their trip to the mall on social media and they went viral. Tamarion eventually smiled, and then the two were laughing and singing together on their shopping trip. Just as if he were taking his own son to do some shopping, Fontenot got Tamarion new clothes and shoes, and shared words of wisdom with him.

Then, the dad united the two boys. He said it was awkward at first — just a day earlier, they didn’t get along well at school. But the two classmates started playing sports games together and soon became friends. It was not just about the clothes and shoes. Tamarion gained a friend in Jordan, and a mentor in his dad. Fontenot said he was also bullied when he was a child, so he knew it was important to listen to Tamarion’s story. He chose kindness instead of anger and brought the two boys together. “I wouldn’t say that was the goal, but that was the reward,” Fontenot said.

【推荐1】When John was growing up, other kids felt sorry for him. His parents always had him weeding the garden, carrying out the garbage and delivering newspapers. But when John reached adulthood, he was better off than his childhood playmates. He had more job satisfaction, a better marriage and was healthier. Most of all, he was happier.

These are the findings of a 40-year study that followed the lives of 456 teenage boys from Boston. The study showed that those who had worked as boys enjoyed happier and more productive lives than those who had not. "Boys who worked in the home or community gained competence (能力) and came to feel they were worthwhile members of society," said George Vaillant, the psychologist (心理学家) who made the discovery. "And because they felt good about themselves, others felt good about them."

Vaillant’s study followed these males in great detail. Interviews were repeated at ages 25,31 and 47. Under Vaillant, the researchers compared the men’s mental-health scores with their boyhood-activity scores. Points were awarded for part-time jobs, housework, effort in school, and ability to deal with problems.

The relationship between what the men had done as boys and how they turned out as adults was surprisingly sharp. Those who had done the most boyhood activities were twice as likely to have warm relations with a wide variety of people, five times as likely to be well paid and 16 times less likely to have been unemployed. The researchers also found that IQ and family social and economic class made no real difference in how the boys turned out. Working — at any age — is important. Childhood activities help a child develop responsibility, independence, confidence and competence — the underpinnings (基础) of emotional health. They also help him understand that people must cooperate and work toward common goals. The most competent (能干的) adults are those who know how to do this. Yet work isn't everything. As Tolstoy once said, “One can live magnificently in this world if one knows how to work and how to love to work for the person one loves and to love one's work.”

【推荐1】We will all probably know both some introverts （内向的人）and extroverts （外向的人）in life, and yet we can gain a wrong impression about both types of people. For example, some introverts can be extremely confident and they can be able people. However, some extroverts aren^’t as confident as they'd like to appear to be and often try to hide their true identities behind a false appearance.

Shyness can affect both introverts and extroverts and anybody else too. It can be very debilitating （使衰弱的）and, if severe, can have a huge negative influence upon our ability to form meaningful relationships and it can also affect our careers or jobs.

A lot of people feel shy because they have low self-respect and feel unworthy when comparing themselves to others. They find it difficult to communicate with others whom they don't know. In that case, one of the best ways of overcoming the shyness is to focus the attention on the other person instead. Shy people can try changing people's focus on someone else， so that they don't need to talk about themselves too much.

If you recognize that you are shy and see that as a lion in the way of enjoying your life. you should first overcome it by accepting that it's causing a problem for you. Trying getting into conversations with strangers is helpful. Shy people are challenging themselves and over- coming their shyness. In this way, shy people can get their own self-respect. Each time they do it, this will be repeated until they feel confident enough.

Like any negative thought， determination can also help you beat shyness and having a positive attitude is the key to overcoming the shyness.

【推荐2】Finally, I entered the university. Because of my careful savings, I did not have to work during the school year. Then, summer came and it was time to work harder than ever. I continued working as a waitress at night, instructed tennis camps several mornings a week and worked as a secretary for a few hours in the afternoons. I even decided to take a class at a community(社区) college. This class at the community college saved me $650. It was an extremely tiring summer and made me anxious to return to my relatively easy life at the university.

During my second and third years of undergraduate schooling, I decided to work about five hours per week in the campus admissions office answering phones. This provided a little spending money and kept me from drawing my savings out. I wanted to go to Israel to study for 3 weeks, but I hesitated in making this decision because it would cost me $1,600 more to get the credits(贷款) in Israel. About two weeks later my mom called to tell me that I had $1,600 in the bank that I had forgotten about! One of my concerns about this trip was not only the cost, but the loss of time to make money; however, I made as much that summer in the ten weeks when I was at home as I had made during the fourteen weeks when I was at home the summer before. The way everything worked together to make this trip possible was one of the most exciting things that have ever happened to me.

This experience has shaped me in many important ways. The first thing that I learned was the importance of a strong work ethic(伦理). Working long hours did a lot to develop my character and helped me learn the value of a dollar. It also made me learn how to search for creative ways to settle difficult situations.

【推荐3】Tayka Hotel De Sal

Where: Tahua, Bolivia

How much: About $95 a night

Why it’s cool: You’ve stayed at hotels made of brick or wood, but salt? That’s something few can claim. Tayka Hotel de Sal is made totally of salt - including the beds (though you’ll sleep on regular mattresses and blankets). The hotel sits on the Salar de Uyuni, a prehistoric dried-up lake that’s the world’s biggest salt flat. Builders use the salt from the 4,633-square-mile flat to make the bricks, and glue them together with a paste of wet salt that hardens when it dries. When rain starts to dissolve the hotel, the owners just mix up more salt paste to strengthen the bricks.

Green Magic Nature Resort

Where: Vythiri, India

How much: About $240 a night

Why it’s cool: Riding a pulley (滑轮) -operated lift 86 feet to your treetop room is just the start of your adventure. As you look out of your open window - there is no glass! -you watch monkeys and birds in the rain forest canopy. Later you might test your fear of heights by crossing the handmade rope bridge to the main part of the hotel, or just sit on your bamboo bed and read. You don’t even have to come down for breakfast - the hotel will send it up on the pulley-drawn “elevator”.

Dog Bark Park Inn B&B

Where: Cottonwood, Idaho

How much: $92 a night

Why it’s cool: This doghouse isn’t just for the family pet. Sweet Willy is a 30-foot-tall dog with guest rooms in his belly. Climb the wooden stairs beside his hind leg to enter the door in his side. You can relax in the main bedroom, go up a few steps to the loft in Willy’s head, or hang out inside his nose. Although you have a full private bathroom in your quarters, there is also a toilet in the 12-foot-tall fire hydrant outside.

Gamirasu Cave Hotel

Where: Ayvali, Turkey

How much: Between $130 and $475 a night.

Why it’s cool: This is caveman cool! Experience what it was1 like 5,000 years ago, when people lived in these mountain caves formed by volcanic ash. But your stay will be much more modern. Bathrooms and electricity provide what you expect from a modern hotel, and the white volcanic ash, called tufa, keeps the rooms cool, about 65 ℉ in summer. (Don’t worry - there is heat in winter.)