Good Morning Britain bombshell Lucy Verasamy has been thrilling fans with her Scottish holiday album.

The 39-year-old has been busy documenting her idyllic countryside trip on Instagram.

ITV weather girl Lucy couldn't resist sharing a scorching snap of herself while she posed among a field of green fern trees.

Toying with fans, she playfully stroked her brunette locks as she posed for the camera.

Enjoying her escape and taking some well needed time off of work, Lucy beamed a huge smile to camera.

Looking effortlessly stylish, she wore a skintight hiking top that showcased every curve.

She teamed her outdoor attire with grey, figure-hugging leggings with a jumped neatly knotted at her waist.

Keeping it cool, she wore an oversized pair of shades to complete her eye-popping look.

Captioning her getaway, she told her 128,000 fans: "In the fern. With no filter.

"I think green is my favourite colour."

In another snippet, she showcased beautiful scenery as she whizzed past in her vehicle trying to capture her surroundings in all its glory.

Later, she included an upload of the final setting, that included a picturesque mountain backdrop, with a stunning valley that was completely encompassed by vast amounts of green trees.

It wasn't long before her adventurous post attracted many of her followers, with This Morning host Eamonn Holmes 'hitting' the like button, showing his approval.

Although Lucy's setting was completely mesmerising, many fans seemed to be more in ore of the GMB weather reporter.

One fan joked: "Stunning, you're not looking too bad either."

Another gushed: "Super fit."

While a third said: "You're so hot Lucy."

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GMB weather girl Lucy Verasamy parades mind-blowing curves in skintight top - Daily Star

Are you trying to figure out more about different types of files? Read this article to learn about differen types of files and their uses.

It seems like technology these days is little more than a constant stream of acronyms: PDF, HTML, DOC, XLSX sometimes its hard to keep up, no matter how tech-savvy you are.

These acronyms are usually codes for different file types. But how can you tell which is which? Read on to find out about the most common types of files and how to use them.

One of the most common document types used today is the Microsoft Word Document, which ends with .doc or .docx.

These documents are specifically built for word processors like Microsoft Word, sotheyre easily editable. If youre going to be making changes to a document, DOC is definitely the way to go.

DOC files are also pretty much universal. In other words, you dont need Microsoft Word to open them. Any word processor will do.

PDFs are another common document file type, so its helpful to compare the two when youre choosing a file type. PDFs arent as easily editable as DOCs, which can be a strength or a weakness.

On the one hand, its much harder to edit your work once its in PDF form.On the other hand, this permanence means that if you send a PDF over email or print it out, youre much less likely to run into weird formatting changes made automatically by your word processor.

So if you have a document thats not likely to change, consider using a PDF to distribute, store, or print it. If you have a DOC file that you want to convert, try using a free DOCX to PDF converter.

JPEG files are the most popular type of image file out there today.

Why? JPEGs are extremely lightweight in terms of size.They cut out extraneous data and only keep things that are visible to the human eye. This makes them very compact and easy to send, upload, or transfer.

One thing to keep in mind with JPEGs is that each time one is saved and re-saved, it loses a little bit of its quality. If you save one over and over again, youll start to see it get grainy because it gets more and more compressed each time you save it.

JPEGs are also universal, meaning that they can be opened on any computer or device. Theyre especially useful for web design or social media because of their small size. They load quickly and easily, making them the ideal format for image files.

PNGs are similar to JPEG files, but they have some different advantages. Whereas JPEGs are valued for their small size, PNGs are larger files and will take longer to load.

But PNGs make up for their large size with image sharpness and color retention. PNGs also support transparent backgrounds, which is an advantage over JPEGs, which dont.

These four types of files are just a smattering of the many, many file types out there today. That being said, these are probably the most commonly encountered files and are a must-know for any tech user. The better you get to know them and their uses, the more tech-savvy youll become!

Looking to learn more to get the most out of your tech devices? Be sure to browse the rest of this site.

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Understanding files: 4 types of files and their uses - AZ Big Media

Many times, the authors or owners of a PDF documentThey decide to put restrictions on it so that no one is able to modify them without their consent. But if you are not the creator of that file or have bad intentions, you probably want to be able to make some modifications to it. Therefore, in this article, we want to show you how remove restrictions of an easy, fast and free PDF.

The first thing you have to bear in mind is that restricted PDF documents greatly limit our range of possibilities. In general, in these cases we will not be able to copy the content of the document, open it if you have a password, edit the text, make annotations or prints, etc. As we can see, any restricted PDF document becomes almost useless most of the time.

Luckily, today we have some free software that has been specially designed so that we can remove these restrictions. Next we are going to talk about some of the best, so that you can take a look at them, and decide which is the best one for your needs.

Of course, you have to bear in mind that you will always need the password to access the PDF document. Otherwise, you will not be able to apply any of these modifications. However, it is common for restricted PDFs to have their password released, so we have thought about those specific circumstances.

Online2pdf.com is the first of the free programs to remove restrictions from a PDF that you should consider. Once you have used it, you can convert formats, rotate pages, rearrange them and more.

Its main strength has to do, however, that it is able to remove restrictions from several PDF files at the same time. In fact, you have the chance to upload 20 PDF files at a time. Another good option is to configure it to get separate PDF files on output. Likewise, you must consider certain limits: 100 MB for a single PDF, 150 MB for multiple PDFs.

Its operation is extremely simple, although it does not have any additional features. If the original PDF doesnt have a password, you can add one of your own and manage new permissions.

PDF2Go is the second of the alternatives that we want to recommend. It is quite similar to the previous one, inviting us to carry out actions such as, for example, search within the document, change the size of each page, repair errors, unlock it, and even protect it with a password.

Again, you can unlock multiple PDF files or single PDF according to your requirement. As for the ways to upload files, it supports many different ones: from the Desktop, from cloud storage, from a URL, or from an online PDF. Therefore, it is not necessary to download them first.

This service can be used without registering or with a free account, although we suggest that you sign up to enjoy some extra features, such as a larger file size.

As its name implies, PDF Restrictions Remover is a free and quite intuitive software. It is powerful enough to batch remove restrictions from PDF files. You can also add different PDFs, add access passwords and many others.

Once you are done, of course, you will overcome the printing, copying and editing restrictions.

Something that you will have to bear in mind is that it is impossible to establish or configure an output folder. Therefore, we have to take for granted the one that automatically generates to store all the results of your operations. Beyond that, it has no other major cons.

And we conclude with PDF Unlock. A simple tool, up to a point somewhat limited. However, you will be able to add your PDF documents to the extent that you are able to unlock them by password.

Here you can select an output folder that makes it easier for you to later reach the unlocked PDFs.

Remember, once you have finished and removed all restrictions to the PDF document, then you can carry out many other tasks with these files. Without going any further, it is possible to convert a PDF to another format. You only have to download the program or application that is necessary for it.

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How to remove restrictions from a PDF with free programs? - Explica

The Downtown Berkeley BART Plaza will soon be getting a 50-minute sound installation by Thea Farhadian (pictured) and Dean Santomieri called A New Sense of Place. Photo: Dean Santomieri

Museums are shuttered and theaters remain silent as the tomb, but the arts in Berkeley are not kaput. The city is moving forward with plans for new public art and, in a recent special meeting, approved grants for nearly 100 artists, organizations, and festivals totaling almost $580,000.

The catch? In order to proceed, artists and festival organizers must show they wont allow any groups to congregate you know, basically what festivals and the performing arts are all about.

Its really challenging; however, people are rising to the challenge, said Lisa Bullwinkel, chair of Berkeleys Civic Arts Commission. They got their grant money and have been asked to file a new report about how theyre going to I hate to use the word pivot but that seems to be the vernacular right now pivot onto some other platform.

I think its so important we do support these arts organizations for a couple of years, she said. And it IS going to be a couple of years until were able to meet in theaters again or in big groups outdoor at festivals or concerts. Its going to take a long time, not only for the vaccines and medicines to work but for people to feel comfortable psychologically to be in a group like that.

The city originally wanted to allocate zero funds for festivals this year. But it changed its mind and released $80,000, about half the usual annual amount, after realizing that some festivals could go online.

Not all of them translate, however. Chahar Shanbeh Suri, the Persian New Year celebration that has people ritualistically leaping over bonfires, will not have an official Berkeley analog in 2021. There was no way that could pivot and go online, Bullwinkel said.

But some of the larger ones are proceeding in transmogrified forms. The Bay Area Book Festival, for instance, is holding an online, one-day mini-fest on Oct. 4 called Berkeley Unbound featuring local activists and luminaries like Steve Kerr, W. Kamau Bell, Alice Waters, and the legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky. (Watch the teaser.)

Were at this real inflection point in the history of our country, I mean probably more than since the Civil War, said Cherilyn Parsons, executive director of the Bay Area Book Festival (for which Berkeleyside is a media sponsor). Here in Berkeley we have extraordinary intellectuals and thinkers and writers, so we thought, What does Berkeley have to say about this really key point? What is its vision for forging a better society out of this time?

Theater lovers are also in luck, as local troupes seem to be adapting to the new age.

The theaters are uniquely dangerous places to be when youre in a space with somebody who has COVID, says Patrick Dooley, founding artistic director of Shotgun Players. One person coughing in the back of the theater with the HVAC blowing air all over the building could infect a hundred people a night, you know?

Commuters on I-80 might notice something missing in the public-arts landscape soon. Berkeley Big People, the grand-scale figurative sculptures that have guarded the pedestrian overpass to the Berkeley Marina since 2008, are getting the heave-ho as reported by Berkeleyside last year. We were in the process of planning that when COVID struck, said Jennifer Lovvorn, the Civic Arts Commissions secretary. But it will be happening at some point in the future maybe this year or next year. Ive offered the city to refurbish them with no cost to the city and maintenance-free for 15 years, says the sculptures creator, Scott Donahue, who indicates he might still be in negotiations with Berkeley about the artworks future but cant offer more due to legal advice.

So what Dooleys group is doing is delivering props, sound equipment and green screens to its players so they can erect their own home studios. A costume designer virtually rifles through their closets to see what clothes they should wear. The actors then stage performances via Zoom that are sprinkled with the magic of live theater.

I saw a cat come and kind of walk through once, says Dooley. Weve had dogs barking, phones ringing, neighbors knocking on the door. You think youve worked out everything, and then somebody starts ringing the doorbell.

People bold enough to go outside can expect to see some new public art this year, too. The Downtown Berkeley BART Plaza will soon be getting a 50-minute sound installation by Thea Farhadian and Dean Santomieri called A New Sense of Place. The artists say they hope that people traversing the plaza will appreciate encountering something familiar, or something strange, coming from the multichannel, overhead speaker array, and for some moments be roused from their thoughts, conversations, or devices by the unexpected gift of music. (Thea Farhadian is the featured photo for this story, taken by Dean Santomieri. Hear two audio excerpts from the composition.)

And Cube Space, the public-arts display in the Center Street Garage on Addison Street, is switching up exhibits this fall. The Oakland-based digital/video artist Leila Weefur is curating a next year-long show, featuring three African American artists presenting different material over separate four-month periods.

So what else is on the arts horizon for 2020 and beyond? Some of the winners of the recent arts grants chatted with Berkeleyside about their pandemic plans. (See the full list of grant awardees.)

The center is using its grant to showcase a series of digital exhibitions, supplemented by a virtual artist panel instead of a physical opening reception, about art that advocates for environmental activism. Currently on view is Art/Act: Local Wild Places, our annual juried show which features four Bay Area artists exploring the importance of connecting to nature, says Sibel Gner, communications and development manager. Our next exhibition [in October] will be Art/Act: Award, which will be on view for an entire year and features the work of National Geographic photographer Frans Lanting.

We planned to open [last] weekend, but given the announcements about school closures and all that it seemed like a really weird time to do that, says executive director Daniel Nevers. We will reopen sometime. Were watching the [COVID] numbers, and in the meantime are proceeding with our exhibition schedule, some of which were going to share online as well as create original digital content like artist interviews and digital publications. The just-installed exhibition Experiments in the Fieldfeatures art about the intersection of climate science and personal and cultural identities, and will be available to extremely small groups of people (think two, wearing masks) to physically tour by appointment.

The gallery is lettings its arts fellows transform the interior into a constantly evolving creative lab that might feature different material depending on the week you visit (by appointment only, of course). This show, titled Residency Projects in Flux, will last through September and features the works of print artist Jonathan Herrera Soto, who explores collective memory and historical instances of state-sponsored violence, photographer and book artist Sara Press, whose fascinations include dog fighting, feral children, and our co-evolution with snakes, and many others.

Shotgun Players thought about canceling their 2020 season but instead have gone all-in on livestreamed and prerecorded shows on a pay-what-you-can basis ranging from free to $40. Playing now is The Niceties, a show about a black student and a white professor debating slavery, truth, and the American Revolution. (Tickets available here: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/theniceties) Up next in early August is Quack, about a doctor who runs a popular TV show for women who encounters a savage media take-down. (Tickets here: https://tinyurl.com/shotgunquack)

Shunning the Zoom craze, Aurora has decided to embrace the format of an old-fashioned audio drama. Were known for being intimate the audience is only four-rows deep all the way around three sides of the stage. Youre very close to the actors, and we bring in some of the best actors in the Bay Area to do nuanced, high-quality acting with a real emphasis on language, says artistic director Josh Costello. Trying to replicate that in Zoom didnt feel right, but an audio drama has a sense of intimacy, because its a voice in your ear. The play, which will be released on an undisclosed platform in October, is about three neighbors who all live in a Berkeley triplex due to an extended shelter in place, says Costello. And ultimately its about how people deal with a shifting world and how we move forward as a community at a time when the existing structures and systems are no longer serving us.

The organizers of the annual Juneteenth Festival in Berkeley do not have plans for an alternative event at this point.

Freight & Salvage is exploring different options for its next traditional-music fest, which will take place likely online in 2021, but in the meantime will provide free music lessons to all middle schoolers in the Berkeley Unified School District in the fall. It also has developed a robust schedule of online music classes for adults, such as this one about jug bands. The cool thing right now is were not limited by classroom size or geography, says executive director Sharon Dolan. So our enrollment is higher than it would be for some classes, and we have teachers from around the country.

The new shape of the kite festival is thousands of kitemaking kits that people are picking up for free at our solar-powered kite shop on wheels at the Berkeley Marina, says festival founder Tom McAlister. People can grab them on weekends, weather permitting, and assemble them at home. We really believe that now more than ever we should be encouraging families to get outdoors, safely, in small groups, while social distancing, and enjoy the universal wind, he says.

The delightful melding of sweet treats and sidewalk art is losing its street-fair component. Were going to have people do artwork at their own homes and sidewalks and send pictures to us, and well upload it virtually, says organizer Lisa Bullwinkel. And instead of having people buy chocolate tickets and walk around to stores and eat chocolate, were just going to get prizes and gift certificates from the merchants for chocolate items that well distribute as prizes for the artwork after its judged on the website.

Theater artist Bruce Bierman received an individual-artist grant to produce the first West Coast adaptation of Sholem Aschs controversial 1906 Yiddish drama, God of Vengeance. I served as the Yiddish dance dramaturg for the Tony-Award winning play, Indecent, at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Washington, D.C.s Arena Stage last year, Bierman says. Paula Vogels play Indecent recounts the turbulent history of the play God of Vengeancewhen it first came to America in 1922 and was shut down for obscenity and the actors thrown into the slammer. Yep. First lesbian-love relationship ever seen on Broadway.

Jazz performer Faye Carol is putting together a yet-to-be-announced group of renowned musicians for a virtual concert. Im developing a suite of music around social-justice themes arranged for an all-star sextet that will premiere in December in an online livestream, she says. The sextet will feature collaborations with some amazing musicians and name artists in the jazz world. ThisYouTube video, she says, will be emblematic of what shell be doing this year.

Paulina Berczynski says shell be using my individual-art grant to continue work on an ongoing project making story quilts with unhoused individuals and communities through my collaboration Feral Fabric (with artist Amanda Walters). Theyre inviting housed Berkeley community members to help finish the quilts, if youre interested check out their website.

Lena Wolff and her graphic-design collaborator Lexi Visco are making at least 20,000 posters to promote voting that they plan to ship across the country and put on billboards prior to the November election. We see the project as a timely public-service announcement and critical public-art campaign, with the goal of boosting enthusiasm around voter engagement ahead of the most significant election of our lifetime, Wolff says.

Our main goal this upcoming year is bringing La Pea online, says fundraising and operations associate Dainiz Almazan. The center has three types of programs planned: free online classes about the organizations cultural art forms, social-justice dialogues about civic engagement and the arts, and a sponsorship program for artists to livestream content to make up for pandemic-related lost work. The center is also launching its first online program this week about immigrant detention and prison reform; find more info here.

The nonprofit book distributor plans on using its grant funds to help small-press publishers adapt to the challenges of COVID, says executive director Brent Cunningham. To that end weve started a series of SPD summer school workshops online. Were also planning to revive our reading series in online form for the fall, have added 10 new spots to our ad programs, and are featuring authors and books in our new social-media reading series, where we will be posting minute-long recordings from SPD authors of their work. And, as always, there will be new poetry and fiction books coming out in the fall, some by local authors.

The center is using its grant to sustain its weekly online dance classes for ages ranging from infants to seniors. The program includes traditional modern and ballet classes, alongside expanded styles and forms that serve more students, both locally and nationally, such as adult jazz with Antoine Hunter with American Sign Language, Big Movement in Small Spaces Contemporary for Teens with Julie Crothers, and Stepping/Body Percussion with Antwan Davis, says executive director Rebecca Johnson. Its also producing the work of local dance choreographers online and will have a virtual Queering Dance Festival in mid-September that highlights the artistic work and issues on the minds of the queer, trans and gender-nonconforming dance community in the East Bay.

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Berkeley has put $580K behind the arts. The caveat: no one can congregate to enjoy them - Berkeleyside

Media Molecules Dreams is finally ready for VR prime time. Does the ambitious creation platform hold up? Find out in our Dreams PSVR review!

Whats nice about reviewing Dreams five months on from launch is how much its been demystified. Theres little need to critique the games audacious creation tools and sharing systems with the caveat they might never take off; this pudding already has enough proof. Seriously, just go and check out some of the highly-rendered puddings.

Its still tough, though, to wrap your head around the enormity of Dreams. How do you stamp a score on whats essentially a YouTube-style platform of interactive experiences? Its a trickier task still when you factor in VR.

Lets try not to complicate it too much, then; if you have any interest in VRs weirder, more experimental side (which, given the very nature of the platform, theres a good chance you do), you absolutely cannot miss Dreams, even with some significant reservations for the creation mode.

Dreams brings a welcome bit of DIY to the VR scene. It allows anyone to get out there and make the game theyve always wanted to see, pending their patience with the modest learning curve and their readiness to accept adapting their vision to the games fuzzy-paint aesthetic (which is customizable but never fully escapable). The tangible bit of all this is the tools themselves. On a flatscreen, Dreams intelligent UI, existing templates and logical progression got me up and running with some pretty basic game concepts in just a few sessions. You get pretty much the same suite of tools and tutorials in VR which, in practice, actually might be the most disappointing aspect of the Dreams VR experience.

Let me explain; VR creation apps are some of the best, most wholly unique experiences you can find in headsets. The intuition of 3D painting in apps like Tilt Brush has led to the creation of entirely new works of art and simple apps like Googles Blocks can also get you up and running in this field in no time.

In terms of pure functionality, Dreams offers everything those apps do and much, much more. This toolset has the power to make entire games with deep mechanics. Again, Media Molecule has more than proved this platform is capable of that.

But, rather than go back and overhaul the Dreams learning and building experience for native VR support as you might have expected it would the developer settled on an awkward halfway house. When you first boot up Dreams, some of the games most basic on-ramping instructions will only be shown on a virtual screen, with your controllers (either two Move controllers or the DualShock 4) represented as a floating creature known as an Imp. In normal VR, navigating using the Imp is simple, but trying to negotiate 3D space on a flat screen in these tutorials is beyond clunky. Then, when you head into the Workshop, where the bulk of the games tutorials rest, youll be greeted with this message.

Oh.

There are some additional videos to guide you through VR specific elements but, largely speaking, Dreams tutorials are not designed with the platform in mind, and thats a real shame. Yes, theyre fantastic for flat-screen creation, but VR support would have been best served starting from scratch with native guidance that properly communicates how much VR enhances the Dreams experience. Yes, you can still do everything you can do in the flat screen version and people already familiar with the tools will easily adapt, but this should be better at introducing new players to the weird and wonderful world of VR.

Dreams PSVR Review Indie vs Inspiration

Dreams has a strange sort of allure to it in that, many people want to see their favorite games and films paid tribute to within it but the real magic behind it is originality. VR puts an interesting spin on all that; if youve ever wanted to see what PT or Star Wars or Resident Evil or practically anything else might be like in VR, youll more than likely find it here. Heck, we could see a Halo VR tribute on PSVR in the future, which is a mind-blowing proposition. Media Molecule might scoff at the idea, but its built a dream (sorry) platform for VR in that sense. How branded content evolves against original ideas with the inclusion of VR will be fascinating to watch.

Problems also persist with the games control schemes. I had hoped that a switch to VR would make creation with the PlayStation Move controllers a much more palatable affair given the additional context of 3D space. And that is the case to some extent, but the Move controls are also plagued by the confusing button layout, which Media Molecule doesnt virtually replicate when youre making finger-tying shortcuts. Moving the camera around, too, is incredibly sensitive and begging for analog sticks to properly master. As such, the DualShock 4 surprisingly remains the best way to create in Dreams, but even then brushes up against the limited positional tracking.

But creation is only one part of the Dreams VR experience.

Ive already revisited one of the all-time scariest games, P.T., piloted an X-Wing, and admired that stunning Unreal Engine 5 demo inside my headset with Dreams. More importantly, Ive discovered some brilliantly-fleshed out original concepts too that have amazed, delighted and surprised. On the flip side, its had me nauseous, confused and often bewildered.

Its a messy little thing, but thats sort of the point.

Navigating Dreams hub of user-generated content in VR isnt so much a rollercoaster as an exhilarating and oddly amusing dash through a minefield. Theres strong curation from Media Molecule itself, but the real magic requires a risky dive into its ever-expanding pool of creations. Youll find a dizzying array of fantastic ideas varying in quality of execution, endless memes, hastily-abandoned prototypes and tacked-on VR support. Even Media Molecules own VR showcase, Inside The Box, wrestles with control schemes and ideas with only some success, and many of the existing non-VR creations that have enabled support are strangely scaled, breaking every rule in the book of VR design. If you thought Five Nights At Freddys VR was disturbing, wait until youve played a broken fan tribute with muffled screams recorded through a PlayStation camera.

Dreams PSVR Review Comfort

Dreams offers a wealth of comfort options that are all enabled by default and, more importantly, will let you filter out experiences not necessarily optimized for VR. The game will boot you to Cinema Mode when framerate suffers and Media Molecule offers plenty of comfort tips. That said, itll still be hard to spend entire sessions in the game without coming across intense content, but there are ratings in place to help guide you.

Theres plenty of comfort options to shield you from the worst offenders, of course, but it can only do so much. Every time you click on a new game, youre rolling the dice, but the reward is often worth the risk. In one play session I found Hard Reset, a moody, atmospheric 6DOF exploration game that, even if it wasnt built for VR exclusively, seemed to possess a powerful understanding of immersion.Bionic Revolution, meanwhile, promises a simple VR shooter that frankly plays better than some SteamVR shovelware.

This all sort of speaks for itself its a better review of the game than myself or anyone else could write up. You might have to shovel through a lot of misses to find the hits but, when you do, Dreams absolutely sings. And the chances are youll have a lot of fun wading through the former category anyway. On a platform thats still in need of a lot of content to sustain it, Dreams offers a hugely compelling hub of VR intrigue that youll want to return to time and again. Even if its creative elements arent as strong as newcomers might hope, this limitless playground is more than enough reason to dive in.

Its true, though, that the game does have certain technical constraints in VR, especially from what Ive played on a standard PS4. While theres no extra limits on the size of your creations, dynamic rendering can reduce them to a blur, for example, and the game will boot you to PSVRs Cinema Mode if it runs into framerate hitches. Still, its no secret that Dreams released at the tail end of a generation with a long roadmap ahead of it and, as exciting as it is in its current form, I cant help but wonder what the future holds on other systems, where VR support is likely to shine even brighter. Media Molecule is interested in a PC version and, of course, PS5 looms too.

Until then, we have an immensely promising foundation. A strong community is already cropping up around Dreams PSVR support; one thats free to experiment and tinker in ways that big-budget games might not be able. VR is often described as a wild west of game development, and in many ways Dreams is the epicenter of all of that.

Dreams creative mode might not integrate with PSVR as naturally as hoped, but its cemented position as a hub of invention makes it an easy recommendation. Paired with the platforms inherent comfort issues, its sprawling, untamed ecosystem can prove to be a minefield to navigate, but for every unwelcome rollercoaster ride (literally and figuratively), theres another wish waiting to be fulfilled or something genuinely original to discover. The only way to truly judge Dreams is by the strength of its creations and those already speak for themselves; if you want to embrace VRs experimental side, you shouldnt miss it.

Dreams is available now on PS4 for $39.99. The VR support comes as a free update. For more on how we arrived at this score, check out our review guidelines. What do you make of our Dreams PSVR review? Let us know in the comments below!

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Dreams PSVR Review: A Messy, Unmissable VR Playground In Need Of An Overhaul - UploadVR

Achieving immortality has long been humanitys holy grail. Ever since we first became aware of the fragility of our own existence, weve been looking for ways to cheat death and prolong our lives indefinitely. Although advancements in medicine have enabled us to significantly increase our lifespan, true immortality has remained out of reach. Achieving physical immortality may very well prove to be beyond our capabilities, but what about digital immortality?

A US startup called Nectome recently unveiled plans to help humanity achieve digital immortality by preserving the brain using a revolutionary new embalming technique and subsequently uploading it to the cloud. The process is called vitrifixation, or Aldehyde-Stabilised Cryopreservation. It involves replacing the blood flow in the brain with embalming chemicals that preserve its neuronal structure in microscopic detail, basically by turning it into frozen glass. You can think of what we do as a fancy form of embalming that preserves not just the outer details but the inner details, explains Robert McIntyre, a co-founder of Nectome.

There are a couple of caveats, though. The biggest one is that you cant actually survive the procedure. Furthermore, in order for it to work, it needs to be performed on a living brain. If the brain has been dead even for a short amount of time, it will become irreparably damaged and the procedure wont be successful. That means that it would essentially be a form of suicide, which would make it legal only in those US states that allow euthanasia, such as California. Another major downside is that Nectome still isnt even close to developing a method for reviving or uploading the preserved brain to the cloud.

However, this uncertainty didnt stop people from investing in the idea, with 25 people already having joined the waiting list by paying a $10,000, fully-refundable deposit. One of those people is Sam Altman, the chief executive of the successful startup accelerator Y Combinator, which recently welcomed Nectome into its fold. The company managed to raise more than $1 million in funding so far and was awarded two prizes by the Brain Preservation Foundation, as well as a large government grant to collaborate with MIT. However, the widespread public criticism that followed the waiting list announcement resulted in MIT cutting all ties with Nectome.

Nectome isnt the only company working on uploading our minds to a computer. In 2011, the Russian businessman and billionaire Dmitry Itskov founded the 2045 Initiative, an organisation that aims to help humanity achieve immortality by 2045. Within the next 30 years, I am going to make sure that we can all live forever, claims Itskov. The ultimate goal of my plan is to transfer someones personality into a completely new body.

The 2045 Initiative has laid out its plan in three stages. The first stage involves building a humanoid robot called the Avatar, and a cutting-edge brain-computer interface system. The second stage consists of building a life support system for the human brain, and linking it with the Avatar. The third and final stage involves creating an artificial brain that would hold the original individual consciousness.

So, can it actually be done? Is it really possible to upload a mind to a computer? The short answer is: yes, theoretically. All of the evidence seems to say in theory its possible its extremely difficult, but its possible, says neuroscientist Randal Koene, the scientific director of the 2045 Initiative. The human brain is an incredibly complex organ, consisting of about 86 billion neurons that constantly exchange information with one another. All of the connections between the neurons in a brain are called the connectome, and many scientists believe that this connectome actually holds the information that makes us who we are. And mapping it could potentially allow us to recreate a persons mind.

Our current assumption is that all brain activity is computable. If thats true and the brain does work like a computer, and if we could find a way to map that activity, scan the brain at the necessary level of detail, interpret the scan in a way that would allow us to reconstruct the brains neural network and create a faithful simulation, and if we had enough computing power to run such a simulation, then we should be able to recreate the human mind in a computer. Thats a lot of ifs, but until we know different, it remains in the realm of possibility. However, its a very remote possibility at this point. We are pitifully far away from mapping a human connectome, says Dr Ken Hayworth, a neuroscientist at the Janelia Research Campus in Virginia. To put it in perspective, to image a whole fly brain it is going to take us approximately one to two years. The idea of mapping a whole human brain with the existing technology that we have today is simply impossible.

The main problem is that there are so many things about the human brain we dont know yet. We dont know how the mind is created. We dont know what consciousness is or how to measure it, so even if we were able to create a simulation of the human brain, we wouldnt be able to determine whether that simulation really is conscious. We dont even know exactly which brain structures and biomolecules need to be preserved to recreate a persons memory or personality, or if its even possible.

Many scientists are certain it cant be done. You cannot code intuition; you cannot code aesthetic beauty; you cannot code love or hate, argues Dr Miguel Nicolelis, a neuroscientist at Duke University. There is no way you will ever see a human brain reduced to a digital medium. Its simply impossible to reduce that complexity to the kind of algorithmic process that you will have to have to do that.

The whole idea is also rife with ethical issues, and some experts are suggesting that Can we do it? isnt even the right question to ask. Instead, what we should be asking is Should we do it?. Lets say that weve successfully uploaded a human mind onto a computer. Does that mean that personal identity has also transferred along with memories and that this person is still the same? Or is it a new person with a different identity that just happens to share the same memories? What rights would this digital person have? And if you could create one copy of yourself, why wouldnt you be able to create multiple copies? In that case, which one of those copies would be the real you? And since you wouldnt have a physical body anymore and would essentially be reduced to a stream of data, who would that data belong to? Who would own you? How could you prevent major corporations from misusing your data?

Mind uploading is a fascinating concept, but were not sure yet whether its even possible. Our existing technology and our understanding of the human brain arent advanced enough to answer that question at this time. Even if uploading the human mind onto a computer eventually turns out to be impossible, the idea is still worth pursuing further, because the technology Nectome and others are working on could have many other useful applications. For example, it could facilitate brain banking for future research into health and disease states, help us discover new brain disorder drugs, or enhance our basic neuroscience circuit mapping.

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In a future of mind uploading, will you still be you, and ...

While many tech moguls dream of changing the way we live with new smart devices or social media apps, one Russian internet millionaire is trying to change nothing less than our destiny, by making it possible to upload a human brain to a computer, reports Tristan Quinn.

"Within the next 30 years," promises Dmitry Itskov, "I am going to make sure that we can all live forever."

It sounds preposterous, but there is no doubting the seriousness of this softly spoken 35-year-old, who says he left the business world to devote himself to something more useful to humanity. "I'm 100% confident it will happen. Otherwise I wouldn't have started it," he says.

It is a breathtaking ambition, but could it actually be done? Itskov doesn't have too much time to find out.

"If there is no immortality technology, I'll be dead in the next 35 years," he laments. Death is inevitable - currently at least - because as we get older the cells that make up our bodies lose their ability to repair themselves, making us vulnerable to cardiovascular disease and other age-related conditions that kill about two-thirds of us.

So Itskov is putting a slice of his fortune in to a bold plan he has devised to bypass ageing. He wants to use cutting-edge science to unlock the secrets of the human brain and then upload an individual's mind to a computer, freeing them from the biological constraints of the body.

"The ultimate goal of my plan is to transfer someone's personality into a completely new body," he says.

Itskov's interest in making the impossible possible began as a child in the Soviet Union in the 1980s. "My biggest dream was to be a cosmonaut, to fly in to outer space," he says. One science fiction novel made a lasting impression: "The hero took some immortality pill and he ended up flying the orbit of Earth. I remember myself questioning what I was going to do if I'm immortal."

But does his plan to allow us all to upload our minds to computers amount to anything more than sci-fi? The scientific director of Itskov's 2045 Initiative, Dr Randal Koene - a neuroscientist who worked as a research professor at Boston University's Center for Memory and Brain - laughs off any suggestion Itskov might have lost touch with reality.

"All of the evidence seems to say in theory it's possible - it's extremely difficult, but it's possible," he says. "So then you could say someone like that is visionary, but not mad because that implies you're thinking of something that's just impossible, and that's not the case."

The theoretical possibility Randal refers to is rooted in questions about how our brains work that neuroscience has yet to answer. Our brains are made up of about 86 billion neurons, connected cells that send information to each other by firing electrical charges that propagate through this organ in our skulls like waves.

But exactly how the brain generates our mind is a mystery like no other in science, according to the neurobiologist Prof Rafael Yuste of Columbia University. "The challenge is precisely how to go from a physical substrate of cells that are connected inside this organ, to our mental world, our thoughts, our memories, our feelings," he says.

Find out more

Horizon: The Immortalist, produced and directed by Tristan Quinn, will be shown on BBC 2 at 20:00 on Wednesday 16 March 2016 - viewers in the UK can catch up later on the BBC iPlayer

To try to unlock its workings, many neuroscientists approach the brain as if it were a computer. In this analogy the brain turns inputs, sensory data, into outputs, our behaviour, through computations. This is where the theoretical argument for mind uploading starts. If this process could be mapped, the brain could perhaps be copied in a computer, along with the individual mind it gives rise to.

That's the view of Dr Ken Hayworth, a neuroscientist who maps slivers of mouse brain at the Janelia Research Campus in Virginia by day, and by night grapples with the problem of how to upload his mind. Ken believes mapping the connectome - the complex connections of all the neurons in a brain - holds the key, because he believes it encodes all the information that makes us who we are, though this is not proven. "In the same sense that my computer is really just the ones and zeros on my hard drive, and I don't care what happens as long as those ones and zeros make it to the next computer it should be the same thing with me," he says, "I don't care if my connectome is implemented in this physical body or a computer simulation controlling a robotic body."

But Ken is a realist. "We are pitifully far away from mapping a human connectome," he acknowledges. "To put it in perspective, to image a whole fly brain it is going to take us approximately one to two years. The idea of mapping a whole human brain with the existing technology that we have today is simply impossible." And there's another theoretical challenge. Even if we could create the wiring diagram of a human brain, mind uploading would also most likely require reading the constant activity of all its neurons too.

Here Itskov might get some unexpected help, according to Yuste - who helped bring about the world's biggest neuroscience research project, the Brain Initiative. As part of this $6bn American programme aimed at solving the mysteries of brain disorders like Alzheimer's, he is hoping to map the continual interaction of neurons - the patterns of firing - in the brain over time, "We want to measure every spike from all the neurons at once simultaneously. Many people said it's just impossible."

It is an approach that does not rely on mapping the connectome first. In research yet to be published, Yuste has for the first time imaged over time the hypnotic electrical flashes that make up the activity of nearly all the neurons - up to several thousand - in one of the simplest nervous systems in evolution, a tiny invertebrate called a hydra. "It was very exciting," he says. But "today we just cannot tell you what these patterns mean. So it's a bit like listening in on a conversation in a foreign language that you don't understand."

Within 15 years Yuste hopes to map - and interpret - the activity of all the neurons in a mouse cortex. But the ultimate aim is to read the activity of the human brain.

"If the brain were a digital computer, if you wanted to upload the mind you need to be able to decipher it or download it first. So I think the Brain Initiative is a step that is necessary for this uploading to happen."

But Itskov is far from home and dry. At Duke University, one leading neuroscientist argues that the brain's dynamic complexity - from which the human condition emerges - cannot be replicated. "You cannot code intuition; you cannot code aesthetic beauty; you cannot code love or hate," says Dr Miguel Nicolelis, who is developing a mind-controlled exoskeleton aimed at helping the paralysed walk. "There is no way you will ever see a human brain reduced to a digital medium. It's simply impossible to reduce that complexity to the kind of algorithmic process that you will have to have to do that."

Yuste is also very far from certain the brain works like a computer and could ever be copied in a machine. But because neuroscience cannot yet explain how exactly the brain gives rise to us and prove that mind uploading is impossible, he believes society should start considering what the consequences might be if Itskov succeeded in his ambition.

"The pathway that leads with the new neural technologies to our understanding of the brain is the same pathway that could lead, theoretically, to the possibility of mind uploading," says Yuste. "Scientists that are involved in these methods have the responsibility to think ahead."

Mind uploading would usher in a world fraught with risks.

"If you could replicate the mind and upload it into a different material, you can in principle clone minds," says Yuste. "These are complicated issues because they deal with the core of defining what is a person."

Itskov is more sanguine: "I will answer you to the question of ethics by the opinion which was given to me by his holiness the Dalai Llama when I visited him in 2013. His point was that you can do everything if your motivation is to help people."

But this assurance is not enough for Yuste, who sits on the Brain Initiative's ethics panel: "I would put mind uploading in the list of the topics that should be very carefully discussed and thought through."

Itskov is already planning his endless life. "For the next few centuries I envision having multiple bodies, one somewhere in space, another hologram-like, my consciousness just moving from one to another."

It is estimated that 107 billion people have died before us. As our understanding of the brain advances in the decades ahead it will become clear whether Itskov is really the momentous visionary he claims to be, or merely the latest dreamer of impossible dreams.

Tristan Quinn produced and directed Horizon: The Immortalist, which will be shown on BBC 2 Wednesday at 20:00 on 16 March 2016 - viewers in the UK can catch up later on the BBC iPlayer

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The immortalist: Uploading the mind to a computer - BBC News

NEW YORK By 2045, humans will achieve digital immortality by uploading their minds to computers or at least that's what some futurists believe. This notion formed the basis for the Global Future 2045 International Congress, a futuristic conference held here June 15-16.

The conference, which is the brainchild of Russian multimillionaire Dmitry Itskov, fell somewhere between hardcore science and science fiction. It featured a diverse cast of speakers, from scientific luminaries like Ray Kurzweil, Peter Diamandis and Marvin Minsky, to Swamis and other spiritual leaders.

In the year 2045

Kurzweil an inventor, futurist and now director of engineering at Google predicts that by 2045, technology will have surpassed human brainpower to create a kind of superintelligence an event known as the singularity. Other scientists have said that robots will overtake humans by 2100. [Super-Intelligent Machines: 7 Robotic Futures]

According to Moore's law, computing power doubles approximately every two years. Several technologies are undergoing similar exponential advances, from genetic sequencing to 3D printing, Kurzweil told conference attendees. He illustrated the point with a series of graphs showing the inexorable upward climb of various technologies.

By 2045, "based on conservative estimates of the amount of computation you need to functionally simulate a human brain, we'll be able to expand the scope of our intelligence a billion-fold," Kurzweil said.

Itskov and other so-called "transhumanists" interpret this impending singularity as digital immortality. Specifically, they believe that in a few decades, humans will be able to upload their minds to a computer, transcending the need for a biological body. The idea sounds like sci-fi, and it is at least for now. The reality, however, is that neural engineering is making significant strides toward modeling the brain and developing technologies to restore or replace some of its biological functions.

Brain prostheses

Substantial achievements have been made in the field of brain-computer interfaces, or BCIs (also called brain-machine interfaces). The cochlear implant in which the brain's cochlear nerve is electronically stimulated to restore a sense of sound to someone who is hard of hearing was the first true BCI. Many groups are now developing BCIs to restore motor skills, following damage to the nervous system from a stroke or spinal cord injury.

Jos Carmena and Michel Maharbiz, electrical engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, are working to develop state-of-the-art motor BCIs. These devices consist of pill-size electrode arrays that record neural signals from the brain's motor areas, which are then decoded by a computer and used to control a computer cursor or prosthetic limb (such as a robotic arm). Carmena and Maharbiz spoke of the challenge of making a BCI that works stably over time and does not require being tethered to wires.

Theodore Berger, a neural engineer at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, is taking BCIs to a new level by developing a memory prosthesis. Berger aims to replace part of the brain's hippocampus, the region that converts short-term memories into long-term ones, with a BCI. The device records the electrical activity that encodes a simple short-term memory (such as pushing a button) and converts it to a digital signal. That signal is passed into a computer where it is mathematically transformed and then fed back into the brain, where it gets sealed in as a long-term memory. He has successfully tested the device in rats and monkeys, and is now working with human patients. [Bionic Humans: Top 10 Technologies]

Mind uploading

The conference took a surreal turn when Martine Rothblatt a lawyer, author and entrepreneur, and CEO of biotech company United Therapeutics Corp. took the stage. Even the title of Rothblatt's talk was provocative: "The Purpose of Biotechnology is the End of Death."

Rothblatt introduced the concept of "mindclones" digital versions of humans that can live forever. She described how the mind clones are created from a "mindfile," a sort of online repository of our personalities, which she argued humans already have (in the form of Facebook, for example). This mindfile would be run on "mindware," a kind of software for consciousness. "The first company that develops mindware will have [as much success as] a thousand Googles," Rothblatt said.

But would such a mindclone be alive? Rothblatt thinks so. She cited one definition of life as a self-replicating code that maintains itself against disorder. Some critics have shunned what Rothblatt called "spooky Cartesian dualism," arguing that the mind must be embedded in biology. On the contrary, software and hardware are as good as wet ware, or biological materials, she argued.

Rothblatt went on to discuss the implications of creating mindclones. Continuity of the self is one issue, because your persona would no longer inhabit just a biological body. Then, there are mind-clone civil rights, which would be the "cause clbre" for the 21st century, Rothblatt said. Even mindclone procreation and reanimation after death were mentioned.

The quantum world

In parallel with the talk of brain technologies and mind-uploading, much was said about the nature of consciousness in the universe. Physicist Roger Penrose of the University of Oxford and others disagree with the interpretation of the brain as a mere computer. Penrose argued that consciousness is a quantum mechanical phenomenon arising from the fabric of the universe. Those of the "Penrose school" think uploading the brain would have to involve quantum computers a development unlikely to happen by 2045.

But Itskov thinks otherwise. The 32-year-old president of the Global Future 2045 Congress is dead set on living forever.

Editor's Note: This article was updated on June 19, 2013, to correct the dates of the Global Future 2045 International Congress (it was held June 15-16, not June 14-15, as previously stated.)

Follow Tanya Lewis on Twitterand Google+.Follow us @livescience, Facebook& Google+. Original article onLive Science .

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The Singularity Is Near: Mind Uploading by 2045? | Live ...

This week, Jenae Cohn, an academic-technology specialist for the program in writing and rhetoric at Stanford University, examines the challenges of technology and active learning.

Making effective use of technology for your in-person students: Pretty much all of the Hybrid (or HyFlex, or whatever you call it!) discussion seems to imply that in-person students will need to bring technology to log in to Zoom to interact with other students, writes Janet Samuels, a clinical professor in the School of Accountancy at Arizona State University. However, our undergrads are not required to have laptops or tablets, and many of my students come from a socioeconomic background where acquiring a laptop would be a burden on them.

Do you have suggestions for engaging students in a hybrid classroom if the in-person students dont log in to Zoom or have access to technology? How can I effectively engage the students to work on accounting problems, reviewing financial statements with each other, etc., in this situation? Additionally, if in-person students do bring in laptops and work on Zoom with other students, wont the computer feedback from multiple laptops near each other, and noise from 15 students in the classroom working with 25 remote students, be overwhelming?

My second question is about suggestions Ive seen to have in-person students monitor chat or Zoom for questions from remote students. Isnt this distracting for that in-person student? I want them focusing on what we are doing in class and not monitoring chat or responding to chat messages from remote students.

Jenae Cohns response: I would definitely encourage this instructor to leverage mobile learning more with her students. Even if students are not bringing in a laptop or tablet, they most likely have a smartphone on them. (According to Educause data, the vast majority of students own mobile phones.) So, given widespread mobile adoption, students can use the Zoom app on their phones to connect with classmates who may be remote. If your students dont have smartphones, they can also use the dial in feature on Zoom (this is something a lot of folks forget about!) to just connect over the phone rather than through the internet. There would need to be some clear messaging around who gets to mute when, though I would encourage remote students to largely just use the text chat rather than trying to engage with microphones.

To this readers point, feedback is going to be an issue, so when I suggested that students partner up with someone on Zoom, I really meant that they would do that partnering work via text chat rather than through live dialogue. I think the logistics of trying to manage multiple microphones in one space for small-group conversations would probably get noisy and complicated otherwise. This would also take more work on the instructors part, but if you paired up remote and in-person students, you could also create a shared, collaborative space like a Google Doc or an Etherpad shared document (i.e., an open-source alternative to Google Docs) for students to write in together in real time.

In terms of working on statements and reviewing work with one another, you might want to post course content in a place thats mobile-friendly. So, again, if students dont have laptops, consider posting these materials to a learning-management system, perhaps not as a PDF file, but as a text-based file in the LMSs Pages section, so that everyone can see the text clearly. If you must have paper handouts, you could also take pictures of the handouts on your phone and upload those files to your remote students, though bear in mind that pictures from mobile phones are not accessible for students who need to use text-to-speech applications or screen readers.

In terms of having in-person students monitoring the chat for remote students, I would encourage instructors to think about imagining the chat less as a place of monitoring and more as a place of interaction. I agree that no one student should be solely responsible for being the information relay to the instructor. Rather, an instructor could design activities that invite everyone to engage in the chat at key moments. As an instructor then, you can also have the chat stream open so that you can see the questions or responses coming in. You can also leverage the chat in Zoom to send participants to note-taking spaces, like a Google Doc, where everyone can see notes or materials from the class. Google Docs is also a really mobile-friendly app, so that could also be helpful in this situation. In other words, I would design activities where there isnt really a ton of room for students to need to divide their attention. Rather, keep lecture based materials short in a hybrid format, and try to make interactive moments collective rather than divided.

How to incorporate active learning in big classes: One thing I keep on seeing in this area is the unspoken assumption that the class size is perhaps 25-35 or so," writes Henry Schaffer, a professor emeritus in the department of biological sciences at North Carolina State University. "So many of the activities, e.g., "ask a student in class to pair up with a remote student through a Zoom chat room" how would that work with 70 students present and another 140 online? Seventy chat rooms followed by 70 summarizations to the class? I know that many colleges cap class size at about 35, but large ones, especially public ones, often have classes at 200+.

Cohns response: This is a good point, and I agree that doing pair share activities, with reporting to the full group, is not really feasible with a class of 200. In that case, I would lean less on Zoom for large classes and more on participation tools that can scale better to having large groups share ideas. For example, in a large class, you might ask students to respond to a real-time poll. After students see responses to the poll, individual students can write down a follow-up reflection or response based on what they learned or gleaned from their peers. That might not be as much of a dialogue, but itll still be interactive. Another option would be to divide students up in advance (perhaps alphabetically?) and to give each of those alphabetic working groups access to a shared workspace in the learning-management system, a shared Google Drive or Box folder, or another shared note-taking space. That might be a space where small clusters of groups from a large class are invited to share notes and documents together, including, perhaps a real-time notes document that can be kept during the live class session itself. That would require a bit of organization up front, but could have some payoff in terms of building presence within a large lecture class.

Last week a reader asked how to help students who attend class remotely hear what students in the classroom are saying. This is a common challenge when the classroom has only one microphone, which is usually positioned near the instructor.

Several people wrote in to suggest a low-tech solution: the professor should simply repeat the question. I asked Cohn about that. Heres what she said:

Im all for simple answers, and there may be moments where simply repeating a point out loud very well could do the trick! In the context of a simple question-and-answer session, this might especially be the case. Bear in mind, however, that some students might not be willing to ask for you to repeat what a peer said, because they may feel embarrassed by needing to ask for repeated information. So, as an instructor, if youre relying upon repeating what in-person students say to online students, you might be guessing at what needs to be repeated, which would not only slow things down, but also focus your judgment, as the instructor, on what needs to be centered from peers in the conversation.

My advice from the first newsletter here will also help in this situation: if you design as much of your class online as possible, so that peers are largely communicating with one another via text chat, or within an online space that everyone can access, the experience is as close to equal as possible, and no student has to be in the position of feeling like theyre asking for anything additional. When online students have to go out of their way to ask for things that in-person students are experiencing, it might also amplify the feeling that will very likely already exist, that the online experience is less valuable than the in-person one. The more that instructors can design classes to make the two experiences as similar as possible, the better.

One other note here is that if we rely upon the instructors repeating what other students say, that does not necessarily solve the problem of students needing to talk to one another and engage in sustained dialogue as peer groups. So, some of the recommendations offered from last week are also meant to help facilitate better peer-to-peer exchange, rather than simply instructor-to-peer exchange.

Last week I shared a request from a reader who is about to embark on hybrid teaching this fall and is seeking academic articles on its delivery and effectiveness. Here are some of your responses:

Cub Kahn, hybrid coordinator for the Center for Teaching and Learning at Oregon State University Ecampus, encouraged people to use the university's searchable Online Learning Efficacy Research Database, which includes academic studies on learning outcomes of hybrid and online education compared with face-to-face education. The database houses more than 100 peer-reviewed studies about blended and hybrid learning.

Kahn also points readers to The Blended Course Design Workbook by Kathryn E. Linder, the former research director of eCampus and now executive director for program development at Kansas State University Global Campus. This is a great resource for faculty new to designing and teaching hybrid courses, writes Kahn. Its a comprehensive guide to evidence-based hybrid pedagogy, technology, and design.

Beth Thornburg, a law professor at Southern Methodist Universitys Dedman School of Law, recommends Adaptable Design: Building Multi-Modal Content for Flexible Law School Teaching, by Agnieszka McPeak (2020). It has a helpful framing device even for courses currently scheduled to be taught in person, planning active-learning tools that can be done asynchronously will make a transition to an online course easier should that happen, Thornburg writes.

Here are two articles recommended by Jenae Cohn:

Challenges of Student Equity and Engagement in a HyFlex Course, by Sebastian Binnewies and Zhe Wang (2019)

Learning style, sense of community and learning effectiveness in hybrid learning environment, by Bryan Chen and Hua-Huei Chiou (2014)

Thanks for reading Teaching. If you have suggestions or ideas, please feel free to email us at, beckie.supiano@chronicle.com or beth.mcmurtrie@chronicle.com.

Beth

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Teaching: Your Questions About Hybrid Teaching Answered - The Chronicle of Higher Education

It sometimes feels like weve forgotten something about the magic of room-scale VR. The need to traverse bigger worlds has given way to the fine, if unconvincing means of smooth movement, but theres real power in putting your own two feet in front of you.

Eye Of The Temple doesnt forget that. In fact, it embraces it with open arms.

This long-in-development PC VR title from Danish solo developer Rune Skovbo Johansen finally has a free demo to try. And, in a strange way, its Indiana Jones antics are both a nostalgic trip back to the early days of PC VR and a potent reminder of the physicality that can really root you in the experience. Check out some of our demo gameplay below.

First things first: you need at least a 2mx2m meter space to play Eye Of The Temple. Even then, a little extra wouldnt hurt to give you peace of mind when stepping across chasms. Inevitably, this will place a strict limitation on the number of people that can actually play the game, but the trade-off is necessary. You sheepishly side-step between moving platforms, flaming torch in one hand, whip in the other. Across the campaign, youll need to negotiate various obstacles as you progress through each environment, with evolving challenges and ideas (hopefully) keeping things fresh.

Its an idea weve seen elsewhere, like in the excellent Tower series, but four years of development has left Eye Of The Temple polished and tactile. Some platforms, for example, are actually rolling blocks that youll need to walk backwards on to avoid falling off. Its a brilliantly clever idea to keep you moving, making great use of the space around you.

I havent played the whole demo but even from about 30 minutes of playtime I was introduced to a steady flow of new ideas, like stone pillars obstructing moving platforms that Id need to dodge. Theres also some light combat with the whip, which is a tough thing to master. I suppose with some authenticity in mind, it never quite does what you want it to do, though I spent longer that Id like to admit trying to get it to wrap around levers.

At times I inevitably found myself getting tangled in wires and, naturally, longing for the freedom of Oculus Quest. Unofficial streaming from Virtual Desktop is obviously one way to go, if you can, but Im holding out hope for a native port too. Johansen says he will investigate a port after full release, but doesnt have any concrete plans at this time.

A throwback to those more limited days of VR accessibility, then, but in all the right ways. Eye Of The Temple can be dizzying and unnerving, but if youve got the space you should absolutely check the demo out. You can head over to Eye Of The Temples official Discord to request access to the demo via Steam.

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Eye of the Temple Reminds You How Amazing Room-Scale VR Is, Demo Available Now - UploadVR

No, quarantine isnt making you lose your mind. (Well, maybe; but not about this.) The fonts on Instagram Stories have officially changed and now feature new text styles like italics, outlines, and more.

According to Instagrams official Twitter, the app began rolling out the new font feature on April 29, 2020. As it does with most new features, IG rolled it out as a test run by only granting access to a small amount of users. On August 3, 2020, Instagram came back with a follow-up tweet, announcing that new IG Stories fonts would now be available to all.

Related: 300 Instagram Captions For When You Dont Know What to Write

These four new text styles are in addition to the original styles were all accustomed to and each feature their own personalized backgrounds. So, if you use the Garamond-esque typeface option and decide to add a background, it automatically adds a rectangular box with sharp edges. If you choose the Comic Sans-esque optionwhichBustle is calling Comic Sans Lite, for nowyour font background will be a sort of splashy, brushstroke-esque background.

While many IG users are excited to have more personable font options than the few standard serifs and sans serifs we had before, there are still a lot of users confused about how to access these new fonts.For everything you need to know about how to use the new Instagram Stories fonts, keep reading!

Yes! Youve seen and heard correctly: There are new text styles now available to all users on Instagram as of August 3, 2020. These new styles include Comic Sans, what looks to be a Garamond type font, an italicized serif, and outlines.

Instagram still has not yet released the names of each of the fonts, leaving many people to wonder and simply choose font styles for their Stories based on aesthetic preferences.

Related:11 Instagram Accounts To Figure Out Your Enneagram

The new fonts on Instagram Stories are where they always have been! To use them, simply take a picture or upload a picture to your Story, then tap the Aa icon all the way in the top right of the screen. Youll then be able to type and swipe between nine different text style options.

As always, you can still choose alignments, colors, and backgrounds at the top of the screen, as well as the font size by toggling the bar on the left side of the screen. When youre satisfied with your typing, tap Done in the top right corner and youll see your text appear on your Story.

Of course, you may not be able to access the new fonts if your Instagram app is not up to date.

Not seeing the new fonts automatically pop on your Instagram Stories? No worries! To access the new rollout of fonts, you have to make sure that your Instagram app is up to date with the latest version.

So, you want to access the new fonts on Instagram Stories but arent sure if your app is the latest version. How can you tell if your app is up to date?

If you have Apple iOs, go into the App Store and tap your picture icon in the top right of the screen. UnderAvailable Updates, you should see a list of apps that are ready to be updated. If Instagram is listed there, then once its fully updated, youll be able to access the new fonts. Tap update to start the update process, then when the icon goes away, the update is over and you can launch the app like you normally would.

Celebrity interviews, recipes and health tips delivered to yourinbox.

If you have Android, head over to the Play Store Home screen and tap the Menu icon in the upper left. Tap My apps & games. Then, you should see Instagram. Tap the Instagram app to update. Once the update is over, you should be able to enjoy the new font styles on Instagram Stories like the rest of us!

Next up, how to use Instagram like an influencer.

Link:

New Font Styles on Instagram Stories: How to Find and Use the New Font Styles - Parade

Photo Source: Courtesy ITV

When it comes to searching for new music talent, X marks the spot. ITVs long-running British reality music competition show The X Factor takes contestants through high-stakes auditions, performance boot camps, eliminations, judge mentorships, and live performances until the public decides the winner(s)the recipients of a recording contract. While the show will be resting this year, plans are in motion for a reinvigorated version in 2021.

Over the course of the series, which began in 2004, undiscovered singers show off their vocal skills in front of a panel of judges (originally Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh, and Sharon Osbourne; most recently in 2018, Louis Tomlinson, Ayda Field, and Robbie Williams) and an audience to test talent and performance. In contrast to similar shows like American Idol, The X Factor has no age limit: kids as young as 12 have tried out (though the lower age limit has been bumped to 16), and groups of singers can apply. Those who move on to the next rounds learn choreography, sing for their life, and step up their game. Each judge is tasked with mentoring a category and through various performance and elimination rounds. Some of the biggest stars to emerge from the show include One Direction, Fifth Harmony, Little Mix, and Leona Lewis.

The X Factor was created by Simon Cowell, who has remained its executive producer. After the 15th Series in the U.K. and a three-season run of its American adaptation, two spinoffs of the showThe X Factor: Celebrity and The X-Factor: The Bandaired last year. On the next official season of the show, Cowell has said, Next year the main X Factor show will change again and weve got something very, very exciting, that I cant get into yet, but its a four-year plan.

While the show is currently on hiatus for the year, it was announced in April that The X-Factor has opened up its applications for next season. The auditions are taking place online via video submissions and in-person across cities in the U.K.

Singers can choose whether they want to audition in-person or via video submission, and if theyre trying out as a solo act or group. Those who wish to submit a video audition must upload a recent video of you performing and should have this prepared before filling out the application. If a group submits, all group members are present when completing the application.

All auditioners must be 16 years old or over by June 25, 2021, which is the current deadline for online applications. Anybody under 18 at the time of applying must have their parents/guardians permission before continuing.

Waiting for The X Factor to Return? Apply to These Reality Competition + Singing Gigs

While no information regarding the status of returning names has been announced, the last official seasons principal players were:

The names that made up Decembers The X Factor: The Band were:

Similar to its predecessor Pop Idol, The X Factor mines several cities in search of the worlds next legendary singers via open auditions. Even prior to COVID-19 restrictions, auditioners could submit their performances online and/or over texts. This means that there isnt ever one primary casting director or team of mainstay casting agents. For each season, casting is conducted by teams, with producers reaching out to local talent agencies to find prospective contestants.

For the American iteration of the show, both FreMantle Productions and Bizzly Blondes Entertainment ran casting calls for Teen Male Singers, 15-18 and Teen Female Singers, 15-18, and soloists and vocal groups, respectively.

Much like other talent competition shows, the preliminary auditions take place well before the judges ever see anything and potential contestants go through many rounds of callbacks. I had five auditions before I saw [the judges]...its a quite a grueling process, said finalist Mason Noise. I went to London, went into a room with some X Factor crew, then into another room and another with more, higher-up producers.

After passing a round or two of auditions with producers and members of the production team, wherein theyre judged based on sheer talent and/or the potential for making for entertaining TV, theyre then granted a golden ticket to sing before a more senior production member. Those who make the cut there on out are able to perform for the judges.

The auditions are open to anyone who can singyou can be 12, you can be 112, Cowell said. If youre a performer, this is gonna be a great opportunity for you. On this show, the contestants are gonna have to do the auditions in front of 3,000 or 4,000 people. If you can come out and nail it in front of 3,000 or 4,000 people, then youve got the makings of a star.

Stand out by being yourself: Be original, Cowell advised. Try not to copy what everybody else is doing. What I look for is what we havent seen or heard before. You know, you always want something different[and] dont be afraid to be what I would say out there. Stand out from the crowd. He also added: Dress differently, behave differently, dance differently.

Liam Payne of One Direction echoed the sentiment while reflecting on his first audition: Separate yourself from someone else, do something that makes you a little bit different, and put yourself out there.

Presenter Dermot OLeary, who has served as host for more than 10 seasons, said, The way people audition has changed a lot over the years. We used to get people saying Tell me who you want me to be, but these days people know who they are as an artist, theyre not copying other people and theyve probably got their own YouTube channel. I think X Factor is still relevant and still an incredible way for people to get their music out there.

Louisa Johnson, who was the shows winner in 2015, agrees: Theres always ways to make things different. Be yourself. Its really hard, you can get quite wrapped up in things, especially when theres so many people with so many opinions...But as long as youre staying true to yourself and doing what makes you happy, then I think you cant really go wrong. The only person that you really need to make happy is yourself at the end of the day.

Get creative about your song choices: The worst thing you can do is sing a song that everyone else is doing too, said OLeary. Think outside the box. Pick a song thats original and other people are unlikely to choose. The judges wont put you through if you bore them.The judges dont want to see a young guy doing an Ed Sheeran song, or a girl doing Adele. [They] wont be able to help comparing you with the original artist and you will come up short.

Raid your parents record collections for an old song that you can update. Some of the best auditions do that. Like Emily Middlemas...who chose Master Blaster by Stevie Wonder, which no one else did, so she stood out.

Dont let your nerves take control: Nerves are only natural and everyone will get them, says industry insider Max Millias, who has worked on the show behind-the-scenes. The first thing you can always do is make sure you look good. The better you look, the more confident you feel. Then you also need to make sure you keep a positive frame of mind. If you get any negative thoughts about what might go wrong, then just make sure they are quickly displaced from your mind. Probably the best way to deal with the nerves is to motivate yourself. Tell yourself that this audition is finally your chance to show people just how good you are and prove to the judges you have what it takes.

Dont give up: Jesse Campbell, who auditioned twice for the American version of The X Factor before ultimately getting far on NBCs The Voice, spoke of not being upset if you get rejected: I spent hundreds of dollars, I did my inner work, I did my vocal work, physical work in preparation for it. I stood out in the rain at two in the morning, in the cold, ate right, did everything that I knew to do, and my bestI believewas and always is good enough, as is yours. But just dont be attached to the outcome of anything. You aim high, you do your part, and then do your best and then let it go because if you are so attached to the outcome, then you never know...the universe may have something different for you. But how you relate to yourself while youre going through that process becomes the process. See the brighter side of things. Look for the positive in the negative. Reframe it, turn it into something good. Keep moving. Keep going to the next audition, to the next audition.

The audition process for The X Factor begins online, and those who wish to submit an application can do so here. Be sure to also stay plugged into the show via Instagram and Twitter for any and all audition updates!

Read more from the original source:

How to Get Cast on 'The X Factor' - Backstage

Ever heard the saying, Bigger is better?

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Well guess what?

Its not necessarily true!

In todays story, well meet a character whos anything but big. But when it comes to patience, focus and creativity shes huge!

Our story is called Naming the Tree. Versions of this tale come from parts of Africa. Our adaptation continues our 2020 summer series with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and features musical accompaniment by BSO tuba player Mike Roylance.

Voices in this episode include Gabriela Fernandez Coffey, Kevin Corbett, Jessica Rau, Jefferson Russell, Chris Tucci, Craig Wallace, Laura K. Welsh and Chloe Coleman. Kids, you can see Chloe in Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made on Disney+. And grown-ups, look for Chloe in Upload on Amazon, Big Little Lies on HBO, as well as the feature film, My Spy.

Coloring Page

ADULTS! PRINT THISso everyone can color while listening. Were also keeping an album so share your picture onFacebook,Twitter,Instagram, and tag it with #CircleRound. We'd love to see it! To access all the coloring pages for past episodes clickHERE.Our resident artist is Sabina Hahn and you can learn more about herHERE.

Things To Think About After Listening

Think about a time you felt strong - in body, or mind, or both.

Find a piece of paper and something to draw with, then create a picture that shows your experience. Once youre done, show it to a grown-up in your life, and tell them all about it. Then ask your grown-up to describe a time they felt strong.

Musical Spotlight: Tuba

Appearing first in the mid-1800s, the tuba is one of the newer instruments in the modern orchestra. Its also the lowest-pitched member of the brass family. Composer Eric Shimelonis chose the tuba to accompany this story because its deep, booming sound echoes the rich, low voice of Elephant - and suggests the slower, steadier pace of Tortoise!

Script:

NARRATOR: Long ago back when animals ruled the earth a great drought came to the land.

Not one drop of rain fell from the sky, so the ground grew scorched, baked and dusty and the long, tall grass shriveled, withered and wilted.

The great drought led to a great famine, and the animals roamed the plains, searching for something anything! to fill their bellies.

But they couldnt find a thing to eat.

Until...

ANIMAL 1: / ANIMAL 2: / ANIMAL 3: / ANIMAL 4: / ANIMAL 5: Wooooowwwwwww!

NARRATOR: Miraculously, sprouting up in the middle of the vast, sunburnt plains was a lofty, leafy tree, with a thick, gnarled trunk. The trees strong, sturdy branches were bursting with ripe, fragrant, juicy fruit all of them different colors of the rainbow!

As the animals gaped at the tree with watering mouths, Elephant used his strong, grey trunk to grasp one of the plump fruits. He gave the fruit a tug but it held fast to the branch.

ELEPHANT: Ahhhh just as I suspected!

NARRATOR: Elephant let go of the fruit and turned to his fellow animals.

ELEPHANT: My friends! Ive heard stories about this tree... Legend has it its a magic tree! And its rainbow-colored fruit will cling to its branches and never come off... unless we can say the trees name.

NARRATOR: The animals were intrigued.

ANIMAL 1: Okay

ANIMAL 2: So, whats the name of the tree, Elephant?

ANIMAL 3: Yes! Whats the name of the tree!?

ANIMAL 4: Tell us what it's called!

ANIMAL 5: Tell us the name!

ANIMAL 1: / ANIMAL 2: / ANIMAL 3: / ANIMAL 4: / ANIMAL 5: (ad-lib excited pleas to hear the trees name, to say the name and get fruit, how hungry they are, etc.)

NARRATOR: Elephant held up his trunk. The animals quieted down.

ELEPHANT: The truth is, my friends... I dont actually know the trees name! The only one who does know is the king of the beasts himself Lion! (beat) So... my question is which one of you will go and ask Lion the name of the tree?

NARRATOR: The animals exchanged a nervous glance. All of them knew that Lion lived far across the plains, over the hills, and deep within the jungle! The great creature rarely emerged from his den, and he was always grouchy, grumbly and grumpy.

ELEPHANT: (encouraging) Oh, come now, friends! Surely one of you can visit Lion and find out the name of the tree...? So that we can enjoy this succulent, sweet-smelling fruit...? (beat) Anyone? (getting discouraged/frustrated) Anyone?

TORTOISE: Ill do it, Elephant!

NARRATOR: The animals all stared at Tortoise.

TORTOISE: Ill go and ask Lion the name of the tree!

NARRATOR: Elephant knelt down, lowered his trunk, and gave Tortoises tiny head a gentle pat.

ELEPHANT: (almost condescending) Oh, Tortoise. I appreciate your offer. But look at you! Youre so small! So slow! By the time you return from Lions den, all of us will have wasted away from hunger!

NARRATOR: Elephant got back to his feet.

ELEPHANT: No. We want to send someone whos swift... and nimble! Someone like

NARRATOR: His eyes darted from animal to animal.

ELEPHANT: like Hare! (beat) Hare, why dont you go across the plains, over the hills and into the jungle to ask Lion the name of the tree?

NARRATOR: Hare wiggled her slender ears and twitched her whiskery nose.

HARE: (flattered, becoming more confident) Well I am swift and nimble! The swiftest and nimblest, in fact! (beat) You know what? Ill do it!

NARRATOR: So swift, nimble Hare jumped across the plains, hopped over the hills, and leaped through the jungle, all the way to Lions den.

HARE: (cheery, chirpy) Hi there, Lion! Do you have a minute?

NARRATOR: Unbeknownst to Hare, Lion was about to settle down for a nap. The great beast lifted his shaggy, golden head and rolled his big, amber eyes.

LION: (tired, grumpy) I suppose I have a minute - but thats all! (beat) (grudging) What is it, Hare?

HARE: Well, Lion It hasnt rained in ages, and the animals are very hungry. But we found the magic tree in the middle of the plains! The one that grows juicy, rainbow-colored fruits! So I wonder, could you please tell me the trees name...?

NARRATOR: Lion opened his mighty jaws and let out a yawn.

LION: (yawn) So you wish to know the name of the magic tree in the middle of the plains that grows juicy, rainbow-colored fruits...? (beat) The name of the tree is (slowly) UWUNGELEMA [uh-WOONG-uh-LAY-muh]. [note: the oo is like spoon or moon.]

HARE: (slowly repeating) Uwungelema? [uh-WOONG-uh-LAY-muh] [note: the oo is like spoon or moon.]

LION: Thats right! Say that name and you and the other animals can eat as many juicy, rainbow-colored fruits as you want. (beat) Now beat it, Hare. I have a cat nap to take.

NARRATOR: Hares heart and legs were racing as she scurried away from Lions den.

HARE: (as she runs, super-excited) Oh boy oh boy oh boy! Well be stuffing ourselves on juicy, rainbow-colored fruit in no time thanks to my swift, nimble feet! (beat) Lets see how fast these babies can go!

NARRATOR: Hare began sprinting faster...

HARE: Woo-hoo-hoo!

NARRATOR: ...and faster

HARE: Look at me!!!

NARRATOR: ...and soon she was going so fast that as she burst out of the jungle and headed toward the hills...

HARE: (gasp)

NARRATOR: ...her paw got snagged in a vine hanging from a baobab tree!

HARE: Oh no!

NARRATOR: Hare wriggled this way and that as she scrambled to untangle herself from the creeper.

HARE: (fighting to untangle) Oh, come on! Come on!

NARRATOR: And when she finally broke free

HARE: Whew!

NARRATOR: ...she sped back over the hills and across the plains at such a breakneck pace, her slender body looked like a blur.

When Hare returned to the magic tree, Elephant and the other animals leaned in with hopeful eyes and bated breath.

ELEPHANT: Well, Hare? Tell us! Whats the name of the tree?

NARRATOR: Hare grinned.

HARE: (proudly) Okay, everybody. The name of the tree is (realizing shes unable to remember)... is ummmm

NARRATOR: Hare wracked her brain, trying to remember what Lion told her. But her unexpected tango with the vine had knocked the trees name right out of her head!

HARE: The name is... uhhhh ummmm (beat) (defeated, sheepish) I forgot!!!

NARRATOR: The animals faces dropped. Elephant shrugged.

ELEPHANT: Thats okay, Hare, thats okay. Well just have to send someone else.

TORTOISE: Well...? What about me?

NARRATOR: Once again, all eyes turned to Tortoise.

TORTOISE: I told you, Elephant! Ill do it! Ill go ask Lion the name of the tree!

NARRATOR: Elephant shook his head.

ELEPHANT: Thats very sweet of you, Tortoise. But like I said, youre just too small and slow! And besides, after what happened with Hare, we need someone who will actually remember what Lion tells them... Someone who wont forget... Someone who (beat, a-ha moment) wait a minute!

NARRATOR: His eyes lit up.

ELEPHANT: Thats me! Elephants never forget!

NARRATOR: It was true! Elephant had an excellent memory.

So, with his wrinkly, grey tail swinging behind him, Elephant set off for Lions den, to find out the name of the magic tree.

NARRATOR: What do you think will happen next?

Will Elephant learn the trees name and remember it?

Well find out, after a quick break.

[theme music in]

NARRATOR: Welcome back to Circle Round. Im Rebecca Sheir. Today our story is called Naming the Tree.

NARRATOR: Before the break, during a great drought and famine, the animals found a magical tree that was actually bearing fruit!

But the animals couldnt pick the fruit until they said the name of the tree and the only one who knew the trees name was Lion, who lived across the plains, over the hills, and deep within the jungle.

First, Lion told the name to Hare, but the swift, nimble creature rushed away so quickly that she got caught in a vine! And the name vanished from her head!

So Elephant volunteered.

The massive creature tromped across the plains, tramped over the hills, and trundled through the jungle, all the way to Lions den.

Read more here:

'Naming The Tree' | Circle Round 103 | Circle Round - WBUR

I learned a hard lesson recently. It happened when a 3-year-old wet meadow and shrub area Id designed was accidentally mowed by a brush hog operator one afternoon in early July.

Tractor tires wreaked havoc on one-third acre of native warm-season grasses and sedges and flowering plants along the wetland edge. The brush hog chewed up about 40 young native shrubs, which looked like woody upstarts. (No mounds of mulch surrounded them.) The planting was almost three years old.

The operators explanation was simple and almost predictable: He saw a tall field, he had some time left after his primary mowing job on the same property. The operator thought hed do the owner a favor.

To his eye, he said, it looked like a bunch of weeds. No matter that to the birds, butterflies, bees, reptiles, and amphibians, it looked like a grocery store and a nursery for the next generation. That wasnt on his mind.

We could label the loss the result of incompetence, carelessness, a terrible mistake, or worse. Nothing could undo the damage, especially the years it had taken for the plants to mature.

Yet we all know that the tractor operator made a common assumption that earns him and thousands of others a paycheck: Tall vegetation is supposed to be mowed. It blocks peoples views. It triggers complaints about messiness. Mow it. Its always been that way.

But the mowers attitude may also be a result of a broader cultural problem, one that some in the horticulture world called plant blindness.

The phrase appeared for the first time in a 1998 guest editorial paper by science educators James Wandersee and Elisabeth Schussler. They defined plant blindness as the inability to see or notice the plants in ones own environment.

They observed multiple consequences from this bias, such as the inability to recognize the importance of plants in human affairs and natural processes, and the misguided, anthropocentric ranking of plants as inferior to animals, leading to the erroneous conclusion that they are unworthy of human consideration.

(Read more in their guest editorial in The American Biology Teacher Volume 61, Issue 2, available at online.ucpress.edu/abt.)

This perspective is nothing new in the 21st century, of course. It dates at least to the beginning of the 20th century when our recent ancestors abandoned farms in droves. Or, perhaps it dates from the more distant times when we no longer needed to be able to distinguish edible from poisonous plants or find fibers for homespun clothing or find medicine. We lost our need to see plants.

Unfortunately, our mental wiring may be part of the problem as well. Plants seem to be inanimate and easy to control. Wandersee observed that the primary problem might be due to the inherent constraints of [our] visual information processing systems. Animals are more noticeable. Were more likely to understand the consequences of animal encounters, both positive and negative.

This inability to see plants may have tragic future consequences, however.

Paradoxically, plants form the basis of most animal habitats and all life on earth, observed Wandersee and Schussler in 1999. More recently, Douglas Tallamy, author of Natures Best Hope and other works that alerts us to the insect apocalypse, summarized the profound role of plants in eight words: Plants, in essence, enable animals to eat sunlight, he says. Insects are the animals that are best at transferring energy from plants to other animals.

Can we afford to be plant-blind any longer?

Taking off the blinders

It would be nice to imagine the tractor operator, given the same encounter with a wet meadow, might pause and think: Thats a bird and pollinator habitat that doubles as wetland protection. Id better check with someone before I mow. This change of perspective is unlikely, however, without some new intentions on his part and a bit of education.

Here are a few ideas to help you and those you know overcome plant blindness.

First, check out this entertaining video essay by U.K.-based YouTuber Benedict Furness: bit.ly/plant-blindness.

For more fun, download an app called Picture This, available at picturethisai.com. Heres how it works: I was walking in a grassy field recently when I encountered an unusual plant. I snapped a picture with Picture This. The app, which is based on artificial intelligence, identified a green-fringed bog orchid in about two seconds. I have found it to be about 80 percent accurate, far more than other plant identification apps Ive tried.

If you enjoy crowd-sourced information, one of the most reliable and most popular sites is iNaturalist, available at inaturalist.org. Upload your photos and receive help from scientists, citizen-scientists, students of all ages, and the rest of us.

iNaturalist offers both plant and animal identification. It is a joint initiative by theCalifornia Academy of Sciencesand theNational Geographic Society.

If youre a Facebook user, the Plant Identification group (bit.ly/Facebook-plant-ID) helps with all sorts of plants, including houseplants and edibles.

If you want to know more about plant blindness, the Native Plant Conservation Campaign has more information at bit.ly/plant-blindness-page.

Above all, the next time you see a grassy meadow, chalk one up for pollinator and bird habitat. Make sure the mower stays in the shed.

Kathy Connolly is a landscape designer from Old Saybrook who writes and speaks about horticulture and ecology. Reach her through her website, speakingoflandscapes.com.

Continue reading here:

Green and Growing: Plant blindness, a mower, and one unfortunate afternoon - theday.com

A group of rising third-year law students at the University of Pennsylvania have teamed up with engineering students to create two tech-focused legal projects to be used by underserved communities navigating legal issues.

One project, a digital lockbox of sorts, will operate inside Broad Street Ministry (BSM) and be able to hold important documents like a birth certificate or medical records for housing insecure people. The other is a collaboration with Community Legal Services (CLS) on a form that would walk users through tricky tax law documents to see if in-person legal advice is needed.

The students work closely with Professor Cynthia Dahl, director of the Detkin Intellectual Property and Technology Legal Clinic, where she and students collaborate with startup founders on a variety of needs.

Zachary Furcolo and Maria Tartakovsky, both third-year law students with tech backgrounds, have spent the last academic year working on a guided interview project with CLS. The project is designed to help at-risk populations, like veterans or seniors, with property tax burdens.

In talking with CLS, we found out that people in these populations often come in when theyre about to get evicted, and CLS was looking for a way to get them enrolled before that happens, in a way that wouldnt force them to take off work and come in, Furcolo said. These forms and procedures can sometimes get a little complicated to fill out at home.

The tech behind the Property Tax Abatement Eligibility Survey aka the PhilaForm helps a user fill it out, asks questions and reminds them about documents they might need. It will also alert a user if theyre eligible for a number of tax programs. The tool itself is done, but the team is currently working with CLS and the engineering students who built the tool to vet it before rolling it out to the public.

But the group realizes theres work outside of creating the tool, Tartakovsky said. They also intend to target individuals or communities that could use the tool and promote it so that the public knows its available to them.

The group brought their project to the Iron Tech Invitational, a Georgetown University-based tech competition for the legal field. They didnt win, but it was a great experience to see that what the group thought was a niche area was actually being invested in by people across the country, Furcolo said.

For outreach purposes, the PhilaForm team identified property parcels that were likely to qualify for certain tax abatement programs and generated heat maps. (Courtesy image)

I do think AI in the legal space is looking pretty beneficial for lawyers, Tartakovsky said. Its important to make sure attorneys have access to relevant information, and the variables in place to help their clients. I think tech is proven to be prevalent in the legal space.

Another group of Penn students also created a project with Iron Tech standards in mind, although it didnt end up competing. Rising third year law student Matthew Copeland worked with a group of law and engineering students to develop a digital lockbox called Keep.id for BSM. Guests who use the nonprofits services could upload and have a place to store important documents so they wouldnt have to carry them around.

Copelands role involved learning data security law, which he said is ever-evolving in Pennsylvania. Currently, the project is being worked on by 13 independent contractors, all students or recent grads, from universities across the northeastern United States.

Having incorporated and secured an interest amongst our customers to beta test the product, were in the process just now of establishing a bank account for our organization and of setting up the nonprofit-focused (donations-focused) pages of the website, said the projects comms lead, Jackson Foltz.

Copeland said learning about the securities involved, like how the tech could be HIPAA-compliant, was difficult.

But its worth it having the guests have something to call their own, even if its digital, he said. Its work well worth it.

View post:

Penn law and engineering students built these accessible tech projects for Philly nonprofits - Technical.ly

(Photo by A24)

Continuing our series of Ridiculously Early Oscar Predictions, we now move on to the gentlemen. As noted when we released our Ridiculously Early Best Actress predictions, it might seem ludicrous to start guesstimating contenders so soon, but the Oscar movie calendar is starting earlier and earlier as is awards season itself and the very notion of an Oscar movie is changing.

Our early Best Actor predictions list is supersized because we might be facing the most competitive race in the category in decades. The upcoming seasoncould evendethrone 1993, which is considered by many to be the most competitive year ever when it comes to Best Actor: Al Pacino(Scent of Woman) wonthe award over Robert Downey Jr. (Chaplin), Clint Eastwood (Unforgiven), Stephen Rea (The Crying Game), and Denzel Washington (Malcolm X).

The same storm of fierce competition is a-brewing for 2020. How do we know?Anumberof the filmslikely to be in the conversation have already screened at festivals and earned Tomatometer scores, and pundits are already singling out the major standout performances in them. There are also othersthat nobody has yet seen, but for which early pre-release buzzand expectations are high. With that said, some on this list may end up in the Supporting Actorcategory, and weve omitted names like Tom Hanks, who plays Mr Rogers inA Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,becausewebelieve hell be in that Supporting race.

Whether we like it or not, the campaigns are quietly underway, the conversation has started, and were now ready to join it. Ifhistory and basic math tell us anything, it is that most of these names wont make it to Oscar night, but were pretty confident many of them will be right up there in the awards chatter. So read on as we break down our ridiculously earlypicks for 2020 Best Actor contenders.

Dont agree with our picks? Have at us in the comments.

This fresh take on Bonnie and Clydecame from the mind of Lena Waithe and is based on a story by James Frey. (Yes, its the I lied to Oprah James Frey, but try not tohold that against the film.) In the debut feature film fromMelina Matsoukas (director of Beyonces Formation music video), we follow Queen and Slim, two strangers who end up on the run together and maybe fall in love. RT was lucky enough to screen a few minutes of the film, and whatwe saw was enough to make two bold predictions:Queen and Slimmight be in the awards conversation, and Daniel Kaluuya could very well pull another Oscar nod. WithGet Out andWidows, the Britishactorhas quietly morphed into one of the hottest young talentsworking; what he is able to to do in one conversation with co-star Jodie Turner-Smith is nothing short of spectacular.

Noah Baumbach was at one timeless than thrilled that his 2017 release The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) was picked up by streaming giant Netflix; he had beenvery much hoping for a traditional studio run. However, those ill feelings have seemingly subsided, as he chose to produce his latest film entirely under the Netflix banner. (Hes in good company at the streamer, withAva DuVernay, Martin Scorsese, and Steven Soderbergh all releasing projects there.) We have already singled out Scarlett Johanssons Marriage Story performance as one that couldgo the distance, and her co-star Adam Driver is rumored to be equally impressive. The movie tells the story of a bicoastal breakup and hasbeen described as a modern-day Ordinary People mixed with a dash ofKramer vs. Kramer; its saidto bepoignant, intimate, and like so many otherBaumbach films full of big laughs and tears. Speaking to IndieWirein July, theWhile Were Young director confessed the film defies categorization: [Marriage Story] isa hidden thriller, a procedural, a romantic comedy, a tragic love story. I felt like this was a subject that could handle all those things.

Apost-Fox merger world could provide Walt DisneyStudios with some chances at Best Actor trophies and, more importantly, something theyve never been able to get:a Best Picture Academy Award.You read that correctly: Disney has never won an Academy Award for Best Picture. Just let that sink in. With the Fox merger,Disneynow has a host of titles that will give ita competitive edge for awards, one of the biggest being Ford v. Ferrari. The movie tells the true-life tale of how the Ford Motor Companyworked tirelessly to build a car that could beat racing powerhouse Ferrari at the 24 Hours of Le Mans race in 1966. Starring Matt Damon as famed Ford car designer Carroll Shelby and Christian Bale as racinglegendKen Miles, the films trailer promises a funny, fast-paced adventure. Both lead actors are coming off recent nominations Bale for Vice and Damon for The Martian andwith Logan and Walk the Line director James Mangold behind the camera, the odds are very much in their favor.

When Adam Sandler released his comedy special 100% Fresh earlier this year, everyone here at RT had to crack a smile. Though the comedians filmography,which is featured heavily in our upcoming book Rotten Movies We Love,is beloved by many, he has not been much of critical darling, especially lately. That being said, when Sandler teams up with indie directors, good things happen.The aforementioned The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) earned the former SNL star his best reviews in years, and Paul Thomas Andersons indie darling Punch Drunk Lovescored Sandler hisfirst Golden Globe nomination. In Uncut Gems, the New York native plays a celebrity jeweler from New Yorks famed Diamond District who is suddenly thrust into a race-against-the-clock-thriller to get back his merchandise or pay off his debts when one of his couriers is robbed. Robert Pattinson banged around the indie circuit withsome strongroles during and after his Twilight years, butit was his frantic performance as a bank robber in the Safdie Brothers Good Time that finally resurrectedhim in the minds of many critics. Its no wonder Sandler signed on to take the lead in their follow-up film.

Our new Batman and in this house, we do sayBattinson owes much to the Safdie BrothersGood Time for rehabbing his image in the minds of non-Twilightfans. (OK, and Claire Denis and David Cronenberg and other great indie directors hes been working with.) A supremely talented actor, he hasfought hard to do the kinds of roles that inspire him.Back in 2017 at the SavannahFilm Festival he said, I like finding directors who havent been fully realized by the wider world yet. The Lighthouse, whichwon the Cannes Critics Award, was one of the best-reviewed films of theFrench film festival. Those lucky enough to catch a screening have dubbed the story of two men trapped in an 1800s lighthouse a gothic horror masterpiece. Willem Dafoe, who last year pulled a nomination forthe Vincent van Gogh biopic At Eternitys Gate,is an Academy favorite with five career nominations, and as of today both he and R. Patz areright in the mix to score a nomination. Firstreviews out of the Cannes Film Festival predicted as much, and nothing has changed since then to slow down eithers momentum.

Last year, during the Oscars ceremony, as Netflix was racking up multiple wins from its15 nominations, the studio opted to play a teaserfor Martin Scorseses upcoming and long-awaited film The Irishman. It was a mic drop moment to be sure, and while the trailershowedno footage or even an official image, the names plastered on the screen were enough:Robert De Niro,Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Harvey Keitel, Martin Scorsese. In a script by Steven Zaillian, The Irishman follows Jimmy Hoffa and a cast of mob characters that includes his former bodyguard, who later confessed to murdering him. Recently, Netflix dropped the teaser trailer, providing a sneak peek ofThe Irishmanthat showed off its notorious use ofCGI technology to de-agethe older cast to their thirties, forties, and fifties.Using technology completely foreign to what weve seen in theMCU, or will see in Ang LeesThe Gemini Man starring Will Smith, The Irishman has positioned itself for multiple, possible double-digit nominations in technical and above-the-line categories, including possible nominations for its three leads. There isa tendency with awards films to categorize supporting performances as leads and vice-versa were looking you Alicia Vikander but from what we saw, De Niro was firmly in the lead category, with question marks forthe rest.

WhenTaron Egerton sat down with us earlier thisyear and broke down how hebecame Elton John,he confessed it was a transformative experience, nothing short of life-changing.It was something like that for many who watched it, too.The film premiered to acclaim at theCannes Film Festival earlier this year, andboth Egerton and his co-star Jamie Bell were singled out for their memorable performances. In an ultra-crowded field,Egertonhas a harder road to get to Oscar night than, say, Rami Malek had last year. His performance has the goods, but as our exhaustive list of lead and potential lead performances suggests, this year is going to be a murderers row of talent.

If Joaquin Phoenix can pull off another Oscar nomination for his upcoming role in Todd PhillipsThe Joker, he will officially be in Meryl Streep territory.Not to say he equals Streep inaccomplishments, but whenever he takes a role theres a safe bet hes going to be in the conversation even if its a comic-book movie. Its one of the reasons why were giving his performance in Todd Phillips take on the iconic Batman villain a chance.We dont know much about the film itself, which will debut at the Venice Film Festival, but weve detailed what we doknow about the upcoming feature here. One thing we know for sure is that this is a complete departure from the DCEU. Phoenix takes the lead as the titular villain, giving us a detailed backstory to Batmans greatest rival; and while many predict itwill borrow heavily from the comics, it remainsindependentfrom any previous origin story. The Gladiator star, whofell short of an Oscar nomination in 2018 for Lynne Ramsays You Were Never Really Here, looks to have dived headfirst into this new iteration of the character. And though Phillips is mostly known for comedies, he does seem to get the best out of his actors. After all, Bradley Cooper didnt show up for the Hangover III because he was bored.

Star power could be the thing that differentiates these two performances in a crowded field. Because, well, theyreLEO AND BRAD!Even if the duo doesnt campaign hard, their starry sheen and pedigreecould be enough to earn nominations. Also, they gave two of the most universally acclaimed performances of the year even if the movie they were featured in has divided some critics.DiCaprio is brilliant as the hapless, self-absorbed, aging TV star Rick Dalton, and Pitts quiet confidence and cocksure smile as strong and silent stuntman Cliff Booth have charmed both critics and audiences alike. Theyre dynamite together, too.Add in the fact thatbothstars and co-star Margot Robbie are staples on the awards circuit, with recent nominations (and a couple of wins), and youd be hard-pressed argue against eitherof them making the cut.

If you had told us, afterseeing his breakthrough performance in Robert RodriguezsDesperado, that Antonio Banderas wouldbe the frontrunner for a Best Actor prize some day, we would have said: Of course! He may have been a rarity in awards chatterover the past few decades, but Banderas hasalways had the chops. Action, romance, comedy, drama:TheMask of Zorrostar has excelled in all. This year, however, his eighth collaboration with director Pedro Almodvar could very well be his time. In a semi-autobiographical story about a filmmaker who struggles with pain and melancholy, partly inspired in part by 8 1/2,Banderas is vulnerable, heartbreaking, and captivating to watch. Since the film premiered at Cannes, Banderas has been getting buzz as believe it or not one of the few frontrunners who could unseat the likes of De Niro, DiCaprio, Pesci, or Pitt. A foreign language film is not the safest bet for an acting nomination stats-wise, but after AlfonsoCuarn won Best Director forRoma, anything is possible.

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Find the Original Source Image of your Favorite Movie - News Lagoon

YouTube king Felix 'PewDiePie' Kjellberg opened up to viewers during his August 2 upload, and explained why he will no longer be taking selfies when approached in public.

For many, PewDiePie has been the face of online entertainment for the last decade. The content creator went from his humble roots in Sweden in 2010 to being YouTube's biggest star with a staggering 106 million subscribers to his channel.

On August 2, the entertainer explained to his audience why fans asking him for selfies has began to take a toll on him. The 30-year-old said taking photos had started to feel "dehumanizing" and "uncomfortable" for him.

The YouTuber took time out of his latest episode of Last Week I Asked You to address viewers about taking selfies with them out in public. "I've decided, no more selfies," he announced. Pewds then said he was worried that people would take his decision out of context, and asked fans to watch until the end.

"I love meeting you guys. I love doing these meetups where it's a set place to hang out and just talk. But I think my life has just become to a point where whenever I go outside, I have to just be ready whatever I'm doing to just stop, and take a photo," he said.

He then clarified that he doesn't mind talking with his fans in public, but rather he hates the photo aspect. "I don't mind to just stop and chat with you guys, but the whole photo process to me... I don't like it. You do like a thousand of them, and after a while you feel like an animal at a zoo that's like a prop for someone. And I don't like it. I'm tired of it. I don't want to do it anymore."

The creator stated that he didn't expect everyone to understand, but believed his fans would respect his point of view. He revealed that taking pictures would sometimes give away where he lives. "I don't always want people to know where I am. If everyone just took their photo and didn't share it, fine. But the problem is people share it online. It's so uncomfortable!"

PewDiePie wrapped up the announcement by clarifying that he would love to take selfies with fans at meet and greets or scheduled events, however that he will no longer take photos out in public.

With over 106 million subscribers, the Swedish star is not only the biggest individual YouTuber, but one of the most recognized entertainers in the world. His lack of privacy is something most could not comprehend.

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PewDiePie shares reason behind not wanting to take photos in public - Dexerto

(Getty Images/Brendon Thorne)

We all know the pain of slow internet: videos buffer, downloads take ages and a single page can take forever to load. We wonder whether its our browser, our device, or the website were visiting.

It could be your Wi-Fi signal. Wireless networks are notorious for connection problems. Tap or click for ways to boost your Wi-Fi coverage for good, including changing the routers channel, which hardly anyone does.

Speaking of, your router or modem also be the culprit. You may be tempted to unplug yours and plug it right back in, but thats a mistake. Tap or click here for the way tech pros reboot their routers where patience can pay off in a more reliable signal.

Beyond that, how can you pinpoint the issue? Your first step is to check your connection speed. Afterward, compare the results of the test to the speed advertised by your internet provider.

Note:Before you test your internet speed, make sure no one in your home network is doing bandwidth-hogging tasks like downloading or sharing files, streaming videos, gaming, etc. You dont want any activity skewing results.

Internet speed typically is measured in megabytes per second or Mbps. Every provider promises different tiers of internet speed rates. In general, the pricier the plan, the faster your internet should be.

1-3 Mbps Good enough for web surfing, email, social, casual online gaming (if you dont mind some latency) and email. However, this is not ideal for video streaming.

3-4 Mbps This is the minimum speed for standard video streaming from services like Netflix. This speed may be enough for a one-computer household, but with all the HD content available on the web right now, you should expect constant video buffering.

5-10 Mbps Netflix recommends at least 5 Mbps for a single HD stream, and youll double that for two simultaneous HD streams. Although this is the baseline speed required for HD content, it could still lead to buffering, especially if you have multiple connected gadgets.

10-20 Mbps This is the minimum speed for a consistent and reliable internet experience. If you continuously download files from the web and cloud storage services, get a plan with this advertised speed at the very least.

20 Mbps and higher Now were talking. Households with multiple computers and gadgets, video streaming services, smart appliances, and simultaneous users should aim for at least a 20 Mbps plan.

Now that you know what internet speed is required for certain activities, its time to test your actual bandwidth and compare it to the speed you should be getting. Here are the most popular sites to use. Its a good idea to conduct the test at more than one site. Your mileage may vary.

Compare the results you get against the speeds that your internet service provider promises you. Be sure to run multiple tests over several days at different times. Write your results down, so you dont forget. This will give you an overall picture of your connection speed.

You also might find specific periods when its slow, depending on your areas network congestion. This is especially true if many of your neighbors work from home and hogging up bandwidth on video conferences or streaming presentations.

RELATED: Windows computer acting up? Tap or click for seven DIY tools you can use to diagnose the problem.

One of the most well-known internet speed test services available is Speedtest by Ookla. This service can measure your connections ping response and download and upload speeds from a remote server.

As for download and upload speeds, measurements are given in bits per second. Higher numbers are better. Download speeds will typically be much faster than upload speeds.

Tap or click here to try Ookla Speedtest now.

Netflix has its internet speed test called Fast.com. Fast.com is entirely browser-based, so you dont have to download an app or program.

Just point your web-based or mobile browser to Fast.com and the test will automatically run and show your download speed when its done.

For more details about your connection, tap or click the Show more info box. This will show your latency, upload speeds and the servers used for the test.

Another excellent web-based speed test isSpeedOf.Me. Whats great about this tool is the real-time graph that tracks the speeds fluctuations while the test is running. It can also provide you with a graphical history of all the tests youve run for comparison.

Click here to try SpeedOf.Me now.

You can also access speed tests straight on the search engine of your choice. For example, search for the keywords speed test on Google and the first hit will show Googles very own speed test tool.

The same service is available from Bing. Just search for speed test via Bing and the first result is a handy speedometer-style internet speed tool that measures ping response plus download and upload speeds.

Whenever available, always use a wired connection for more accurate and consistent results. Why? The culprit of your slower speeds may lie on your Wi-Fi connection and not on your ISP connection itself.

Do multiple tests and if the average of the results is only about 5-10 Mbps off, that should be tolerable. Factors like congestion during peak times and your distance from the relay hardware will contribute to slight variations on your speed. (For more accuracy, you could turn your Wi-Fi radios off during the wired tests.)

If your wired results are way lower than advertised, a consistent 20 to 30 Mbps difference, perhaps, then there might be something else going on.

Check your hardware first and see if its compatible with your providers recommendations. For example, older DOCSIS 2.0 modems cant go beyond 38 Mbps. If you have a rate plan of 50 Mbps and above, better upgrade your modem to DOCSIS 3.0 or 3.1.

What if you already have newer hardware and you still see less-than-advertised speeds? Then check your network for unauthorized devices that may be stealing your bandwidth.

If you do find Wi-Fi thieves, better kick them off, then change your network password quickly! Tap or click here to make sure no ones stealing your Wi-Fi.

If all else fails, give your internet service provider a call. Tap or click here for seven ways you can lower your internet bill while youre at it.

What digital lifestyle questions do you have? Call Kims national radio show and tap or click here to find it on your local radio station. You can listen to or watch The Kim Komando Show on your phone, tablet, television or computer. Or tap or click here for Kims free podcasts.

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Heres how to identify the cause of your slow internet speed - KTAR.com

AMAZON STUDIOS ORDERS SECOND SEASON OF THE HIT THRILLER "HUNTERS"

CULVER CITY, Calif. - August 3, 2020 - Amazon Studios announced today it has ordered a second season of the Amazon Original seriesHunters, the hit conspiracy thriller created by David Weil and executive produced by Jordan Peele, to stream exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. The acclaimed first season of Hunters, starring Al Pacino, Logan Lerman, and Jerrika Hinton, premiered February 21.

"I am beyond grateful to Jen and the Amazon family for their continued extraordinary support of Hunters," said Weil. "Alongside our magnificent cast, incredible crew, and brilliant writers and producers, I am more eager than ever to share the next chapter of the Hunters saga with the world."

"With Hunters, David Weil's bold vision and fearless imagination powered a thrilling, twisty, action-packed first season that engaged Prime Video customers around the world," said Jennifer Salke, Head of Amazon Studios, "We are thrilled that David, Jordan and theHunters will be back with us for more."

The debut season of Hunters followed a diverse band of Nazi hunters living in 1977 New York City. The Hunters, as they're known, have discovered that hundreds of high-ranking Nazi officials are living among us and conspiring to create a Fourth Reich in the United States. The series also stars Josh Radnor, Kate Mulvany, Tiffany Boone, Greg Austin, Louis Ozawa, Carol Kane, Saul Rubinek, Dylan Baker and Lena Olin. Season one of Hunters, produced by Amazon Studios, Peele's Monkeypaw Productions and Sonar Entertainment, was executive produced by David Weil who served as co-showrunner alongside executive producer Nikki Toscano. Alfonso Gomez-Rejon directed the pilot and was an executive producer alongside Win Rosenfeld from Monkeypaw Productions; Nelson McCormick; and David Ellender from Sonar Entertainment.

About Amazon Studios:

Amazon Studios is the home for talent, creating and producing original films and television series for a global audience. Original series all premiere exclusively on Amazon Prime Video, which is available in over 200 countries and territories. Recent hit Amazon Original series include the Emmy Award-winning comedies Fleabag, created by and starring Emmy Award-winner Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel from Emmy Award-winners Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino; the action thriller drama Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan starring John Krasinski; the irreverent superhero series The Boys; Upload from Greg Daniels; Jordan Peele's Hunters starring Al Pacino and Logan Lerman; and fantasy drama Carnival Row starring Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne. Amazon Originals also include culturally relevant and buzzed-about content such as Rihanna's Savage X Fenty music and fashion event, Donald Glover's Guava Island and Chasing Happiness, a documentary about pop superstars Jonas Brothers.

In film, Amazon Studios produces and acquires original movies for theatrical release and exclusively for Amazon Prime Video. In 2017, Amazon Studios became the first streaming service to win Oscars for Manchester by the Sea and The Salesman. Amazon Studios' recent releases include Troop Zero starring Viola Davis, Alison Janney, and Jim Gaffigan; Tom Harper's The Aeronauts starring Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne; Scott Z. Burns' The Report starring Adam Driver and Annette Bening; Honey Boy from director Alma Har'el based on a script written by Shia LaBeouf; Benedict Andrews' Seberg starring Kristen Stewart; and the Academy Award-nominated Les Misrables from director Ladj Ly.

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Breaking News - Amazon Studios Orders Second Season of the Hit Thriller "Hunters" - The Futon Critic

(This is the final post in a multipart series. You can see Part One here and Part Two here.)

The new question-of-the-week is:

What introductory activities are you planning to do, or have done already, with students to begin this highly unusual new school year (specificallyfirst day, first week, second week)?

In Part One, my colleage and co-author Katie Hull Synieski and I shared a book excerpt from a chapter on long-distance learning with English-language learners. It's coming from our upcoming second edition of The ESL/ELL Teacher's Survival Guide.

In Part Two, Andi Jackson, Ann Stiltner, and Kelly Love offered their suggestions.

Today, this three-part series is "wrapped up" by commentaries from Emily Burrell, Melanie Gonzales, Dr. JoEtta Gonzales, and Dr. Theresa Capra.

Look for the next question-of-the-week at the bottom of this post!

A two-week plan

Emily Burrell is a mathematics teacher and co-lead mentor teacher at South Lakes High School in Fairfax County, Va.:

I teach high school mathematics students who have been marginalized by the public education system. Traditional teaching methods have failed them. It may not be surprising that many of them have failed a math class. My students are uninspired to do math that doesn't matter to them. I reach these students by providing a curriculum that does matter: a project-based curriculum that provides choice and helps students build their voice. Relationships are the first key because this type of active learning, while more engaging, is also more work. Explicitly teaching executive-functioning skills is the second key to helping students who have not yet developed habits for successful learning.

On Day 1, we will begin to build the working norms necessary for students to feel comfortable taking the risks necessary for learning and sharing understanding. Then we will introduce ourselves by decorating a Google Slide with words and pictures that describe ourselves Students will add comments to each others' slides about how they connect to their classmates. Finally, I will ask students to fill out a survey to learn more about their interests and talents and to determine whether there are any students in class with whom they would or would not work well.

Armed with information about my students, I will build their first collaborative groups. On Day 2, the groups will complete an activity about why they like group work, why they dislike group work, and how an ideal group works together. Then I will give the students a scavenger hunt to see which group can be the first to find all of the items in their houses. We would also play "unique and shared," an ice-breaker where the group has to find one thing they all have in common and one thing that makes each group member unique from the others. At the end of class, students would reflect on what worked well in their groups, what didn't work well, what challenges they could work to overcome, and what challenges their group might need the teacher's help with.

If we have any time for math in the first two weeks, we will analyze and discuss graphs from the news. I cannot build relationships with my students if I ignore the ways their lives have been directly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and recent developments in the Black Lives Matter movement. This will also give us an opportunity to grow as digital citizens as we discuss news sources and their perspectives and biases.

Through the first few weeks, our primary focus will remain relationship-building and our secondary focus will be building executive-functioning skills. Harvard University's Center on the Developing Child has a helpful Executive Functioning Activities Guide. In the spring, my virtual students became extremely unfocused. This year, I will explicitly teach executive-functioning skills in my class. We will make plans for building sustained attention by identifying our distractors and committing ourselves to ignoring them. We will get organized by scheduling and prioritizing tasks. We will set goals and monitor our progress toward them with rubrics. By focusing our first few weeks on relationships and executive-functioning skills, my students will be ready to be successful learners and doers of mathematics all year long.

"Consider students' emotional and psychological needs"

Melanie Gonzales is an elementary math curriculum, advanced academics, and early-childhood coordinator in Texas. She has been in education for over 25 years and has served as a classroom teacher, instructional coach, interim assistant principal, session speaker at local and national conferences, and continues to be a passionate learner. She is a member of the Texas Association of Mathematics, the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics, and is active in her local McMath organization:

In the past two years, in my role as curriculum coordinator, I have asked teachers to start their math units with "The First 20/30 Days" document that consists of lessons for the first 20-30 days of school to guide teachers in establishing a mathematical community of learners and teach the routines and procedures necessary to be a successful mathematician. These lessons are based on The 1st 20 days of Independent Reading by Irene C. Fountas & Gay Su Pinnell but put the lessons into a mathematical context. I built on the work of Fountas and Pinnell as well as math consultants Allison Lentz and Jennifer Jones. I took parts of their ideas and rewrote the lessons to match my district's scope and sequence and particular audience.

This year, it will be even more important to consider students' emotional and psychological needs before attending to content. Teachers were given the opportunity to take a virtual, self-paced professional learning session that provided information about Maslow's and Bloom's hierarchies and how we will need to consider both when planning for the first few weeks of school. Teachers were asked to consider how to integrate both models. In addition to checking in on students after being out of the classroom for an extended period of time and re-establishing or building relationships with students, the other goals of these lessons are: to help students think of themselves as mathematicians who enjoy and actively participate in math; to establish consistent classroom roles, rituals, routines, and procedures that support teaching and learning; and to increase rigor by having students explore, express, and better understand mathematical content though process skills (communication, connections, reasoning, representations, and problem solving).

Some of the activities and lessons include learning and discussing what math is and what mathematicians do and inviting students to draw a self-portrait of themselves as a mathematician. Classrooms will create a "Treatment Agreement" or agree on norms for their math community. Students will read about and discuss math that is found in our everyday lives. Teachers will introduce their routines and procedures and provide time for students to practice. Time will be provided to set up individual math notebooks and math tool boxes (especially important in these times of social distancing and limiting cross contamination).

Students will be asked to work in small groups (most likely virtually through Google Slides or Seesaw) and agree on what makes "groupwork" successful such as equitable participation, setting up roles and norms, agreeing on quality work, etc. Teachers will teach how to appropriately respond to each other, how to disagree respectfully, and how to include more students in discourse vs. just calling on one student at a time. Sentence frames, graphic organizers, and math walls will encourage precision with vocabulary and be a support for all students, especially those whose first language is not English. Students might be surveyed about their feelings and attitudes toward math.

Armed with this knowledge, teachers can then work together to debunk myths about mathematics such as "only some people are math people," "math is only about one right answer," "math is hard," and "I'm not good at math". Based on the work of Carol Dweck and Jo Boaler, teachers will encourage students to build a growth mindset. Additionally, time will be spent reminding students that mathematicians notice things, are curious, are organized self-starters, and effective communicators and problem solvers. Finally, they will use their math skills to count out a specific number of snack items and celebrate being mathematicians already!

By providing clear expectations and guidelines, honoring each student for what they bring to the class, checking in on each student emotionally, and establishing how mathematics will look, sound, and feel this year, teachers can launch a successful year!

Beginning with "family-student-teacher conferences"

Dr. JoEtta Gonzales is the superintendent of the Casa Grande Elementary school district in Arizona. She has been a teacher, principal, district office administrator, director of a national equity center, and has taught courses in multicultural and bilingual special education at Arizona State University, and leadership in special & inclusive education at the University of Kansas. She serves a community that sits halfway between Phoenix and Tucson:

Our students were last in school on March 13 and will return to learning on Aug. 17. After carefully considering various ways to help usher our students back to learning, our district developed an innovative plan for student re-entry. It involves: 1) having individual hourlong family-student-teacher conferences to build strong relationships; 2) taking the time upfront to assess student social, emotional, and academic skills; 3) teaching students and family members how to access our online learning resources; 4) distributing devices and distance-learning kits (to include modems, routers, etc.) for those that need them; 4) assessing and addressing food and/or housing insecurities; 5) teaching students and families about our new safety protocols; and 6) helping parents understand ways they can support student routines for success. Conferences will take place in lieu of instruction from Aug. 3through Aug. 14.

As a district that encapsulates urban, suburban, rural, and remote areas with high rates of poverty, we believe this approach to startup will net more academic gains for students as they will become better accustomed to our new procedures and will build better communication avenues should we have to shift models of instruction abruptly.

Because of our current situation with the pandemic, many of our students: are at greater risk to fall behind academically in school, have experienced trauma during the closure, and/or have suffered emotionally in the absence of friends and teachers. Survey and anecdotal data show that members of the community and staff have wide and varying opinions about the safe reopening of schools. Sentiments include: concerns about their own/family health; excitement for a return to normal; anger/stress, uneasiness about unknowns; lack of clear expectations; skepticism of a "new normal"; student academic uncertainty; and a need for social/emotional focus. Transitioning back to school will require clarity, confidence, and community buy-in. Positive engagement between all school stakeholders will play a critical role in establishing a unified partnership toward our vision: A Community of Learners, Leaders & Innovators.

Teachers and support staff are developing an agenda for family-teacher-student conferences to ensure authenticity and consistency. A conversation guide is in the works that helps facilitate strength-based discussions that are positive, engaging, and focused on establishing trusting relationships. The goal is to support students' social, emotional, and academic learning in a way that honors their present situation and fosters a sense of compassion, collaboration, and connection.

Emphatically, we believe this is the better model for our community. We understand that our students won't learn from us until they know we care. After being out for five months, we believe an approach that keeps the student learning experience at the center to be foundational for our teaching and learning success.

Ice-breakers!

Dr. Theresa Capra is a professor of education and clinical supervisor for teacher-candidates. She is the founder of edtaps.com, which focuses on research, trends, technology, and tips for educators:

The first day of school is a cherished milestone that has, in recent years, turned into a social-media frenzy with viral pictures of adorable children clutching customized signs noting their incoming grades. But what will the first day of remote school look like? Educators know the first days are critical to establish rapport and create a classroom culture conducive to learning. How can these objectives be achieved in virtual formats? There are some strategies to help.

Break the ice!

Ice-breakers are widely used by educators to ease student anxieties and cultivate a comfortable learning environment. They range from sharing summer adventures to exchanging personal information and academic goals. Students might partner up, chat, and introduce each other to the larger forum or individually share out in a whole-group setting through candid dialogue or a fun activity that lightens the mood. Mainly, the goal is rapport while simultaneously introducing learning expectations.

This can still happen in remote courses using appropriate technology. For example, Flip Grid is an application that can be easily downloaded on a smartphone or laptop to record and upload short videos on a thread for invited members to view and comment. Instructors can create an initial recording on the thread to kick off the welcome topic. Make it personallet your new students know who you are as both a person and educator. Consider sending a welcome note (or a YouTube video) in advance with instructions making the activity even more personal while getting in front of any potential technological issues.

A picture is worth a thousand words!

Visual media is a powerful way to motivate students and elicit engagement, so why not harness this for remote introductions? Instead of a typical text-based discussion board riddled with platitudes such as, hello, tell us about yourself, ask students to upload a favorite picture with brief captions, not a full description. Prompt students to ask each other questions about the picture to further the introductions in a more personalized manner. This simple tweak can make remote introductions more engaging.

Look out for confusion!

It has been documented that students typically move through predictable stages during a computer-mediated course: confusion, frustration, adjustment, and managing. Confusion that does not abate leads to frustration, which is a risk factor for unsuccessful outcomes and noncompletion. How can you tell if your students are confused? Well, perhaps they're asking good questionsshould I do it this way or that way? Or maybe they're making an effort, but it's slightly off. If you notice any signs of confusion, a phone call or FaceTime can usually set it straight. Keep an eye out for early signs that usually pop up during the critical first days.

Remote learning is new for both students and teachers alikethe challenges are irrefutable. But implementing these simple strategies can help kick the school year off right!

Next question!

The next question-of-the-week is:

Using the framework of "Do's and Don'ts," what would you list as the do's and don'ts of teaching in a COVID-19 environment?

Thanks to Emily, Melanie, JoEtta, and Theresa for their contributions!

Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at[emailprotected]. When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it's selected or if you'd prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on Twitter at@Larryferlazzo.

Education Week has published a collection of posts from this blog, along with new material, in an e-book form. It's titledClassroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching.

Just a reminder; you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog viaemailorRSS Reader.And if you missed any of the highlights from the first eight years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below. The list doesn't include ones from this current year, but you can find those by clicking on the "answers" category found in the sidebar.

All Classroom Q&A Posts on the Coronavirus Crisis

This Year's Most Popular Q&A Posts

Race & Gender Challenges

Classroom-Management Advice

Best Ways to Begin the School Year

Best Ways to End the School Year

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I am also creating aTwitter list including all contributors to this column.

See the rest here:

Start the Year With a 'Primary Focus' on Relationship-Building - Education Week