Educational Sales Representative Jobs

Being an educational sales representative can be a very fulfilling job if you have an inclination toward academics and love to deal in educational tools. As an educational sales rep, you can apply for a wide array of jobs coast to coast as there are immense opportunities available in the field. Choosing educational sales jobs as a career option can do loads for your prospects as the sky is the limit if you want to soar higher up in your career.

Take up a job or work from home

With loads of federal money being pumped into education, the time is right for choosing educational representative jobs as a career prospect. As an educational sales rep, you can be employed with a school supplies company or work independently from home or from an office anywhere coast to coast.

You can sell school or college text books and educational appliances depending on your job profile and the type of educational institution you are catering to.
You need to be in touch with preschool teachers, middle school or even higher depending on the type of market you are catering to.

There is loads of educational software that you might require to push into academic institutions which would be part of your job. Your best bet would be to check out places where you can equip with a degree or training to be best suited for the job.

Software sales

After all you have to include all relevant information in your resume while applying for the post of an educational sales representative. As an educational software sales consultant you will have to hold seminars to raise awareness of your product and make presentations in your designated area.

There are B2B and B2E type so selling products and depending upon your experience handling any of them, you can easily check out job prospects at publishing firms that hire educational sales reps.

It also depends a lot on which one of the educational products you are passionate about selling as it would also impact your job prospects as an educational sales rep. There are also loads of educational sales representative job opportunities in federal publications that you can check out. It is easy these days as you can hunt for jobs online and match them with your profile and mail your resume.

The pay is good these days and the sky is the limit for performers who can excel in their jobs. If you have a knack for selling educational products, there is no stopping you and with more money coming into education these days, you can have a wide array of choices depending on your educational qualifications, aptitude and experience as an educational sales representative.

Two Science-Art Philosophies - Utopia or Oblivion?

A warning to the reader: This article argues that modern science has been turned upside down, revealing the remedy to Steven Hawking's observation that the greatest mistake humanity has ever made was to invent artificial intelligence. The correction to that mistake necessitates an up-to-date familiarity with Buckminster Fuller and C P Snow's third culture, in which human survival is about gaining a new perspective on the unification of Science with Art.

Rather than this new perspective constituting an attack upon science, it draws attention to the crucial importance of Fuller and Snow's synergistic Science-Art concepts. The effort to place those concepts within the perspective associated with very recent, crucial scientific discoveries, will allow for a better understanding of the nature of reality, in particular, relevant to carcinogenic growth and development.

The Feb-Mar 2016 issue of Philosophy Now contained an article by Magdalena Scholle about how the philosopher, Nietzsche, inspired Dali. Her observation that Nietzsche's first book The Birth of Tragedy deserves particular attention by art critics, is now one of pivotal scientific importance. Evidence exists to demonstrate that Dali's intuitive assessment of Nietzsche's Two spirits of art, as he diagnosed it, included one spirit being an expression of an inner stereoscopic evolutionary phenomenon.

Scientists argued that Dali's well known obsession with what he called "stereoscopic art" failed to resonate directly to the viewers' vision. During 2003, asymmetrical electromagnetic 3D viewing glasses were manufactured and later sold along with their patent (USD669522 - 3D glasses) to the entertainment industry. The scientists that created them noted that some of the paintings by the artists, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cezanne, when viewed through their glasses, depicted stereoscopic images. The philosopher of science, Immanuel Kant, laid the ethical foundations of the Electromagnetic Golden Age of Danish Science. Both he and the philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas, had diagnosed Plato's search for an artistic ethic as being an asymmetrical electromagnetic vision belonging to the creative mind.

Dali's passionately felt inner stereoscopic artistic inspiration has now been made visible and measurable, as an evolutionary process. This fact warrants the critical attention by philosophers of art that Scholle advocated. Asymmetrical electromagnetic visual observation now reveals that artists all over the world, during the 21st Century, unconsciously paint much more dramatic 3D stereoscopic images than artists throughout recorded history. The critical attention to this by philosophers of art will involve overcoming the severe culture shock of medical science being turned upside down by the new stereoscopic awareness. This is ethically preferable to the entertainment industry ignoring it.

Eminent epidemiologists have noted that an acceleration of the commercial manufacture of stereoscopic 3D information and communication devices has brought about a dysfunctional 3D global epidemic. This problem was summed up within an MIT Technology Review by David Zax July 29, 2011 entitled, Does 3D Hurt Your Eyes? Yes, Says Science - Now how do we fix the stereoscopic mess we've gotten ourselves into? Zax refers to a paper published in the American Government's National Institute of Health's Medical Journal of Vision, July 21, 2011, in which it states "The paper almost treats 3D like a strain of some virus that can't be contained, only treated. The assumption appears to be that 3D is here to stay, and that as good epidemiologists we must do what we can to mitigate the damage it inflicts."

The natural evolution of stereoscopic inner vision and the stereoscopic epidemic explains Nietzsches' 'two spirits of art', referred to by Scholle. The above mentioned culture shock embraces the same problem that C P Snow attributed to the functioning of mainstream science's mindset. Einstein's governing 'Premier law of all of the sciences' the universal heat death law, is now an obsolete understanding of the second law of thermodynamics, which incorrectly sentences all life in the universe to frozen extinction. Quantum biological cancer research's living information flows in the opposite direction to second law thermodynamic heat-loss energy.

Isaac Newton considered that mechanical first cause principles were "pretentious hypothesis". Although Einstein harboured doubts about quantum mechanics' infallibility, his understanding of the second law, based upon mechanical logic, can no longer to be considered as the premier law of all of the sciences.

In the second Edition of Encyclopaedia Perthensis, or Universal Dictionary of Knowledge, Volume 14, printed in Edinburgh by John Brown in 1816, Newton's first principle logic causing gravitational force has been quoted under the entry 'Mechanical' on page 118. Newton most emphatically stated that the cause of gravity is not mechanical. Under the entry, 'Mechanically' he demonstrated that mechanical gravitation first cause principles are pretentious. This information is quoted from Newton's published 28th Query Discussions, in the second edition of his journal, Opticks. Newton based his denunciation of mechanical first principle logic upon the work of ancient Greek scientists, "... who made a vacuum and atoms and the gravity of atoms the first principles of their philosophy tacitly attributing gravity to some other cause than dense matter."

Whether Newton was right or wrong is irrelevant. Quantum mechanics and its offspring cannot deliver first cause principle logic that has been derived from the false assumption that Newton held gravity to be caused by the mass of objects in space.

This authentic argument reveals that science is being turned upside down, and it correlates with Snow's argument that modern science does not communicate about evolutionary biological processes, because it has no insight into the true nature of the second law. The absence of scientific synergistic communication within mechanical and biological dialogue requires that substantial evidence be provided, in particular, concerning the process of inner stereoscopic evolution.

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (vol. 101 no. 27, 2004) included the paper, Binocularity and Brain Evolution in Primates. It stated that while stereoscopic vision in primates is extremely complex, its "evolutionary purpose is unknown". Conversely, The British Medical Journal on the 6th of August, 1953 ( vol 2, issue 4831) published the paper Evolution of Binocular and Stereoscopic Vision in Man and Other Animals. In its conclusion, the question is asked whether complex inner stereoscopic vision within the human mind will ensure human survival or be used to destroy civilisation. This paper led to further in-depth research and discovery, of immense human survival importance, that has been disregarded by mainstream science. Scientists such as CP Snow, the Nobel laureate, Szent-Gyorgyi and Buckminster Fuller, all realised that this dysfunctional aspect of scientific research, unless rectified, would lead to the end of civilisation.

The stereoscopic research of the British scientists remained isolated from mainstream science until 2012, when it was fused into quantum biology by Professor Massimo Pregnolato and Professor Paolo Manzelli, recipients of that year's Giorgio Napolitano Medal, awarded on behalf of the Republic of Italy. Together with the Italian artist, Roberto Denti, they linked Science-Art Research in Australia to their Italian quantum biology discoveries as being an integral part of the 21st Century Renaissance, a rebirth of the ancient Platonic Greek Science for ethical ends.

Also, in 2012, the physicist Guy Deutscher's book of the year, Through the Language Glass upgraded the discarded 19th Century evolutionary linguistic colour perception theories of the British Prime Minister, William Gladstone and the German philosopher of biological science, Wolfgang von Goethe. The resulting neurological science was compatible with the Australian-Italian Science-Art quantum biology research findings. Furthermore, the evolutionary process of unconscious artistic intuition, observable though asymmetrical electromagnetic stereoscopic glasses provided for important optics research expanding upon the use of optical mathematics theory during the 1980s. The measurement of the life force governing seashell growth and development through space time, reprinted by the world's largest technological research institute, IEEE, in 1990, as an important 20th Century discovery, is recorded in the online book, C P Snow and the NASA high Energy Project.

Dali dismissed Descartes' science research axiom, "I think therefore I am", writing in favour of Freud's first principle being the "Joy of Life" paradigm. Platonic ethical emotional first cause principles were associated with the nature of infinity by many philosophers of science including Newton, Liebniz and Georg Cantor. Cantor's mathematical theories now uphold most of modern science. However, his theory of 'actual' infinity completely upset the modern scientific mind, which for many years has been governed by an obsolete understanding of the second law of thermodynamics. That law led to the evolutionary belief that the living process must move toward extinction. Within this mindset, the concept that life could possibly evolve toward infinity by embracing infinite fractal logic technologies would seem impossible. Cantor, one of history's most famous mathematicians, become the most detested one for his highly contentious paradigm, "The fear of infinity is a form of myopia that destroys the possibility of seeing the actual infinite, even though it in its highest form has created and sustains us, and in its secondary transfinite forms occurs all around us and even inhabits our minds."

In, Beyond Infinity: Georg Cantor and Leopold Kronecker's Dispute over Transfinite Numbers, the author Patrick Carey wrote that the mathematician, David Hilbert, famous for his development of Hilbert space, basic to the foundation of functional analysis, wholeheartedly supported Cantor's work. He defended it by claiming that it was "nothing less than the finest product of mathematical genius and one of the supreme achievements of purely intellectual human activity." The author of Brainfilling Curves, Jeffery Ventrella, researcher of infinite boundaries of fractal curves, wrote that Hilbert's work was about different kinds of infinity, beyond mainstream science, in the highly vilified Cantorian sense.

The human cell changes its geometrical shape when it is poised to transmit first principle cause information, as it divides itself as an infinite fractal expression. In his 2009 article, The Human Genome in 3 Dimensions, Brandon Keim provides the highest resolution picture ever of the genome's 3D structure at that critical moment. Its fractal shape and not just its DNA content transmits health information in a manner "which remains largely unexplained by traditional" genomic science. In mathematical terms, the cell employs a geometrical shape belonging to the Hilbert curve family structure. Georg Cantor had thoroughly researched the Platonic Greek Science that Newton saw as being the correct authority on first cause principle logic, functioning within their infinite universes.

We can now explain about Kant and Levinas's asymmetrical electromagnetic ethics in a more sociable manner, in particular, to reveal how to obtain first cause principles concerning the nature of dysfunctional carcinogenic growth and development. They agreed with Plato that traditional art was unethical. This can be explained by referring to the spirit of Greek art being enhanced by the culture of the Roman Empire. The Roman Colosseum, hailed within Roman culture as the epitome of Greek art, in which the mathematics employed in its construction were used to construct beautiful aqueducts, carrying fresh water to the city of Rome. This was touted as being artistically superior to the artistic construction of useless Egyptian pyramids. We can argue that the Colosseum's Science-Art form, used to stage sadistic acts of murder for the entertainment of the populace, was an unethical art form. This dysfunctional tradition of Science-Art echoes the cause of the global stereoscopic 3D epidemic, of concern to epidemiologists.

The 3D virus of concern to the epidemiologists is transmitted to the human mind through an artistic collaboration with contaminated mathematics. Through the global acceleration of information and communication devices this virus has become an incurable epidemic. The virus appears to be a strain of the mathematical dysfunctional intent placed into poker machines, where aesthetically pleasing sounds and colour images can bring about a heroin-like addiction, compelling some people to play themselves into a state of bankruptcy. Vast governmental revenue from legalised poker machine gambling echoes the structure of the global stock market, in which the world debt of 200 trillion dollars cannot be paid.

The functioning of living cells as an electromagnetic unit is well understood and its associated ethical nature can be considered to belong to an infinite universal evolutionary purpose. Nietzsche's traditional understanding of the spirit of art is confined to the flow of carcinogenic heat death logic. Living information can manipulate its way through the infinite geometrical shape of the cell poised to divide itself, however, the flow of heat death energy, flowing in the opposite direction can contribute no relevant information concerning that process. However, Dali's stereoscopic science intuitions are sympathetic to the spirit of the electromagnetic stereoscopic first cause non-carcinogenic information, transmitted to the daughter cell as a first cause logic communication, in the evolution of emotional consciousness.

At the very moment of cell division we see that its infinite geometrical shape does not allow the traditional spirit of art to predominate in the human evolutionary process, but utilises one associated with infinite stereoscopic inner vision.

The author of Living Cells are Electromagnetic Units, Dr Riejo Makela M. D., has spent a lifetime arguing that,"By using the closed circuit systems [obeying obsolete carcinogenic heat death law] when studying living cells, the scientists of today reject the obligatory existence of magnetic fields with electric fields." He argues that within this mindset, an understanding of first cause cancer growth and development is prevented. He is one of many scientists that have pointed out that traditional mathematics is unable to describe first cause principles involved in solving the conundrum of how, after cell division, both cells are identical.

Dali's stereoscopic theories can appear to be associated with an intuitive Greek logic about first principles, much the same as the New York Library of Science in 1957 published the book Babylonian Mythology and Modern Science, which stated that Einstein derived his theory of relativity from the mythological mathematical intuition belonging to Babylonian culture. C P Snow in his Science-Art Third Culture modified both Dali and Einstein's intuitive origins, in which 21st Century quantum mechanics's evolution of stereoscopic vision later became a rigorous foundation for the new upside-down science. Snow's Science-Art theories, specifically different from traditional, unethical Science-Art logic, transposed Newton's first principle logic, and Dali's emotional intuitions, into potentially practical technological aspects of the abovementioned Deutscher linguistic colour perception theories.

The 2013 discovery that the junk DNA helix communicates health and wellbeing information to DNA, and is considered to be using an inner stereoscopic 3D language is now of crucial importance. In 2004, Harvard University, Massachusetts University and the Royal Danish Consulate, held an international symposium to explain to the world about the social importance of the message of the electromagnetic Golden Age of Danish Science. They noted that it had been mostly written in Danish and not translated, making it "invisible to English speaking scholarship." ï»¿This article is an attempt to help the remarkable upside-down mainstream science to synergise with C P Snow and Buckminster Fuller's human survival Third Culture, in the name of Utopia or Oblivion.

http://www.science-art.com.au

Professor Robert Pope is the Director of the Science-Art Research Centre of Australia, Uki, NSW, Australia. The Center's objective is to initiate a second Renaissance in science and art, so that the current science will be balanced by a more creative and feminine science. More information is available at the Science-Art Centre website: http://www.science-art.com.au/books.html

Professor Robert Pope is a recipient of the 2009 Gold Medal Laureate for Philosophy of Science, Telesio Galilei Academy of Science, London. He is an Ambassador for the Florentine New Measurement of Humanity Project, University of Florence, is listed in Marquis Who's Who of the World as an Artist-philosopher, and has received a Decree of Recognition from the American Council of the United Nations University Millennium Project, Australasian Node.

As a professional artist, he has held numerous university artist-in-residencies, including Adelaide University, University of Sydney, and the Dorothy Knox Fellowship for Distinguished Persons, Dunmore Lang College: Maquarie University, and Yangzhou University, China. His artwork has been featured of the front covers of the art encyclopedia, Artists and Galleries of Australia, Scientific Australian and the Australian Foreign Affairs Record. His artwork can be viewed on the Science-Art Centre's website.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9317303

Science As a Media Event

One need not make any extensive surveys of different media to provide evidence for this failure. It is enough to see how sports has managed to gain more coverage in various media over the last few decades vis-a-vis science. One may argue that this is so because there are always some sports events occurring all over the world which naturally draw the attention of media. But contention here is that scientific activity, scientific community and laboratories all over the world can also be turned into what are called 'media events' if enough pains are taken by science communicators to achieve this status for science. First and foremost it will require the maximum cooperation of scientists.

For instance, anniversaries of scientists, institutes, organisations and societies, including the World Health Day, etc., can be celebrated; discussions and debates with the concerned scientists organised; and doors of concerned laboratories and organisations thrown open to masses and media.

Be that as it may, intention through this paper is to highlight the essentials and limitations of science popularisation so that there appears a fundamental change in the way of looking at this subject. Hopefully, it will lead to more effective strategies to popularise science among the masses.

Science writing is an art

Science popularisation is mostly done by science- trained persons and professional scientists. It is therefore looked upon more as a scientific activity rather than anything else. But science writing is more of an art rather than a science. It is scientific only in the sense one should have scientific knowledge but all the writing abilities are required to make a good presentation of science. It is due to the present lack of emphasis on the art aspect of science popularisation that this field of activity has suffered to date. Those few scientists or science-trained persons who have consciously or unconsciously known the art of science writing and have practised it, have only been successful in popularising science.

Science is a human activity

The second reason why popular science does not tick with the masses is because it is not projected as a human activity but an activity of scientists who simply believe in the search for truth - and nothing but truth! The human side of science is totally neglected in all popular science presentations. The follies and prejudices of scientists, the emotional life of scientists, the irrational circumstances in which scientific work is often undertaken and discoveries and inventions made, etc., are quite often deliberately not highlighted fearing that it would give bad name to science and scientific research. In short, the human face of science or scientific research is often neglected in popular science presentations. There is therefore a strong need to give science a human face. It would not only mean adding human stories to popular science presentations but also talking about realities in scientific research.

Tip of the iceberg presentation

The third reason why popular science presentations often go wide off the mark and make the audience yawn and go for something else is the inability of science communicators to distinguish between technical report writing and popular science writing, thanks to their scientific training or background. They try to cram into a popular science presentation as much as they know or find out about a subject.

Actually, popular science presentation should be like the tip of the iceberg. It should however make one not only familiar with the tip of the iceberg but also aware of the unseen larger part of the iceberg floating under the water. In other words, it should reveal little about science but enough to make one realise the existence of that science with its entire ramification. It should excite one's curiosity enough so that one would like to probe further into that science. It should not necessarily tell everything about a science but at the same time it should not miss science.

Some important observations

The author's experience with popularising science over the years has forced him to arrive at some postulates. They are merely based on experience and intuition. Any research has not been conducted to back them up with facts and figures. In fact, much research is required to prove or disprove them. If in case they are proved, they can easily be called the 'Laws of Science Popularisation' because despite the best of our efforts we have not been able to popularise science the way we want among the masses. There must be some hidden laws governing our efforts to popularise science. These postulates are stated as follows:

Postulates of science popularisation

1st: Only those elements of science receive attention in a society, which suit its goals or which inspire awe.

2nd: A science communicator tends to impose his or her limited ideas of science, scientists and scientific research upon the audience.

3rd: The amount of space allotted to science in different media of a country is the index of the quality of life of its average citizen.

4th: The quality of science communication or presentation in a country is directly proportional to the quality of science produced in it.

5th: To popularise science is to humanise science.

One can deduce certain things from these postulates. The first postulate indicates that people at large read science because it serves their purpose or because the subject is topical, sensational or controversial or simply excites their curiosity. A handful only read science for the sake of knowledge per se. Much research is required to identify those subjects so that science could be more effectively popularised. For instance, health science and environment interest people at large, astronomy and space fascinate them, Nobel Laureates, UFOs, etc., are held in awe by them.

The Second postulate is dangerous for science itself. Consciously or unconsciously, the layman imbibes the limited or narrow image of science, scientists and culture of science from the communicator, whether he be Jacob Bronowski or Peter Medawar. Notions such as scientists are mad individuals or scientific research is yet another profession are creations of science communicators. That makes science communicator a very responsible person.

The third and fourth postulates are intuitive relationships between two unrelated things or activities. Further research is needed to prove or disprove these two laws by taking data from different countries. However, one must add here that in India we raise a hullabaloo to increase science coverage in our media at the first available opportunity but it often comes to nothing. Also, while writing a popular science article on a subject one often needs the assistance of a scientist doing research in that very subject. But in India the scientist of the concerned subject is often not available for consultation and as a result our writings lack the necessary quality, verve and colour.

The fifth, the last but not the least important postulate, though obvious, reminds us that we must give science a human face so that masses are not afraid of it. It is the basic aim of science popularisation.

Christmas tree of science popularisation

The aim of drawing the 'Christmas tree of science popularisation' is to illustrate the importance of various media that take science to the masses, though every medium has its own significance and a vital role to play in communication. But unless a person climbs up the tree, as his or her interest in science is aroused or increased - in other words, unless one begins to read newspapers, magazines and then books - he or she would not have become fully science literate.

Necessarily, the percentage of people reading books would be very small as the top of a Christmas tree indicates. But it is a must to know this tree because the role of any medium should not be underestimated and every medium should be given equal importance simultaneously. For instance, if a student's interest in science is aroused by science fair or 'Jatha' held in the town, it has to be sustained and maintained by wallpapers, newspapers and even books; otherwise, one's interest would flag and eventually die. Other supplementing media should be made available to the student in form of public libraries, for instance. So, the Christmas tree of science popularisation needs to be watered and tended carefully to produce a science literate society.

Conclusion

According to the postulates forwarded here there are (as yet unknown) limits to the extent science can be popularised among the masses. It is not possible to have a fully science literate society. Moreover, science communicators need to take into account aforementioned aspects about science popularisation for more effective communication of science to the masses.

Secret Behind Technology Blogging: A Best Niche In Blogging

It is no secret that there is a secret behind technology blogging; it is one of the best niches in blogging. Blogging about technology is one of the best ways to get ahead in modern society. In fact, technology blogging is the best niche in blogging these days for anyone who wants to start up a successful business.

If you plan to create a new business or any successful business ventures, one of the best ways to do so is to consider the technology niche in blogging.

The Secrets of Niche Blogging: Technology

These days there are so many technologies to choose from, it's hard not to blog about them. Some popular examples of technology blogs include:

iPhone how to guides and tutorials

Information and technology news

Technology updates and rumors

The latest technological breakthroughs

Android

Windows and Mac

Technology Editorials and Opinion Pieces

Technology blogs are the perfect accompaniment to a day job although many people find running a niche technology blog can be exciting and take up a bit of time on the side.

How To Run A Successful Secret Technology Niche Blogging Business

It doesn't take very long to get a niche technology blog up and running. All one need to do is set up a blog account, which is easily done through WordPress or any other free blogging module.

Typically it helps to add a new blog post at least once or twice a week, if not daily. This helps to compete with ultra high-ranking websites. The technology niche is one of the simplest niches to write about.

There are tons of information readily available about most forms of technology. There is always something new in the news about the latest iPhone, or what some star or celebrity has done with their Mac, or latest technology device.

The other approach to technology is writing about how you made money using technology. Most people want nothing more than to learn about how they can make money using technology. And, that is essentially what you do when you create a niche technology blog... make money using technology.

Another great niche in the technology arena is a blog focusing on general technological advances and information. However, the competition for a niche that broad however, may be very high, especially when it comes to purchasing AdSense revenue. If you can narrow your technology niche down significantly, to something very narrow, then you will reap the benefits.

Good, narrow niches are well thought out. Some examples may include very detailed subjects and niche topics, including:

iPhone covers and cases

Android Travel Phones

Mac laptop covers and cases

Windows technological breakthroughs

The more narrow the subject material, the more likely you are to select keywords that bring in targeted audience members. There is also less likely to be competition for your keywords. You want to pay as little as possible to attract AdSense revenues. This is how to make the most bang for your buck when blogging on technology.

Remember that the secret is out; technology is a great niche to take advantage of. People are constantly seeking new and exciting information about technology. So discover the areas you can write better about, and dig in. Discover for yourself the secret behind technology blogging and find a good niche in the technology blogging that you and your business can get benefit from

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7320200

What Is the Relevance of Technology?

Technology in the long-run is irrelevant". That is what a customer of mine told me when I made a presentation to him about a new product. I had been talking about the product's features and benefits and listed "state-of-the-art technology" or something to that effect, as one of them. That is when he made his statement. I realized later that he was correct, at least within the context of how I used "Technology" in my presentation. But I began thinking about whether he could be right in other contexts as well.

What is Technology?

Merriam-Webster defines it as:

1

a: the practical application of knowledge especially in a particular area: engineering 2 <medical technology>

b: a capability given by the practical application of knowledge <a car's fuel-saving technology>

2

: a manner of accomplishing a task especially using technical processes, methods, or knowledge

3

: the specialized aspects of a particular field of endeavor <educational technology>

Wikipedia defines it as:

Technology (from Greek τέχνη, techne, "art, skill, cunning of hand"; and -λογία, -logia[1]) is the making, modification, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems, and methods of organization, in order to solve a problem, improve a preexisting solution to a problem, achieve a goal, handle an applied input/output relation or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, including machinery, modifications, arrangements and procedures. Technologies significantly affect human as well as other animal species' ability to control and adapt to their natural environments. The term can either be applied generally or to specific areas: examples include construction technology, medical technology, and information technology.

Both definitions revolve around the same thing - application and usage.

Technology is an enabler

Many people mistakenly believe it is technology which drives innovation. Yet from the definitions above, that is clearly not the case. It is opportunity which defines innovation and technology which enables innovation. Think of the classic "Build a better mousetrap" example taught in most business schools. You might have the technology to build a better mousetrap, but if you have no mice or the old mousetrap works well, there is no opportunity and then the technology to build a better one becomes irrelevant. On the other hand, if you are overrun with mice then the opportunity exists to innovate a product using your technology.

Another example, one with which I am intimately familiar, are consumer electronics startup companies. I've been associated with both those that succeeded and those that failed. Each possessed unique leading edge technologies. The difference was opportunity. Those that failed could not find the opportunity to develop a meaningful innovation using their technology. In fact to survive, these companies had to morph oftentimes into something totally different and if they were lucky they could take advantage of derivatives of their original technology. More often than not, the original technology wound up in the scrap heap. Technology, thus, is an enabler whose ultimate value proposition is to make improvements to our lives. In order to be relevant, it needs to be used to create innovations that are driven by opportunity.

Technology as a competitive advantage?

Many companies list a technology as one of their competitive advantages. Is this valid? In some cases yes, but In most cases no.

Technology develops along two paths - an evolutionary path and a revolutionary path.

A revolutionary technology is one which enables new industries or enables solutions to problems that were previously not possible. Semiconductor technology is a good example. Not only did it spawn new industries and products, but it spawned other revolutionary technologies - transistor technology, integrated circuit technology, microprocessor technology. All which provide many of the products and services we consume today. But is semiconductor technology a competitive advantage? Looking at the number of semiconductor companies that exist today (with new ones forming every day), I'd say not. How about microprocessor technology? Again, no. Lots of microprocessor companies out there. How about quad core microprocessor technology? Not as many companies, but you have Intel, AMD, ARM, and a host of companies building custom quad core processors (Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm, etc). So again, not much of a competitive advantage. Competition from competing technologies and easy access to IP mitigates the perceived competitive advantage of any particular technology. Android vs iOS is a good example of how this works. Both operating systems are derivatives of UNIX. Apple used their technology to introduce iOS and gained an early market advantage. However, Google, utilizing their variant of Unix (a competing technology), caught up relatively quickly. The reasons for this lie not in the underlying technology, but in how the products made possible by those technologies were brought to market (free vs. walled garden, etc.) and the differences in the strategic visions of each company.

Evolutionary technology is one which incrementally builds upon the base revolutionary technology. But by it's very nature, the incremental change is easier for a competitor to match or leapfrog. Take for example wireless cellphone technology. Company V introduced 4G products prior to Company A and while it may have had a short term advantage, as soon as Company A introduced their 4G products, the advantage due to technology disappeared. The consumer went back to choosing Company A or Company V based on price, service, coverage, whatever, but not based on technology. Thus technology might have been relevant in the short term, but in the long term, became irrelevant.

In today's world, technologies tend to quickly become commoditized, and within any particular technology lies the seeds of its own death.

Technology's Relevance

This article was written from the prospective of an end customer. From a developer/designer standpoint things get murkier. The further one is removed from the technology, the less relevant it becomes. To a developer, the technology can look like a product. An enabling product, but a product nonetheless, and thus it is highly relevant. Bose uses a proprietary signal processing technology to enable products that meet a set of market requirements and thus the technology and what it enables is relevant to them. Their customers are more concerned with how it sounds, what's the price, what's the quality, etc., and not so much with how it is achieved, thus the technology used is much less relevant to them.

Recently, I was involved in a discussion on Google+ about the new Motorola X phone. A lot of the people on those posts slammed the phone for various reasons - price, locked boot loader, etc. There were also plenty of knocks on the fact that it didn't have a quad-core processor like the S4 or HTC One which were priced similarly. What they failed to grasp is that whether the manufacturer used 1, 2, 4, or 8 cores in the end makes no difference as long as the phone can deliver a competitive (or even best of class) feature set, functionality, price, and user experience. The iPhone is one of the most successful phones ever produced, and yet it runs on a dual-core processor. It still delivers one of the best user experiences on the market. The features that are enabled by the technology are what are relevant to the consumer, not the technology itself.

The relevance of technology therefore, is as an enabler, not as a product feature or a competitive advantage, or any myriad of other things - an enabler. Looking at the Android operating system, it is an impressive piece of software technology, and yet Google gives it away. Why? Because standalone, it does nothing for Google. Giving it away allows other companies to use their expertise to build products and services which then act as enablers for Google's products and services. To Google, that's where the real value is.

The possession of or access to a technology is only important for what it enables you to do - create innovations which solve problems. That is the real relevance of technology.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7909639

Education and Real Life Challenges

In contemporary times, almost as a cultural practice, education has been elevated to the level of an initiation rite into the modern world. With the aid of formal educational training, people acquire the skills of reading and writing. It is obvious that literacy, the ability to read and write, has become a requisite for coping with numerous challenges of modern times. As a strategy for ensuring that no child is denied the opportunity of acquiring formal education, not sending a child to school is a criminal offence in some parts of the world, especially in the West. In addition, some governments assist their citizens to acquire formal education by either subsidising the cost or making it available at no cost (at the basic level, at least).

It is impossible to fit into the modern times if one does not go to school. Consequently, education is a necessity, not a luxury. People's attitude to education in contemporary time appears to suggest, in fidelity to Platonism, that it is better to be unborn than to be uneducated. The demand for education in different parts of the world is unarguably on daily increase. People make numerous sacrifices to acquire education. Parents are willing to give all they have in order to see their children through school. Some people travel to foreign countries in order to acquire quality educational training. Acquiring formal education has become one of the greatest priorities in life today.

However, despite the wide acceptance formal education has gained all over the world, one of the most significant questions about education that is often not asked is, "What is the relevance of education to practical life?' In other words, to what extent is education helpful in addressing practical life challenges? This question needs to be asked because the expected impacts of education are absent is the life of many educated people. One of the factors that speak very eloquently on this is that education has continuously remained unable to improve the standard of living of numerous graduates.

It is imperative to remark that education is a means to an end, but not an end in itself. The implication of this is that education is a process that leads to the making of a product. The process is incomplete without the product. It is the product that gives value to the means. The quality of the process can be inferred from the quality of the product. As a means, education is incomplete without the end of the process. This end is the purpose it (education) is designed to serve (under ideal situation). Let us justify our claim that the expected impacts of education are absent is the life of many educated people by examining a very sensitive aspect of life of educated people, their finances.

How many educated people are truly financially successful? Most graduates struggle all through life to make ends meet, but to no avail. There are numerous people who graduated from tertiary institutions (even at the top of the class), but who are far below many people with lower educational training (academic intelligence and scholarly ability) than theirs in the ladder of financial success. Perhaps, financial struggles and crises are worse among educated people. Most educated people struggle all through their working years merely to make ends meet, but to no avail, and end as liabilities during their retirement.

The inability of education to assist graduates in managing real life challenges is rooted in the fact that most people are ignorant of the purpose of education. Why do we go to school? Why should people go to school? What is the purpose of education? What is the rationale of education? What are the objectives of education? Why should parents send their children to school? Education is one of the most abused or, rather, misunderstood human experiences. Unless the purpose of education is understood and clarified, the continuity of its abuse (by most people) will remain inevitable. Many people go to school for the wrong reasons. In addition, most parents send their children to school for the wrong reasons. Most people have erroneous conceptions about the objectives of education.

It is imperative to remark that this problem is rooted in the fact that the major incentive for going to school in the earliest days of its inception in different parts of the world was that it was a ticket to prosperity. This was possible then because employment opportunities abound for educated people then. But things have changed, and very significantly. In most parts of the world today, there is high level of unemployment among educated people. Thus, education does not guarantee financial success anymore. In fact, education has become a major cause of poverty, considering the fact that it has no provision for instilling the knowledge of wealth creation principles in students.

It is high time the purpose of education is reconsidered. The idea of going to school in order to acquire certificate should be denounced, if the training will improve the life of educated people. The idea of going to school in order to prepare for gainful employment should also be denounced because there are limited employment opportunities for unlimited graduates. If school prepares graduates for employment, but there are limited employment opportunities for unlimited graduates, it means that school prepares students for unemployment. This is why the conception that school merely prepares students for gainful employment is unacceptable.

The ideal purpose of education is to facilitate an integral development of the human person - the intellectual, moral, physical, social, spiritual, psychical and psychological dimensions of man. Going to school should facilitate the optimum development of all the aspects of the human person. An ideal educational system should not isolate any aspect of man in the training process, nor consider some aspects more important than others. Anything short of this is an aberration, and is unacceptable.

Every educational process should be able to assist students to develop their latent potential. Any educational process that does not fulfill this objective is useless. When the mind is developed, it is able to identify and solve problems for humanity and, consequently, be compensated with reward. Money is merely the reward for solving problems. Any graduate who cannot solve problems in the society lacks the capacity for wealth creation. This is a fact most graduates are ignorant of.

Education will assist graduates to become happy and fulfilled in life if it is structured to facilitate the optimum development of their minds. If this is done, education will equip graduates with the requisite skills to survive the economic battles and challenges of real life. It is very painful to remark that education has remained unable to serve practical purpose because most of the things the school system teach students are things they do not need to survive in the real life. In other words, most students spend years in school learning things that will not be useful to them when school days are over. The crux of this deficiency in the educational system is that the people who are most concerned in the educational sector are ignorant of its existence.

One of the key objectives of education is empowerment. If the educational system is restructured to achieve this purpose, graduates will become assets, but not liabilities, no matter the circumstances. Such an educational process will assist students to create jobs if they are unable to get jobs when they become graduates. As earlier remarked, education is a process, and every process is incomplete without a product. The quality of a product is the most reliable standard for ascertaining the quality of the process that produced it. There is urgent need to restructure the educational system to ensure that that the training it instills in students adequately empowers them to effectively confront life challenges, especially when school days are over.

Despite the fact that the consequences of the deficiencies of the educational system in its present form accounts for the ugly experiences of most graduates in the real life, the government has continuously demonstrated increasing incompetence in addressing this challenge. Consequently, it has become obvious that graduates who conscientiously desire a bright, refreshing and happy life must acquire Supplementary Education on their own before their school training will have the desired effect in their life. It also implies that students should also go beyond what they are taught in the class if they are sincerely passionate about happy in the real world (I.e life after school).

Eugene C. Onyibo is a motivational speaker, trainer, business coach, personal financial management expert, entrepreneur, philosopher and prolific writer. He is the publisher of Inspiration Express ( http://inspirationexpress.com.ng ), an online inspirational magazine. He is also the author of Now you are a Graduate, What Next?: A Handbook for Fresh Graduates ( https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VYDIP5Y ), a best-selling inspirational publication that has helped numerous (fresh) graduates across the globe. Eugene C. Onyibo (a wildly traveled, and also a much sought after, speaker at seminars, workshops, conferences, etc) is also a consultant of private and public organisations

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6922501

Whither Education - An Apathy

Even after half-a-century of Indian Independence, the fate of education, educators and students has hardly improved. The apathy of the power that be, including a large section of society, has not changed when it comes to human resource development and education. Even now there are more than four crore educated unemployed youths in India.

India boasts of being world's third knowledge power but effectively this is the lowest when judged against per thousand-population base. Societal degradation, inflicted by political might, is reflected in educational institutions across India. Aberrations have become the rule on campuses that are infested with self-seekers and politicians.

Democratization of higher educational institutions, though a noble concept, has in the past 20 years turned campuses into a cauldron of stinking filth. These are managed by affiliations charged with little regard for excellence, honesty and intellectual probity. Unethical and politically-motivated decisions serve a few and are reflections of societal catharsis.

Geographic India consolidated into a polity by the British has muted into conglomerations of politically charged, disjointed entities and facsimiles of democratic degradation. The classic conservative yearning for an ordered polity and commensurate pursuit of knowledge on the campuses are missing. Whichever brand rules the country, this section of society commands no respect now. May it be students or teachers they don't have a voice, they don't constitute an essential service and education is not a national necessity. Being a state subject, educational policies suffer from innumerable deformities.

Though it is a constitutional obligation, the non-availability of funds and vested administrative setup have led to the mushrooming of universities, fake campuses, private enterprises and numerous makeshift centers of education as also fly-by-air foreign campuses. It has proved to be a great financial endeavor with hardly any risk involved because it does not come under VAT or any other financial constraints. India has by now more institutions of such type than colleges, an excellent opportunity to rope in knowledge seeking youth and those who desire to fly off to greener pastures.

When it comes to the formulation of policies about higher education, structuring the system, financial assistance, grants and salary, the statutory body-University Grants Commission-is mentioned like a sacred cow worshipped as well as butchered in the streets. How far the UGC is autonomous is a common knowledge. It has become a post office, a government organization, disbursing petty grants, sanctioned by the Central Government, among universities or institutions with a number of tags attached to them depending upon the status of the recipient institutions, state, Central, autonomous or deemed universities. There is a perpetual complaint about the non-availability of funds. The administration should appreciate that the jumbo cabinet and expenditure on legislatures could be cut down to feed and educate a few villages. The teacher wants to be a ladder upon which students could climb and scale new heights.

The Central and state governments invoke ESMA to curb the voice of agitating people, but it takes no time to give benefits to politicians and bureaucrats. It is essential to please them so that a symbiotic balance is maintained as also to oblige a few of them. The government has failed to take effective steps to curb industrialization of education. Within hours the doles given in Parliament and honorarium were doubled but the 6 per cent expenditure of the GDP on education has proved to be dogma persisting right from the Kothari Commission recommendations for over four decades now.

Students of various educational institutes go on strike, almost yearly, demanding withdrawal of excessive fee hike. The tuition fees make up only about 13 per cent of annual expenditure in the present university education. It is now a formidable industry and the aim is to make money. Poor students, however, intelligent they may be, cannot afford to join colleges, professional institutions or courses. They may join such courses by putting their families under heavy debt of banks or financial institutions. Even in the USA, tuition fees contribute to about 15 per cent of the total annual expenditure on higher education. Nehru said: "If all is well with universities, it will be well with the nation." Whereas Rabindranath Tagore once compared educated classes in India to "A second storey in an old building that was added in, but unfortunately the architect forgot to build a staircase between them."

Teaching profession is devalued in the country because the teachers can't compete in our society, have no muscle power, are educated and hence behave differently. Neither do they have guts of creamy bureaucrats nor institutional support of any kind. A teacher can entertain you with a pale smile on hearing that this is the profession of nation builders, the cream of society and a noble profession. The next moment teacher will be branded as cancers in societal marrow, getting salary for no work, craving for power, equality in salary and status with the Class A government servants. The teacher was the consultant and conscience keeper of society till mid-century. One could identify him by his tattered clothes, emaciated pale face, soft voice and meek behavior. He was the guru. That guru, comparatively having a better outfit now, has metamorphosed to a present teacher.

Newspaper reports are replete with his shortcomings; his misconduct in preaching indiscipline, enough is paid to him for no work, as he has to teach only for 181 days in a year. How could he dream of the parity with his bosses in the secretariat, his class dropouts in Parliament and the government. In order to save our hard-earned "democracy" which is being strengthened by a few hooligans, politicians and administrators, the government has to suppress the genuine demands so that education does not progress to the detriment of "illiterate democrats". A handful of teachers adopts unethical means to become rich just like any other segments that are designated scamsters today. Exceptions, however, do not make the rule.

Most of our Presidents, many of our bureaucrats, including ministers, parliamentarians and others, had been in this profession. Did they not do any good work for the betterment of society before their elevation to these posts of governance and reverence? Can't the authorities assess the strength of the demand vis-à-vis the qualification, age at the time of being recruited as a teacher, lack of promotional avenues, stagnation and competency in terms of hiatus in the inflated societal values, urge and necessity to improve qualification and experience to remain in the fray. Education for teachers is a continuous process unlike "one-time-degree-obtaining-education" for others. Evaluation is paramount in this profession for every promotion. Classroom education has become drudgery afflicted by societal unrest, absolute lack of infrastructure, fear psychosis gripping the powerless parents and absences of administration.

My perception is that politicians take less interest in improving the standard of education and living because they know that once the poor comes to know about their corrupt practice they would neither listen nor elect them. Political parties make promises in their election manifestos to reduce employment, poverty and corruption. But this can't be achieved without education. To me, education comes as a discipline, which is all-pervasive. Enshrined in our directive principles and ensuring our countrymen, "right-to-education" makes me feel that we possess the right to educate".

Even when we have ushered in the new millennium, education remains a password to of those who make an arrogant assertion that they know best and are serving the public interest-an interest, which of course, is determined by them. By the perception entrenched with the British subjugation of our people elitist education occupied the center stage to produce Macaulay's clones who were Indians muted to be "English in taste, in opinion, in morals and in intellect". "Educated slaves became strong props to sustain the British rule." Lord Curzon favored bureaucratization of education since he opined that educational institutions have become factors for the production of political revolutionaries. By the Act of 1919 education was transferred to the province.

When we educate we are involved in politics. Educators often think of education being disjointed from politics. In fact, education is perhaps the most political activity in the community. The state has always influenced what is taught in educational institutions. The socio-political (and in some cases religious) ideology colors the content of learning and the emphasis on various aspects. In fact, based on where the child was educated within India-whether it was a large city or a village, whether the school used English or a regional language as a medium of education, among other factors- the child will have a different world view. However, education, based on the syllabus, in India has largely strived towards imparting a temperament of religious, political and social tolerance. The social mores and hierarchies often seep into the arena of learning and color education.

Given the political potential of education, there have been numerous attempts to use education as a way of indoctrination. Sometimes it is covert, at other times it is overt. Sometimes it is subliminal, other times it is deliberate. However, political forces have always used education to further certain world views. Today, numerous educationists and political thinkers in India are afraid that a deliberate attempt to use education as a way of social-religious indoctrination might be the agenda of the new education policy.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said: "Not gold, but only teachers can make people great and strong-the persons who for truth and honor; sake stand fast and suffers long. It is they who build a nation's pillar deep and lift them to the sky". Teaching profession is a bed of roses. A good teacher is always his/her student's guide, friend and philosopher. A boy looked at the sticker on a car, which said, "Trees are friends". He challenged this statement, started cutting trees, saying that, "Trees are not our friends, but our enemies". When asked why he thought so. He said in his science textbooks it was stated "trees bring rain". Since his village gets flooded in every rainy season, so he thought that "all trees must be cut down". Confucius wrote, "If you plan for a year, plant a seed. If for 10 years, plant a tree. If 100 years, teach the people." Literacy is not enough. It is good to have a population, which is able to read, but infinitely better to have people able to distinguish what is worth reading. With overcrowded classrooms and ill-paid teachers,coaching classes are the commercial fallout of a system bursting out of the seams. How can idealism be expected from someone as concerned about the quality of life as you and me?

We have grown up with cherished memories of special teachers who made us love a subject we could actually have been frightened of and who we respected unconditionally. I have come across many persons whose mediocrity is reflected when they project themselves as the best whereas the fact speaks otherwise and those who criticize their alma mater forgetting that they passed out from the same from which they graduated. Education can have a great role to play in decreasing social disparities between groups and in promoting social mobility. For instance, the tremendous expansion of the middle class in India can confidently be attributed to the investment in education, especially in higher education.

Universities are struggling to survive on shrinking governmental grants. In the wake of this it takes shortsighted decisions to cut expenses and increase revenue by increasing fees, which may not be in the long-term interest of the universities. Thus universities end up being run as business enterprises. Education cess is now on considered to partially meet funds for primary education and Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan. Open our universities to foreign students. Foreign campuses may prove to be of hardly any use in generating funds for Indian education. Trading in education may be another jeopardy.

Collaborations could be in specialized fields with foreign campuses like in the past. Even in the USA, private and government ratio in higher educational system does not exceed 80/20. China is experiencing two-way international student traffic with a large number of them from the USA in preference to India. This could be reversed if we build proper infrastructure and achieve proficiency in imparting education of world standard. A realistic education cannot be separated from the realities of the students' environment, which surrounds him, his aspirations, society, the local cultural factors, conditions varying in his own country and global effects. Education, therefore, should be in consonance with the day-to-day living. Till date education does not define our resurgent polity and democracy.