Bodybuilder with best muscular build, muscular definition in this competition as exemplified by his posing routine which flowed so naturally and effortlessly from one pose to the next.

Americans are listening to more business and finance podcasts, with downloads and streams up 78% week-over-week since the COVID-19 pandemic began, iHeartMedia reports.

In fact, as of April 2020, there are more than 30 million podcast episodes on the internet with numbers climbing daily. According to the Financial Times, podcasts have become one of the fastest-growing segments of the media market.

This surging level of interest and engagement in finance podcasts is a golden opportunity for financial advisors, especially those whose seminar and event marketing routines have been turned upside down by the COVID-19 pandemic. During this transition into a new way of doing business, it is important for financial advisors to include creativity and innovation into their post-pandemic marketing and communication plans.

Crabapple E-Book.

The Baby Sandman's Amazing Baby Sleep Secrets. Would you pay $17 to have the leading sleep experts diagnose and prescribe the solutions for your infant or toddler's sleep problems?

Publishers are evaluating options and determining how they can profit from RSS feeds. The two obvious contenders that publishers are considering to profit from their RSS feeds are: subscription RSS feeds and RSS feed advertisements.

Monetizing RSS Feeds

Podcasting once defined as a geek hobby, has now spawned an industry. Entrepreneurs have adopted traditional advertising mediums to the podcasting technology as a way to make some extra money.

Monetizing Podcasts

Podcasts started out as fun ways for ambitious garage DJs, independent musicians and talk show hosts, who had not ventured into radio broadcasting as a way to show their stuff and make a name for themselves. What started as a hobby for many, has turned into a lucrative profession for some.

Not surprisingly, podcasters, just like radio stations, have looked for ways to profit from their on-air dialogue.

Monetizing Podcasts

The weather is just right for some high energy, adrenaline-pumping activities. Here is a list of some of the newest experiences in and around Visakhapatnam

Offering an array of choices might seem like an excellent way to cater to diverse user preferences, but more often than not, it can cause decision fatigue, negatively impacting the user experience and conversion rates. So, how do we strategically …

Creating a personal oasis in the midst of our hectic lives is more than just a luxury;...

Keeping the Faith alive when "God is dead"—and why do we baptize babies of families we rarely, if ever, see at Church?

It's not often that one gets scalped by a Christian, rarer still is when a priest willingly airs his failures (of "Biblical proportion"). Protestants may cheer this episode as much as the Orthodox, but with both sides on differing sides. This episode of the Orthodixie podcast eavesdrops on some arguments concerning Scripture and Tradition at St Michael's in Beaumont, Texas.

We all have the tendency of turning a small concern into a full-scale worry.

This conversation with Bill Black, OCMC Missionary to Kenya, was recorded during the International Orthodox Theological Association conference in Iasi, Romania (9-12 January 2019). Bill gave a talk on this subject at the conference and was gracious enough to take time away from the sessions to talk about it for the podcast. Enjoy the show!

Fr. Anthony continues his discussion with Fr. Robert Holet, author of "The First and Finest: Orthodox Christian Stewardship as Sacred Offering" about mission work, this time focusing on the need to organize and routinize the work of the parish intentionally and well (so that grace can grow). Enjoy the show!

If deception is so deceptive, how does one know if one is being deceived?

"The danger...is that any systemization of spiritual realities is both wrong and thus misleading. Systems, definitions and diagrams of the inner life are, in a sense, by definition wrong because they are an attempt to reduce to something that is merely rational that which transcends our rational capacity. The spiritual life is known and experienced, but because it is supra-rational, it cannot be spoken of in rational categories. Which does not mean that it cannot be spoken of at all. Irony, metaphor, and apophatic statements can sometimes point toward supra-rational, inner realities, or to what such realities are not. However, the word ‘sometimes’ is key."

In this reflection, Fr. John Strickland relates how Christianity ceased to motivate and regulate statecraft in Christendom following the Wars of Western Religion. He discusses the cases of France, England, and New England. He concludes with an account of westernization in Eastern Christendom under Peter the Great of Russia.

An Amazing Pilgrimage, from The Adventures of a Little Ringtail Complete Series (2015). Anna Larsen Books. Available from St. Anthony's Monastery Bookstore.

Fr. Ted reminds us that Palm Sunday is actually a tragic event because the people recognize the Messiah not as He is, but as they want him to be.

Fr. Theodore Paraskevopoulos addresses the vandalism that happened to their church and how he desires his parish to respond to it.

In this episode, the microphone is turned as AFR General Manager and founder John Maddex interviews host Kevin Allen on the catechism module he developed (with his priest's blessing) specifically for inquirers coming from New Age and Eastern spiritual backgrounds. Is the entrance of New Age and Eastern seekers perhaps a trend the Church needs to prepare for? Are the issues, concerns, and paradigms of these seekers the same as those inquiring from Evangelical backgrounds? Must the catechist know something about New Age and Eastern religions in order to catechize effectively? These are some of the questions that will be addressed in this program. You may download an attachment of the course outline here.

Fr. Chad spoke to the Serbian Clergy Brotherhood last month on the challenges facing our priests in today's culture. We have broken it up into three parts and bring you part 1 today.

Today we bring you part two of Fr. Chad Hatfield's talk at the Serbian Clergy Brotherhood in June on the challenges facing our priests in today's culture.

Here is the third and final part of Fr. Chad's address to the Serbian Clergy about how we should look at the ministry of the priesthood in today's society.

On the first Sunday after Pentecost, the feast of All Saints, Fr Thomas teaches us that, because we are created in the image of God, we have the calling to become Saints who have grown in the likeness of God.

Whether as individuals or as couples we too are each called in the words of Zacharias as set out in the Gospel of St. Luke to “prepare His ways”—that is, to prepare the way of Jesus Christ in our own lives and in the lives of others.

John Mark reflects on the "preachy commercials" during the Super Bowl and has a message for those of us who tend to be overly serious.

Dr. Rossi interviews Fr. Nicholas Andruchow, Associate Director of Project Mexico.

Today Dr. Rossi reflects on this well-known hymn from both a personal standpoint as well as its place in Orthodox theology.

With the Church of England just one generation from extinction, the call has gone out for re-evangelization. Fr. Lawrence Farley asks whether this particular church still possesses the evangel of Saints Cuthbert and Aidan.

Fr. Lawrence Farley warns us that we can neither demonize the world nor accept all that it offers.

“My strength is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:8) Whether it's a mean comment or act of violence, why is it so easy to hurt people? And why should we care? We're all afraid of being weak, and will often hurt others to feel strong. Yet Jesus showed us that true strength often involves being weak: this is the way of love and the cross. As a special bonus, we've prepared a FREE downloadable workbook to help you act on what you'll learn. https://mailchi.mp/goarch/bethebee151

“We have 0% customer churn.” – said no SaaS marketer ever. Instead, what I hear all the time is: “If only we could keep growing without churn growing with us.” “If only we could get new trials to actually USE the product, they’ll see how great it is.” And even this story someone shared on […]

The post I spent 60+ hours analyzing onboarding emails for 127 SaaS trials. This is how the top SaaS retain users. appeared first on Coaching and training to scale your copywriting business, plus programs for new copywriters, startups, and marketers.

Photographer Cormac Downes captures the night sky above Wales in a series of striking images.

Teenager Nick Griggs admits he didn't set out to break the Parkrun world record after achieving the feat in Belfast on Saturday.

Chris McCausland is described as an "amazing role model" for blind people after wowing Strictly judges.

In this paper we introduce eXVisXML, a visual tool to explore documents annotated with the mark-up language XML, in order to easily perform over them tasks as knowledge extraction or document engineering.

eXVisXML was designed mainly for two kind of users. Those who want to analyze an annotated document to explore the information contained-for them a visual inspection tool can be of great help, and a slicing functionality can be an effective complement.

The other target group is composed by document engineers who might be interested in assessing the quality of the annotation created. This can be achieved through the measurements of some parameters that will allow to compare the elements and attributes of the DTD/Schema against those effectively used in the document instances.

Both functionalities and the way they were delineated and implemented will be discussed along the paper.

Teaching advanced programming can be a challenge, especially when the students are pursuing different majors with diverse analytical and problem-solving capabilities. The purpose of this paper is to explore the efficacy of using a particular problem as a vehicle for imparting a broad set of programming concepts and problem-solving techniques. We present a classic brain teaser that is used to communicate and demonstrate advanced software development concepts and techniques. Our results show that students with varied academic experiences and goals, assuming at least one procedural/structured programming pre-requisite, can benefit from and also be challenged by such an exercise. Although this problem has been used by others in the classroom, we believe that our use of this problem in imparting such a broad range of topics to a diverse student population is unique.

Aim/Purpose: This paper provides a general-purpose categorization scheme for assessing the utility of new and emerging three-dimensional interactive digital environments (3D-IDEs), along with specific pedagogic approaches that are known to work. It argues for the use of 3D-IDEs on the basis of their ludic appeal and ability to provide intrinsic motivation to the learner, and their openness that allows the learner to gain a more holistic understanding of a topic. Background: Researchers have investigated the affordances, benefits, and drawbacks of individual 3D-IDEs, such as virtual worlds, but teachers lack a general-purpose approach to assessing new 3D-IDEs as they appear and applying them to teaching practice. Methodology: The categorization scheme is based on the analysis, reflection, and comprehension of the research on limitations, challenges, and opportunities for teaching in virtual environments by Angel Rueda, Valdes Godines and Guzmán Flores; the scheme is discussed in terms of an experiment to trial virtual genetics labs in Second Life. Contribution: The paper describes a general-purpose approach to applying existing and new 3D virtual spaces to education, shows a worked example of the use of the categories, and describes six approaches to consider in applying these technologies. Findings: 3D-IDEs are categorized in terms of the way in which they interface with the user’s senses and their ability to provide ‘immersion’; two forms of immersion are examined: digital perceptual immersion – the generated sense of reality – and ludic narrative immersion – a less cognitive and more emotional engagement with the learning environment. Recommendations for Practitioners: Six specific forms of pedagogy appropriate for 3D-IDEs are examined and discussed, in terms of the affordances and technology required, as assessed by the categorization scheme. More broadly, the paper argues for a change in the assessment of new digital technologies from the technology’s features to its affordances and the pedagogies it can support. Recommendation for Researchers: The paper offers a practical approach to choosing and using 3D-IDEs for education, based upon previous work. The next step is to trial the scheme with teachers to ascertain its ease of use and effectiveness. Impact on Society: The paper argues strongly for a new approach to teaching, where the learner is encouraged to use 3D-IDEs in a ludic manner in order to generate internal motivation to learn, and to explore the topic according to their individual learning needs in addition to the teacher’s planned route through the learning material. Future Research: The categorization scheme is intended to be applied to new technologies as they are introduced. Future research is needed to assess its effectiveness and if necessary update the scheme.

Aim/Purpose: Although many computer science measures have been proposed, visualizing individual students’ capabilities is difficult, as those measures often rely on specific tools and methods or are not graded. To solve these problems, we propose a rubric for measuring and visualizing the effects of learning computer programming for elementary school students enrolled in computer science education (CSE), which is independent of the programming language being used. Background: In this research, we proposed a rubric based on existing CSE standards and criteria having a programming education-learning goal. We then applied this rubric to actual lessons to visualize the educational effects. Methodology: The proposed new rubric for teaching computer programming, based on existing standards and criteria, was applied to fourth- and sixth-grade students in Japan. We assessed which skills were cultivated through quizzes before and after the teaching. Contribution: This paper contributes on how to make and utilize a rubric for programming education in computer science. We evaluated and visualized the proposed rubric’s learning effects on children and found that our proposed rubrics are independent of any particular method or tool. Findings: The results of this survey are twofold: (1) we proposed a rubric of programming education in computer science, independent of the programming tools used and (2) we succeeded in visualizing students’ learning stages by applying the proposed rubric to programming education conducted in a Japanese elementary school. Recommendations for Practitioners: Evaluating educational effects in CSE is important. In particular, graded assessments of learner abilities can reveal individual characteristics. This research is useful for assessing CSE because it focuses specifically on programming education. Recommendation for Researchers: The rubric’s suggestions and quality improvements in CSE help learners assess their learning progress and will clarify the cultivated computer science skills. Impact on Society: This research evaluates CSE based on a rubric in the programming education field. Future Research: Future work is needed to improve the proposed rubric’s quality and relevance. Also, this rubric should be applied to many classes to increase the number of evaluations and analyses.

Aim/Purpose: This paper presents a machine learning approach for analyzing Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs). The aim of this study is to find a model that can check whether a CLO is well written or not. Background: The use of machine learning algorithms has been, since many years, a prominent solution to predict learner performance in Outcome Based Education. However, the CLOs definition is still presenting a big handicap for faculties. There is a lack of supported tools and models that permit to predict whether a CLO is well written or not. Consequently, educators need an expert in quality and education to validate the outcomes of their courses. Methodology: A novel method named CLOCML (Course Learning Outcome Classification using Machine Learning) is proposed in this paper to develop predictive models for CLOs paraphrasing. A new dataset entitled CLOC (Course Learning Outcomes Classes) for that purpose has been collected and then undergone a pre-processing phase. We compared the performance of 4 models for predicting a CLO classification. Those models are Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Forest, Naive Bayes and XGBoost. Contribution: The application of CLOCML may help faculties to make well-defined CLOs and then correct CLOs' measures in order to improve the quality of education addressed to their students. Findings: The best classification model was SVM. It was able to detect the CLO class with an accuracy of 83%. Recommendations for Practitioners: We would recommend both faculties’ members and quality reviewers to make an informed decision about the nature of a given course outcome. Recommendation for Researchers: We would highly endorse that the researchers apply more machine learning models for CLOs of various disciplines and compare between them. We would also recommend that future studies investigate on the importance of the definition of CLOs and its impact on the credibility of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) values during accreditation process. Impact on Society: The findings of this study confirm the results of several other researchers who use machine learning in outcome-based education. The definition of right CLOs will help the student to get an idea about the performances that will be measured at the end of a course. Moreover, each faculty can take appropriate actions and suggest suitable recommendations after right performance measures in order to improve the quality of his course. Future Research: Future research can be improved by using a larger dataset. It could also be improved with deep learning models to reach more accurate results. Indeed, a strategy for checking CLOs overlaps could be integrated.

Aim/Purpose: To explore the effectiveness of utilizing the design thinking approach in developing digital self-directed learning environment to enhance digital literacy skills in Thai higher education. Background: To foster digital literacy skills in higher education, Thai students require more than access to technology. Emphasizing digital self-directed learning and incorporating Design Thinking approach, can empower students to learn and develop their digital skills effectively. This study explores the impact of digital self-directed learning environment, developed using a design thinking approach, on enhancing digital literacy skills among higher education students in Thailand. Methodology: The research methodology involves developing a digital self-directed learning environment, collecting and analyzing data, and using statistical analysis to compare the outcomes between different groups. The sample includes 60 undergraduate students from the School of Industrial Education and Technology at King Mongkut Institute of Technology, divided into a control group (n=30) and an experimental group (n=30). Data analysis involves mean, standard deviation, and one-way MANOVA. Contribution: This research contributes to the evidence supporting the use of Design Thinking in developing digital self-directed learning environment, demonstrating its effectiveness in meeting learners’ needs and improving learning outcomes in higher education. Findings: Key findings include: 1) the digital media and self-directed learning activities plan developed through the design thinking approach received high-quality ratings from experts, with mean scores of 4.87 and 4.93, respectively; and 2) post-lesson comparisons of learning outcome and digital literacy assessment scores revealed that the group utilizing digital media with self-directed learning activities had significantly higher mean scores than the traditional learning group, with a significance level of 0.001. Recommendations for Practitioners: Practitioners in higher education should use design thinking to develop digital self-directed learning environments that enhance digital literacy skills. This approach involves creating high-quality digital media and activities, promoting engagement and improved outcomes. Collaboration and stakeholder involvement are essential for effective implementation. Recommendation for Researchers: Researchers should continue to explore the effectiveness of design thinking approaches in the development of learning environments, as well as their influence on different educational aspects such as student engagement, satisfaction, and overall learning outcomes. Impact on Society: By enhancing digital literacy skills among higher education students, this study contributes to the development of a digitally skilled workforce, encourages lifelong learning, and aids individuals in effectively navigating the challenges of the digital era. Future Research: Future research could explore a broader range of student demographics and educational settings to validate the effectiveness of the Design Thinking approach in enhancing digital literacy. This could include integrating design thinking with alternative digital learning and teaching methods to further improve digital literacy.