How was your summer? Instead of telling us about everything you did, we’re challenging you to focus on just one happy memory, big or small, and tell us about it in detail.
It could be something you ate, or a place you visited, a conversation with a friend or relative, a moment alone in nature or on a city street, a book you read or movie you watched or concert you saw.You don’t need to try to choose something that sums up the whole season — just go with the first thing that comes to mind.
Tell us about it in the comments, then read the related article to read some descriptions of “tastes of summer” around the United States.
Learn more about Picture Prompts here and find all of our prompts in this column.
Students 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.
The brand new University of London’s Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Marketing is designed for you, that is looking for analytical skills to advance in your marketing career, but that is also interested in ethical issues associated with over-consumption, environmental crisis and inequality.
This degree has been created with the understanding that marketing can play an important role in mitigating some of the core societal issues we are currently facing. Throughout the programme, you will have the opportunity to examine the connections between marketing and the underlying fundamentals of politics, economics and society that determine the rules for how marketing operates.
You will understand contemporary perspectives on marketing and its implications for firms, industries and society, and will learn to identify and develop ethical, sustainable and pro-diversity approaches. You will examine how quantitative studies can be employed in management, for sustainable business. You will develop a critical understanding of consumer behaviour and culture and its relation to digital marketing. You will also learn the strategic and operational facets of marketing set within the context of globalisation and its implications for the marketing manager and consumerism.
By analysing real-life problems facing actual businesses and evaluating the effectiveness and limitations of different marketing and management solutions and practices you will gain the adding value analytic skills that are highly sought in the world of marketing and advertising today.
The degree balances research and applied skills, and it’s led by Royal Holloway, University of London’s Marketing Department:
“At Royal Holloway, we pride ourselves on being at marketing’s cutting edge,” said Professor Alan Bradshaw, Head of the Marketing Department. “Our dual excellence in teaching and research allows us to lead international discussions about consumer experience, online culture, and branding. This new programme will allow us to do so in very exciting ways and we can’t wait to get started.”
In this programme, you will learn through a variety of highly engaging materials and activities such as pre-recorded videos, readings, formative assessments, quizzes and live tutorials. Your learning experience will be fun, and most importantly, effective. You will also have access to career resources, advice and support, which will empower you to realise your career goals.
“Degrees continue to be one of the most valued credentials in the job market, and we’re excited to build on the global success of the University of London’s Bachelor of Science in Computer Science by launching this new programme in a high-demand field” – added Betty Vandenbosch, Chief Content Officer at Coursera.
By Betty Vandenbosch, Chief Content Officer, Coursera
Coursera is growing rapidly in India — since 2020, 7.5 million new registered learners in the country have joined the Coursera platform. Amid this demand, we are working with our industry partners to better serve our growing Indian learner base with job-relevant content and initiatives to help them develop skills for a digital future.
Today, we are pleased to welcome Philips India, a leading health technology solutions company, as Coursera’s latest industry partner. The first course from Philips, Introduction to Basics of Ventilation, comes as frontline healthcare workers around the world rely on ventilators to treat critically ill COVID-19 patients. The five-week course explores ventilation basics — the physiology of ventilation, types of ventilators, high flow therapy, COVID-19 phenotypes — and how to apply this knowledge to daily work in a hospital. The full course will be available for free in the coming weeks as a social impact initiative supported by Philips and Coursera to help healthcare professionals around the world better treat and manage COVID-19 patients. Philips plans to grow its catalog on Coursera with more healthcare courses.
“The onset of the pandemic has increased demand for ventilators and trained staff to operate them. As healthcare professionals work to improve peoples’ health and deliver the best possible outcomes, Philips is pleased to partner with Coursera to provide them with knowledge on ventilation and its best practices. Given Coursera’s global reach and Philips’s strength in delivering innovative healthcare technologies, this partnership will play a big role in better equipping healthcare professionals with the skills to manage patients who require ventilator interventions,” said Daniel Mazon, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Philips Indian Subcontinent.
To further expand access to job-relevant learning,industry partners Microsoft and IBM are offering scholarships for Indian learnersto take their courses, Specializations, and Professional Certificates on Coursera. Microsoft, in collaboration with Women in Cloud, is providing 500 Microsoft Azure scholarships targeted at helping increase women’s representation in cloud computing as part of the #empowHERfamily initiative. These scholarships will provide women free Azure training, giving them access to highly sought-after cloud skills needed in today’s jobs. Learners can apply today. In the coming months, IBM will offer 500 scholarships for its wide range of tech, business, and data science content on Coursera. These scholarships will include access to in-demand courses such as What is Data Science?, which was among the most popular courses in India from January to June 2021.
“IBM’s experience with education and skills programs, particularly those created here in India, has shown that there is a great appetite for learning resources that prepare young people for rewarding careers. We’ve found that one of the keys for success is to make the training as accessible and convenient as possible, and to provide it with related curricula that build a more complete educational foundation. That’s why we think that Coursera is a terrific choice for students, and we couldn’t be more pleased to offer scholarships to IBM content available on the platform,” said Justina Nixon-Saintil, VP and Global Head Corporate Social Responsibility, IBM.
We’re proud to partner with industry leaders such as Philips, Microsoft, and IBM to support our growing learner base in India. Together, we can help even more learners across the country and globe access high-quality learning and broaden their career opportunities.
Partnering with top-tier Indian institutions to help them reach a global audience; Launching localized experiences; Building India operations as the APAC hub
By Coursera
Today, we’re announcing a number of initiatives to accelerate growth and operations in India. As demand for Coursera rises in the country, we are unveiling partnerships with top-tier Indian institutions (including IITs and ISI), announcing new enterprise customers, and introducing several platform innovations to better serve Indian learners and campuses. We are also elevating our India operations to become the hub for the entire APAC region. With 12.5 million registered learners, India is already our second-largest market. The country also ranks highest in new learner growth globally, adding 7.5 million learners since January 2020.
“The pandemic has dramatically changed the way we learn, teach, and work. Our strong momentum in India reflects the continued trend of individuals and institutions embracing online learning to develop skills for a digital future,” said Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO, Coursera. “We’re delighted to partner with the country’s top higher ed institutions to offer a greater selection of job-relevant content and credentials and launch new platform features that will make learning on Coursera even more accessible and personalized for Indian learners.”
Among the announcements we are making today:
Partnership with four new higher education institutions in India, taking the total number of university partners to 10 in the country. New partners include IIT Bombay, IIT Guwahati, Indian Statistical Institute, and Ashoka University.
Five new certificate programs from Indian partners:
A new course, Introduction to Basics of Ventilation, to train frontline medical staff who manage critically ill COVID-19 patients, from our latest industry partner, Philips India
Localized home page for better discovery, geo pricing (most individual courses are priced 40% lower than global), five new payment options, and bulk pricing for avid learners.
New Coursera for Business customers including Reliance Industries Limited, Larsen & Toubro, Wipro GE Healthcare, Usha, ITC Infotech, Welspun India, StarTek and Vardhman Group
New Coursera for Campus customers including UNext Learning, Nitte (Deemed to be University), Gandhi Institute of Technology and Management, JIS College of Engineering, and Somaiya Vidyavihar
Setting up a ‘Learner Services’ team in India to better respond to learner needs globally.
New scholarships from industry partners:
Microsoft, in collaboration with Women in Cloud, will provide 500 scholarships targeted at helping increase women representation in cloud computing
IBM will provide 500 scholarships towards various IBM Professional Certificates, Specializations, and courses on Coursera.
“With the pandemic widening the skill gaps, there is renewed urgency for large-scale reskilling efforts,” said Raghav Gupta, MD – India & APAC, Coursera. “As the country embraces online learning at a faster pace, Coursera is committed to helping many more learners and institutions in India navigate change and disruption with access to world-class learning.”
India also leads the world in the adoption of Guided Projects — a hands-on learning experience that enables learners to build a job-relevant skill in less than two hours. Half of the 2.6 million global enrollments for Guided Projects since their May 2020 launch have come from India. We will continue to expand this catalog with Indian learners in mind, including Guided Projects from local employers.
While we might hear a lot about positions like CEO or CFO, it’s the Chief Operating Officer (COO) who really knows what’s going on when it comes to the running of a business. COOs are responsible for the overall organisation and functioning of a company and have to be up to speed with all aspects of the business.
Regardless of the sector, the individual in charge of managing operations has to have a brilliant organisational mind in order to be able to successfully coordinate all of the various components of a business. If you’re interested in pursuing a career in operations management then there are no shortage of options, as long as you have the skillset. And that’s where we come in! We’ve put together an exciting selection of careers in operations management and highlighted the courses you need to achieve them.
The COO is one of the highest powered positions in any organisation, and also one of the busiest. There’s not a single element of company life that the COO isn’t involved in somehow. From onboarding new employees to negotiating with suppliers, a good COO will be at the heart of all decisions. To fulfil the role competently, you need to have the very best in training. And that’s exactly what you’ll get form our Diploma in Operations Management, one of our most popular courses.
Who makes a city tick? While you may think it’s the mayor or another elected official, it’s really the City Manager who keep everything running smoothly. These professional positions are vital for the successful coordination of cities, which are incredibly complex organisms. From traffic to parking, hospitals to schools, there are thousands of different branches of city life that have to be balanced and run in parallel to each other. If you’d like to pursue this exciting career, then your first stop has to be our Diploma in Modern Project Management.
Every day, a Branch Manager is faced with countless problems to solve and decisions to make. First and foremost, this role is about managing people. The branch team needs to be monitored and taken care of, customers need to be seen to and satisfied, and suppliers, contractors and Head Office also need to be dealt with on a regular basis. To be able to keep all parties happy, a Branch Manager needs to be skilled in dealing with people, which is exactly what you’ll learn from our Diploma in Modern Human Resource Management.
If you’re the Business Manager, then the buck stops with you. You exercise overall control and take ultimate responsibility for what goes right or wrong. A successful Business Manager needs a successful team behind them, and in order to run a successful team you need Leadership Skills. Leadership is one of the hardest skills to teach, as so much of it comes down to character. This course offers a fantastic foundation in leadership techniques and team management.
Management is probably the most important skill an entrepreneur can have. If you’re running your own company then you need to be to capable of directing it competently and effectively. Our Diploma in Business Management & Entrepreneurship focuses on the management techniques that are specific to entrepreneurs seeking to manage their businesses. This is a course that no entrepreneur can afford to miss out on.
Cyber attacks are attempts to disrupt or disable computer systems or steal valuable data. From the Experian data breach to the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, cyber attacks are a part of just about every news cycle and have very real consequences. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at what cyber attacks are, why they happen, and how to prevent them.
Cyber attack basics
Cyber attacks can compromise sensitive personal data, including Social Security numbers, birthdates, medical information, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and more. This can lead to identity theft, which is time-consuming, frustrating, and expensive to resolve.
Cyber attacks are also very expensive for companies. Cybersecurity Ventures expects global cybercrime costs to grow to $10.5 trillion annually by 2025, with over $6 trillion in damages alone this year.
But why is cybercrime so expensive? Cyber attacks often bring down computer networks, and downtime costs companies money. It also takes time and money to back up and evaluate compromised systems and data.
Companies also have to notify their customers if their data was compromised and take measures to restore their reputations. That doesn’t include the costs of attempting to prevent cyber attacks in the first place, which requires professional expertise, investments in hardware and software, and lots of time.
Types of cyber attacks
There are several types of cyber attacks. Here are some of the most common.
Malware
Malware are software like spyware and ransomware that are used to attack information systems.
Spyware is installed on devices without a user’s knowledge. It can be used to steal information, including login credentials, and invades privacy. Trojans are one example of spyware.
Trojans hide in legitimate software programs, which gives them access to a computer. From there, it can delete or encrypt files or access user information.
Ransomware is software used to encrypt and hijack computer systems, which are only released after a ransom has been paid. The Colonial Pipeline shutdown was one example of this. The Pipeline is one of the main fuel pipelines in the United States, and shutting it down caused fuel shortages across the east coast. Colonial paid $4.4 million to the hacking group to bring their systems back online.
Phishing
Phishing is when cybercriminals send emails or texts to unsuspecting people who then click on a link or attachment that downloads malware onto their device. Another variation is when the link takes the user to a fake website that tricks them into entering sensitive information.
Phishing emails and texts have become increasingly sophisticated, so it’s critical to be vigilant about not clicking links or opening any emails you don’t recognize.
Man-in-the-middle
This attack is when a cybercriminal inserts themselves between two parties. For example, they might intercept connections on public, unsecured WiFi networks to steal data from someone logging into their work email or bank account.
Distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS)
DDoS attacks bombard systems with traffic that exhausts their resources and bandwidth. They make servers unable to handle requests, making systems unusable.
SQL injection
SQL injections involve using the SQL programming language to collect data from servers and databases.
Zero-day exploits
Software have vulnerabilities. Zero-day exploits are when cybercriminals exploit vulnerabilities within software before they’re patched.
DNS tunneling
DNS tunneling hides the data of other programs in DNS queries and responses. It allows data to be removed from a system without being detected.
Why do cyber attacks happen?
Criminals engage in cyber attacks for several reasons:
Money: Perhaps the most obvious reason, money drives a lot of cyber attacks. Ransomware can bring in millions for cybercriminals. They can also sell personal and corporate data.
Disruption: Some hackers just want to disrupt the status quo. They enjoy the chaos. Or they may want to damage a specific organization or entity.
Cyberwarfare: Governments are also involved in cyber attacks. They use cyber attacks to weaken political opponents and expose weaknesses.
How to prevent cyber attacks
Organizations and individuals can take steps to prevent cyber attacks.
Education: You can only prevent what you’re aware of, so keep an eye on evolving cyber threats. Organizations should educate employees on common cyber threats, including phishing and social engineering, which involve manipulating someone into providing access to sensitive information. For example, someone could pretend to be tech support to gain access to protected servers.
Install perimeter defenses: These include firewalls, which should be kept up to date.
Malware detection: Consider adding malware protection on your computers and other devices. Corporations should have state-of-the-art antivirus software that’s continually updated to address threats.
Patch management: Those pesky security updates might seem annoying, but they prevent vulnerabilities from being exploited.
User access: Multi-factor authentication and strong passwords play a huge role in preventing cyber attacks.
Along with the steps listed above, businesses should also have a clear response plan to deal with security breaches.
Getting involved in cybersecurity
Since cyber attacks are constantly evolving, cybersecurity professionals are in high demand. If you’re interested in a career in cybersecurity, you can get started in several ways.
One option is learning a programming language that’s commonly used in cybersecurity. Some options include:
We also offer an Introduction to Cybersecurity course. It covers cybersecurity standards, cyber threats, cryptography, network security basics, and more. In other words, it’s a great way to take your first steps toward a rewarding career!
Cloud computing is becoming more and more popular. Every day, more companies are turning away from traditional IT infrastructures and corporate data centers. Instead, they’re flocking to cloud services and platforms — but why?
In this article, we’ll explore the many benefits behind cloud computing’s popularity. But first, let’s look at what cloud computing is.
What is cloud computing?
Every business needs some sort of IT infrastructure. Think about the many different types of files that employees need to access. The large amounts of data stored in databases. The email and other software that needs to be installed on company devices.
In the past, companies managed the hardware and software behind their servers, databases, and networks in a physical data center.
Cloud computing changed all of this. By delivering computing services like software, analytics, servers, storage, and more, over the Internet, cloud services like AWS (Amazon Web Services) save businesses the time, money, and other resources they’d otherwise dedicate to maintaining their IT infrastructure.
There are several different types of cloud services, ranging from Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) to Software as a Service (Saas). In another post, we take a closer look at what cloud computing is.
7 benefits of cloud computing
Cloud computing offers many benefits — so much so that more and more businesses are migrating their infrastructures and data to cloud services and platforms. Some startups rely entirely on cloud computing for benefits like:
1. Scalability
The IT needs of every company are different. For example, a big tech company with thousands of employees needs different resources than a startup with only three. Cloud providers are a perfect solution for either company because their services can be scaled to meet their needs.
This scaling can be done in a matter of seconds or minutes, which is great for a company that’s growing quickly. As demands increase, a business can quickly scale its cloud-based infrastructure without investing in physical components.
2. Cost
While the initial migration of existing infrastructure may take planning, money, and time, most businesses see cost savings in using cloud services right away. Since cloud computing resources can be sized to a business’s needs, they never pay for more than they use. It’s a pay-as-you-go system.
In contrast, many on-site data centers have more resources than they need. This is largely for preventative reasons — it’s better to be overprepared than underprepared when things go wrong. But, with cloud computing and its scalable services, a business never has to pay for more than they need.
3. Speed
Along with saving time and resources, cloud computing has also sped up software development. Setting up a new development environment or virtual machine on a cloud can be done in seconds with the click of a few buttons. With a traditional data center, you’d have to purchase, install, and maintain all the required hardware.
Cloud services are fast. With a traditional data center, users have to connect to that one data center no matter where they’re located in the world. A cloud service, on the other hand, can be distributed across the world, so users get a fast connection close to their geographical location.
4. Productivity
Cloud computing improves productivity in many ways:
As we explained earlier, eliminating the need for infrastructure maintenance allows your IT staff to focus on business-related tasks.
It makes software development, testing, and deployment quicker and easier.
It provides a worldwide network of services that can be easily accessed by remote employees.
5. Performance
Because providing modern IT infrastructure is their business, cloud providers keep data centers updated with the latest high-performance hardware and technologies. This enables better connectivity and performance.
6. Security
Cybersecurity is a big concern of any business. Data breaches can damage an enterprise’s revenue, reputation, and even its clients. Cloud services resolve this by managing permissions and access to the services and resources they provide. For example, you could restrict access to an important file to a specific set of users.
7. Disaster recovery
Losing data can be just as bad for a business as having a data breach. Storing data on the cloud ensures that it’s always available, even if a laptop or mobile device gets lost or damaged.
Cloud providers also provide backup systems for files, databases, source code, and more. In a worst-case scenario, any lost data can be restored from backups in no time.
Getting Started
If you’re into coding, chances are you’ll run into cloud computing in your career. It’s where most businesses host their infrastructure — and after looking at all of its advantages, it’s easy to see why. Cloud computing saves money, increases productivity, is available from anywhere, 24/7, and much more.
What does this mean to a developer? It means it makes your job a lot easier. When it comes to writing code, not much has changed. You can still develop apps with the same technologies and languages you’re already using. The cloud just provides an easier way to deploy, test, and run your code. It also makes it possible to work remotely from anywhere in the world.
Ready to start working with the cloud? If you’re looking to build server-side applications that run in cloud environments, check out our Back-End Engineer Career Path. We’ll teach you how to build your own applications, APIs, databases, and more.
If you’re more interested in building web applications that run in the browser, our Front-End Engineer Career Path could be right for you. You’ll learn how to use languages like JavaScript, CSS, and HTML, along with front-end libraries like React and Redux. Lastly, for those who want to master both the front and back end, try our Full-Stack Developer Career Path.
Did you know that you can customize fonts for some of the Blogger elements with just a few clicks? Such a feature is available with all default Blogger templates and our Blogger Themes. It’s nice to be able to change even the smallest of things on your blog to match your personal style more closely, but changing things up on your blog by yourself can be intimidating at best. But the good news is, Blogger has made this pretty easy. In this short guide, I will show you how you can use custom fonts with Blogger.
Access your Custom Fonts with Blogger
As an example, I will use one of our premade Blogger templates called Aimee
To make your changes, you will need to log in to your Blogger and click on your Theme (1) tab in your dashboard. Then click on the orange Customize (2) button to be taken to your theme customizer.
This is what your Theme Customizer looks like. As you can see, there are quite a few options to click on the left. Today we will focus on the Advanced (3) tab.
Using the small arrow (4) just below the advanced tab name, you can pick a section of your blog which you would like to edit. Our templates come with a couple of them however, if you bought the design somewhere else, you might notice that your design is not customizable or have just one or two options to choose from.
Browse the options on the left side of your screen (5) and change the font style, color, size, and more! You will find here lots of custom fonts that can be used with Blogger. Go ahead and play around with these a bit without being scared because nothing here gets saved unless you actually save your changes.
As you are making changes in this area, you will see a preview of how the changes look on your blog so you can get things set how you like them before they are actually saved to your live blog. Don’t be afraid to click on the different options and make changes. Again, nothing will be saved to your live blog until you hit the Save button (6)
When you are happy with the results, click the save button (6) at the bottom right corner. You can also use the button next to save to reset unsaved changes.
That’s all!
You have just customized fonts on your blog. As you see, using custom fonts with Blogger is very easy and takes only a few clicks. I hope that this short guide will help you make your blog perfect.
If you have any questions, make sure to leave them in the comments below.
An animal unexpectedly gets loose on a field of competition no more than a handful of times per year, and fans typically agree that it never gets old. In 2019, a cat scurried into the end zone at Giants Stadium. In 2017, a cat perched on the Miami Marlins’ gaudy home run sculpture.
Most times, the animal — typically a terrified cat — displays deft skill in evading human capture until it decides to run off the field on its own terms. The fans in the stadium typically root for the cat against the villainous grounds crew, and TV announcers gamely narrate the drama.
Daily Word Challenge
Can you correctly use the word deft in a sentence?
Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.
Then, read some of the other sentences students have submitted and use the “Recommend” button to vote for two original sentences that stand out to you.
If you want a better idea of how deft can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com.
Students ages 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, can comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff.
When you’re done, ask yourself, Is there something interesting I’ve observed about language and language patterns that could be useful to explore using data analysis, perhaps via tools like Google Trends or the Google Books Ngram Viewer? What and why? How could you present your findings visually?
14. Understand the relationship between language and culture — and have your say.
If you are a regular reader of The Times, you can track these conversations in real time. For example, in 2020 the paper announced that, after conversations that began in earnest after the death of George Floyd and subsequent protests, The Times would begin capitalizing “Black” when describing people and cultures of African origin. Nearly 800 readers commented on the change, some supporting it, others rejecting it and many offering nuanced reasons for their opinions.
You can find pieces that touch on language and its relationship to culture in sections across the paper, including Politics, Sports, Style and Food. If you want just one recent example, however, we recommend the Aug., 2021 piece by the linguist John McWhorter exploring “How ‘Woke’ Became an Insult.” After tracing how and why its meaning has morphed, he writes:
A mature societal take on language will understand that words are not simply what they mean in something called the dictionary and that words referring to issues societal or controversial — i.e., the interesting ones — will often need replacement about once a generation.
Finally, and most important, we invite you to become a part of the conversation, too. The Learning Network’s daily Student Opinion question often focuses on issues of language, culture and politics, and gives young people a dedicated place to have their say.
Here are just a few of the questions we’ve asked recently. Post your thoughts in the comments section for each — and read and respond to what other teenagers have contributed:
