Definition of Amu in Chemistry

Definition of Amu in ChemistryAs a chemist you need to know the definition of Amu, this is a chemical element that is believed to have been first created in the universe. It is believed that the universe started when all the atoms of matter were created.The first atom formed when the light was released from all the gas, all of these atoms fused into a single metal oxide. There are some that believe that this atom is one hundred and fifty times heavier than the earth. Many think that it is the hardest substance in the universe and scientists have made many scientific theories about it and how it came into existence.The scientist believes that the universe was created by the formation of a black hole. It is a huge object that emits energy and heat and is so large that it almost completely covers up the rest of the universe. They think that all of the atoms came together on this giant black hole and started to form a universe. The atoms were able to escape from the black hole and create d light, this was then trapped within the black hole until it was finally released.It is believed that this is the source of the power of this black hole, this is the energy that allows the universe to exist. Many people believe that the universe has been around for so long because of this power and the existence of this black hole, therefore many scientists believe that this black hole is the source of everything in the universe.When you are working with the concept of the atoms, you need to know what atoms are in order to understand the concept of Amu. The atoms that are known to exist are oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen, and various other elements that are metallic. This metal contains an electron and can be turned into different types of atoms and this is the process that scientists use to create life and build life forms.As you learn more about Amu, you will understand that this is the concept of the idea of the creation of life and the universe. Scientists believe that if y ou combine the metal atoms with the right combination of energy they will then make a black hole. Some people think that Amu has taken many forms since the time of the creation of the universe, it is believed that this substance contains an energy that allows the universe to exist and its existence is continuous.It is believed that many people have given up the concepts of life and existence and they feel that they will live out their lives without feeling or living. The science behind this theory is so complex and it is so much of what they do that it is hard to understand.

Where to Learn Guitar Online

Where to Learn Guitar Online Become a Guitarist with the Internet ChaptersWhich Are the Best Apps for Learning How to Play the Guitar?Websites for Becoming a GuitaristWhich Are the Best Guitar Blogs?Can You Learn the Guitar on YouTube?“If you want to be a rock star or just be famous, then run down the street naked, you’ll make the news or something. But if you want music to be your livelihood, then play, play, play and play! And eventually you’ll get to where you want to be.” - Eddie Van HalenWhile you can’t send a text message with your guitar, you can learn to play the guitar on your smartphone.  In the UK, we spend more time browsing the internet than we do sleeping.Learning to play guitar is easier with the help of a dedicated guitar tutor. However, not everyone has the means to regularly pay for private guitar tuition.Why not use all this time spent browsing to help you learn how to play the guitar?There are so many different websites, blogs, and videos dedicated to learning how to play the guitar.So how can you find them?In this gui de, we’ll tell you! PeterGuitar Teacher £12/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors EdgarGuitar Teacher 5.00 (8) £30/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors PaulGuitar Teacher 5.00 (12) £18/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors DanielGuitar Teacher 5.00 (3) £40/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors ToddGuitar Teacher 4.75 (4) £35/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors SamueleGuitar Teacher 5.00 (5) £20/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors KurtGuitar Teacher 5.00 (3) £20/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors RyanGuitar Teacher £30/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutorsWhich Are the Best Apps for Learning How to Play the Guitar?Since you have your smartphone on you at all times (even in the bathroom), perhaps you could use it for learning how to play the guitar or more about music.With a smartphone app, you can learn to play the guitar anywhere. (Source: langll)When learning with a private tutor, you have their undivided attention during the hour the y’re teaching you. They’ll correct you when you get something wrong, like the position of your hand. However, once the lesson’s over, you’re on your own.Your smartphone is probably always in your pocket or within reach.  Guitar apps can be used for practising even when you don’t have a guitar to hand, on public transport, or on your lunch break, for example.  Additionally, they can send you reminders when it’s time to practise your guitar playing. That’s pretty good motivation, isn’t it?They’re also an enjoyable way to learn to play the electric guitar or the acoustic guitar. It doesn’t really matter what your favourite style of music is as it’s possible to find an app that works for you, can teach you the chords you need to know, how to play a riff, how to do barre chords, or how to play a certain scale.Here are some of the best guitar apps on the market:Coach Guitar: A virtual guitar teacher that’s dedicated to absolute guitar novices. The video tutorials a re fun and interactive.My Music Teacher: Thanks to this app, you can get in touch with real teachers. Furthermore, thanks to the microphone on your mobile, it can detect if you play a wrong note and correct you in real time.iReal Pro: There are 1,500 chord diagrams available on the app which allow you to work on different musical styles such as jazz, blues rock, or even bossa nova.Yousician: This app also gives you real-time feedback and suggests video lessons to you.It’s definitely possible to get better at playing the guitar, improve your fingerpicking, or familiarise yourself with the fretboard thanks to digital apps.Websites for Becoming a GuitaristYou can also learn how to play the guitar online from the comfort of your office chair in front of your computer.You can learn to play the guitar on your own if you use the right resources. (Source: Pexels)Whether you’re tuning your guitar, learning a pentatonic scale, playing along to a metronome, or studying music theory, you ca n find a website to help you with teaching yourself how to play the guitar.A music school won’t work for every budget. Additionally, if you’re not comfortable in group classes, a private tutor might be your only option. Thus, the internet is a good alternative for those wanting to get started with playing the guitar.If you’re motivated, there’s nothing stopping you from learning something new, such as playing the guitar, with the help of other guitarists online.Here are some of the best guitar websites:Tabs4acoustic: from music theory to practical guitar techniques, tablature, the riff library, and backing tracks, this website pretty much has everything a budding guitarist could ever want.ShredAcademy: Every guitarist should add this website to their favourites. If you want to play the guitar, this is one of the first websites you should start with. There are over 100 online guitar lessons for beginner guitar techniques like strumming and picking.Ultimate-Guitar: If you can' t read sheet music, this site needs to be put into your favourites bar now. Ultimate-Guitar is arguably the best website for tablature. Since guitar tabs are user-submitted, there are often several versions of each one. However, users also rate the tabs so you can quickly find the best tab according to other users votes.Jammit: This is a website and also an app for iOS, Mac, and PC. If there's a certain song you're trying to learn on the guitar, this is probably the place to go. You can find a song you like, slow it down, loop a tricky section, and jam along until your fingers are dancing on the strings just like your favourite artists. If you're struggling with a certain solo, open up the tabs on Ultimate-Guitar and jam along with Jammit!After that, you can start working on becoming the next Hendrix!Which Are the Best Guitar Blogs?If you’re looking to buy a guitar, learning how to restring a guitar, or tuning your guitar, guitar blogs are a useful resource.If you get bored of pla ying on your own, you could always start a band. (Source: MatanVizel)Most consumers prefer to buy a product following a recommendation from a blog rather than from an advert.  Blogs are like word of mouth but digital. If a friend tells you about a great new shampoo that’s worked wonders for them, you’re far more likely to try it than if an advert told you that.The same is true for bloggers.  If you regularly read a blog, you start to get the feeling that you know the person and you start to trust their opinion more, especially when they try out new products.While a lot of bloggers are paid for their product reviews or given free versions of products in order to review them, they’re still free to criticise certain aspects of the product in question.Thus, before you choose your next guitar or you’re not sure whether you want an Ibanez, Fender, or Gibson, it might be worthwhile having a look at different guitar blogs.Here are some of the best guitar blogs around:Truefire is a w ebsite offering online guitar lessons. The website features over 33,000 guitar lessons for a variety of different styles and levels. It doesn't matter whether you're an absolute beginner or an experienced guitar player, play blues guitar or face-melting rock guitar solos, you're bound to find something on their website.You might be familiar with the Guitar World magazine. If not, don't worry, their website is also really good. If you're looking for a guitar lesson, information on how to play guitar, articles on different techniques, chord progressions, strumming patterns, or guitar gear, you should definitely pay their website a visit.Guitar Tricks: If you're looking for a particular guitar lesson or just how to play guitar in general, this is a website that you should visit. In addition to loads of content for beginners, there are also blogs that any musician can enjoy on playing the guitar, gear, different exercises and techniques, as well as articles on general guitar culture.The Premier Guitar magazine has been  going for over a decade now and includes plenty of articles on playing the guitar, reviews of acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars, interviews with famous guitarists, and articles on the music industry.Guitar Habits: This blog has a huge variety of interesting articles on guitar playing, beginner guitar lessons, tutorials on how to play certain songs, and reviews of gear for both the acoustic guitar and the electric guitar, not to mention the guitars themselves.If you’re going to teach yourself how to play the guitar, it’s a good idea to surround yourself with other guitarists, even if you do this virtually.Can You Learn the Guitar on YouTube?Learning to play guitar is much easier with videos.No matter what style of music you like, you can learn it with online resources. (Source: congerdesign)You can break down a song, riff, or lick, and watch it over and over again. You can look at the guitarist’s posture, the positioning of their fingers on the frets, and see whether or not they’re using a capo, for example.  Of course, your virtual teacher still needs to be a good teacher otherwise you won’t really learn anything.There are plenty of guitar tutorials on YouTube.Did you know that most of the population watch YouTube at least once a day and two-thirds of those who do watch it multiple times?When it comes to guitar tutorials, there are good ones and there are bad ones. Fortunately for you, we’ve found a few of the better ones for you to check out.GuitarJamz: This YouTube channel has been around for a long time and is definitely worthy of your attention if you're looking for beginner guitar lessons. Whether you're looking for beginner guitar lessons or videos on becoming a better guitar player, you'll find them on Marty's channel.Jamplay: This YouTube channel includes guitar lessons on a variety of techniques including strumming, picking, and improving your guitar playing. These online guitar lessons are definitely worth subscribing to on your YouTube account.GuitarLessons365Song: This is another channel with over half a million subscribers and plenty of great video content for you to sink your teeth into. If you want to learn how to play a certain song, this is one of the first channels you should check out.JustinGuitar: Justin Sandercoe's YouTube channel, just like his site and blog, is an incredible resource for guitar lessons and tutorials on how to play guitar.It’s really easy to learn guitar songs on the internet as you learn chords, the posture you should adopt, and how to tune your guitar.So are you ready to start learning how to play the guitar online?

The Classes That Scare You Developing growth mindset around challenging subjects

The Classes That Scare You Developing growth mindset around challenging subjects Improving Academic Performance We all have those pesky negative beliefs around certain subjects or classes at school: I’m a bad writer! I’ll never understand math! Learning a foreign language is impossible! Though certain classes may be more challenging than others, clinging to negative generalities about anything, especially education, doesn’t serve us. Caroline Dweck, author of the fantastic bestseller Mindset, discusses the differences between having a fixed mindset (I’m a bad writer) vs. a growth mindset (I can improve my writing through hard work) and how the subtle shift from absolutes to open-mindedness paves a whole new path for learning and development. (You can learn more here.) Nowhere else is a growth mindset more apropos than education, which is essentially something that requires a growth mindset if one is to move forward. It is common, however, for our mind to think in absolutes, most notably “I’ll never” or “I’ll always” or “I am fundamentally like this _____.” But how else can we learn something new if our mind is already made up? This is why it is essential to challenge these fixed thoughts with growth-oriented ones, which are, by their very nature, optimistic (though not idealistic) thoughts. I dealt for many years with a common fixed mindset boogeyman related to education - math. It was a scary, steep-sloped struggle for me in middle and high school. I was always a much bigger fan of reading books and writing stories than learning equations. Math stressed me out; I never “got it” as fast as my classmates. When I arrived to middle school, I felt behind in pre-algebra. I hadn’t learned PEMDAS or the distributive property yet. I was placed in the dreaded “lower” math section. I had only one conclusion to draw - I was bad at math. This set me up for years of falling behind in a subject that I gave up on before I even tried to improve, all because I had a fear-based fixed mindset. I made the decision that I was bad at math, therefore I was bad at math. I was scared of it, so I believed it was inherently scary. I assumed I would fail or at least do an average at best job. And that is exactly what happened. I believed an idea planted in my brain from as young as nine years old, and I let it control the next nine years of my schooling! (Fear and belief are powerful, fascinating features of the mind. And fear of course can clam us up and shut down our ability to retain information.) But then something strange happened. My senior year of high school, I took a general algebra course that was required to graduate. I was lucky to have a fantastic teacher. I decided to pay close attention and put more effort into taking notes and studying. I ended up acing every single homework assignment and test and got a 98% in the class. Clearly, I wasn’t bad at math. So what changed? Was it the teacher? Possibly, although I had some pretty awesome math teachers throughout middle and high school who tried to inspire me, but I was just too certain that my brain didn’t get it. So, was I suddenly smarter? I don’t think so. What changed was my mindset. I was more open and willing. I was motivated. I let go of the idea that I would always struggle with math and was therefore incapable of succeeding, and I started fresh. I was focused and inspired. I stopped believing whatever story my mind began telling me as a young kid, sweating through placement tests and pop quizzes. If you notice that you have a fixed mindset about school, don’t worry - it’s normal. We all favor or succeed in certain classes more than others, and it is easy to feel more open and positive towards the classes where we thrive vs. the ones where we feel discouraged. This is part of what makes us unique, diverse individuals. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t change our approach to the areas that give us pushback. To begin, the best thing to do is to start observing what it is that makes you draw such a strong conclusion about a subject area or class in the first place. What thoughts do you have about certain subject areas that seem fixed rather than growth-oriented? What labels are you using? Are you a poor test taker? A slow reader? Bored beyond belief in history? Totally lost in physics? Look at how you can reframe these thoughts from fixed to growth-oriented. Reframing is a fantastic tool, because it charts immediately how you can set some goals to make improvements. So rather than, I am a poor test taker, you might say, test taking is sometimes a struggle because I get overwhelmed by so many questions in a short period of time, and then you can start to break down how to tackle that overwhelm. Tara Brach, renowned mediation teacher, encourages using the RAIN technique to help one look objectively (and kindly) at a problem or issue before moving forward and taking necessary action. (Visit the following link to learn more: www.tarabrach.com/articles-interviews/rain-workingwithdifficulties/.) Another great tool is to focus on the positive and what is working. It can be easy to focus on the one or two negatives, even in a sea of positives. Sometimes we think we are so bad at something and miss all the areas where we are successful or where we enjoy the material. History got you down because reading the textbook isn’t all that inspiring? Well, what about a documentary or YouTube film that helps further explain the Revolutionary War? Can you name three things you found interesting? I bet you can. In fact, I use the look for three things rule all the time. Look for three things you like or three areas where you were successful or ways you can make an improvement. It can make a huge difference in outcome, and it breaks up the instinct to complain and be negative in the process (our brains are wired for that!). Set one growth-oriented goal each week, whether in a school subject, extracurricular activity, or even with something like getting up five minutes earlier for school. Practice the above principles in order to reach your goal, and see how it goes! I am positive you will find that, even if the outcome doesn’t change drastically, your experience and perception will, and that can make a huge impact in our lives as a whole. So let’s recap - first, start observing and noticing where you have fixed mindset. See if you can reframe some of your ideas to growth status. Focus on a few positives rather than all the negatives. Look for three examples of positive-oriented growth. Look for an overall growth-oriented goal for each week, as you go into the class and subject area that gives you a little anxiety. You can do this! If you want to learn more about the power of the mind, follow this link to an excellent article on the subconscious: https://inlpcenter.org/subconscious-mind/ Other questions or comments? We would love to hear from you! About the Author Stephanie Ingraham is a former English teacher turned writer and tutor with a BA in English from UCLA and a Masters in Education from Pepperdine University in Los Angeles. She is deeply passionate about education, psychology, child and adolescent development, literature, and writing. She believes the education world can benefit greatly from the meditation world - mindfulness and self-compassion are key! In her free time she loves reading and writing, music, baking, yoga, dance, animals, and exploring new cities. She currently lives in Chicago, Illinois.

5 Tips for Preventing Summer Slide

5 Tips for Preventing Summer Slide Many parents have heard the scary-but-true statistic that children who do not read over summer break can lose up to two months of reading achievement. According to Reading Rockets review of 13 empirical studies on summer reading loss, over time, this can create a compounded achievement gap of 1.5 years before a child has even reached middle school. The good news: its not hard to curb summer reading loss. With a little effort, you can help your child continue to strengthen that reading muscle and prevent the dreaded summer slide so that when the next school year begins, he or she is ready to hit the ground running. Here are five tips to build those literacy skills this summer: Set a daily minutes goal. Goal-setting gives children ownership of their learning. So, incorporate reading into the summertime daily routine and have your child set a goal of minutes to read each day or week. Make it fun by combining reading time with cookies and milk, or making a pitcher of your childs favorite summer beverage and reading al fresco. Maybe you can start a new family tradition to all read together in a comfortable spot in the house before bedtime. Whatever you do, make sure you send the message that reading is a relaxing, rewarding activity, not a chore that must be checked off a task list. Keep a summer memories journal. Writing and reading are essential, interconnected skills, so its valuable to encourage children to write over the summer too. If you have a tough time convincing your child to start penning novellas or essays about summer, a subtler way to hone those writing skills is a summer journal. Have your child jot down the events of each day, record the stops on your family road trip, or write real-time observations of daily life in your home over summer vacation. If your child gets really into it, consider letting him or her create a blog on a free or inexpensive platform like Squarespace or Wix. Focus on a subject of interest. For some children, a new hobby or interest sparks exploration. So, if your child isnt eager to read novels, try digging into topics that do get him or her excited, exploring books, websites, blogs, and magazine and newspaper articles on those topics. Fueled by curiosity, your child will end up reading more than he or she would otherwise. Talk about it. You can enrich your childs reading time by talking about the books he or she is reading as well as the characters, plot, plot twists, and what your child thinks will happen next. Express interest by asking thoughtful questions that help your child think critically, reflect and improve comprehension. Share with others. Your child might also want to share what he or she is reading with other kids, which is exactly what young readers do on Scholastics Share What Youre Reading Think of it as a book review and recommendations website for children. Your child can share his or her own reviews and check out other childrens reviews as well. If your child wants to catch up or get ahead this summer, call Huntington. Now is a great time to fill in any gaps in skills so that your child has the reading and writing aptitude to succeed in all subjects. Call 1-800 CAN LEARN today for more information about our literacy skill-building programs and summer reading program, Reading Adventure. About Huntington Huntington is the tutoring and test prep leader. Its certified tutors provide individualized instruction in reading, phonics, writing, study skills, elementary and middle school math, Algebra through Calculus, Chemistry, and other sciences. It preps for the SAT and ACT, as well as state and standardized exams. Huntington programs develop the skills, confidence, and motivation to help students succeed and meet the needs of Common Core State Standards. Founded in 1977, Huntingtons mission is to give every student the best education possible. Learn how Huntington can help at www.huntingtonhelps.com. For franchise opportunities please visit www.huntingtonfranchise.com. 2017 Huntington Mark, LLC. Huntington Learning Center, the three-leaf logo, and 1 800 CAN LEARN are registered trademarks of Huntington Mark, LLC. Each franchised Huntington Learning Center is operated under a franchise agreement with Huntington Learning Centers, Inc.

Music Changing the Brain and Improving Livelihoods

Music Changing the Brain and Improving Livelihoods Pexels Personally, I am not that much of a rap fan fanatic, from the performer unvarying his or her vocal range to the difficulty in dancing to the song; certainly, there is the classic jumping up and down and mouthing some of the words to make it appear as if we understand what the artist is singing. In retrospect, though, is it easier to memorize a song, say by Chance the Rapper, or one performed by Maroon 5 or Bruno Mars? While it is more common to sing “Sugar” in its entirety, Chance the Rapper’s “No Problem” is also scientifically proven to involve a little more time as the lyrics are spoken quicker, with a lower chance of interpreting his message and storing it as long-term memory. However, despite the extra time in memorizing the work and the genre being lower on the totem pole for me (along with country music), I acknowledge it as an undeniable method to express emotions. Throughout Chance’s songs, he elucidates his battle against drug abuse in an attempt for an upward climb and totality of mental health stability. Thinking back to last semester especially, I can honestly describe music as a mental-health stabilizing agent on a different level, though, from Chance the Rapper. While I am not depressed, anxious, or affected by a drug addiction, it was difficult for me question my major (whether it be that of sticking with engineering or switching in its entirety). Add on the imbalance with coverage of math and science, and little of the fine arts within the curriculum, and I started craving a different media, a different release than that of strictly pen to paper calculations. I started playing piano in first grade through freshman year of high school and revisited it my sophomore year of college when I was substantially stressed. After trying to get back into it, I desired it more and would play for sometimes two to three hours a night in a fine arts hall, while listening to Elton John, Journey, and Goo Goo Dolls on my own time or while studying. Though not often portrayed as the classified term of “neuro-rhythm music therapy,” playing an instrument and listening to music encompasses positive mental health benefits, ranging from it activating the pleasure-reward system of the brain, priming it, and managing effects of post-operative pain. Simply put, music is good for us, but how do we determine what is pleasurable for each of us specifically, whether it encompasses rock, punk, and metal, or rap and country? Per the journal, Science, patterns in brain activity indicate whether we like what we are listening to. A researcher at Rotman Research Institute in Toronto and former Levitin student Valorie Salimpoor conducted a study in which participants “listened to 60 excerpts of music they had never heard before while in a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine.” After asking the 19 participants how much money they would spend on a given song while listening to the excerpts, researchers analyzed the subjects’ brain patterns, specifically honing in on the nucleus accumbens and superior temporal gyrus. While the latter structure is involved in the experience of music, its connection to the nucleus accumbens is pertinent as genres of music in which a person listens to over a lifetime impact how the superior temporal gyrus is formed. The superior temporal gyrus is not linked with predicting whether a person will enjoy a given piece of music; rather, it involves storing templates from what has been heard before. (A person who has frequently listened to rap will appreciate its genre to an elevated degree than an individual who has less experience listening to the genre.) In the words of Salimpoor, “The brain kind of works like a music recommendation system.” The brain indicates what is considered valuable for one’s survival music is strongly associated with its reward system. While it doesn’t fit the “food, water, sex” existence continuum, professor of neurology and neurosurgery at Montreal Neurological Institute Robert Zatorre indicated that the striatum releases the chemical dopamine in response to pleasure-related stimuli. When the music is transmitted to someone’s brain and registers, it triggers the release of dopamine specifically the ventral striatum releases dopamine when a person is experiencing peak pleasure. According to CNN, what is interesting, however, is that dopamine is released from a differing area of the brain, the dorsal striatum, “about 10 to 15 seconds before the moment of peak pleasure.” Zatorre explains that while one is anticipating a moment of pleasure, he or she “is making predictions about what is [being heard] and what [one] is about to hear. Part of the pleasure we derive from it is being able to make predictions.” With this strong dopamine rush from music, it could be comparable to that of methamphetamines. In babies, the “Mozart Effect” has been a booming term among first-time parents as they read Women’s Health, Parenting, or the Working Mother magazine publications, hinting that playing classical music while pregnant can seemingly make the son or daughter “smarter.” However, there are few studies which support this claim; rather, music primes the brain’s various mindsets. According to University of Georgia’s Associate Professor and Extension Human Development Specialist Dr. Diane Bales in her article “The Role of Music,” people who listen to music perform certain special tasks quickly, such as fitting a puzzle together. How does this occur, though? As reported by Bales, “The classical music pathways in our brain are similar to the pathways we use for spatial reasoning.” When we listen to classical music, these spatial pathways are flipped on and ready to be utilized. Our improved spatial skills fade within about an hour after listening to music, but learning to play an instrument has been proven to exhibit longer-lasting effects on dimensional reasoning. The critical period of a baby is pivotal as he or she is developing new connections with other neurons to prepare for solidification of the brain. Playing music, singing to the child, and even starting him or her out in lessons can enhance this creativity and spatial awareness which is more often than not bypassed. Extend the immediate immersion of music in children into long-term ramifications: that of reduced stress and anxiety, decreased pain, and improved immune functioning. As written by Jill Suttie in the Huffington Post’s article “5 Ways Music Improves Our Health,” she brings to light a study in which researchers discovered that patients receiving surgery for hernia repair and who listened to music after surgery “experienced decreased plasma cortisol levels and required significantly less morphine to manage their pain.” A similar surgery expounded upon this stress and pain reduction correlation as stress-reducing effects of music were more powerful than that of orally-administered anxiolytic drugs for surgery patients. Test after test was performed as Suttie clarifies that 60 people diagnosed with anything from fibromyalgia to undergoing spinal surgery experienced significant reductions in their pain and fewer depressive symptoms hardly a placebo effect as a 2014 randomized control trial was conducted which involved healthy subjects exposed to painful stimuli. The result: a failed linkage between expectation and music’s effects on pain. This leads me to my final point: music as preventing disease. You’re probably thinking ‘If I have the flu, listening to music will not magically make me well.’ You are certainly correct regarding this standpoint. However, Wilkes University researchers conducted a study involving the levels of IgA, an important antibody for our immune system’s first line of defense against disease. After undergraduate students had their salivary IgA levels tested preceding and following a half-hour exposure to either a tone click, radio broadcast, tape of soothing music, or silence, those who listened to the music exhibited predominately increased levels of IgA than their counterparts. A similar study from Massachusetts General Hospital found that patients had lower stress hormone levels when listening to Mozart’s piano sonatas as a relaxation mechanism. An instrument of self-expression or rather a release from reality, embracing music in its entirety has salvaged people from silence. I often note that when I am not feeling like myself or had a rough day, listening to my favorite band, or sneaking into the piano room at SLU for hours on end enables me to express what I could not put into words on paper or to another person maybe I could not formulate the verbiage, or maybe there were simply no words to be said, but just emotions building which could not be paired with the correct form of verbal expression. I could care less if you have a different taste in music than me; I previously mentioned I did not enjoy listening to rap, but if you find comfort in its genre, I encourage you to cling to it. No one will ever be able to take your own expression away from you.

Expand Your Vocabulary With These Daily Activities

Expand Your Vocabulary With These Daily Activities You may want to increase your vocabulary for personal or academic reasons. However, a strong vocabulary has been linked to higher income. No matter what your motivation, with commitment and practice, you can add words to your vocabulary every day. Read. The more you read, the greater the number of words you're exposed to. Keep the level of the material that you are reading in mind: the New York Times, Economist, Atlantic, and New Yorker will expose you to more new words than a general-circulation newspaper. Reading literary material - novels and short stories - will grow your vocabulary more quickly than most non-fiction texts will, and may improve your character as well. Seeing a word in context supplements flipping through a dictionary quite well. Keep a dictionary and thesaurus on hand. Multiple apps are available for your phone. When you discover a new word, go to the dictionary to determine its meaning - or meanings - and pronunciation. Then check the thesaurus to locate similar words and phrases, as well as synonyms and antonyms. Play games. Challenging word games include crosswords, anagrams, and boggle. Many games are available for your phone or ipad. Put that thumb-twiddling time now wasted on Candy Crush to good use! Consider the roots. One of the best things you can do to expand your English vocabulary is to study Greek and Latin roots. Prefixes, roots, and suffixes in these languages contribute substantially to English and will help you learn new words.Write in a journal. Maintain a list of the new words you've added to your vocabulary, with definitions, to keep track of your progress. Reviewing the list will help embed them in your memory, and seeing the mass of new words in one place can provide motivation. If you'd rather maintain a spreadsheet, feel free, but note that you will remember the words more effectively if you write them, longhand, in a journal. Try to pick up at least a word a day. There are word-a-day desk calendars and websites to visit, as well word-of-the-day email services. However, simply reading a new word and its definition won't store it in your long-term memory. Write out both the word and its definition. Say it out loud. Write sentences that use the new word in context. Then recite these sentences out loud. Try to incorporate your new vocabulary in your conversation, or make them the topic of conversation between you and a friend. Your new vocabulary will start making unprompted appearances in your daily speech - and improving your academic performance - before you know it.

7 Killer Ways to Use Technology for Instant Language Learning

7 Killer Ways to Use Technology for Instant Language Learning Imagine that you live in a world where there are no cars, iPhones, laptops, ATMs, TVs and no internet.What would your typical day look like?What would you do first thing in the morning? How about the rest of the day?How would you know what’s been happening around the world? In the absence of Facebook, for example, how would you know about the statuses of your friends?Now, imagine how learning a new language would take place in that technology-free kind of world.First you’d walk around and look for a person who speaks the language. You’d swim across the ocean if need be. As a result, language acquisition would be horrendously slow. The Impact of Technology on Language LearningNow come back to our world for a minute and let’s talk about the blessings of technology. It seems to me that every time a new technology is developed, people immediately enlist it in the cause of teaching and learning a new language. After all, learning a new tongue is on many of our bucket lists, and technology can help us learn quickly.Technology has changed the way we exchange information. From colleagues sending company data across continents at the speed of light, to learning a whole new language, technology has made its presence known in no uncertain terms.It has democratized language transfer. Instead of getting on a plane and going where the native speakers are, don’t even leave your seat. Just visit the millions of websites that teach language courses.And in these websites, they are using technologies that make the lessons come to life. They have memory games that make learning fun. Videos record the lessons and you can replay them at any time of the day and as often as like. You’re not only listening to how the native speakers sound, but you’re also doing it at your own pace. You have translation services at your fingertips, before you even need them.At this point, there’s really no excuse in not learning a second,  a third  or even a fourth  language. Whether y ou wish to  join the ranks of the polyglots  or not,  the resources are all waiting for you.And here are some ways to enlist today’s technology in learning the language that you’ve always had your eye on.7 Killer Ways to Use Technology for Instant Language Learning1. Change the Language Settings on Your Devices and Social Media AccountsDid you notice that appliances as mundane as washing machines come with manuals that are translated in practically a dozen languages? Do you sense a language learning opportunity there?Well, maybe not, but know that the phone you are holding in your hand can be set to display commands in a variety of languages.You can also use social media accounts to learn any major language, like using Facebook to learn Spanish, for example. Simply change the language settings in your account. Sure, the translations aren’t perfect and you might feel awkward at first. It’s almost like learning to write with your left hand when youre right-handed.But by changi ng the language settings, you are forcing yourself to learn a different language by interacting with it. And get ready to be surprised, because over time, you’ll get so used to it that using the gadgets and navigating the sites will be a breeze.2. Use Instant Translate to Learn VocabularyWith one click or tap, you will know what “sleep” is when translated to French, Spanish or Japanese, for example. With translation sites and apps, you can also go the other way and untangle foreign words into English.You can even have multiple versions of the translation so you can get a razor-sharp equivalent of a word. Here are some of the best translation and dictionary apps for some common languages:French translation appsGerman dictionary appsJapanese dictionary appsSpanish dictionary appsA few years ago, translating into so many languages would have required books as thick as five iPhones stacked on top of the other. You would then search the pages for your word, singing your ABCs so you could find it. But today, all you really have to do is blink and you have every translation known to man.3. Video Chat with a Native Speaker Any Time of the DaySkype and Google Hangouts are free video call services that allow you to connect with anybody willing to take your call. With this technology, you are practically a click away from any native speaker. As long as he or she has a reliable internet connection, and a Skype or Google account, you can spend countless hours engaged with somebody who speaks your target language.To find someone who speaks your target language, look online. You can use any of the social media accounts you have, or sites like italki, Craigslist, Couchsurfing  or  My Language Exchange. You can post your own ads, or ask around to see if anyone you know has connections with native speakers of the language youre learning.Here are additional resources for finding native speakers of French, German and Spanish with whom you can talk online:French  language ex changeGerman  language exchangeSpanish  language exchangeFor best results, find someone who’s also interested in learning your native tongue so it will be beneficial for both of you.4. Turn Car Rides into Language ClassesA study has shown that people spend a considerable amount of time in their carsâ€"in traffic. That’s a significant part of our lives, sitting idly and listening to music. Why don’t we put these hours to good use? Why not use this as an opportunity to learn a new language?Instead of fuming about the jam caused by the two sleepy drivers at the intersection, why don’t you sit back and pop in your favorite language course and learn to speak Korean, Japanese or Spanish?You could get CDs from your public library, or download free tracks from the internet. Remember that listening isnt limited to a formal audio language course. You can try listening to podcasts and music, too!Then if anybody asks you, Hey Dave, where did you learn to speak Spanish?,  you can answer nonchalantly, In my Honda Accord!5. YouTube Your Way to Language AcquisitionYouTube, as a repository of videos, is chockfull of language learning opportunities. There’s the long list of channels maintained by people who are genuinely gifted in teaching language. As for teachers, you have an endless selection. I’m sure you can find one or two whose teaching style matches your penchant for learning.With YouTube, you also have access to native speakers speaking their dialects in full display. A video or channel may not necessarily be about language. It may be about putting on makeup, for example. You can mine that video by listening closely to the intonation of the speaker, or the way she pronounces a certain word.To save you from blind searching, here are our selections of the best YouTube channels to follow for these language learners:Chinese learnersEnglish  learnersFrench  learnersGerman  learners  | German YouTube videosJapanese  learnersSpanish learnersAnd if you really want to milk this resource, scroll down to the comments section and read what’s written. With enough contextualizing skills, you will be able to make out what is being said. The comment section is a showcase of how native speakers express their language in written form, with all the informal online expressions included.Another way to discover great videos and effectively use them for language learning is with  FluentU, which provides more structure than simply watching videos on YouTube.FluentU takes real-world videosâ€"like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talksâ€"and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.Every word comes with an in-context definition, image and multiple example sentences. FluentU also has a neat learn mode for every video, allowing you to practice new words in a fun way and track your learning progress.6. Test Your Knowledge Through Technologically-enhanced Language GamesIn the old days, you had flashcards to test your knowledge of vo cabulary. Somebody would hold up the flashcards and then you would tell that person what the word is in German, for example. Or your partner would show a card with “one” written on it, and youd excitedly scream, uno!  as the answer.Today, you have games saddled with every bell and whistle to make the learning that much more fun and interesting. They bombard you with all these colorful animations that burn the lessons in your memory, with accompanying music for correct answers and sound effects for wrong answers.You don’t even need a partner today. Flashcard-type exercises and games now use SRS  to be much more effective, and websites are equipped with thousands of questions that can test your skill in different levels. You can actually play language games the whole day without a single test question repeated.7. Listen to Children’s Stories in Your Target LanguageToday’s children are pampered by audiovisual stories that entertain them no end. The vivid characters come to li fe as seasoned storytellers animate the classics.If I were you, trying to learn a language, I would sit in the same bandwagon and take advantage of the spoon feeding. Choose a story that has a visual component. That is, a story that has the text and pictures shown. If the storyteller is being shown, take note of his/her gestures. This will help you make out the things happening in the story. (If possible, make sure that you are familiar with the English version of the story.)Because they are geared for kids, the language structure in the stories will be easy enough, and the vocabulary so basic that an adult listening to Cinderella in Spanish can mine it for language acquisition.The Limits of Technology in Language LearningWould you believe that with all that Ive said about the virtues of technology, its not a total panacea? It’s true what they say, too much of a good thing is no good at all. We still have to look out for some unintended consequences brought about by today’s tech nology.It has the tendency to make the learning passive. Everything is available, and everything is accessible in an instant. This results in the brain taking for granted what is served up to it so easily. And you don’t really value what comes too easily. For example, there’s just something about flipping the pages of a thick dual-language dictionary that makes us appreciate the word when we finally locate it on the page.Technology also precludes human interaction. Some people just learn best when interacting with others. Solo flights in front of the computer don’t hold much appeal to them. There’s just something about having a warm body laughing your bungling of a new language.So as it turns out, technology has its own shortcomings. You can’t lean on it too much. If you want a bountiful harvest, you need to put in the effort and the time to really do the hard work. Technology is the same. It’s there to help, but it can’t drag you from bed in the morning and sit you in front of the computer or make you take the tests seriously.Nevertheless, when used properly, technology can absolutely skyrocket your language acquisition. Never before in human history has learning a new language been so easy, so accessible and so cheap.There is, then, no excuse for anyone with enough motivation. So what are you waiting for? Lets get learning!