It’s back to school time again and parents are searching for all types of study tools for their students. Smartphone apps are becoming great tools for education.
The Online Mom has partnered with Lookout and produced a Smartphone Guide for Parents. Take a look and download your own copy.
Here’s an infographic that shows the many benefits of smartphone usage in education.
Provided By: OnlineColleges.net
I have been harping about your teen’s online reputation for the last year or so. Last week I posted an infographic “Google Yourself Challenge” and encouraged you to have your teen do this simple exercise. Why? Important people are looking at their online profile (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google)–people who could have a huge affect on your teen’s future.
If you don’t believe me, here’s something that a good friend of mine posted on Facebook this week. He’s the CFO and does the hiring for a major corporation.
Public Service Announcement for those who don’t believe that potential employers actually look you up on Facebook – we do!
If you are looking for a job, take the questionable pictures down (or at least hide them). I’ve reviewed 6 resumes this AM and eliminated 3 of them based off of Facebook profiles.
Your teen may not be job hunting at the moment, but they are college searching and colleges have begun to look at profiles of their applicants. In addition, after college, your student will be looking for a job. Mistakes like this can cause them to be unemployable after graduation.
Pictures aren’t the only thing you need to worry about. Later he posted these LinkedIn profiles with some comments:
Really…? Why bother posting the resume?
Ummmm this might have been funny if it said Zack of ALL Trades…
It’s clear what your teen posts online should be professional and impressive. Encourage your teen to take some time this week and review their online profiles. Clean them up and/or make things private. The steps they take could help them stand out in a sea of applicants who didn’t take the time to do some simple housekeeping.
Only a few years ago, online education was the realm of the non-traditional student. Whether you were a high school dropout, a dad working three jobs, or a retiree who simply wanted to take some classes, chances were that you were not a typical college student if you were signed up for courses online.In the last couple years, though, that all changed. In an era of tablets, smartphones, and omnipresent technology, it only makes sense that education – both traditional and otherwise – would gradually bleed into the virtual world.
Traditional students are quickly embracing the concept of online classes and obtaining various valuable degrees. There is no limit to what one can obtain via online courses. A degree like Information Security is easy to sign up for and schedule around just about any job or career. Furthermore, a degree like this is practically recession proof when considering technology’s exponential growth.
Online education offers the chance to change their career path at any time in their life. Combine this with the fact that there are plenty of opportunities in cyber careers like Information Security and there is no reason not to at least go online and see what is available.
Now, more than ever before, a student or alum from a traditional university can be found taking classes online. Here, generally, is what prompts these students to do this:
The Motivated Student
This student is enrolled in a traditional university – or, perhaps, they are a high school student who is about to matriculate to one – and they seek an intellectual challenge they cannot find in the classroom. Their classes may be too easy or the subject they seek to study may not be offered; either way, this student is self-motivated enough to go online and find an alternative.
The Prerequisite Search
Imagine that you signed up for a course at your university that you need for your major, for graduation, or simply wish to take for your own enjoyment. Now picture that this course has a prerequisite that must be taken but does not fit with your schedule. Maybe it’s a difficult mathematics course. What to do? Increasingly, students in this position are dealing with this issue by turning to online classes.
Students are also utilizing the help of powerful new tools that facilitate differentiated math instruction in and outside the classroom. Click here to learn more about such options.
The Second Degree
With the economy as it is these days, people often get a traditional degree from a four-year college, head out afterwards into the workplace, and quickly learn that they don’t possess many employable or marketable skills. Many of them, at this point, decide to work part-time towards an online degree that will provide those skills and, hopefully, help them find a job that they want.
With all these new types of traditional students entering the world of online education, the process of getting a degree over the internet suddenly becomes more widespread and traditional. As the lines continue to blur in the future between traditional and non-traditional, online and offline, we should expect to see this phenomenon occur with even more regularity.
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Today’s guest post was contributed by Amanda Green, a freelance writer who normally writes on the topics of education, business, and personal finance. Amanda has been writing for multiple years on the web and enjoys writing on less serious topics like pets and crafting in her spare time! You can read more writing by Amanda at paidtwice.com
Anyone who follows me knows that I’m a big proponent of a “clean appearance” online. Colleges and employers are already eyeing your social media presence and it’s important for your student to put as much effort into “keeping clean” as preparing their college application. Why. ? Because Google never forgets.
This infographic shows how your college-bound teen’s digital footprint can affect their future.
From: BackgroundCheck.org
Last night in the #CampusChat discussion we were talking about moving into college and what to pack. One participant stated she took her whole life with her to college because she never planned to move back home after college graduation; and to her credit she did not.
Most parents believe (or hope) that once their student goes off to college they will only be temporary visitors at home. We often talk about getting into college, but rarely discuss what happens after graduation. Unfortunately, in today’s economy, many students are forced to move back in with their parents after they graduate. For those boomerang students, the top two reasons are no job or job prospects and too many student loans exceeding their expected income.
These reasons alone make it important for parents to be involved in the financial decisions that their students make related to the college they choose and the loans they choose to incur while attending. Of course your student may WANT to go to an expensive private college, but can you, as a family, afford it? Is your student prepared for the ramifications of taking out massive student loans and not being able to repay them?
After the student returns home three scenarios usually play out.
Scenario One
Your student returns home and still can’t find a job with their college degree. After weeks of depression and frustration, they make the decision to attend graduate school. Since it’s expensive, they opt to take out graduate student loans to supplement the financial aid and provide living expenses. After they complete their graduate degree, they are able to gain employment and begin paying back their loans.
Scenario Two
Your student finds a minimum wage job, defers their student loans and still can’t find a job related to their college degree and major. They end up working in a field that is completely unrelated to their area of interest, in a job they do not like, and are still unable to pay back their student loans. They borrowed too much and will probably never crawl out of the hole they dug for themselves.
Scenario Three
Your student returns home, finds a minimum wage job, defers their student loans and saves every penny they make while living at home. They are able to begin paying back their student loans with their savings and continue the job hunt while working full time. Many times, those temporary jobs end up being avenues to find college degree employment either through networking or company advancement.
With scenario one, if your son or daughter opts to pursue the graduate degree path, it’s critical they do their homework, research interest and payback rates, and degrees that are worth their investment. If they don’t, they could end up as the student in the second scenario with too much debt and no job prospects.
Advise your student wisely about debt, college value, and degree prospects after graduation. It’s not just a decision on which school they “like”. It’s a decision that affects the rest of their life and could have overwhelming negative consequences. Parents are key role players in this decision. It’s our job to point out the possible ramifications of their decisions and allow them to have input. But (and this is is hard) if they won’t listen to reason, you might have to be a parent. I know because I had to take that role with my daughter and her college choice. I had to be the “bad guy” and kept her from attending her first choice college. Today she thanks me. At the time, she wasn’t very happy with me–but she fell in love with her second choice college and graduated with minimal debt.
Being a parent can be extremely hard; we have to balance guidance with “helicoptering” and know when to take a stand for the well-being of our kids. It’s a difficult job on the best of days and downright frustrating on the worst of them. Helping them with the college choice as it relates to financial consequences is one of those “take a stand” moments.
I’m hearing more and more from parents that they are desperate for help and answers. It seems they are drowning in the sea of college information out there. They don’t know who to listen to, where to go for help, and how to make the best use of the help they find.
There are two tools that will answer every question you ever had about how to handle the multitude of questions related to the college admissions process: my Parents Countdown to College Toolkit AND Paul Hemphill’s Plan for College Videos. Both resources will help you help your student navigate the college maze. If you own both you can finally sleep at night!
For a limited time only (until September 30th), Paul and I are offering parents a 2 for 1 special–buy my Parents Countdown to College Toolkit and you receive a FREE subscription to Paul’s Plan for College Video Series. These tools can save your family hundreds or even thousands in college costs and help you help your student market themselves to the colleges, thus receiving multiple scholarships.
If you’re a parent of a college-bound teen, you can’t afford to pass up this opportunity. You and your student will have the peace of mind, knowing that all your questions are answered and you have done everything you can to help them get into their first choice college (with scholarships and merit-aid, of course!).
Remember when your now teenager came up to you as a toddler and said they wanted to be a doctor when they grew up? We smiled and said, “that’s great sweety” and knew that years down the road their interests would change. But what if it didn’t change? What if your college-bound teen still wants to pursue a career in health care? How do you help them find the career and right education path that best suits their personality and career goals?
Are they interested in medical research? Does medical imaging interest them? Are they interested in nursing and see themselves as care givers to the sick? Would they like to study psychology and work with the mentally ill or those who are emotionally hurting?
As you can see, there are numerous career paths your student could choose if they want to be part of the health care community. It can be overwhelming, especially if they aren’t sure which direction they want to go and what type of education they will need and the top programs available. The good news, however, is that the American Medical Association has devoted a section of their website to help your student learn about all careers in the medical field.
Here’s the list (which might surprise you):
The great thing about this list on the site is that it gives you all the information your student will need to make an informed decision about a specific medical field. When you click on a specific field, you can see the careers related to that specialty. For instance, Medical Imaging has Diagnostic medical sonographer, Magnetic resonance technologist, Medical dosimetrist, Nuclear medicine technologist, Radiation therapist, Radiography and Registered radiologist assistant. Each career has a corresponding PDF that provides you with information related to salary, education required, and even contact information to ask additional questions.
It is also possible to get your degree online by enrolling in registered nursing, Bachelor of Science in nursing, Master of Public Health, and Master of Human Services programs. These programs provide you with everything that traditional schooling does, except for you can complete the coursework from the comfort of your own home. Applying for a program in the health field is as simple as filling out an application and submitting it to an online university, allowing you to begin the next stage of your professional life in no time at all.
This type of information can prove invaluable when making a decision on which college to attend, which career path to pursue and what the career outlook is after graduation. If you son or daughter is interested in any area of the medical field, send them to this site. The information the AMA provides might help them make a more informed decision about their future.
Since I’ve been gone for six months (on an unexpected hiatus) my blog has lacked new content. It’s always been my goal to provide parents with useful information that will help them guide their students through the college maze of requirements, planning, applications, visits and selection. It is this commitment that has made me come up with a schedule for my blog, in the hopes that parents will know what to expect each week from its content and know where to look for the information they need.
Barring any unforeseen circumstances (like the last six months), my goal is to post daily and I have decided to focus on these topics:
It’s my hope that this consistent blogging will provide a platform to help parents find the information they need during the college search and application process. If you have a request for a specific article related to any of these topics or have an idea for a guest post, please feel free to contact me:
I’ve been out of the loop for more than a few months but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been listening to the buzz about Pinterest. I’ve stuck my feet in the water and have determined that it’s a visual social site. It’s all about the pictures and the action those pictures invoke, resulting in “pins” on boards. It’s an interesting concept that seems to have taken off and is boasting the title of “the fastest growing social media site”.
It’s no surprise that colleges have jumped on the bandwagon, posting pictures of their campuses to attract incoming students. However, collected data from comScore shows that the average 18-to-24 year old college student is not listed at the top of the list of visitors using Pinterest, falling behind the age group of 25-to-34 years. That hasn’t stopped colleges from getting on board and “pinning” everything from student activities to dorm room photos.
Here are just a few examples of some colleges who have taken the plunge:
The University of Washington’s Athletic Department has their own “Huskies” account, pinning everything from “The Best 4 Years of Your Life” to “Party Like a Husky” to “Huskies in Hollywood”.
Rutgers University has an account specifically directed to the interested applicants. Some of their boards include: Rutgers Traditions, Where “R” We?, Study Abroad and Notable Alumni.
University of South Carolina appears to be relatively new to Pinterest, but has started with pins related to their campus, sports activities and South Carolina events.
My personal favorite, however, was passed along to me by the parents of an incoming freshman to the University of Wisconsin. That college has set up a page for parents, perhaps the smartest use of Pinterest to date by a university, especially since a large number of Pinterest users are the parents (moms) of those college-bound teens.
If you’re interested, take a peek at these colleges and do your own search for the colleges that interest your student. Whether you like Pinterest or not, you have to give kudos to the colleges who are embracing this new technology. Only time will tell if it’s an effective tool to attract new students and/or inform parents.
The Wall Street journal posted an article today, “Tough Times for Colleges–and College Towns”, about the tough times that colleges are facing.
The outlook isn’t good. Bain, which markets its consulting services to universities, and Sterling Partners, which invests in education companies, examined the balance sheets from 2006 to 2010 of schools in their report. They found many schools operating on the assumption that the more they build, spend and diversify the more they will prosper. They have become overleveraged, with long-term debt increasing at an average rate of about 12% a year and average annual interest expense growing at almost twice the rate of instruction-related expense.
Schools have been trying to plug the gap by jacking up tuition at rates that aren’t sustainable. The result is a fiscal hurdle that dozens of second- and third-tier public and private schools won’t be able to clear. Hundreds of schools—including some of the most prestigious institutions in the country—have tightened their belts.
It looks like the colleges are struggling, much like the students and families. Unfortunately, you know that the financial problems that colleges are experiencing will be passed along to the students by either tuition hikes or reductions in merit aid. That is not good for students and their families, especially the ones who make too much to quality for need-based aid.
What does that mean for this year’s crop of seniors? You better investigate the financial outlook of your college choices carefully and do some digging on their past merit-aid distributions over the last several years, especially if you are counting on that to pay for college.
Continue reading College Debt = Higher Tuition and less Merit Aid
