Education and Technology

Ever feel like your writing could be better?

If you’re a blogger, there’s no way around writing.

It’s critical to everything you do, and shapes your reputation online.

This makes a lot of us dread writing.

We approach it with a heavy heart full of anxiety and minds clouded by doubt.

But what if you could ensure that your writing is at least decent every time you hit that publish button?

You’d be less worried about the mechanics of writing, and more focused on your message to your audience.

Making you a more powerful blogger.
So here are 30 high-impact ways to supercharge your writing chops, boost your blogging confidence and finally slash those paralysing doubts swirling in your brain.

Let’s go.

1. Develop a Strong Foundation

Before you can produce writing that leaps out of the screen and grabs the readers attention, you’ll need a good understanding of the basic principles of writing.

Things like grammar, spelling and sentence structure.

One of the most highly recommended books for this is The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. Its a short compact book that’s crammed with everything you need to ensure your basic writing is tight.

2. Take Your Reader to Starbucks

Imagine you’re sitting in a class with about 30 students. You have a speckled professor droning on about a scientific topic.

Now imagine having coffee with a friend sitting across you at Starbucks, explaining the same thing.

Who are you most likely to listen and learn from?

Your friend, right? Because it’s more personal.

Your friend will:

Ask you questions to make sure you understand
Fluctuate his tone of voice to emphasise points
Give you analogies, similes and metaphors to explain better

Similarly, you can do same thing with your words.

Ask readers questions to break the monotony and keep them engaged
Emphasise important points by making your text bold, italic or underlining
Provide vivid metaphors, similes and analogies that help your reader understand what you’re saying with speed and clarity

So next time you sit down to write, don’t think about thousands of eyes gazing at your screen. Think about the reader you’re having a delicious coffee with.

It’ll instantly add a more conversational flow and inject personality into your writing.

3. Have an Outline Before Writing

Top bloggers like Neil Patel, Carol Tice and Michael Hyatt all swear by the time slicing power of outlines.

Not only will outlines improve the speed at which you can dish out blog posts, they also improve the flow and quality of your posts.

A good outline covers the following points:

The introduction, where you tell your reader what your post is about, and how it’s going to make his life better to make him want to read on.
The main body or meat of a post, where you deliver most of your tips and advice
The conclusion, where you finish your post with a summary and a call to action

If you feel that your writing could be better and faster give outlines a try.

4. Don’t Edit and Write at The Same Time

Writing and editing involves two different sides of the brain. Writing is a more creative process and editing is more logical/analytical.

Editing while you write is like continuously switching up and down gears in your car. You’re going to be slowing yourself down.

Putting your foot down all the way instead of switching speeds will work better.

When you start editing while you write, you slow down your writing speed, lose momentum and are more likely to doubt what yourself.

Basically, don’t write and edit at the same time, it disrupts the creative process.

5. Your First Draft Will Suck

It’s tempting to think that your favourite bloggers are magically creating stellar content on their first drafts, but thats not true.

Your first draft is all about getting your thoughts down on paper.

Accept that it will suck. It will free you from the mental chains of doubt, and prevent you from being overly analytical.

6. Give your Brain a Break before Editing

Once you’ve written your draft, give your brain a break and distance yourself from it for a day or two.

This will increase your objectivity for your first round of editing and will let your mind sift through the ideas you wanted to express during your write up.

7. Snap Your Brain’s Adaptations in Half

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” (Stephen King)

Think of your brain as a muscle. It needs constant stimulation to grow and become stronger.

Therefore, you have to train your writing muscles rigorously by continuously reading. You’ll expose yourself to different words, sentences, styles and steadily absorb good writing habits.

I’m a little gym obsessed, and one thing you learn when building muscle is that you have to attack the body with different types of training.

Doing the same routine day in day out leads to you hitting plateaus. Your body eventually adapts to your routine and stops growing.

Similarly, when it comes to reading… try to vary what you read.

If you normally read fiction, switch to non-fiction once in a while. If you normally read action/adventure try out romance.

Reading something different will break your brain’s adaptation pattern, consequently strengthening your writing muscle and leaving you stronger and more well-balanced writer.

8. Embed Awesome Writing into Your Brain by Handwriting

Sounds odd, doesn’t it?

Well, it’s how many great writers started off.

Journalist Hunter S. Thompson started by copying the The Great Gatsby and A Farewell to Arms on a typewriter.

Robert Louis Stevenson, author of classics like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Treasure Island, honed his chops by taking a passage from a great writer and reading it. Then turning over the passage and trying to re-write it again from memory.

Dan Kennedy bloodied his nose in the marketing world by copying out 500 sales letters by hand in order train his mind to absorb the rhythm of good copy.

I’ve used this technique myself. It ain’t easy, but it’s an excellent way to quickly absorb good flow and wording and sharpen your skills.

Try it, I dare you.

9. Take a Literary Hammer, and Smash Your Favourite Writing into Pieces

Everyone has a writer they look up to. And what better way to learn from those that you admire right?

Find a piece of writing that you admire. It could be from a book, a blog post, or a sales letter.

Now take the piece of writing that impacted you and break it down. Analyze what the writer does to make it so powerful.

Ask yourself:

Why does this part of the blog post, book or sales letter stand out so much?
What techniques does the writer use to make the piece stand out?
What effects did the words phrases and style have?
How does it make you feel?

By closely analyzing an excellent piece of prose, you gain a deep insight to what the writer was thinking and the techniques they used. You can then use the techniques for your own purposes.

10. Print Out what You’ve Written

Sometimes it can be harder to find your mistakes on a computer screen. Printing out your work can make it easier for you to spot grammar and spelling mistakes in your writing.

11. Hit Your Reader Reader’s Senses Where it Hurts

To keep your readers straight-jacketed to your post, engage their senses.

What can they see? Smell? Hear? Feel?

Here’s what a sentence looks like before engaging the senses:

“Your writing has to make an impact on your readers.”

Yawn.

It’s a normal, tasteless, sentence that has surface level impact on the reader.

After engaging the senses:

“Your words have to creep up on your audience and sucker punch them into paying attention.”

See the difference?

By using the sensory experiences, the sentence latches on to the readers attention and forces them to feel what you’re saying.

12. Keep Your Writing Active

The passive voice butchers your writing. Whereas the active voice, adds strength and vigor to it.

Take a look at these passive sentences:

The bat was swung by John

The ball was thrown by James

The door was broken by the dog

Look at what happens after a little makeover…

John swung the bat

James threw the ball

The dog broke the door

Not only are the sentences more concise, clear and strong. But they also carry more impact with less words.

If you want your readers to effortlessly slide down your posts, keeping your writing active is a must.

13. Use Shorter Paragraphs and Sentences

Nobody wants to process large chunks of information. They want easy digestible pieces of information they can easily understand.

That’s where having shorter sentences and paragraphs can help a ton.

Keeping sentences and paragraphs short quickens the pace of your writing; makes it easier to understand, and makes your writing less intimidating.

Aim for one main point per paragraph and one main idea per sentence.

14. Supercharge Your Brain With Words

“I often read for 5-10 minutes. Out loud.” Was Jon Morrow’’s response when asked what his pre-writing rituals are.

We all know that any writer worth his salt is a serious reader.

But, did you know that when engaged in a powerful reading session, you receive a boost in connectivity in the part of the brain that is associated with the receptivity of language?

Yup, scientists from Emory University proved that reading heightens your brain power when it comes to dealing with language.

Try reading before you sit down for your next writing session and see if you don’t improve.

15. Develop a Brain Pumping Routine

High performers in any profession develop a routine to get in the “zone”.

Developing a routine for your writing trains your brain to expect to write, which warms your mind up and makes the act of writing much easier in comparison to writing cold.

Jack Kerouac would kneel, pray, light a candle and write by it’s light, then blow it out when he was done.

John Carlton would slip into a different of writing clothes to get him in the zone.

Ernest Hemingway liked to write first thing in the morning.

Experiment with different routines and see what sticks, because once you have a solid routine to get you in the mood, you’ll no longer be a victim of writers block.

16. Sharpen Your Headline Chops

When writing headlines, you have to make every single word count. Or you risk your reader turning a blind eye to your post.

Headlines force you to be selective and squeeze the power out your words. This transitions into your ability to create hard-hitting sentences that flow smoother, and read better.

17. Write Like it’s Your Job

As Stephen King said, writing is “just another job like laying pipe or driving long haul trucks.”

Let’s imagine that you’re a plumber, and it’s your first day on the job.

You wouldn’t expect yourself to be amazingly skilled at what you’re doing, right?

But you know that becoming better is inevitable. Thanks to the fact that it’s your job, and you’re doing it almost every single day..

The same applies to writing.

Write when you feel like it. Write when you don’t. Prioritize your time around writing.

Write like it’s your job and you’re guaranteed to level up your skills .

18. Get enough sleep

Ever tried to build muscle?

An important principle that people skim over is rest.

They pack themselves into gyms and break down muscle tissue to get stronger. But, the body doesn’t get stronger during exercise. It starts repairing and adds extra muscle tissue during sleep.

So activities like: writing and reading. Studying different styles, and analyzing great writing…are the literary equivalent of pumping weights.

They’ll challenge your writing muscle and force it to grow stronger.

But despite your attempts to sharpen your skills…something as simple as sleep could be killing your progress.

Sleep is vital for survival,and keeps your nervous system functioning properly. And according to biological psychologist Namni Goel, “there’s plenty of research showing how a lack of it cripples your mind.”

Writing is hard.

It forces you to dig deep in your brain and extract ideas, information, and feelings. Then communicate them to another human being.

Don’t make it even harder by not getting enough sleep.

19. Get Moving

Henry David Thoreau said: “the moment my legs begin to move my thoughts begin to flow – as if I had given vent to the stream at the lower end and consequently new fountains flowed into it at the upper”

As mentioned before, writing ain’t easy.

That’s why its important to keep yourself in shape. Your body is your temple, and you want it to be operating at its peak (don’t you?).

Exercise can help you do that.

Many great writers swear by exercise being a helpful tool for boosting creativity and preparing you for the act of writing.

There’s even research that proves exercise fires up your neurons and switches your brain on.

Research conducted by cognitive scientist prof colzato showed that “people who are doing exercise on a regular basis outperform those who don’t. We think that physical exercise trains your brain to become more flexible in finding creative solutions.”

I like to hit the gym or jump rope for a while before writing. It calms me down, boosts my mood and clears my thoughts.

But you don’t have to do anything strenuous, you could walk, run, or even do light stretching… just get your blood moving.

20. Release Your Inner (Doodling) Child

Sounds odd doesn’t it?

But at times, rules, regulations and emotional baggage can weigh you down and stifle your creativity.

In her book the doodle revolution, Sunni brown says that doodling helps you focus by “anchoring” a task. Especially when it comes to things that require attention for extended periods of time. Things like lectures, meetings, calls and writing.

“We think doodling is something you do when you lose focus, but it’s really a preemptive measure to stop you from losing focus,”

Find yourself feeling mentally clogged up at times? Grab a pen and blank paper. Let your thoughts flow freely.

21. Have an Editor Read Through your Work

No one ever writes the perfect draft.

And even though your second and third ones might be more polished; nothing beats a fresh pair of eyes.

An editor can also highlight your weaknesses and strengths so you can objectively look at your writing and decide what to work on.

22. Join a Group of Writers

Writing is a solitary activity.

And unfortunately, not everyone understands what it’s like to bleed thoughts from your brain into crisp, compelling words that communicate your ideas.

Surround yourself with people who write.

You’ll get ongoing feedback on your progress, and you’ll always have someone who can sympathize with your writing pleasures and pains.

23. Study Great Sentences

Sentences are the backbone of your writing.

The stronger they are, the stronger your writing will become and the more impact it will have on your readers.

If you encounter a sentence that catches your attention, stop for a second.

Go over it again. Handwrite it. Study it.

Break down why it’s such a good sentence. Is it concise and powerful? Does it contain a metaphor with killer clarity? Is it crammed with power words?

Take notes on what makes other sentences good. You’ll discover useful lessons that’ll strengthen your own writing.

24. Cut Out Anything Repetitive or Boring

This applies to both your words and the ideas you express.

Instead of using the same word to describe something; aim for a variety of accurate words to make your writing blossom inside your readers mind.

Below is a short action scene I wrote.

Before cutting out boring phrases and using different words to create vivid images, this is what it looked like…

“He fired the gun. The bullets reached each target. One bullet hit the guards head and left a bloody mess. The other bullet hit the second guard square in the jaw and left an explosion of teeth. By the time he reached his next point of cover, both guards were dead.”

Here’s what it looks like after:

“The gun rattled to life. Each shot reaching its intended destination with blinding speed. One cratered through a guards forehead, the second exploded into an anatomical firework of teeth and jaw bone as it smashed into the 2nd guards mouth. By the time he reached his next point of cover, both guards were dead.”

See the difference?

I removed everything that was repetitive, and replaced boring words with high power verbs to create a more vivid image that hits where it hurts.

25. Play with Your Words

Instead of settling for the first few words that come to your head, whip out a thesaurus and get digging.

Try using different words and phrases instead of the ones you’ve chosen.

By regularly practicing this, you’ll expand your vocabulary and develop the important skill of choosing the right word at the right time to create the perfect image.

26. Your Reader’s Cursor is Hovering on the X button

It’s easy to think your readers are browsing for fun and enjoyment. That they’ll read every word of your post; but that’s just not true.

It’s better to think of your reader like this:

Your reader is juggling a screaming baby on his lap, has dozens of tasks to finish, and is ready to click on that big red x button the second your post doesn’t provide the solution to his problems.

Now, that may not be 100% true… but this simple mindset shift will help you create more reader friendly content from the get go.

You’ll be sure to keep his pains and problems in mind, which means you’re less likely to have fluffy, bloated writing that bores his ear off.

27. Kill Cliches with Lethal Analogies

Cliches suck.

They’re tasteless phrases that readers shake off like dirt on their shoulders.

Aswell as making you look like a lazy writer, they butcher any hint of personality in your writing.

So, what to do instead?

Kill them…with high power analogies.

28. Keep it Dead Simple

Want to instantly power up your posts?

Make them easier to read by simplifying your writing.

Now, simple doesn’t mean limp sentences that pass readers by… it means taking out unnecessary ten-dollar words that make you look like a pompous show off.

Don’t say:

Utilize when you can say use

Extrapolate when you can say estimate

Desiderate when you can say desire

And cut out words like very, really, almost, probably etc.

Keeping your writing simple allows you to communicate with your readers better. It smoothly slides information into their brains without them having to make too much effort.

29. Jump into Your Reader’s Bed

What sites does your reader like to visit? What type of content do they like to read? What do they struggle with the most?

Answering these questions gives you a deeper insight into what your reader’s most troubling problems, hopes and desires are.

Use polls, surveys, or emails to find out what they want and need.

Knowing your reader well will help you improve on the main purpose of your writing, which is…

To add value to his life through your content.

30. Dissect Bad Writing

You’ll often hear that one of the best ways to improve your writing is to… “read widely and read great writers.”

But what about bad writing?

Think about it. When you’re engrossed in reading a blogpost, novel, or article that is good, it stealthily washes over your eyes and sneaks into your brain. Because you’re enjoying it.

But when you face writing that is bad, it’s hard to read.

You notice that it’s bad instantly. The sentences might feel bloated. The flow might feel horrible. It’ll be completely boring. Making it easier to analyze.

You’ll spot exactly where the writer went wrong, and how you could improve it.

Reading bad writing also has another sneaky benefit.

It’ll give you a little confidence boost and make you feel better about yourself, because constant exposure to writing to higher level writing can lead to doubts sprouting in your brain.

31. Skyrocket Your Productivity with a Deadline

The less time you have to do something, the faster you’ll get it done.

When you don’t have a deadline, it’s tempting to think that you can keep on editing and improving your work. But after creating one, you’re forced to complete your work in a given time frame, which will increase your chances of getting it done quicker.

32. Set a Daily Writing Goal

Yes, daily.

Why?

Well, imagine a gymnast performing in front of thousands of eager eyes.

Effortlessly flipping through the air and performing feats most only dream of.

He didn’t learn how to perform on the day of the performance, did he?

He had to constantly drill the movements into his brain. Day in, day out…until they became second nature.

Similarly, the popular writers that you look up to experienced the same thing.

They had to continuously suffer creating humiliating sentences, weak content and limp paragraphs to gradually get better.

Constant practice is what sands the edges off your lack of skill.

That’s where writing daily will help you tremendously.

Set aside a small chunk of time to write everyday. Don’t concern yourself with writing thousands of words. Just be sure to write every day and make it a habit. You can increase your targets later.

Eventually, you’ll be able to produce hard hitting writing with less effort because it’s ingrained in your mind and body.

It’s no longer something takes a ton of energy and has to be scraped out your skull. It’s an embedded habit.

There you are, 30 high-impact writing ways to level up your writing. Your next step?

Pick 1-2 tips from this post and try them out for a at least a couple of weeks. Improvement will be inevitable.

The world is hitting its stride in technological advances, and futurists have been making wild-sounding bets on what we'll accomplish in the not-so-distant future.

Futurist Ray Kurzweil, for example, believes that by 2040 artificial intelligence will be so good that humans will be fully immersed in virtual reality and that something called the Singularity, when technology becomes so advanced that it changes the human race irreversibly, will occur.

Kevin Kelly, who helped launch Wired in 1993, sat down for an hour-long video interview with John Brockman at Edge. Kelly believes the next 20 years in technology will be radical. So much so that he believes our technological advances will make the previous 20 years "pale" in comparison.

"If we were sent back with a time machine, even 20 years, and reported to people what we have right now and describe what we were going to get in this device in our pocket — we'd have this free encyclopedia, and we'd have street maps to most of the cities of the world, and we'd have box scores in real time and stock quotes and weather reports, PDFs for every manual in the world ... You would simply be declared insane," Kelly said.

"But the next 20 years are going to make this last 20 years just pale," he continued. "We're just at the beginning of the beginning of all these kind of changes. There's a sense that all the big things have happened, but relatively speaking, nothing big has happened yet. In 20 years from now we'll look back and say, 'Well, nothing really happened in the last 20 years.'"

In 20 years from now we'll look back and say, 'Well, nothing really happened in the last 20 years.'

What will these mind-blowing changes look like? He mentioned a few thoughts during the interview with Brockman.

"In 20 years from now

We'll look back and

Say, 'Well, nothing

Really happened in

The last 20 years."

Robots are going to make lots of things.

"Certainly most of the things that are going to be produced are going to be made by robots and automation, but [humans] can modify them and we can change them, and we can be involved in the co-production of them to a degree that we couldn't in the industrial age," Kelly says.

"That's sort of the promise of 3D printing and robotics and all these other high-tech material sciences is that it's going to become as malleable."

Tracking and surveillance are only going to get more prevalent, but they may move toward "coveillance" so that we can control who's monitoring us and what they're monitoring.

"It's going to be very, very difficult to prevent this thing that we're on all the time 24 hours, seven days a week, from tracking, because all the technologies — from sensors to quantification, digitization, communication, wireless connection — want to track, and so the internet is going to track," says Kelly.

"We're going to track ourselves. We're going to track each other. Government and corporations are going to track us. We can't really get out of that. What we can try and do is civilize and make a convivial kind of tracking."

Kelly says the solution may be to let people see who's tracking them, what they're tracking, and give them the ability to correct trackings that are inaccurate. Right now, people just feel like they're being spied on, and they can't control who's watching them or what information is being surfaced.

Everything really will be about "big data."

Kelly admits that big data is a buzzword, but he thinks it deserves to be.

"We're in the period now where the huge dimensions of data and their variables in real time needed for capturing, moving, processing, enhancing, managing, and rearranging it, are becoming the fundamental elements for making wealth," says Kelly.

"We used to rearrange atoms, now it's all about rearranging data. That is really what we’ll see in the next 10 years ... They're going to release data from language to make it machine-readable and recombine it in an infinite number of ways that we're not even thinking about."

Asking the right questions will become more valuable than finding answers.

In the age of Google and Wikipedia, answers to endless questions are free. Kelly believes that asking good questions will become much more important in the future than finding one-off solutions.

"Every time we use science to try to answer a question, to give us some insight, invariably that insight or answer provokes two or three other new questions," he says. "While science is certainly increasing knowledge, it's actually increasing our ignorance even faster."

"In a certain sense what becomes really valuable in a world running under Google's reign are great questions, and that means that for a long time humans will be better at than machines. Machines are for answers. Humans are for questions."

Siffre was a French scientist and a pioneer in chronobiology, which is the study of biological rhythms. The most well-known of these biological rhythms is the circadian rhythm, which controls the human sleep-wake cycle, and Siffre was on a mission to learn how, exactly, it worked.

Siffre’s life in the cave was spartan at best. He lived in a tent that sat on a small wooden platform with a bed, a table, a chair, and a phone that he could use to call his research team above ground. His underground home was equipped with a single lightbulb, which provided a soft glow to the piles of frozen food and 800 gallons of water nearby. There were no clocks or calendars, no way for him to discover what time it was or whether it was day or night. And this was how he lived, alone, for six months.

Within a few days, Siffre’s biological clock began to take over. He would later recall his experiments by writing, “My sleep was perfect! My body chose by itself when to sleep and when to eat. That’s very important. We showed that my sleep-wake cycle was not twenty-four hours, like people have on the surface of the earth, but slightly longer—about twenty-four hours and thirty minutes.” [1] On several occasions, Siffre’s body transitioned to a 48-hour sleep-wake cycle where he would stay awake naturally for 36 hours and then sleep for 12 hours.

Siffre’s work, along with the experiments of a handful of other researchers, helped kickstart a scientific interest in sleep that has resulted in sleep performance centers at major universities like Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. Given that we spend almost 1/3 of our lives sleeping, it’s hard to believe the topic has only gained a large scientific following in recent years.

In this article, I’ll share the science of sleep and how it works, discuss why many people suffer from sleep deprivation without knowing it, and offer practical tips for getting better sleep and having more energy.

How Much Sleep Do You Need?

How much sleep do you really need? To answer that question, let’s consider an experiment conducted by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Washington State University.The researchers began the experiment by gathering 48 healthy men and women who had been averaging seven to eight hours of sleep per night. Then, they split these subjects into four groups. The first group drew the short straw. They had to stay up for 3 days straight without sleeping. The second group slept for 4 hours per night. The third group slept for 6 hours per night. And the fourth group slept for 8 hours per night. In these final three groups — 4, 6, and 8 hours of sleep — the subjects were held to these sleep patterns for two weeks straight. Throughout the experiment the subjects were tested on their physical and mental performance.

Here’s what happened…

The subjects who were allowed a full 8 hours of sleep displayed no cognitive decreases, attention lapses, or motor skill declines during the 14-day study. Meanwhile, the groups who received 4 hours and 6 hours of sleep steadily declined with each passing day. The four-hour group performed worst, but the six-hour group didn’t fare much better. In particular, there were two notable findings.

First, sleep debt is a cumulative issue. In the words of the researchers, sleep debt “has a neurobiological cost which accumulates over time.” After one week, 25 percent of the six-hour group was falling asleep at random times throughout the day. After two weeks, the six-hour group had performance deficits that were the same as if they had stayed up for two days straight. Let me repeat that: if you get 6 hours of sleep per night for two weeks straight, your mental and physical performance declines to the same level as if you had stayed awake for 48 hours straight.

Second, participants didn’t notice their own performance declines. When participants graded themselves, they believed that their performance declined for a few days and then tapered off. In reality, they were continuing to get worse with each day. In other words, we are poor judges of our own performance decreases even as we are going through them. In the real world, well-lit office spaces, social conversations, caffeine, and a variety of other factors can make you feel fully awake even though your actual performance is sub-optimal. You might think that your performance is staying the same even on low amounts of sleep, but it’s not. And even if you are happy with your sleep-deprived performance levels, you’re not performing optimally.

Technology is well-established. From car remotes to medical procedures, technology is part of our lives. Each day, new technological ideas or products are introduced. Because technology is so prevalent in the modern world, it is worth exploring what effects modern technology has on us. The effects of technology can be both positive and negative.

Modern technology has become so entrenched in the idea of a modern society that the two are nearly inseparable. Developing countries try to get better utilities, more vehicles, faster computers, as well as Internet and cell phone providers because that's what makes a modern society. Modern technology must be implemented in order to accomplish the feats required of a modern society.

Read more : http://www.ehow.com/about_5403995_importance-modern-technology.html

Health

One of the biggest benefits of modern technology is that human longevity and health have improved because of its application. As understanding of the body and its functions improves, and as new tools to help heal it (lasers, sonograms, enhanced medication, and nonintrusive surgical tools, just to name a few) are created, life lasts longer. Not only does life extend, but people can live more comfortably, and recover from wounds and diseases that even a half a century ago would have been fatal. In many cases these people live full, productive lives.

Communication

Modern technology has revolutionized how people communicate. Since World War II, telecommunications and mass media have been growing by leaps and bounds. Radio, telephone, satellite communication, cellular technology, wireless Internet ... in the modern day two people can chat via a computer when they're on opposite sides of the planet. Communication has shrunk the world, bringing people from all cultures and backgrounds into contact with each other.

The Big Picture

Technology is also the application of knowledge, science and tools in ways that accomplish tasks more effectively. A simple look at how technology has become interwoven into modern life can show its importance. Technology allows many businesses to function properly, allows many people to work from home and helps companies around the world communicate. Modern technology builds prosthetic limbs, creates inventive surgeries and grows more food for a rapidly growing population. It creates more efficient vehicles and allows humanity to expand its knowledge even further.

Knowledge

What modern technology really represents is an increase in knowledge and how people can use it. Modern technology is usually the direct result of discovery and experimentation. Technology is defined as the scientific method being used to achieve a commercial or industrial goal. So to create technology, a bigger base of knowledge and understanding must be created from which to draw on. As improvements are made to technology, so too are improvements made to the pool of knowledge.

HealthOne of the biggest benefits of modern technology is that human longevity and health have improved because of its application. As understanding of the body and its functions improves, and as new tools to help heal it (lasers, sonograms, enhanced medication, and nonintrusive surgical tools, just to name a few) are created, life lasts longer. Not only does life extend, but people can live more comfortably, and recover from wounds and diseases that even a half a century ago would have been fatal. In many cases these people live full, productive lives.

Read more : http://www.ehow.com/about_5403995_importance-modern-technology.html

Speak a Language of Attention

Attention isn’t just one thing. It’s a set of three skills: focus, awareness and executive attention, i.e., planning and decision-making. And it’s teachable, scientists are discovering, by simply talking with your kids about attention and encouraging them to practice. How do you practice attention? Listen for the trumpet in a song. Play “Spot the Letter” on a car trip. Walk through the garden—using all your senses.

Focus on One Another

A first social skill for toddlers is joint attention—a meeting of minds that comes from focusing on something together. But today we’re so used to splitting our focus that it’s hard to truly attend to any one thing or person. Continuous partial attention undermines our relationships. When we give each other half-focus at dinner or in conversation, we are effectively saying, “You aren’t worth my time.”

MAM: Moms Against Multitasking

Multitasking is a national pastime, and kids are no exception. Sixty percent of kids age 8 to 18 multitask at least some of the time they’re doing homework. But it’s not as easy as it looks! Toggling between tasks slows us down because the brain needs time to switch between new and old tasks, and ramp up for the new job. Warning: Multitasking may also inhibit deeper, flexible learning. That means kids might do well on homework, yet learn the material less well. Teach kids to single-task to get the job done right.

White Space

Quelling distractions is both a matter of harnessing our attentional skills and creating a climate for focus. And today, kids are exposed to nearly six hours a day of non-print media. Two-thirds under 6 live in homes that keep the TV on half or more of the time—an environment linked to attention difficulties. Take a page from pioneering companies who are creating “white space," places or times for uninterrupted, unwired thought.

Eat Mindfully

We snack, we gulp, we eat energy bars on the run. Forty percent of our food budgets are spent eating out, up from 25 percent in 1990. But this mobile eating undermines our ability to taste, sense and share our food. We’ve fallen into a national habit of mindless eating, says Cornell psychology professor Brian Wansink. Take the time to stop and eat with your kids, whenever possible, noticing the smell, taste and feel of your food and encouraging them to do the same. Your whole family will be dialing down on stress and boosting focus!

Be a Role Model for Focus

If we want to nurture “Planet Focus” for our children, we have to cultivate our own attentional skills, and pass them on. Be an attentional role model. Give the gift of your attention. Carve out time for focused thinking and relating—and speak up against multitasking, interruptions and hyper-hurrying. Rediscover what it’s like to have a long conversation, to sit still, to go beyond what’s first-up on Google. The word “attention” comes from the Latin verb meaning to “stretch toward.” It’s not always easy to nurture your attentional skills—but it’s worthwhile.

Advantages of Computers

Some studies have shown that children who use computers from an early age have several advantages. Computer classes are taught in most kindergarten and elementary schools, so preschoolers who are already familiar with the operation of the keyboard and mouse will be ahead of the learning curve. They may also have an advantage if they have the opportunity to play with educational programs, as many learn reading and number skills from computer software.

Some experts suggest that allowing preschoolers to have computer time can be beneficial because computer use:

Introduces educational skills
Teaches spatial and logical skills
Prepares children for future computer use
Increases self-esteem and self-confidence
Boosts problem-solving skills
Stimulates language comprehension
Improves long-term memory and manual dexterity

The greatest benefits, though, occur when children use computers side-by-side or when they work with adults. In these situations, preschoolers develop cooperative problem-solving skills. They also have the opportunity to interact with others, which enhances their overall learning.

Disadvantages of Computers

In spite of the many benefits, experts also point out drawbacks to preschool computer use. Some express concern for children’s physical health. Others cite psychological and developmental concerns.

Preschooler’s muscles and bones are still developing, but computers and furniture, especially at home, are rarely set up properly for children. “Most parents,” says Peter Buckle of the Robens Centre for Health Ergonomics, “seem unaware of the possible dangers of children sitting for long periods unsupported, with necks twisted and wrists overextended.” Physical problems can also result from sitting too close to the computer screen.

Another difficulty arises when the computer is used as a babysitter, as when parents put in educational games and believe their children are better off than sitting in front of a TV. Educational psychologist and teacher Jane Healy disagrees. She doesn’t believe there is much difference between the two. “Simply selecting and watching a screen is a pallid substitute for real mental activity,” Healy says. She suggests that reading together, having family discussions, or playing are a much more valuable use of time. These activities can provide as much educational stimulation as the software with the added benefit of social interaction. Healy also questions whether some popular computer games have academic value. Some, she says, “may even be damaging to creativity, attention, and motivation.”

Wise Computer Usage

To make the computer beneficial for you and your preschooler, decide on rules and time limits. Using a timer to signal when your child’s time is up helps avoid arguments.

When purchasing software for your child, look for programs that offer opportunities to try many different solutions. These help stimulate creativity and problem solving.

Setting up a separate profile for your preschooler is a good precaution. This can prevent her from clicking on things she shouldn’t or accidentally deleting important files. Rather than leaving your child alone at the computer, stay with her. Use computer time for interaction and togetherness.

Here are some additional tips to enhance computer use for your preschooler:

Look for programs that support open-ended, discovery-oriented learning
Adjust the computer and furniture for your child’s use
Adjust the sound and screen size for each use
Supervise your child’s computer activities
Turn off all programs but the one your child is using
Limit the amount of time your child spends on the computer
Balance computer time with social interaction and physical exercise

Computers, used wisely, are tools for stimulating preschool learning. But it’s important to take precautions for your child’s safety and well-being. Teach your child proper computer use and monitor him to be sure his computer time is constructive and useful. But most importantly of all, focus on learning together, both on the computer and off.

Jobs in computer science are appearing at a rate twice the national average, and experts project that there will be more than 1 million unfilled jobs in computer science by 2020. Knowledge of coding can give your child more options when it comes time to decide on a career.

Code.org

Code.org is a nonprofit organization focused on increasing the quality and quantity of computer programming education, in and out of the traditional classroom. It’s endorsed by an impressive lineup of politicians, businesspeople and celebrities, and backed by a who’s who list of high-tech moguls, including Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, Max Levchin, the cofounder of PayPal, and Drew Houston, the CEO of Dropbox.

The organization’s “vision” is that computer science and computer programming find their way into the core curriculum across the country, so that every student in every school is required to learn coding before setting foot on a college campus.

This would be no small change in education. Doubters may want to know what a school that embraces this vision would be like before jumping on the bandwagon. Is there a school that does this already? Why, yes, there is!

Beaver Country Day School

For most students, college is too late to take up computer programming, says Peter Hutton, the head of school at Beaver Country Day School in Brookline, Massachusetts. “Conventional education continues to embrace the myth that only certain kinds of kids can learn programming,” he says. “By doing this, schools eliminate an important opportunity for the vast majority of their students.”

His school, which serves grades 6 through 12, requires a computer programming course for graduation, but coding principles are taught throughout math classes at all grades, says the school’s math department chair, Rob MacDonald. “Our students are learning the habits of mind that are central to coding even when they're not explicitly coding,” he says. “We're confident that the coding skills they learn will apply to a wide range of other courses and disciplines."

This application of a school subject isn’t uncommon. For years, schools have taught math concepts that many students don’t necessarily need in the real world. Even though we have calculators, for example, students across the country have to learn their multiplication tables and how to do long division. For forward-thinking schools like Beaver, coding serves a similar purpose.

The “Techie” Stereotype

Without the benefit of programming classes in high school, only “self-selected” students who pursue programming outside of school are ready, Hutton says. These eager, self-driven “techies” may have filled every computer science job back in the 1990s, but the field no longer makes up a remote subset of society. Only an institution as large as our educational system is big enough to possibly fill the rapidly growing demand of jobs.

“In conventional education, the strategy is to identify engineers at a young age and weed everyone else out, and then we wonder why there are not more engineers,” Hutton says. His goal is to graduate more students who are interested in and able to pursue computer programming in college and beyond.

Women in Computer Programming

“Programming is seen as something boys do,” Hutton says. While women have made headway in computer technology fields, they aren’t doing so fast enough, in Hutton’s eyes. In 2010, only 18 percent of computer- and information-technology degrees went to women, according to the National Center for Women & Information Technology. And in 2012, just 23 percent of computer programmers were women, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Beaver’s focus on programming and coding doesn’t just work on breaking the techie stereotype, but also a gender split.

What You Can Do

If you’re convinced that your child could benefit from early exposure to computer programming skills, here are a few ways to take action:

Check and see what options your child's school has for computer courses. While many schools require no computer classes, there may be elective courses available.
Seek an extracurricular class. Code.org has put together a database of courses, online and in-person, that kids can take to learn coding.
Download programs, apps and games that teach programming skills. This is something you can do with your child. You can design basic computer games together or create your own website, or even a simple family blog.
Talk to the school. It can’t hurt to ask your child’s school to catch up with the times and offer elective computer courses. Starting a petition and speaking at a PTA meeting are both great ways to have your voice heard.

If recent history is any indication, computer technology isn’t going away anytime soon. It’s only getting bigger. And exposing a child to advanced computer skills isn’t only an opportunity for future success, but also a chance to bond over a new interest.