Internet Addiction Disorder

Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist, once said “every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic is be alcohol or morphine or idealism”.

Recently advancements technology had brought out unusual types of Addictions including Internet, gambling, pornography, gaming, on-line shopping and eBay addictions.

Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) doesn’t differ from other type of addictions. While drug addiction victim needs drug to feel normal, the Internet addiction victim becomes dependent on Internet to feel normal.

Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) victims normally have special interests in Internet which can include pornography, on-line gaming, gambling and or auctions.

1 out of 14 American adults have shown at least one sign of IAD, according to a recent study by Stanford University.

While the cause of the AID is not clearly known, several factors that have been proposed as contributing to Internet addiction. Pleasurable feeling developed by a person when using the Internet, might reinforce the addiction. Like alcohol addiction, biological study tells us that, there may be a combination of genes that make a person more susceptible to addictive behaviours.

According to Dr. John Grohol, in his book Internet Addiction Guide, he relates to the idea that people engage in the activity because they do not want to deal with the problems in their lives. Some affected persons may lack the social skills that would enable them to meet people in person rather than on-line.

The big question behind is whether it is the proper to term it as a type of addiction rather than a technology that supports other addictions?

For example, a girl addicted to shopping could transfer her addiction from the local mall to on-line stores.

Some psychologists do not accept the term addiction to describe what happens to people when they spend too much time on-line. What about other technologies like video games and telephones?

Some may view addiction as when a task becomes a necessary part of a user's life. When the on-line experience enrich and expand people's lives, it can also seduce the vulnerable into ignoring the real world.

In his book Trapped in the Web, Potera highlights that, Internet has become a destructive force, its remarkable benefits overshadowed by its potential to disrupt the lives of those who can't resist the lure of round-the-clock social opportunities, entertainment, and information. For such people, work, friends, family, and sleep are replaced by a virtual world of chat rooms and games.

Also, studies by Stanford's SIQSS and Carnegie Mellon's HomeNet Project revels that, People who spent more time on the Internet spent less time socializing with peers, communicated less within the family and felt more lonely and depressed.

The amount of time spent on-line and the service provider charges can lead to financial problems. Phone calls while chatting and telephone connection charges are among the common financial issues.

E-tutoring Benefits Aplenty

E-tutoring benefits aplenty

Saves time and money: One of the major benefits of e-tutoring is the saving of time and money. Tutoring costs are generally 30-40% less than those in the US and the UK and on top of that, the students and parents save a lot of time and money on commuting.

Convenience: Rain or shine, the students don’t have to leave their comfy homes for tutoring. They also don’t have to cancel their scheduled appointments with tutors due to tutors

unavailability. It is this convenience factor that is making e-tutoring a fast growing choice for the students.

Subject specialists: Students don’t have to stick to a single tutor. They can hire different specialists for different subjects and topics, and that too with ease.

Anywhere, anytime: Students can go for tutoring from anywhere where they have an internet access, be it a school or public library, cyber café, home, etc. They can have a session at any time suitable to them. Be it midnight or early morning, your tutor is always available.

Instant trouble-shooting: If you are stuck up in a homework question or you need to get ready for tomorrow’s exam, a tutor will be available immediately. So you don’t have to wait for the tutor, you can get them.

Multi-subjects at one place: Students can avail the tutoring in different subjects from one place. They don’t have to search for different subject specialists. A majority of the tutoring companies have the pool of different subject experts. It helps students to save time and money on search and hire.

Highly individualized and customized: Since it is one-on-one tutoring, tutoring is highly customized. The student can set his own pace of learning and do the topics of his choice. There is no pressure on him to finish the topic fast or go slow.

Security: E-Tutoring can be done from highly secured and comfortable environment

of home.

Direct approach: It’s a myth that e-tutoring cannot be that interactive as direct tutoring. But chatting along with VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) makes it feel as if a tutor is sitting next to the student. Moreover, different tools like PowerPoint presentation along with animations, flash movies etc, make these tutoring sessions a great learning experience for the student.

Easy as 1, 2, 3: Most of the tutoring companies are using user-friendly software with highly secured interface. It helps to keep the student’s information confidential without hampering its usability.

Flexibility: Unlike direct tutor tutoring, e-tutoring offers tutoring of any length of time. Students can opt for tutoring sessions of any duration.

Apple iPad eCourse Review

New tech trends come and go by but the 21st century has proven to be a tough one. The last century we have seen the longest continued use of the same technology but with major improvements every single year. Yes, they can keep it coming. Everytime since the launch of the iPhone I have watched everysingle keynote presented by Steve Jobs (R.I.P) the sway and elegance that apple uses to promote its product fills me in such a way that draws me it to it, to keep on watching every keynote as though it was some form of New Year's celebration. Yet I admit it is simply and entertaining venue to attrach more customers and create a lot of hype but the way this is done attracts me nonetheless.

All the way from the first iphone to the iPad 2 I always had the same issue with apple. They never provide for an easy hands of tutorials of some form to provide to their customers. You know, this really bothers me.

I feel that it is inconceible for a company as profitable as apple to simply overlook such nessecities that their customers can make a lot of use of. Think about it, theres hundreds of thousands of apps that most of them you do not even know what the heck they are even for. The reason being why most of those apps are quite useless to us is because people do not become proficient using apple's own apps let alone start using other complicated apps.

Do you see my point? if apple provided some form of tutorials to us we would apply every single task of every single app across all apple products and into our lives. Right now we might even start making money somewhere in any industry with little experience, given that apple products are so incredibly abilitous at problem solving that we could have grasped on time what should we do with so much power hands.

This why I welcome those people out there that identify nessecities for people and market for it. Do not get me wrong I do condemn scammers and people who pretend to help you with something but they are in just for the easy money. If you feel knowing your iPad upside down, inside out is something that can incentivize you into wanting more and more knowledge I recommend this site. Also for those who might be interested in at least knowing great useful apps go here.

Learn WordPress Free by Pakistan's Top freelance Professional

Free WordPress tutorial for becoming a freelancer

Despite of the knowledge and experience you may have previously with your traditional Web site designing tools, Undoubtedly the WordPress is dominating the Web designing as a popular platform.

One of the main reason of WordPress popularity is that it is an easy to use web editing tool that could easily be used and managed by any one even they are a newbie and having not professional or extra ordinary skills to create web pages or blogs.

Another reason of getting popular is, WordPress provides both web page and blog designing option so that you can create either a web page or a blog. There is no reason to stop, if you're going to use both web page and blog in the same platform for your single domain.

The beauty of WordPress is to have both the posts and pages option in a same platform. You can either create web page or create a post for a blog included in the same domain.

It doesn't let you stop here because there is another key feature available for WordPress if you have a self hosted web, The Plugin.

The Plugin is the key feature and it can provide a complete support to become an either e-commerce website, online store, online shopping site, e-book selling site, Search Engine optimization, Social media marketing or any thing you can imagine, you can use through plugin feature.

Since the trend has been changing over the years, The ratio of transfer from traditional websites to WordPress, is increasing very fast.

That's the reason I love WordPress, My expertise in WordPress is proven and certified by my International customers and now I love to start WordPress tutorial to the people who wish to put step into the world of Web designing.

This is the introduction and I'll post Part-1 of WordPress tutorial shortly. You can see the ditails from my site as well. The course is Free and would be available on You tube video tutorial as well. So please visit my site and my Facebook Page and don't forget to like that.

The Scope of a Learning Management System

In this technologically driven world, many parents have nowadays said to prefer that their children should learn from online schools. Online LMS for education starts from kindergarten to high school and offers standard training on topics related to a typical curriculum in non-traditional setting.

Nowadays, importance is attached to technical proficiency for gaining lucrative jobs. Students are required to be well-versed with the changing technology since it is essential that they get a hands-on on different aspects of IT for even the routine tasks. Nowadays in America, adolescents and teenagers are well connected with the latest technologies and are well-versed with gizmos. With the help of LMS, they are finally getting freedom to learn in the perfect sense since the Internet provides them with comprehensive information on different topics along with illustrations as if they are in a virtual classroom. Online-based forums and discussion boards are now used for interactions with teachers and other professionals.

A learning management system makes learning fun and also teaches the students with valuable real-life skills. The students can now apply the theories that they learn in practical terms. Students can now retain a competitive edge when they get into the real world.

There are certain learning tasks which are perfect when handled by the LMS including centralized functions including content management. Learning itself though is not what the system can help in since it is multi-faceted and depends on the ability of each and every student. It is difficult for promoting informal learning in enterprises with the help of a LMS since it is only a performance support tool, or knowledge management application. Feature-rich tools are useless for the average user since the more features it uses in the application, it increasingly becomes difficult for the average user to handle and use it. Specialization and decentralization are important learning foundations since it adjusts to different learning environments and changing knowledge states.

When content is pivotal to learning, a LMS is sufficient to help the learning process. But learning actually depends on more and more interaction and connections although there are some different tools available online including social tools which offer a reasonable alternative. LMS, though are useful for some fields which can benefit from the structured approach as some subjects are quite linear and depend on rules rather than unstructured thinking. If content is highly structured, then comprehension-based subjects can be learn through the LMS. The artificial constructs of content lose value since higher learning is based on cognitive thinking and any interaction imposed by an LMS limits the learning ability of the students.

14 Things Your Articulate Software Can Do!

The Articulate learning management system software is an involved, detailed, professional-level program. If you are just starting out with it, it is easy not to see the forest of your e-learning program for the thousands of trees of functionality in the Articulate software. Today we help you visualise the end result, by going through 10 ways that your Articulate software can create end learning objects.

1. Design Your Own …

Just about everything can be redesigned to suit your organisation in Articulate software. Naturally, presentations are highly customisable, but quizzes can also be custom-designed, as can the appearance of interactive objects.

2. Integrate with Websites

Most objects that you can create through Articulate training are in Flash, and so are highly portable and accessible to users everywhere.

3. Embed Live Web Pages

Want to use content from other parts of the net in your presentations, quizzes or interactive elements? Articulate lets you embed live web pages in the learning objects you create.

4. Publish to Multiple Formats

Many objects you create in Articulate software can be published not only to Flash format, but to Word, podcast or CD also.

5. Integrate with Other LMSs

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If your organisation sues Moodle, Blackboard or any of a dozen different learning management systems, Articulate can publish content to it.

6. Still Use Powerpoint

You don't have to learn a whole new system for creating presentations to be able to use the Presenter part of your Articulate software. It simply converts Powerpoint presentations into Flash presentations for portability.

7. Narrate Your Slides

You can deliver the content from slides in your own voice with Articulate Presenter, adding explanation and colour to the presentation even if you can't be there in person.

8. Import Videos

Existing videos are extremely easy to import to almost any learning object you can produce with Articulate software.

9. Play Music or Sound

MP3 and WAV files can be easily imported to just about any part of any Articulate product also!

10. Quiz in Non-Standard Question Formats

Most LMSs allow you to design quizzes with Likert scales, multiple choice options and true/false answers. Articulate Quizmaker also lets you ask hotspot questions, have students give answers in drag-and-drop form, or any one of over 20 possible question formats!

11. Randomise quiz questions

Articulate software allows you to randomise the exact questions displayed, yet keep together questions which belong together.

12. Auto-Score Quizzes

You can not only auto-score quizzes developed with Articulate Quizmaker, but also give specific results and feedback related to their individual scores.

13. Branch Your Information

Learning is an individual journey and not everybody takes the same path. Articulate software allows you to cater to individual learning styles, with branching options inpresentations as well asquizzes.

Let Your Learners Have Input

Articulate's Engage software doesexactly what it says on the label – engages your learners with the material! Your students can label diagrams, organise events on timelines and proceed through the material at a pace that suits them. In fact, the flexibility of the Flash tool pretty much means that if you can imagine the interaction type, it can be created.

An Introduction to Pedagogical Approaches in E-Learning

The internet is a fantastic tool for businesses and educators to use, and there is little doubt that e-learning has been a revolution in the education sector. However, the existence of the web as a tool does not remove the need for skill in instruction! Before embarking on an e-learning project or instituting a new learning management system, it can be helpful to identify the established pedagogical approaches to e-learning, and attempt to fit your system with them. Today we take a quick review of the major philosophical and practical theories of how we ‘e-learn'!

Social Constructivist Approach

Jean Piaget was one of the pioneers of this approach to teaching, which states that learning occurs through an interaction between experience and ideas. Some of the key elements of e-learning systems under a social constructivist approach should be:

Opportunities for interaction such as forums and blogs

Real-time collaborative capacities

The ability for students to add to the learning management system course material, such as suggesting resources or contributing to wikis.

Laurillard's Conversation Model

This e-learning model aims to facilitate ‘putting oneself in others' shoes'. Common elements of the learning management system include:

Real-time collaborative tools

Chat fora

Methods for providing feedback

Methods for students to provide feedback ON the feedback!

Emotional Learning

This pedagogical approach to e-learning takes the position that emotions are an essential element in the e-learning process, not something which must be ignored. Key elements for the emotional learning approach include:

Games and puzzles

Instant feedback mechanisms such as automatically scored quizzes

Video or typed chat tools for human interaction

Group tasks which require collaboration among students.

Cognitive Learning Approach

This approach to learning management system design is heavily focused on the neuroscientific literature which explores how our brains learn best. Some aspects of e-learning systems designed with a strong cognitive focus might include:

Tasks designed to be repeated to take advantage of optimal learning repetition intervals

Tasks utilising moving images, which are highly effective at holding attention

Direction of motor responses other than clicking the mouse or typing words – involvement with physical activities.

The cognitive learning approach also encompasses the wisdom and approaches of the emotional learning approach and the social constructivist approach, as both of these models are strongly based on universal cognitive processes.

Behavioural Perspective

The behavioural approach to e-learning views the learning management system as a bare-bones base which teaches the necessary skills for students to practice and refine their physical skills in real life. It is the most useful pedagogical approach to take when teaching psychomotor skills; for example, teaching handwashing to nurses. Elements of a learning management system based on the behavioural approach might include:

Highly simplified instructional portions

Simulations of practical skills using manipulation of on-screen images

Checklist-based teaching of physical tasks.

The ability to print from a learning management system taking a behavioural approach is essential, as students will need to take their learning materials out into the field with them to practise their new skills.

In reality, a couple of pedagogical approaches will come naturally to educators – but a mixture of elements from many of them will work best with a diverse classroom of students all trying to ‘e-learn'!

Training support services for optimal course design

In corporate training every learning programme has varying goals, objectives, strategies, budgets and audiences and therefore training preparation and delivery is critical. Conducting a Training Needs Analysis (TNA) is vital to developing, designing and delivering a course to meet your specific needs. While instructional design and learning theory is important for training course development, experience usually adds a key factor to develop best practice. A specialised blend of training expertise and learning technology is required to provide the most cost effective support service.

The good news is that you are not alone and expert Training Support Services can be engaged to assist you in developing a training solution that will be most appropriate for your environment. Using these services can prevent you from designing courses that are seemingly wonderful but nobody takes them or has fascinating content that teaches your audience nothing new or relevant. The underlying business goal in all training courses is to increase revenue and /or reduce costs. The greater the expected revenue the more budget can be set aside to fund the learning programme development.

Well-developed training programmes can assist organisations with productivity, job satisfaction, retention rates, error rates and customer satisfaction. Measuring the impact and effectives of a training programme is critical and metrics should be decided on when a course is designed so that they can be gauged before, after and for an extended period after the training has taken place. Participant feedback is also an integral part of the process as ‘softer' elements such as cultural dynamics, values and best-fit for an organisation can be elicited from their responses.

When designing training programmes for adult learners an important point to consider during planning is that they come with a wide range of experiences, knowledge, interests, skills and competencies and this diversity must be accommodated. Adults prefer courses with ‘real-world' applications where the training relates to their daily activities and teaches them relevant skills to develop in their environments. Knowledge transfer must be facilitated in the training process and learner interaction and coaching as well as other follow-up support processes is important for sustained learning.

Experts providing training support services can provide recommendations on Computer Based Training (CBT) packages that are proven to reduce classroom training time or analyse existing instructor-led courses and deconstruct them and combine them with other e-learning and multimedia technologies to provide blended learning solutions for improved learning and optimal impact.

MITx Learning Management System Ventures into Uncharted Waters

On March 5, 2012, MIT will take a historic step forward into the uncharted waters with a free online course which will be taught and assessed completely online, administered through their new MITx Learning Management System.

The first course under the MITx pilot - 6.002x (Circuits and Electronics), has the exact same curriculum as a real course of the same name taught in-person at MIT.

But more surprising than MIT's unwillingness to water down the online course is the fact that this course is open and free to anyone anywhere in the world. You can sign up, take the course and get a full certificate from MITx without paying them any fees or having to take any kind of entrance test or satisfy other eligibility criteria.

The only thing that a student needs is the mental acumen to understand math and science concepts that may come in handy when studying for the course. The 10 hour/week course is expected to last until June 8, 2012.

But what is fascinating from our point of view is the revolutionary capability of their learning platform. Everything the student needs is available on the platform, including videos, eTextbooks and a virtual lab.

According to the MITx website, the platform:-

- Organizes and presents course material to enable students to learn worldwide.

- Features interactive instruction, online laboratories and student-to-student and student-to-professor communication.

- Operates on an open-source, scalable software infrastructure in order to make it continuously improving.

The course is being taught 100 percent online and students will be assessed by Anant Agarwal, director of MIT's CSAIL (Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory), along with Gerald Sussman and Piotr Mitros.

Rarely is anything so disruptive available for free to all parties concerned, because it requires a lot of people putting in a lot of concerted effort and expecting to be rewarded handsomely for their efforts. But in this case, students are able to join the course and get certified for free. The platform is open source and can be used, modified or distributed by others for free.

But MITx is in fact aiming a lot higher towards actually imparting learning rather than handing out certifications. The pilot project depends on an honor code that expects students to remain honest, submit their own work and not share their login with anyone else. But in future, they will be able to verify all the work.

In Fall 2012, MITx will be rolling out additional courses in other areas. MIT is keeping a close watch on how the courses proceed, so they can find out which courses can be offered completely online and which ones need some offline support.

If it works out, this could have far reaching implications on traditional education since even technical courses can now be delivered online through this kind of Learning Management System. Students would be spending less time on campus and more time studying online at their own convenience. It is bound to be very popular as a tool for workforce training too, since valuable employees will not need to be given time off for further education.

Learning Management System Article

What Is A Learning Management System?

An LMS system is an online program that enables students to access course materials and training directly through a central website. Once a student enters their username and password they can access course materials, watch videos or podcasts and connect with other students who are taking the same course.

No Programming Skills Are Needed

When someone gets started with a learning management system they will immediately save time and money right off the bat because, they won't have to possess any programming or coding skills. All they have to do is upload their course materials to the LMS system and then focus on the quality of their materials.

A typical LMS system has the following characteristics:

• Easy management tools for viewing students' progress and assigning roles to other educators.

• Simple auto enrollment for any student that wants to use the LMS.

• Tools to grade homework and student coursework online.

• Geographic tools to see an individual's location and assign partners to students who live in the same area.

• Interactive learning path for tailoring coursework for each learners needs.

• Messaging features for interacting with students.

• Compatibility with all files types like PDF, Word and Excel.

• Assessment tools for viewing students' progress.

• Fast customer service and excellent support.

• Secure interface that guarantees the safety of all data

within the system

How Much Does It Cost?

Learning Management Systems are very affordable and will fit within any budget. The average price for an LMS subscription can range from $19.95 per month and up depending upon the number of learners or students that are expected to use the system.

An LMS system is a highly effective way for any educator to reach more students and eliminate unproductive activities like drive time or time consuming meetings when they can connect with more students around the world and also generate revenue from their course.

More LMS Systems In The Future

As of 2009 over 40 percent of training organizations in the U.S. were reported to have been using an LMS System for ongoing training and continuing education. The study by the American Society for Training and Development also showed that over 25 percent of LMS users at the time we're completely satisfied with the training and indicated that they would continue with it in the future.

Thanks to the popularity of LMS systems more people are able to continue their education or advance their learning for their jobs anywhere they can get a Wi-Fi signal or internet connection.

More companies around the world are investing in learning management systems to insure that their employees stay up to date in their jobs and also receive the most updated training for compliance issues as well too.

As e-learning continues to advance into the future learning will become more personalized for the average person.

Shaping the Corporate and Academic Arena through LMS

An old adage states "learning should not just be within the four corners of the classroom." Decades later, learning did manage to step out of the academe, go out to see the world and take a plunge into the technological revolution embedded in it its new terrain. Needless to say, learning wears a new face in year 2012.

The concept of Learning Management System (LMS) is not an alien one. For quite a while, both corporate industries and the academe have been embracing the principles behind this technological advancement. While some orthodox pundits may raise their eyebrows at the thought of this, LMS continues to grow and develop making it an essential part of any academic or corporate organization. Unquestionably, LMS remains unstoppable. Here are some reasons why people are drawn into it.

Learning is Centralized

From training manuals to performance content, LMS makes it a point to standardize its learning materials. Trainees in all parts of the world can access the same content anytime they want, anywhere they need. Multiple users can open the same learning materials and digest the same plethora of information at any given period. In retrospect, LMS is able to gain consistency in delivering the trainees' learning needs and evaluating the results thereafter. Trainees are evaluated using a standardized pre-testing and post-testing methodologies.

Whenever a new material is presented, trainees will be automatically directed to the new procedures and system configurations to avoid mishaps as the learning process progresses.

Employees/Students' Performance are Enhanced through a Track Record

LMS also takes pride in having a systematic performance-tracker. Webinars, for example, make use of different methods in gauging a trainee's performance. These can manifest in learning path systems which trainees are allowed to access 24/7. At the same time, both the instructors and trainees can also keep their eyes on each learning session's success progress based on the criteria set in the program beforehand. Meanwhile, the management can gain a bird's eye view of the entire performance record. This means to say that the members of the management and instructors can determine which areas have been fulfilled and which areas still need improvement.

There is Dynamism in Learning

LMS allows its trainees to have a better grasp of the world through various instructional and interactive aids. This means to say that online classes are more than manuals and virtual textbooks. Trainees and students can be exposed to motion videos which will enable them to appreciate the current lesson. They can even take part in real-time remote training classes. At the same time, supplemental materials such as slides, kits, notes, and presentations always come in handy to balance the learning progress. LMS lives in the principle that supplemental materials strengthens each training session.

Learning has, indeed, come a long way. In fact, it has traveled miles and miles with the advent of the new technology. Through LMS, the corporate world and the academic arena enable themselves to reinvent and face new challenges. The good news lies on the fact that all these are just the beginning.