The savvy Lady Gaga fan in 2020, when confronted with a new song called Fun Tonight, knows enough to flinch. Because it is a latter-day Lady Gaga song; because it is 2020. Im not having fun tonight, goes the chorus to Fun Tonight. Right. Thought so.

The vibe is downbeat electro-pop. (If youre still obsessed with Ally, her A Star Is Born characterand why wouldnt you beits caught halfway between the bubbly frivolity of Why Did You Do That? and the stern grandeur of Shallow.) The lyrics range from Wish I could be what I know I am to I feel like Im in a prison hell. The songs intended target, according to savvy Lady Gaga gossip hounds, is her ex-fianc Christian Carino. (She is now reportedly dating a New York Times editors ex-boyfriend.) You love the paparazzi, love the fame / Even though you know it causes me pain, Gaga laments, evoking past glories, now drained of their glory, or at least their frivolity. Even her idea of a prison hell has changed dramatically since she recruited Beyonc for the Telephone video.

Gaga launches the chorus of Fun Tonight with a lovely, anguished falsetto swoop, the words borderline nonsensicalIm feelin the way that Im feelin, Im feelin with youthe anguish nonetheless palpable. The end result is neither the best nor the saddest song on Gagas sixth album, Chromatica, out Friday. The best songand Shallow excepted, her best and hopefully biggest pop hit in nearly a decadeactually is the saddest. But dip anywhere into this record, even the fussy orchestral interludes somehow, and the bawling-on-the-dance-floor pathos will bowl you over the same way it bowled her over.

In touting Gagas glorious return to full-blown dance pop after the meta rockist provocations of 2018s A Star Is Born and the minivan-ad turbo-Americana of 2016s actually quite beguiling Joanne, the Chromatica rollout had a soothingly chaotic throwback quality to it. The goofy tweets. The wanton messiness. (The leak-plagued emergence of bombastic lead single Stupid Love was a saga unto itself.) The gaudy Grimes-before-Grimes sci-fi flamboyance of the early visuals, like the cutscenes in a Japanese RPG whose battle system you could never hope to understand. The COVID-borne release delay (which also nixed a planned Coachella sneak attack) was a disquieting new wrinkle, certainly, but it felt great, in a nostalgic future-shock sorta way, to be once again bewildered.

With reliably brash production from BloodPop, Burns, Skrillex, and other proud maximalists, the resulting record, which spreads 16 tracks across a relatively restrained 43 minutes, has a surface outrageousness youll certainly recognize, but a relatable bone-deep melancholy too. Unlike, say, Dua Lipas Future Nostalgiaa superior pop album but a far more discordant self-quarantine listen, given its raw yearning for communal dance-party releaseChromatica is the perfect summer album for the Lost Summer of 2020. Im completely lonely / Please dont judge me, she entreats us amid the trance-adjacent freedom-via-isolation jam 1000 Doves; her idea of typical pop-star self-empowerment this time out is bellowing, Im still something if I dont got a man / Im a free woman, on Free Woman. Its unsettling that she even felt it necessary to point that out.

The flamboyance and the desolationEven when you feel 6 feet under, you can still fire on all cylinders, Gaga told Zane Lowe in February, describing her studio mind-set as Im miserable, Im sad, Im depressedare productively at odds from the start. Im tired of screaming at the top of my lungs, she announces on Alice, her voice ever-so-slightly robotic, the uptempo house chug evoking a Wonderland with little wonder in it. At times this restraint, this hint of steely resignation undercuts the wackiness, which is a shame: The blaring neo-disco of Replay could serve to be, lets say, 50 percent wilder, and the understated Sour Candy, costarring the disruptive K-pop girl group Blackpink, could be, lets say, 200 percent more disruptive. But when she gets the uppers vs. downers balance just right, look out.

The one-two punch of 911 (her monotone extra robotic, her mentality extra self-defeating) and Plastic Doll (her falsetto swoops extra anguished) is especially bruising. The self-medicating lyrics to 911 range from Turnin up emotional faders / Keep repeating self-hating phrases to Wish I laughed and kept the good friendships; the hushed bridge to Plastic Doll begins with her chanting, Tell me, who dressed you? / Whered you get that hat? / Why is she cryin? / Whats the price tag? There is a hint heremore than a hint, reallyof the dehumanization that pop stardom demands, the disastrous private life that a boldface-celebrity lifestyle inevitably leaves in its wake. She sounds more sympathetic on this topic than Drake does, anyway.

But Rain on Me, a triumphant pop-star summit with Ariana Grande, is the peak that expertly doubles as a valley: Its coming down on me / Water like misery, Gaga wails, before the monster hook kicks in. Its anthemic but frightfully vulnerable, an instant pool-party classic with the troubled soul of a drained pool. Its her best pop song since, what? The Edge of Glory? The hug she and Grande share at the end of the video is awkward in an awfully endearing way. Your first hug with someone youre not currently living with, however many months from now that transpires, will look a lot like it.

Very little of this has that Gaga-specific WTF quality youre likely craving: Its the difference between chain-smoking and fashioning all your cigarettes into a pair of rad sunglasses. But Sine From Above, a late-album collaboration with Sir Elton John, gets closest to liftoff, emotional and otherwise. The theme is musical inspiration as the balm for personal devastation: Then the signal split in two / The sound created stars like me and you, the two divas sing to each other, consolingly. Before there was love, there was silence. Its egotistical in an awfully unguarded way.

But the most jarring and empowering and weirdly thrilling moment in the song belongs to John alone: He thunders, When I was young / I felt immortal! with more ferocious catharsis than youll find in all of Rocketman. It would simply sound ridiculous if you didnt totally believe him. Sine From Above wraps up with an abrupt, colossal breakbeat, and the disorientation is pleasurable indeed. There are lightning flashes of the classic, heedless, fearless Lady Gaga throughout Chromatica, and all the more thrilling for how brief they are, and all the sadder for their brevity.

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Lady Gagas Chromatica Is the Pop Album for the Lost Summer of 2020 - The Ringer

Noozhawk hosted a webinar on Friday that addressed education hurdles and how remote instruction changed the learning experience during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The webinar, titled Learning Together Remotely: Navigating Education in the COVID-19 Era, explored the lessons and challengesaseducators and students switchedfromface-to-face classes toremote learning.

During the webinar, viewers tuned in to an open discussion about how the pandemic accelerated technology-delivered instruction and fueled new opportunities.

Kim Clark, Noozhawk's vice president of business development,moderated the free, live Zoom webinar with five educators from the Santa Barbara Unified School District.

In support of the school district, the Santa Barbara Education Foundation gathered an accomplished group of educators who have worked tirelessly to help young learners stay engaged and on track during these unprecedented times.

The Santa Barbara Education Foundation supports and provides programs that enrich the academic, artistic and personal development of students in the Santa Barbara Unified School District.

More than 100 people registered for the webinar, and the 60-minute session includedan insightful question-and-answer session with guest speakers.

Click here to view thewebinarrecording with password 7P!hh^=^.

Youths across Santa Barbara County are not attending regular in-person classroom instruction because of state-mandated closures in an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19. Educators and school officialscontinue to provide a wide range of essential services.

When asked about somesignificant challenges that students are facing during school closures and the implementation of remote learning, Dos Pueblos High School Principal Bill Woodard spoke about the nature of COVID-19-related school closures.

The campus community had to shift gears on the fly.

We arent really doing distance learning or remote learning, he said. We are doing emergency COVID-19 response learning, and therefore, not having any preparation for that was extremely challenging as we rolled it out.

The spread of the coronavirus forced school campus closures in March.

Students were suddenly cut off from peers and school teachers, and everyone had to quickly adopt digital technology.

Students were not expecting it, and teachers were not expecting it to be for the rest of the school year, Woodard said. They didnt have any sort of warning that it was coming.

There were a lot of unmet needs in terms of just simply emotional safety, and also physical safety and comfort. Parents were losing their jobs. There werefood insecurity issues, and on top of that, now you have to shift the way youre learning at home.

Some students didnt have aconducive learning-at-home environment, and some still dont, frankly, Woodard said.

Franklin Elementary School music teacher Joanna Pascoe spoke about the benefits that remote learning offers compared to traditional on-site instruction.

My favorite part about all of this has been the sense of community, and not just within Santa Barbara but the global community, Pascoe said.

She received an influx of emails, with people trying to help and provide online resources that can support students at home.

The shift to learning online in response to the COVID-19 pandemic allowed different types of teaching material compared to only in a classroom.

The global aspect of suddenly having access to the Berlin orchestra or the Los Angeles Philharmonic or ballet companies in New York has been incredible, Pascoe said. A huge advantage of online learning is how much help and support we are getting from the global community.

The change also cultivated independent learners, and students are learning more independently.

We are teaching the students how to be their own learners, and how to find the resources for the subject you are most interested in, Pascoe said.

Ali Cortes works through the Santa Barbara district as the clinical youth outreach worker. She provides trauma-focused intervention, such as case management, advocacy, mentorship, workshops,mediations, empowerment groups, and therapy to at-risk adolescents and families.

During the webinar, Cortes mentioned some obstacles to student success in the wake of remote learning. Humanizing technology is a big barrier, she said.

No amount of remote learning is going to compare to the connection of a human being, Cortes said. We are all on the same ocean. We keep hearing the analogy of we are on the same boat, and we are not. We are all on the same ocean,and everybody is in a different place.

Some students have come face to face with the challenge of not havingspecific instructional materials for hands-on programs.

Franklin Elementary STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math)teacher Brendan Carroll said he gets creative with his lessons to keep students engaged. Young learners made origami, as well as sugar and salt crystal experiments and created aluminum foil boats.

We dont have the actual physical materials to give the students, so personally I havebeen trying to design engineering or science lessons based on my guesswork on what they (students) should have at home, Carroll said. This is sort of a patchwork band-aid situation.

Kelly Choi, director and co-founder of Santa Barbara Unified's Academy for Successprogram, also participated in the webinar. She described the lessons learned in the new world of remote instruction from the standpoint of an educator. For example, teachers learned new toolsand other creative solutions.

There are a lot of things us as teaches have wanted to do for a long time, Choi said. We have been in a cycle that has notallowed us as teachers to have time to get out there and try it or learn it all of a sudden, we were forced into a level of skill like learning technology and Zoom."

Noozhawk held its first webinarearlier this week, focusing on how the community is dealing with mental wellness during the coronavirus pandemic and local resources to help combat stress in the time of COVID-19.

The free, live Zoom webinar, titled Mental Wellness During the COVID-19 Crisis," included representatives ofDomestic Violence Solutions,CALM(Child Abuse Listening Mediation) andSanctuary Centers of Santa Barbara. Click hereto view the webinarrecording with password 2K##0=1!.

Noozhawk staff writer Brooke Holland can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.

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Noozhawk Webinar Focuses on Navigating Education During COVID-19 Pandemic - Noozhawk

By Loyiso Sidimba May 27, 2020

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Johannesburg - Hundreds of black-owned small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) across the country are set to benefit from the multimillion-rand procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE) to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

National Treasury director-general Dondo Mogajane has amended an earlier instruction that prescribed the emergency procurement of Covid-19 PPE items and cloth masks to ease supply by SMMEs and create an environment for the stimulation of local supply and manufacturing.

Institutions are encouraged to use suppliers/manufacturers falling in a designated group in terms of the Preferential Procurement Regulations 2017, reads Mogajanes new instruction, dated May 20.

According to the regulations, designated groups refer to black designated groups, black people, women, people with disabilities or small enterprise.

Earlier this month, the Treasury issued an instruction stating that there had been concerns about the procurement process excluding a number of domestic suppliers and covering too wide an array of goods, especially those that could be manufactured locally.

The Treasury also reiterated its commitment to fair, equitable, transparent, competitive and cost-effective procurement processes. It has assured the country that it wants these processes to be compliant with the countrys imperatives of promoting structural transformation and broadening participation in the economy, to strengthen economic development and empowerment of previously disadvantaged groups and individuals.

The list of suppliers identified by Mogajane include more than 700 companies who manufacture PPE items such as cloth masks, aprons, gowns and other protective clothing.

The companies are registered with the Department of Small Business Developments supplier database.

There is also another list of over 400 suppliers able to produce between 500 and 500 000 fabric cloth masks a week provided by the National Bargaining Council for the Clothing Industry, and more than a dozen companies who are part of the National Treasurys transversal contract to supply and deliver clothing to the government.

Business for South Africa (B4SA), which was set up by organised business to support the governments efforts to mitigate the health, labour market and economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, is looking for a broad-based black economic empowerment- compliant lead logistics provider to distribute PPE in a fast and price-efficient manner.

B4SA has already secured emergency supplies of PPE for the public and private sectors for the first eight weeks of the pandemic and monthly afterwards.

About R1 billion has already been spent on buying PPE using funding donated to the Covid-19 Solidarity Fund established by President Cyril Ramaphosa including millions of N95 and surgical masks for health-care workers and patients, sterile gloves, face shields, gowns, sanitisers and ventilators.

Unions representing health workers at the forefront of the fight against Covid-19 have complained about the lack of PPE and have even advised their members to demand it before performing their duties before working in dangerous, unhealthy, unsafe and unconducive work conditions.

Political Bureau

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Covid-19 in SA: Black-owned companies to benefit from making protective items - IOL

The business world may have changed forever because of COVID-19. But how are different sectors reacting and what do leaders think the future will look like?

To answer these searching questions, Business Leader brought together a high-calibre panel of business leaders.

The aim of the debate was to look at how business leaders are responding to the challenges presented by COVID-19.

The panel:

Dr Oliver Prill Tide Bank

Paul Beach Arbuthnot Latham

Asma Bashir Centuro Global

Johnny Palmer SXS Events

Paresh Modi Vodafone

Andrea Reynolds Swoop Funding

Gary Fletcher Gallagher

Jackie Fast entrepreneur and investor

John Stapleton entrepreneur and investor

Pat Lynes Sullivan and Stanley

The first question asked was, How is COVID-19 affecting your business and your clients?

Asma Bashir, who has run various businesses in her career, kicked off the debate by saying: We have several businesses in our portfolio and were able to react very quickly. As soon as the government announced we were going into lockdown, we were able to respond efficiently due to the technology infrastructure we had in place.

In regards to the shift to remote working, there was a high-level of excitement in the first couple of weeks, with working from home being a new experience and people feeling united with their families, but gradually it is starting to wear on people and the excitement has waned.

From an external perspective, the impact on our clients has been varied. For the start-up clients we deal with, they are being challenged by cashflow, their business runway in terms of funding and also how they navigate the various government schemes.

For our larger customers, we have had challenges with their expat population and people being stuck in other countries and weve been trying to support them with crisis management and getting them the advice and support they need.

On how Vodafone is responding, Paresh Modi, comments: We have 100,000 employees across the world and 95% are now working from home.

We have also seen a 50% increase in broadband traffic and, somehow, we have managed to keep the networks going by using our technology to push bandwidth levels at short notices through clarified structures. In our business we are having 40,000 virtual calls happening every day in our employee base. Keeping that up and running was a monumental task.

We have also been quick to support our customers, by shortening our payment terms to give them cashflow and also by setting up affordable business accounts and infrastructure for companies that may not be used to remote working.

Paul Beach has a large client base consisting of entrepreneurs and private businesses. On how they are being impacted, he said: Our private clients have been looking at how the wealth they have created is being impacted by the volatile nature of the global oil and equity markets. Its an uncertain time and naturally this client base is seeking advice and clarity.

For our entrepreneurial clients, it has been interesting to see how they have been innovating and pivoting during this time. For example, we work with a business called Seven Cherries an ethical catering firm who have moved into home deliveries across London.

Another business, Twipes, has also responded by moving their whole business online and into a B2C model, where they can deliver disposable wet wipes to UK households.

One sector that has certainly been impacted by COVID-19 is events. Johnny Palmer has looked to try and find opportunities though, as he has explained: Our industry (events) has been affected more than any other and it does not exist now. This made us look at our priorities which are our clients and employees and for the former we have been looking at how we can host their events virtually and also help them with advice around venue contracts and ticket prices.

In response to COVID-19 we have also developed our own education learning platform called Intelligo, and we have also launched a new online platform to host conferences. As a business, we are reacting where we can.

One of the biggest challenges for many businesses during COVID-19 has been accessing vital funding and navigating new government structures and systems.

To get an insight into the pressures this is putting leaders under, Dr Oliver Prill was asked to give his thoughts on the current funding context.

He said: At Tide, we have 150,000 SME business customers, which is one in 40 of all UK SMEs, so this allows us to see the whole spectrum and it is very tough for them now. The sad story is that the UK governments business response is well intentioned as from a Conservative Government this is unheard-of generosity but the execution has been found wanting, as large parts of the government machine are not working at the level that they are required to work.

This is in part because they have never had to work to this scale, but they too also have high rates of absenteeism which makes things difficult. We are trying to be supportive of government when representing our members but we also need to pick out these execution gaps.

The grants on offer only apply for one fifth of all SMEs because many small firms do not pay rates; and the loans have been an absolute disaster, as only 1% of SMEs have been able to access one.

Many companies are going to go into hibernation unless funding kicks in and investors will only inject funding if they see a light at the end of the tunnel and a coherent plan.

Andrea Reynolds sits on a fintech consortium which is talking to government about the challenges businesses are facing. On this subject, she said: We have seen a 1000% increase in customer demand and we are also seeing lots more mature and traditional businesses looking for funding, which we didnt see before COVID-19.

Businesses heard amazing things from the Chancellor, such as the 330bn fund, and if youre in business you assume it will be available to you, but the navigation has been very difficult. There is a huge disconnect between the announcement and reality and you have a situation where the lenders are inundated with demand and the business is stuck in the middle.

The system should be centralised so businesses can see who they can receive a loan from because now they going to their bank, being rejected, and not seeing the other lenders that are available.

The bandwidth for execution is not there and although government is moving at a faster pace than they ever have in their history, it is just not fast enough for business.

Individual investors, like large funders, are vitally important to the business eco-system and COVID-19 has naturally shaken portfolios.

To find out more, Jackie Fast, explained: I own a wine business and that is dead at the moment, but what you are seeing in this space is that Sommeliers and high-profile people within the drinks industry are building their own personal profiles with events like wine tasting and cocktail masterclasses.

They are building their profiles, rather than thinking only in a commercial sense.

What has surprised me is that in one of my companies a luxury handbag brand business is booming. It must be that people are sitting at home and happy to drop a large amount of money on a handbag, as they are not spending it elsewhere.

John Stapleton, who is also an active investor particularly in the food and drinks sector added this when talking about investor sentiment and how the sector is being impacted.

He said: There are positives and negatives from COVID-19, depending on the industry you operate in, what your route to market is and what stage of growth your business is at. In food and drink you have of course seen many companies diversifying and moving supply online where they can, as this is where there is now an opportunity.

I am also seeing an investment mismatch, where investors think valuations should be coming down given the challenges businesses face but business owners argue that this is just temporary and theyre saying come back to me later in the Summer as Im holding my valuation.

Going forward, I feel there will be a boom in investments once we begin to come out of this as there is pent-up deal flow and where businesses can demonstrate momentum they can attract investors and reasonable valuations.

Generally, the fundamentals of your business need to kick back in. Hold tight, conserve your cash, get in what you are owned and do not spend where you dont need to. Try to return to momentum and focus on making the second half of your year successful by preparing for the new normal. You need to turn uncertainty today into competitive advantage tomorrow.

The debate then moved onto remote working in more detail. To find out how organisations are responding to remote working, we spoke to Gary Fletcher.

He said: Our business is spread over seventy offices and prior to COVID-19, we didnt operate with many of our staff remote working. But we are robust as an organisation and we had a well-tested business continuity plan in place in the event of something like this happening. We did not expect to have to move our entire estate in one go but we did it; and the implementation has been very successful.

We are proud of what we have achieved, as we did not expect to have to do this on such a big scale. For our customers were also proud to be giving them business as usual service and investing throughout this period to support them. They are talking to us about cyber risk, unoccupied premises and other matters and we are working hard to be by their side.

Back to our people, the challenge has not been the move, but its been about how we communicate with them. This is important from a wellbeing perspective and keeping our culture going is our focus now.

Inspiring remote works is all about strong leadership. To find out how COVID-19 is changing the way we think about leadership, Pat Lynes gave his thoughts.

He said: Many businesses are hibernating, cutting costs to the bone and retreating but I think the ones which will come out stronger from this will do the opposite reset, reorganise and reinvent; and this comes down to strong leadership and a clear vision for the future.

This challenge has given us a free pass to assess how we operate as leaders and to rethink how we want our organisations to be. COVID-19 has sped up the future of work as it has ripped off the band-aid for the industrial world of work, moving away from hierarchy and control to a more servant style of leadership, based on trust, collaboration and empowerment.

Most executives and change experts Ive spoken to do not want to go back to death by business case, analysis paralysis and slow decision-making indicative of hierarchical structures. So, Im hoping to see less time and activity-based management to more inspiring leadership with a product and services-based outcome, which is focused on the delivery of value to customers and the bottom line.

The recent World Economic Forum at Davos predicted that the businesses who will thrive in this decade will be those that embrace change as a constant and bring learning back into their organisations.

Pat added: I believe that the leaders who put change at the heart of their agenda and capability will be the organisations that succeed.

The debate then looked at mergers and acquisition activity and whether this will increase going forward, as stronger companies look to acquire weaker ones.

Paul Beach said: I think that could increase in the future but, initially, the concerns are around funding companies and investors. The number of deals has fallen very low in the last few weeks and possibly as low as 2014 numbers.

Some deals are still going ahead though and there is some positivity out there. Investors are taking longer to go through the deals though and there is less money involved and lots of deals are going into follow on deals.

Asma Bashir added: I relate it to 2008 and the recession back then. We were approached to be acquired and, because of the challenging conditions, I considered it, but I stood my ground and we waited it out. Rather than focus on activity in the UK, we pivoted into new markets and became a global business. This decision in 2008 changed the landscape of our business and we became a large company off the back of it.

I would say if you can survive without being bought, Id hang on and look at how you can enter new markets and how you can innovate. If you can get through this, it transforms you as a leader and it can inspire people. Difficult times are the real test that can show your resilience as a leader.

Overall, M&A activity is there but if a company is just looking at this as a way to resolve cash flow, there may be other things they can do to solve this issue.

John Stapleton also said: Being an entrepreneur is all about taking advantage of tough situations. It is not just about being prepared, its about being more prepared than the other guy and thats about developing a competitive advantage.

I remember the 1990 recession well, as we had set up New Convent Garden just before. We were scared at what might happen to our early-stage business, but our sales rose during the economic downturn. In recession, consumer behaviour shows that people trade up and they trade down simultaneously. They trade down from going out, but they eat in much more, so our sales of New Convent Garden Soup rocketed. And they traded up to consumption of premium products in the home consumers dont want to eat staples all of the time. Were undoubtedly heading into a recession following this first Covid wave. Those who understand their consumer base and have an insight to how their behaviour will likely change post Covid, will be ahead of the game of survival come the recession.

The debate concluded by talking about how leaders themselves can stay mentally resilient during this period. When asked how he keeps himself motivated during this time, Johnny Palmer said: The first thing I did was launch a campaign called Boss Take it First. In the early days of this crisis, when people were not behaving well and putting their own shareholders and dividends ahead of their staff, I felt that leaders needed to be practically and visibly taking the first hit. The boss needs to get paid less and the boss net worth needs to get hit first.

This is about strong leadership and a statement to your staff. You also need to work on your mental and physical fitness as a leader, to make sure you can look after everybody else.

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'COVID-19 has ripped off the band-aid for the old way of working' - BLM roundtable brings together leaders to discuss CV19 impact - Business Leader

Download copy from here Aldous Huxley - The Metaphysics of Suffering

Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS9o3qdfOOU

Download copy from here Carl Sagan - The World Is A Unity

Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-pUPax9tGU

(1) Science and Christ
https://www.consciousevolution.tv/pdfs/Science_and_Christ.pdf

(2) Appearance Of Man
https://www.consciousevolution.tv/pdfs/Appearance_of_Man.pdf

(3) Christianity and Evolution
https://www.consciousevolution.tv/pdfs/Christianity_and_Evolution.pdf

(4) Let Me Explain
https://www.consciousevolution.tv/pdfs/Let_Me_Explain.pdf

(5) The Phenomenon of Man
https://www.consciousevolution.tv/pdfs/phenomenon-of-man.pdf

(6) The Future of Man
https://www.consciousevolution.tv/pdfs/Future_of_Man.pdf

(7) Toward the Future
https://www.consciousevolution.tv/pdfs/Toward_the_Future.pdf

(8) Heart of Matter
https://www.consciousevolution.tv/pdfs/Heart_of_Matter.pdf

(9) Letters to Two Friends
https://www.consciousevolution.tv/pdfs/Letters_to_Two_Friends.pdf

(10) The Divine Milieu
https://www.consciousevolution.tv/pdfs/The_Divine_Milieu.pdf

(11) Writings in Time of War
https://www.consciousevolution.tv/pdfs/Writings_in_Time_of_War.pdf

(12) Letters From A Traveler
https://www.consciousevolution.tv/pdfs/Letters_from_a_Traveller.pdf

(13) Human Energy
https://www.consciousevolution.tv/pdfs/Human_Energy.pdf

(14) Hymn of the Universe
https://www.consciousevolution.tv/pdfs/Hymn_of_the_Universe.pdf

(15) Man's Place in Nature
https://www.consciousevolution.tv/pdfs/Mans_Place_in_Nature.pdf

(16) On Love and Happiness
https://www.consciousevolution.tv/pdfs/on_love_happiness.pdf

(17) Vision of the Past
https://www.consciousevolution.tv/pdfs/Vision_of_the_Past.pdf

(18) Letters to Lucile Swan
https://www.consciousevolution.tv/pdfs/Letters_to_Lucile_Swan.pdf

(19) Letters to Leontine Zanta
https://www.consciousevolution.tv/pdfs/Letters_to_Leontine_Zanta.pdf

(20) Activation of Energy
https://www.consciousevolution.tv/pdfs/Activation_of_Energy.pdf

(21) The Making of a Mind
https://www.consciousevolution.tv/pdfs/Teilhard_de_Chardin_Pierre_-_The_Making_of_a_Mind.pdf

Download copy from here alan-watts-existence-is-quite-weird-and-why-the-apple-tree-apples-fall-philosophy-and-spirituality.mp4

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Alan Watts - Existence is Quite Weird and Why the Apple Tree Apples Fall, Philosophy and Spirituality from Endocrinology Hormone Clinic on Vimeo.

By Dr. Chuck Russo,Program Director ofCriminal Justice at American Military University

About 25 years ago, I was asked if I could figure out a way for this internet thing to deliver both education and training for law enforcement personnel. At the time, I was working in education at the University of Central Florida (UCF) and also developing training courses at the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO Institute).

In January 1997, my first UCF online course was taking shape as was APCO Institutes Virtual Institute. The UCF course, Police and Society, appeared on what we would later call a bulletin board. The courses for the Virtual Institute were constructed using HTML code.Whe

Its important to remember that in 1997 AOL (then still better known as America on Line) had just stopped charging by the hour and Microsoft Office was available on a set of 45 3 inch floppy disks. People who had a 56 Kbps dial-up modem were flying online.

There were no learning management systems (LMS) then like Blackboard, WebCT, Moodle, Sakai, or D2L. For these courses to work they all had to be coded by hand.

While designing and building these courses, I had to keep in mind how criminal justice professionals would access the content. The majority of these criminal justice professionals would be taking courses on their agencys dispatch consoles as well as on the mobile data terminals (MDTs) in officers vehicles.

[Related: Do Cops Need a College Education?]

My biggest fear when designing and building the online education and training courses was that I would unintentionally crash an agencys computer-aided dispatch (CAD) center (9-1-1 operations center). I had to be very careful and take into consideration certain design parameters. This was not an issue to be taken lightly. To alleviate this concern, I kept the design simple. I limited the images to those that were absolutely necessary to convey the information, but including video wasnt an option. To my knowledge by keeping it simple, I never knocked out a 9-1-1 system.

Not only did I have this technical obstacle to overcome, I had another big concern to deal with: No one knew how to learn in an online environment.

Solving this issue took some time and thought. What I initially sketched out was a design that took advantage of things students would already be familiar with: a registrars office, a library building, a classroom building, and eventually a student union type area. These elements were all displayed on a simple map that looked like the kind prospective students would be handed when they first came to the campus of a brick-and-mortar school.

For example, to register for classes or retrieve student records, students clicked the registrars office icon. While this design approach sounds simple enough in todays world, back then it was a major challenge to figure out how to move the student from point A to point B in the online world.

Another important component to the design of online courses was the need to standardize them, much like we see at many educational and training institutions today.

In the traditional in-person classroom, each faculty member would run the course as he or she saw fit. Professors provided a syllabus that might contain just a few words and some resemblance of an outline, while others provided what seemed to be a short book on the course. With each course, the student had to play the game of lets figure out what the professor actually wants from us.

[Related: The Scholar-Practitioner Approach to Teaching: A Criminal Justice Professors Perspective]

Since the online education environment was new, I sought to standardize both the classroom experience and the way students accessed information and resources for the course. For example, every online courses syllabus followed a standard template. The online classroom was set up the same for every course with lists of resources, reading materials, and assignments in the same place.

Once students learned how to learn in the online classroom system, they would know how to navigate future online course offerings.

Later in 1997, the UCF course went live and worked as designed. The Virtual Institute also went live and was a huge success, winning the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) Innovation in Training award that year. Little did I know it at the time, but it seems I had successfully created the first online training institute in the U.S. (and probably the world). Those opportunities some 25 years ago laid the groundwork for the next years of my lifes work.

I spent the next 20-plus years designing online education courses, working with colleges and universities interested in developing an online presence, and constructing online training centers and corporate universities.

Today, as Criminal Justice Program Director for American Public University System (American Military University and American Public University) I lead a department of approximately 60 faculty members who provide higher education in the online environment. The university offers graduate degrees, undergraduate degrees, certificates, and learning tracks, all in a 100-percent online classroom, serving thousands of students every year and helping them to reach their educational goals.

Thankfully, instructional designers no longer have to hand-code HTML to create an online course. I have worked with many different LMS programs over the last 20 years that provide robust platforms to convey content to students and create engaging student learning environments. Consistency, continuity, and customizability all come together to enable our faculty to create engaging classroom environments without formal instructional design training.

While I dont necessarily see myself doing this for another 25 years, I continue to look to the future to anticipate, predict, and design courses to meet upcoming challenges. Ten years ago, we would never have anticipated the sheer number of students using mobile devices to access course content. Now it is a design variable that cant be ignored and course content must be accessible through these devices.

Today, instructional designers must prepare course content that can be delivered by wearable technology. Whether via smart glasses or smartwatches, lessons and other course content must be designed in a way that it can be delivered to students who have these devices. Universities that seek to succeed in the online environment of tomorrow must prepare today to deliver content via wearable tech or else student satisfaction, and ultimately student enrollment, will suffer.

About the Author: Dr. Chuck Russo is the Program Director of Criminal Justice at American Military University (AMU). He began his career in law enforcement in 1987 in Central Florida and was involved all areas of patrol, training, special operations and investigations before retiring from law enforcement in 2013. Dr. Russo continues to design and instruct courses, as well as act as a consultant for education, government and industry throughout the United States and the Middle East. His recent research and presentations focus on emerging technology and law enforcement applications, in addition to post-traumatic stress and online learning.

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The Design of Online Education and Training Continues to Evolve - In Public Safety

On this episode of the MarketScale Online Learning Minute, host Brian Runo dives into how quantum computing, the next revolutionary leap forward in computing, could apply to online education.

In particular, it can be used to epitomize the connectivism theory and provide personalized learning for each individual, as its not restricted by the capacity of an individual instructor.

In this way, each learner can be empowered to learn at their own pace and be presented with materials more tailored to them in real-time.

In fact, quantum computing is so revolutionary that the education world likely cant even currently dream up the innovations it will enable.

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Link:
The Role of Quantum Computing in Online Education - MarketScale