Federal Trade Commission’s Diploma Mill Resource
Unfortunately, when it comes to online education, there are plenty of fake schools and scam programs that prey on those desiring a college degree. Diploma mills are illegitimate schools or programs that charge unsuspecting learners a hefty price for a fake degree. These degrees are not accepted by employers and are essentially just worthless pieces of paper. Oftentimes, those who are scammed by diploma mills do not recover their money. The FTC’s guide to recognizing diploma mills is highly useful to ensure that you do not fall victim to a fake school that will waste your time and your money.

U.S. Department of Education Database of Accredited Postsecondary Institutions and Programs
After you’ve read about diploma mills, finding out whether the school you’re interested in is accredited is a priority. This website allows for users to look up the accreditation agencies of specific schools. It lists only the schools that are accredited by agencies that the Department of Education deems to be reliable authorities on education standards and practices.

College Navigator
For statistics, student population breakdowns, and school trend breakdowns, visit College Navigator, a resource offered by the National Center for Education Statistics. This tool lists every school in the country, as well as in-depth information on each of them. Interested learners can find out the school’s student-to-faculty ratio, popular financial aid options, campus setting, and many other aspects of the college. All of these details can aid in your decision of whether a certain university is a good match for you.

GuideToOnlineSchools.com
One of the few sites that ranks online universities and provides student-penned reviews, GuideToOnlineSchools.com has a large collection of student accounts on school and program quality. Potential students can read about other students’ experiences and either avoid making the same mistakes that previous students made or follow in the footsteps of those who had positive experiences. Hearing the tales of other students who have gone to the school is immensely helpful in understanding the college before you enroll.

CollegeGrader.com
This website offers students the chance to see schools graded by other students. Using a "report card" system, schools are graded on academics, faculty, student life, amenities, and other aspects that greatly color the way a school feels. Interested learners can find out what other students think about an institution’s course difficulty, faculty friendliness, typical classmate attitudes, and other interesting factors.

• Biomedical Engineering. Employment opportunities for this medical branch of engineering will increase 72 percent by 2018. Biomedical engineering students study biology, medicine, and engineering practices to help them in their future employment as professionals. Biomedical engineers research and develop things like artificial organs, prosthetics, and health management. They make an average of $77,400 annually.
• Computer Network and Systems. Digital technology is a major part of life now. Businesses that rely on computer systems need the expertise of computer network and systems specialists to keep their technology running efficiently and secure. There will be approximately 155,800 new positions for these graduates pouring into the job market over the next decade. Computer network and systems specialists earn an average of $71,100 annually.
• Finance. Projected to grow 41 percent by 2018, the employment opportunities for finance degree holders are plentiful. Fiscal responsibility is the priority of every business, therefore increasing the demand for educated financial examiners. Finance degree holders possess the skills to evaluate and direct major financial decisions for an organization. Finance degree holders typically make about $70,930 annually.
• Medical Science. The field of medical science encompasses a wide variety of specializations, including immunology and neuroscience. Yet, despite the differing medical focuses, all medical science degree holders share a common goal: to create new treatments for existing conditions. By 2018, there will be 44,200 more medical science jobs opening up in the job market, giving medical science graduates copious employment choices. These graduates make approximately $72,590 annually.
• Physician Assistant Studies. To cut health care costs, physician assistants will be more in-demand than ever to provide basic health care. Well-educated physician assistants can perform many of the same duties as physicians, including diagnosing illnesses and prescribing treatment. The number of assistants in health care facilities across the country will increase 39 percent by 2018. They earn approximately $81,230 annually.
• Biophysics. A research field, biophysicists study the ways in which physics relate to living organisms on a molecular level. Their work influences neuroscience and bioinformatics. Students in this degree program study biology, physics, and chemistry to hone their skills. Employment opportunities for these physicists will rise 37 percent by 2018. They earn an average of $82,840 annually.
• Dental Hygiene. With the discovery that oral health greatly impacts overall health, dental hygienists will see a rise in demand. They are responsible for the routine maintenance and cleaning of teeth. There will be 62,900 new hygienist jobs flooding the job market by 2018, which is excellent news for dental hygiene degree holders. These health care specialists earn approximately $66,570 annually.

The study found that learners who either took part or all of their classes online performed better, on average, than learners who were taking the same classes in a classroom setting. Online learning takes students out of the classroom without sacrificing quality instruction. Rather than requiring learners to meet in a classroom at a fixed time every week, those enrolled in an online program participate in their classes at any time and on any computer with Internet access. Instead of sitting in an auditorium with other classmates, the learner can be sitting in a home office and still communicate with his or her professor and classmates through e-mail or instant messages. Lectures and other reading materials are viewed online and assignments are completed online as well.

The success of online education can be attributed to the more relaxed conditions in which students learn, the study suggests. Online students tend to spend more time taking in their material than classroom students as they are not beholden to the professor’s lecture pace or class time restraints. Instructors of online programs are also more likely to spend a great amount of time working on how to design a class in order to ensure that students can grasp the material at home, the Chronicle of Higher Education asserts. This forces instructors to present the material in a clear and concise way, which invariably allows for better learner understanding. This contrasts with classroom instructors who may rely too much on their students to ask for clarification if the lecture material is too complex.

The study shows that online education is indeed an excellent way to provide instruction to adults who cannot sacrifice the time necessary for a traditional educational experience. In fact, online education can also be beneficial to those who simply desire an alternative means of learning. This revelation can be seen in action as traditionally campus-based institutions, including Ivy League and Public Ivy schools, are now offering distance education options. As more people begin to recognize the value of a college degree, online education will be there to help them achieve their higher education goals.

CREATE A STUDY SPACE

Designate a specific room to be your "classroom." The best room to choose is one that has a computer with Internet access in a secluded part of the house or apartment. The room should be quiet and if it is possible, remove all possible distracters, such radios and televisions, out of the room when you are studying so that you are not tempted to procrastinate. However, everyone’s studying habits are different. If you study better with music, by all means play music while you look over your lectures. You know your own study habits best, and the best study space is one that encourages focus. Create a space that will help you concentrate on your work.

Clear off the desk on which you’ll be working. A clean work space is conducive to studying, whereas a cluttered one can cause your mind to wander. In addition, do not decorate your studying space with things that can distract you.

SET ASIDE TIME FOR STUDYING

While you do not have to commit to an inconvenient class schedule, it would be best if you designated a regular time to study several times a week. This will help to make studying habitual so that you are more likely to do it, otherwise you run the risk of forgetting or procrastinating in your course work, causing you to fall behind.

Notify your family and friends about your designated study times. This way, those in your household will know to be quieter while you study, or in the very least, to not disturb you while you are working. This will also cut down on incidents of your friends and family making plans that interfere with your studying time. They will know to make plans around that time if they wish for you to accompany them.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that taking an online class will be easy. Earning an online degree is much the same as earning a degree in a tradition classroom format. You are still enrolled in a college-level class that requires college-level work. Your success in an online degree program, just as in a campus program, will require focus, hard work, and commitment.

The global financial downturn has not wreaked havoc on just those of us who depend on a job or a business for a living; it’s also taken its toll on people who’re just out of school and looking to earn a degree so that they can cement their future with a career that pays well enough to lead a successful and comfortable life. College, which was already an expensive proposition because of high tuition fees, living expenses and other miscellaneous costs, is now a just a faint and distant spark in the horizon that seems an unachievable goal for students because of various reasons:

•    Lower incomes and/or smaller savings: With parents out of a job or having had to accept lower salaries in order to keep their jobs, it’s tough on the kids who were looking to their mom and dad for help in paying for college. Lower incomes mean that families have to dip into their nest eggs (if they do have one) in order to be able to continue to meet living costs and day-to-day expenses. And this reduces the amount that’s left over for their children’s education. 
•    Higher interest rates: Private loans, which were the mainstay of most college education funding programs a year ago, are now hard to come by what with fewer lenders and stricter lending standards. And even if they are sanctioned, the interest rates are sky high and make repayment a definite problem. Parents were not worried about borrowing money to finance their kids’ education in earlier times because they were certain that their children would be able to repay them as soon as they started earning once they had earned their degrees. But now, with the job market looking bleaker than ever, borrowing to pay for a college education seems to be a stupid thing to do, especially when you don’t know how you’re going to repay the amount.
•    Fewer scholarships: The grants and the endowments are drying up quicker than a puddle of water in the hot Sahara sun; with money being hard to come by, colleges are offering fewer scholarships than before, and this is hurting those students who are really talented and brilliant but who are too poor to afford a good college education. Endowment funds are losing in value because of the tumbling global markets and this makes it difficult even for prestigious institutions to keep going on as they used to.

All is not lost though – Obama’s administration is doing all it can to restore the flow of credit and bring government-sponsored student loan operations back to normal. Also, colleges are not going to want empty classrooms and dormitories if they’re to continue to keep normal operations going and paying their staff; so they will try to retain good students by offering them attractive financial packages. So you need to keep your options open and your dream alive and search for the best deals available, because an education is one thing that will prove to be invaluable once the economy revives. 

Writing poetry can be a fun and creative way to express yourself.  Sometimes, however, budding poets keep their poems to themselves and are afraid to put their work out there for others.  Surprisingly, many in the public are quite supportive and there are a wide variety of ways to get exposure and help with your poetry in the process. What follows is a brief list of tips for getting your poetry out there.

Open Mic Readings

Visit open mic poetry readings at local coffeehouses and bars.  You will be given the opportunity to read one or more pieces in front of a group of people.  Chances are the applause and attention will be just what you need to build your confidence and continue working on new material.  As you get better, you can venture into the performance aspects of your delivery.

Slam Poetry

Slam poetry readings are very performance-based readings that involve gestures, changes in vocal pitch and volume, and crowd involvement.  Similar in cadence to rap, slam poetry is gaining in popularity and audiences love to see and hear these passionate performances.

Start a Poetry Blog

Blogging isn’t just about articles or online journaling.  Create a blog where you feature your poetry, artwork, pictures, and reflections.  Doing this will increase the amount of exposure you receive and you may get welcome feedback and support from the online community in the process.

Self-Publish

Take your creations to a new level and make your own poetry books.  You can be involved in all aspects of the design and many times don’t have to be much more than a pamphlet-sized publication of your best works.  Take them along with you to poetry readings and sell them for a nominal price or simply give them away to help promote your work.

Networking

With all of the social networking sites, including Twitter and Facebook, it’s easier than ever to meet up with writers all over the place.  In addition, meet-up sites are becoming increasingly popular.  Get together with fellow writers and learn more about the craft, exchange ideas, or simply hang out.
 

1. Dedicated work space.  Having a place to go to when you are ready to write is one of the key ingredients to success and productivity for writers.  Try finding a regular place where you can do your work that is free from distractions.  Some people can work better in busier environments; others cannot be distracted whatsoever.  Find a place that is going to work for you and make it part of your writing routine.

2. Have plenty of material to work with.  Whether you need notes, research, or other documents to assist you in your writing, go to your writing session prepared.  Working without the appropriate materials can seriously affect your productivity and your chances for a successful writing session.

3. Set aside time for your writing.  Giving yourself a window of time each day to work on your writing projects establishes boundaries and gives structure to writing activities.  Writing at the same time each day can help solidify the habit and really help with your output as a writer.

4. Know when to take a step back.  Sometimes it is abundantly clear when you are not going to get anything done, and the frustration of being unable to say anything on the page becomes overwhelming.  When this happens, take a break and come back to it when you’re ready.

5. Continue moving forward.  After your break, continue moving forward with your writing.  Don’t spend valuable time looking back at what you’ve done with a project.  Write what’s relevant to the piece right now and leave the revision process for later when the project has been completed.

 6. Put distance between writing and proofreading.  When working on longer writing projects, this is especially important.  Once you feel you have finished the piece you have been working on, don’t start proofreading it right away.  The more distance you put between the writing process and going back to revise, the more clearly you will be able to look at your words without missing important gaps and/or errors.

7. Make adjustments as needed.  Revision is very important as well for pieces of all lengths.  Longer pieces of writing will need more adjusting than shorter ones, but revision is the key to effectively communicating your point.

8. Trim the fat.  If your piece is excessively wordy for no reason, eliminate the fluff and get down to business, especially when writing copy or brief pieces.  Redundancy can be the death-blow to a seemingly successful piece of writing.

Open Education:  Open Education is a great blog that helps you to keep up with what is going on in districts around the United States and has many interesting stories covering a wide array of educational topics.  Take a look at this blog and find out something new and interesting about the state of education.

The Education Wonks:  This blog takes a more cynical approach to public education and where all the money is going.  Brief pieces on the current state of affairs regarding education, as well as observations and other anecdotal stories can be found here.

Cool Cat Teacher Blog:  Since December of 2005, this blogger has been striving to collect education related information from the blogosphere and get it to readers in clear, concise chunks.  Take a look at his Daily Spotlight on education featurettes to stay in the know on education issues around the country.

2 Cents Worth:  This blog is focused on the state of teaching and education in the information age.  Pondering questions like, “are we really better off with all this stuff?”  Browse through poignant postings on a variety of educational and technology issues and topics when you visit this particular blog.  As the blogger relates to his readers, the postings are a conversation on specific stumbling blocks, etc., that are holding back the marriage of technology and education.

Edublogs:  Blogger Ewan McIntosh’s thoughts on education, social media vehicles, and future that lays ahead of all who are trying to integrate these things into their lives is the chief focus of this blog.  McIntosh covers a wide variety of topics, but manages to keep it all together through his writing prowess and analytical skills.  

We’ve been told that we need to exercise our minds more, in order to keep synaptic connections healthy and to increase their number (and therefore our own brain power). But sometimes the process of mental exercise can seem a bit daunting, so here is a guide to having fun whilst at the same time improving your mind. After all, board games are made for our entertainment!

1. Monopoly: The famous property trading game that families across the world have come to love and one of the most played commercial board games in the world (with numbers estimated to be around 500-750 million people having played the game). Patented in 1935 by Charles Darrow, this game requires financial cunning and a reasonably amount of strategy to succeed in, couple that with random Chance/Community Chest encounters and you’ve got yourself a challenging time!
2. Trivial Pursuit: A quiz game whose rules revolve around being able to answer specific quiz questions is certainly going to be a worthy exercise for the brain; testing not only knowledge, but also being required to display a certain amount of strategy, as the player figures the best course of action in order to acquire all the pieces he/she needs to become victorious. The game has a large variety of editions to keep players challenged, with several releases coinciding with famous multimedia releases (for example, the Star Wars editions).
3. Scrabble: Requiring players to exhibit a number of skills, including: spelling, vocabulary, counting, a certain amount of strategy and forethought, as well as anagramming. This word-based game finds players trying to score points with strategically placed words on a board, with some letters awarding more points than others whilst at the same time being prone to point-multiplying bonus squares.
4. Risk – Godstorm: A variant on everybody’s favorite world domination board game, this version sees you in command of four gods (and their armies) from a multitude of pantheons of the ancient world. You’ll be visiting the underworld, sinking Atlantis, spending Faith Points to use Miracle cards, as well as displaying tactics, strategy and considerable micro-management. Check this version out for a familiar strategy feel, especially if you’re tired of horses and cannons, try gods and mythological beings instead!
5. Carcassonne: Named after the fortified town of the same name in France and home to the classic gaming piece, the ”meeple” (a portmanteau of “my people”), this game of strategic thought is a tile-based affair. The aim is to place a new tile at the start of each turn and have the option to place a control marker on the new tile and essentially the final score is tallied after the last tile has been placed; depending on who has what types of tile (e.g. field, town and cloister) under their control, a winner is decided. This tough game puts winners in an intelligence league of their own.
6. Go: A strategic board game involving tactics, observation and cunning. Originating in China and having been played for at least the past 2000 years, it’s famous for providing an ample strategic challenge despite having relatively simple rules. A 2-player game, it’s played on a 19×19 grid and uses black and white stones with which a player must attempt to control a larger part of the board by taking it in turns to place a stone in a vacant grid space. A stone or grouping of stones is captured if it has no adjacent vacant spaces, being surrounded by the enemy color. This can be prevented by placing stones closely together, but will in turn generate less influence across the grid, so careful strategy and planning is needed. Despite being predominant in East Asia, Go is slowly becoming more popular in the West.
7. Settlers of Catan: This dice-rolling and trading game was really one of the first German-style board games to become popular outside of Europe and since its first publication in 1995, has gone on to sell around 11 million copies. Players take control of the eponymous settlers attempting to establish a colony on the island of Catan. To win, a player must dominate the island by building cities, roads and settlements by collecting resources determined by a dice roll. The more a player builds, the closer they come to victory.
8. Mancala: Belonging to a sub-genre of games usually referred to as “count and capture” games, this game has its origins in African and some East Asian culture, with the name “mancala” coming from the word “naqala” meaning “to move” in Arabic. The object of the game is to deploy strategy and counting tactics against your opponent by moving the playing pieces from bucket to bucket, one at a time, with the player with the most counters at the end being the winner. Rules can be found here.
9. Arimaa: Invented in 2002 by an AI computer engineer, Omar Syed, in order to try and design a game with simple rules that could be played with a standard chess set, but couldn’t easily be played by computers. Inspired by the defeat of chess legend Garry Kasparov at the “hands” of the computer Deep Blue and named after his son Aamir (Arimaa is Aamir backwards with an additional A added to the front), this is a tactics/strategy game similar to chess, but with a number of differences, chiefly that the starting formation of the pieces can be any way the player wants (as long as it’s the initial two rows) and that the game is draw-less. A comprehensive Arimaa guide can be found at this wiki.
10. Irensei: This strategy and observation game can be played with the equipment that’s used to play the aforementioned Go game. A longer version of Connect Four, the winner is the first player to get a row of seven stones, vertically, horizontally or diagonally. Certain rules apply to each side, making for an exciting and challenging game.
11. Shogi: The most popular “chess” variant that’s native to Japan, Shogi also enables players to return taken/captured pieces into play as an ally piece. Piece names and movement are very similar to chess and anyone with an interest in chess would do well to check this game out! If you’ve already mastered chess and are looking for a new challege, take up Shogi to really find out what your mind is made of.
12. Mahjong: Also known as Mah-jongg by the American association, this is a tactics, observation and memory-based game. Rumored to have originated in China at around 500BC, this game consists of many tiles which all have some symbolic meaning. Due to the many variants of the game available today, it’s possible to embark on a journey of continuous learning and challenge when starting out on your path to becoming a Mahjong master.