fbpx
Home Blog Page 1116

8 Green Apps That Help You Live A More Sustainable Life

By
onlinefreecourse
-
0
8 Green Apps That Help You Live A More Sustainable Life
8 Green Apps That Help You Live A More Sustainable Life

One of the best ways to get an idea for a new mobile app is to think about a problem you’d like to solve. For lots of developers, that problem is climate change.

Of course, apps alone can’t fix climate change. But there are tons of innovative apps that make it easy for anyone with a mobile device to make simple changes that positively impact our environment, from supporting green initiatives to reducing carbon emissions.

Here’s a list of apps to download if you want to start leading a greener, more sustainable lifestyle. Who knows? Exploring how mobile developers are using code to solve the world’s biggest problems might even empower you to build your own app.

1. Ecosia

Think about how many times a day you use a search engine to look up something for work or quickly find an answer to a question. Feels countless, right? A single Google search takes less than a second to complete, but produces 0.2 grams of carbon dioxide. With billions (or even trillions) of searches every year, that adds up.

Ecosia is a free search engine alternative (based on Bing) that devotes 80% of its ad revenue to planting trees around the world. (If you use Google Chrome, Ecosia offers an extension that makes it your default search engine.) Trees play a crucial role in the fight against climate change by helping absorb the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere — and since its launch in 2009, Ecosia’s planted over 147 million.

Planting trees is about more than just improving our air quality: “Water and food scarcity, not enough availability of good nutrition, income for people in low-income countries — all of that can be solved through tree planting,” explained Christian Kroll, the founder of Ecosia, in an interview with Impact Podcast.

Download on Android and iOS.

2. PaperKarma

Most of us barely have time to click “unsubscribe” from the barrage of promotional emails that end up in our inbox, let alone address the mountains of physical junk mail that we receive. Research shows that 10 million trees are destroyed each year to make junk mail.

PaperKarma is an app that lets you unsubscribe from magazines, catalogs, credit card and insurance offers that you get in the mail. Once you download the app, all you have to do is take a picture of your unwanted mail, and PaperKarma will opt out of the mailers for you.

You have to pay to use PaperKarma (packages start at $3.99 a month), but it’s a small price to pay for a cleaner mailbox and smaller carbon footprint.

Download on Android and iOS.

3. Loss Of The Night

Little compares to the beauty of a moonlit sky with stars twinkling overhead (just ask van Gogh), but light pollution in metropolitan areas makes it harder to experience the natural wonder.

Light pollution, excessive artificial light, does more than just steal our stars and ruin our sleep cycles — it can also harm nocturnal wildlife that relies on the dark.

You can lend a hand with the Loss Of The Night app, which measures light pollution in cities around the world. Head to an open area unobscured by tall buildings or trees to use the app, and record whether or not you can see certain stars. This app is kind of like an open-source science project: Your results are used to help scientists create better, more sustainable lighting concepts and technology — and you’ll also learn a little about astronomy in the process.

Download on Android and iOS.

4. Litterati

The app Literatti is like a virtual trash clean-up that you can participate in at any time. Users take a picture of every piece of litter they come across (before throwing it away), then the app analyzes the picture, identifies what kind of litter it is and where it came from, and adds geotags and timestamps.

This data is used to back eco-friendly initiatives, from improving waste management systems to increasing legislative and corporate efforts toward sustainability. For example, Litterati data on the amount of discarded cigarette butts in San Francisco was used to implement a 40-cent tax on cigarette sales.

Download on Android and iOS.

5. JouleBug

JouleBug is a free app that makes it easy (and fun) to build sustainable habits by turning it into a social game.

Download and scroll through the app to find eco-friendly tasks and tips, like composting or turning off the light when you leave a room. When you find one that sounds doable, click “Buzz” after completing it to earn points. Then, connect the app to your social platforms to showcase your commitment to sustainability to your followers. “What we’re trying to do is get friends to encourage friends to do good things,” said Grant Willard, founder of JouleBug, at a Splunk conference.

Your completed actions are stored on your profile, which also provides a summary of your impact, like the amount of water you’ve preserved through your collective actions and how much CO2 emissions you’ve reduced. You can also participate in challenges where groups of people take on the same tasks.

Download on Android and iOS.

6. Good on You

In today’s fast-fashion obsessed world, the app Good on You makes it easy to become a more ethical consumer by rating clothing brands’ sustainability efforts.

Good on You vets thousands of popular brands based on public information about their sustainable policies, including resource management, waste practices, carbon emissions, and chemical disposal, as well as humanitarian and animal-rights issues. As a shopper, Good on You can help you make more informed decisions about the brands that you choose to support, while also introducing you to more ethical alternatives with similar styles and price points.

Download on Android and iOS.

7. Too Good To Go

If you’ve ever worked in food service, you’ve probably seen first-hand how much perfectly good food goes to waste at the end of a shift. Research shows that over a third of the world’s food gets tossed, often ending up in landfills where harmful byproducts seep into the land, water, and sky.

Too Good To Go helps connect you to various eateries in your area that offer “surprise bags” filled with discounted food that would otherwise get thrown away. “By connecting app users to delicious surplus food at restaurants, eateries, cafes, and grocery stores at the end of each business day, Too Good To Go presents our partners and users with an easy, fun, and accessible way to fight food waste on a daily basis,” Lucie Basch, co-founder of Too Good To Go, told Fortune.

Too Good To Go is currently available in cities across the U.S., including New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Try it now to see what’s in your area.

Download on Android and iOS.

8. NatureHub

NatureHub helps you become a more ethical consumer by connecting you to green and sustainable businesses in your area. You can search for restaurants and grocery stores near you, and filter by green criteria like ethically sourced, fair trade, and sustainably farmed. You can also use it to find eco-friendly household, medicinal, and pet products.

Not only will NatureHub introduce you to small businesses in your community, but it also lets you earn points that you can use for discounts.

Download on Android and iOS.

Feeling inspired to build your own app that helps people live more sustainable lives? Check out our courses on mobile development.

Mobile Development Courses & Tutorials | Codecademy

Every year more and more people rely on mobile devices to meet their needs. Where websites used to be the gold-standard, people now rely on mobile apps. The technologies used to create these apps are expanding and improving quickly, so it’s an exciting time to start learning Mobile Development!

Color Love | Soft Neutrals

By
onlinefreecourse
-
0
Color Love | Soft Neutrals

Soft Neutrals Color palette is all about soft but warm colors used all year round. Color schemes such as khaki, brown, taupe, white, ivory, beige, and gray can produce a calming and comfortable atmosphere. In the context of design, neutral means without color however, our color palette is colorful even though it uses shades of the same color.

Soft Neutrals Color Palette

Using different shades of the same neutral color in design creates a classy and sophisticated look. Below I have created a simple mood board featuring today’s color combination. It is in perfect Pinterest format, so feel free to pin it for later.

Soft Neutrals Color Palette - khaki, brown, taupe, white, ivory, beige, and gray

See our collection of other gorgeous color palettes by visiting our color palette section.

What do you think about soft neutral shades? Where would you use them? I think it will look great both for interior design and digital arts. There are really no limits here. We would love to hear your thoughts, so make sure to share them in the comments below.

Lastly, learn about the power of color in blog design in our blog post to see how important colors are in all the projects you create.

If you are looking for something more vibrant than our soft neutrals color palette, make sure to check our Blogger Templates where you will find pre-made templates like the Clementine below.

If you prefer softer shades, make sure to check our planners!

Life Planner

(pastel green)

Blog Planner

(pastel brown)

If you create something using today’s color palette don’t forget to share it with us!

Word of the Day: multitude

By
onlinefreecourse
-
0
Word of the Day: multitude

The word multitude has appeared in 153 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Jan. 4 in “Meteor Showers That Will Peak in Night Skies in 2022” by Adam Mann:

On any given night, far from bright city lights, there’s a chance you’ll see a beautiful streak shoot across the sky as a meteor flies overhead. But on special dates scattered throughout the year, skywatchers can catch a multitude of flares as meteor showers burst in the darkness.

Meteor showers occur when our planet runs into the debris field left behind by icy comets or rocky asteroids going around the sun. These small particles burn up in the atmosphere, leading to blazing trails of light. The regularity of orbital mechanics means that any given meteor shower happens at roughly the same time each year, with the changing phases of the bright moon being the main variable affecting their visibility …

Can you correctly use the word multitude 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 multitude can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com.

If you enjoy this daily challenge, try one of our monthly vocabulary challenges.

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.

Best Learning Systems for 500 or less learners

By
onlinefreecourse
-
0
Best Learning Systems for 500 or less learners

The magic number.

Some people would say it is eight, after all, the future of civilization is eight with that magic 8 ball. Who denies this? I recall some Schoolhouse Rock cartoon that identified the magic number. I can’t recall what it was, perhaps two? Seven seems to be a popular magic number. A lot of people think it is lucky. A lot people also thought the pet rock was a worthwhile investment back in the 70’s.

1,000 is the magic number for a lot of vendors. It is the cut-off if you will. There are vendors that unless you have a minimum of 1,000 end-users (regardless if they are employees, customers, etc.) they are not interested.

I know of vendors who will go below 1,000, but their “sweet spot”, the number they really would prefer is a minimum of 1,000.

Vendors (as a whole) go all over the map with the term “Enterprise”. As I always say it is whatever the vendor wants that number to be. In just the past six months, the magic number has risen. The days of at least 301, are fading. Now, 1,000 to 5,000 (a percentage goes 2,500 to 10,000) or the second most popular 5,000 to 10,000. Larger numbers, are Enterprise, this way, if you, fall in the range, congrats – Enterprise. Perhaps then, the magic number is 2,500. That is another “sweet spot” for quite a few vendors.

What about the less than 1,000?

Is 500 to 999 an option? Yes. 1 to 999? Yes, although to be honest, 1 is sort of a non-starter although there are some vendors that will say it.

The bigger question is what is “small business”? If a vendor believes the magic number to be 1,000, they tend to equally believe that 500 to 2,500 is small business. How can you be small business at the same time, as mid-market (the usual is 1,000 to 2,500)? You can’t, which is why there are vendors who say SMB – Small and medium-size business.

This whole backstory is relevant to understand, the magic number. The number that a vast majority of vendors see as the minimum.

The list presented before you, drops down below 1,000. It drops below 999 or 850 or 625 or 505.

500.

500 end-uses. When you say to a vendor, “I want a quote for 500 end-users”, and they go into the whole active end-user, remember that the quote will be based on that total number, not active per-se. I mean, if you pay upfront, where exactly does active user come in?

At 500 or less, you pay upfront. Actually to be honest, the majority of vendors require payment upfront, even at 2,500 or 5,000 or 10,000.

To identify the top 10 learning systems, the data is based on the following (it includes UI/UX)

  • 50 to 500. The range for this segment. If it is less than 50, yeah it slides under the 500, however, I considered vendors with the minimum of 50.
  • Features matching the 500. In other words, what functionality do these systems provide that aligns well with the smaller size audience. Knowing that if you go with customer education, the smaller number should increase in time, as you acquire more customers/clients/partners/members. There are systems who believe 50 to 500 should be simplistic, because nobody in that range wants a robust system. I surmise that these same systems (i.e. vendors) have Chia Pets sitting on their desk.
  • The vendor is committed to taking their system on a forward journey. Nobody wants dated. Every vendor says modern UI, because if they said, “Lycos anyone?” – after learning that was a popular browser in the late 90’s, you would bolt. You want a system that says, “Okay, we want this audience of end-users”, and “we still are going to add this or that, still going to push to go here”.
  • They know the market. 50 to 500 is not the same as 1,000 to 5,000 or 10,000 or higher. Totally different audiences – not so on functionality per se – just approach, process, fully understanding the use cases far more than a vendor who has the majority of their client base at 5,000 or more. Heck, even 2,500 or more.
  • If I know that the vendor’s ideal minimum is at least 1,000 they are not in this list. If I wasn’t sure, but I knew the system inside and out, I could easily figure it out. For example, anyone who has ever hired a speaker, can see within the first 30 seconds whether they might be a fit. Within two minutes, either a go or no go. Same logic applies – you know. It’s not about being famous either, I rejected some NY Times Best Selling Authors, because I wasn’t airing an episode of insomnia cures.
  • There were a couple of vendors whose pricing lists the “most popular” as 1,000, but they have plenty of clients below that. This is a marketing angle, like saying the most popular dish is “Scorched peanuts on a stick.” In reality it isn’t, but they have a lot of peanuts to unload.
  • Support to meet the target size audience. Not all support is equal – as we all know. Support for this segment should go beyond a few “videos” and knowledge base.
  • Pricing – look the price per seat per month (ignore the whole active end-user spin), is going to be high for this size of audience. It just looks low when you multiple by 12.
  • Match the system. There are plenty of people who compare a system that is ideal at 500 with a system that is targeting 5,000. It is not a fair comparison. Nobody is going to compare a Ferrari to a corolla and say to themselves, “this is a fair comparison”.

Best for 50 to 500 end-users

As you can see, I didn’t go with a top 10 or top 425, because “best” doesn’t mean the best system on the planet, what it means is that above all other criteria, I’ve covered in the past, the system has to hit the above items. Pricing was a bit wonky because vendors change pricing all the time, and their bands (i.e. range behind the scenes) change too. There is price it to the hills and there is fair price. I looked at the later.

  • Biz Skills – I love this system. From the UI/UX to the whole skill mapping to content ahead of time – a massive time saver. This system is perfect for folks who have limited knowledge around skill mapping to specific courses/content. Biz Library knows the 50 to 500 audience quite well. They sell Biz Library LMS too, which is a fit for the segment, but I think that Biz Skills is just better. They are the first system to do 100% skill mapping to each piece of content ahead of time. That’s impressive.
  • LearnUpon – While the whole 500 plus (means 500 or higher they see as Enterprise) says one story, the majority pricing makeup is under 500 – and knowing their pricing I found it to be fair value. The system is quite good, lots of features to offer, but if you are eyeing skills strength, look elsewhere. Worthy of consideration for customer education, albeit, the system below, is a tad better.
  • Knowledge Anywhere – Really a wonderful system for the customer education segment. Lots of functionality and capabilities. Fair value for pricing. They know the audience size and market, and excel at many levels.
  • The Brainier LMS – Employee system, that brings a lot of nice elements. While I wish their metrics were better, the system as a whole offers key functionality you want/need, plus has an element of “we want to move forward” and are not afraid to do it.
  • Talent LMS – Strong player in this segment. A lot of capabilities and functionality and they definitely know the market. This isn’t a system that screams skills for all, but it does offer enough variance that it just clicks for me. Pricing is slightly above fair market value, but it shouldn’t be a deal breaker for you – it is still quite affordable – very affordable at this market size.
  • KREDO – I know they will disagree in some aspect, because yes, they have larger audience sizes (the vast majority of systems do too, i.e. they target 5,000, but have clients at 25,000), but to me though the 50 to 500 is a good niche for them. I like the system. There I said it. Employee angle here. Readily admit though that the system won’t be for everyone. A slight difference from UX (user-experience) that many systems.
  • Nimble LMS – If you can get up and running in less than 10 minutes, then yeah, you are focusing on a specific segment. I like the inclusion of a built-in authoring tool here, and while quick turnkey (aka as self-service) may skimp on some capabilities, they do meet other criteria.
  • Kokm – I looked at them from the corporate standpoint (employees), but they play in the customer ed segment too. Functionality wise this system offers a lot. E-commerce comes with the system, which is nice, they offer a lot of integrations, and mobile friendly too. Pricing is fair value. Nice UI/UX. Another vendor who, again, lands big clients, but they do quite well in the 50-500 (albeit, more at the 250-500).
  • Eurekos – Customer education system that bills monthly for your active user base. This is why I slide them here. The usual mantra of active users – is pay upfront. Eurekos doesn’t do that. Do they have clients that exceed 100,000 active users? Absolutely (and they do quite well here) – but again, they fit quite well in the 250 to 500 segment. Support is very good. Moving forward system is an understatement. Runner-up to the best learning system for the customer education segment 2022. Price value is very good. Be aware the web site is in need of an overhaul – i.e. don’t judge the system because of the web site.
  • NetEx Learning Cloud – Ignore the whole micro-learning pitch (every system does this, and has since 2000). Feature wise – strong. Ideal in the 100 to 500 route. UI/UX for the most part is slick, but they fall into the “this is cool UI/UX”, but over here we just uh, look, a shiny penny. Metrics I wish were better. Still, a worthy value for employees.
  • iSpring Learn LMS – UI/UX is quite nice. Gamification, integrations, URL masking (aka alias) is a win – I wish every learning system offered this for custom domains, rather than shoving their name in the “custom domain”. iSpring is known for their authoring tool, which still plays a big role here – a factor I did weigh. However the system aligns well in the 50 to 500 segment. Mobile too.
  • Rise – Another learning system that falls into the same “authoring tool” first then an LMS wrapped around it angle. 50 to 500 is the essential here, IMO. Offers some good functionality, and I do like the level of integrations they offer. They are one of many vendors who think “lessons” as a term is applicable to the corporate learning market – it is definitely NOT. Anyway, minus that, the metrics are another so-so. The vendor behind Rise is Articulate. They have money – invest in better metrics.

Who Missed The Cut

  • Docebo – I know their “sweet spot” and ideal minimum. That pushed them out.
  • Totara – All over the map – sure you can go at 50, or 10, but their approach of direct to consumer (here in the states), and preference to blast more than 1,000 end-users, just couldn’t get me there. Plenty will disagree. I’m okay with that.
  • Learning Pool – Ditto. To be honest, go with Stream LXP – it has many of the LP features in it anyway. Sunset Learning Pool the LMS already.
  • Systems that come in cheap or say they are free or look like they just learned java and HTML. There are a lot of these systems out there. Sometimes cheap means, well, cheap. Let’s not forget, your learners are going to access these systems. Let alone perhaps customers.
  • Moodle – Yes, it is free – but that is before you need to host it, or resources to build it, and support when your end-users need help, or someone who can maintain and update it – they aren’t free. Plus, I’ve never seen a WOWOW Moodle system built by clients. They slick ones tend to be by folks whose whole market is Moodle mass customization.

Borderline

Udutu LMS – Their price point is fair value – actually it is very inexpensive. . Offers a wide set of features. . UI is okay – UX the same. The system has been around for more than a decade, and I would hope they would have done way more with the UI/UX since then, which played a role. Definitely plays in the 50 to 500 segment and there are some nice components here. But there were misses too. I debated about them, multiple times – and slide them here. Confident they won’t like that. I’m equally confident, that the recycle pickup truck driver gets a kick out of waiting until the afternoon to pick up the recycles, just to irk me.

Bottom Line

The magic number.

Did you know the Ancient Greeks thought the magic number was three? Yeah me neither, it is amazing what a five minute web search can show. Nine is another number by some other folks, don’t ask me who, no clue.

Neither though, ever considered 50 to 500.

I would call that a travesty.

Schoolhouse rock though?

It’s three.

Just showing what do they know, after all,

Explaining e-learning to them, would be like them,

explaining a bill to

me

At age five.

E-Learning 24/7

Coursera Partners with AWS to Extend Cloud Computing Training to Businesses 

By
onlinefreecourse
-
0
Coursera Partners with AWS to Extend Cloud Computing Training to Businesses 

By Zac Rule, Vice President Enterprise, Americas at Coursera

The pace of innovation is accelerating and business leaders are more focused on building a workforce with the high-demand digital skills needed to thrive in the future.

Today, Coursera is excited to announce that it has joined the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partner Network (APN), a global community of more than 100,000 companies that provide Information Technology (IT) solutions and services for businesses. Through this announcement, Coursera will offer AWS cloud training, along with broader skills training to help companies accelerate digital transformation. In addition, Coursera will now be available to customers in AWS Marketplace, a digital catalog with thousands of software listings from independent software vendors that make it easy to find, test, buy and deploy software that runs on AWS.  This integrated customer experience allows businesses to seamlessly consolidate billing, streamline procurement processes, and negotiate custom contract terms. 

Coursera for Business provides companies across the globe with role-based skills development featuring world-class content, hands-on learning, and the ability to track, measure, and benchmark skills through a single, unified platform.

Raising the level of cloud skills proficiency is a major area of need for businesses that are looking to remain competitive in the workforce of the future. Coursera is working with AWS to enable businesses to deliver job-relevant cloud training to employees around the world.

Coursera is offering a variety of courses through the AWS Marketplace including:

During this period of rapid change, more businesses are looking to harness the power of cloud technology. Together, Coursera and AWS will help organizations develop essential cloud skills needed to unlock more effective ways to scale their business, reduce costs, and drive stronger innovation.

Coursera is now available in AWS Marketplace to customers globally. For additional information, visit here. 

Shaping the future: University of Michigan and Coursera partner on XR-enhanced immersive learning experiences  

By
onlinefreecourse
-
0
Shaping the future: University of Michigan and Coursera partner on XR-enhanced immersive learning experiences  

By Betty Vandenbosch, Chief Content Officer at Coursera

Today, I am excited to share that the University of Michigan (U-M)  — the best public university in the U.S. and a leader in online education — is the first to announce courses using extended reality (XR) on Coursera. The university will launch 10 XR-enhanced courses exclusively on Coursera to help learners develop critical skills needed for the future of work and society.

This begins a new chapter for Coursera as we work with our partners to deliver the next phase of online learning — immersive learning experiences powered by augmented, mixed, and virtual realities. Open courses from top educators democratize access to knowledge while Guided Projects provide hands-on learning using job-relevant tools. Now, XR content will enable social learning through role-play simulations and can expand access to high-risk, high-cost education, such as mobility, manufacturing, and healthcare training.  

As one of Coursera’s founding partners 10 years ago, U-M continues to innovate and lead the digital transformation of higher education. U-M has reached nearly 8 million global learners through its 190 open courses, three MasterTrack®️ programs, and three degrees on Coursera. On campus, 96% of undergraduate students use online tools developed by the Center for Academic Innovation, which shapes U-M’s online learning programs. To prepare for a blended future, the university continues to expand its digital portfolio while leveraging new technology. U-M launched an XR Initiative in 2019 to see how XR could advance teaching and learning and has become a leading university in the field. 

XR, including interactive 360 videos, mobile phone augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR), has the power to transform the learning experience. Seventy-two percent of students reported increased learning outcomes through VR learning. Compared to in-person learning, VR can help businesses train employees four times faster while increasing employees’ confidence in applying skills in their work. U-M has interviewed more than 50 industry leaders to inform their latest XR strategy and collaborated with leading global companies, including Novartis, GM, and Microsoft. 

The 10 new XR courses cover human skills, future thinking, and specialized vertical content for growing industries such as healthcare. The first three courses, People, Technology & Future of Mobility; Advancing Health Equity Through Continuing Education; and Feedback Loops: How to Give and Get Better Feedback, are scheduled to debut in early 2023. Future courses will cover topics including AR/VR in manufacturing, implicit bias, nursing skills, and learning experience design. All courses are accessible on mobile devices — requiring no VR headset — to benefit learners worldwide, including those in emerging economies. 

“Learners and learning organizations must be agile and acquire new knowledge and skills to understand, shape, and prepare for the future of work,”  said James DeVaney, the founding executive director of the Center for Academic Innovation at U-M. “As we enter our 10th year of partnership with Coursera, we’re excited to continue our strategic collaboration and drive the global learning and skills revolution. Coursera is a leading voice and platform in online education and offers easy access to millions who need to learn these skills. The Center for Academic Innovation is a leader in open learning and immersive storytelling. Together, we will leverage XR technology to bring online learning to the next level. A new kind of scalable experiential learning that allows for deeper understanding by combining learning design, engagement, art, presence, and storytelling.”

To build content at scale, U-M is leveraging XR stage technology and onboarding additional artists and developers to build XR learning experiences. Similar to the technology used to film Disney’s “The Mandalorian,” professors can use video wall technology and virtual production tools to mix live-action footage and computer graphics in real-time. Faculty will be able to transport learners to prospective future cities around the world to highlight the potential impacts of electrification or help learners practice giving and receiving feedback in authentic-feeling environments. The content can be used for on-campus or online learning, and since it is built modularly, it can stack into MasterTrack®️ programs and even degrees.

We are honored to work with visionary universities, such as U-M, to harness the latest technology and change how the world learns.

Getting Married? Here’s What You Need To Know To Code Your Own Wedding Website

By
onlinefreecourse
-
0
Getting Married? Here’s What You Need To Know To Code Your Own Wedding Website
How to code a wedding website

Planning a wedding often involves lots of DIY projects — including making a wedding website.

Lots of couples create wedding websites so that guests can easily access important details about the big day that might not fit on a paper invite, like schedules, dress codes, gift registries, and even photo albums.

While there are plenty of drag-and-drop platforms that make it easy for anyone to build wedding websites, you and your partner might not want a cookie-cutter website. Why not use your upcoming nuptials as an opportunity to put your coding knowledge into practice?

If you already have a baseline knowledge of how to build web pages, here are some clever add-ons you can use to customize your wedding website with code.

An easy-to-read schedule

Anyone who knows HTML and CSS, aka the “power couple” of web development, can set up a no-frills static wedding website. With these languages, you can build a table that displays your day-of schedule right on your webpage — and save yourself tons of day-of questions about event timing.

Check out this example wedding website that Jiwon Shin, Senior Curriculum Developer at Codecademy, created. Here’s what the code for the schedule table at the bottom would look like:


	
Schedule

		
		

			
			

				Time
				Event
			

			
			

				4:30 PM
				Ceremony
			

			

				6 PM
				Dinner
			

			

				10 PM
				After Party

Need a refresher on building tables in HTML and CSS? Our course Build a Website with HTML, CSS, and GitHub Pages walks you through how to create HTML tables (you’ll even get hands-on practice making a schedule for a wine festival).

Once you have a handle on HTML and CSS, you can use JavaScript to add responsive and dynamic features to a website, like animations or interactive elements. Our Learn JavaScript course is an excellent entry into the fundamentals of front-end and back-end development.

A photo album

Adding pictures to a webpage is simple with HTML/CSS and a little JavaScript. But if you really want to show off all your engagement and couples photos, consider making a photo album that plays like a slideshow. Take a look at Jiwon’s workspace (you need to create a free Codecademy account to view it) to see how she coded a photo carousel that cycles through four images.

Coding a photo slideshow in JavaScript

This is just a taste of how you can use JavaScript to level-up websites. Our pro course Building Interactive Websites with JavaScript will teach you how to marry (get it?!) HTML and JavaScript to make websites that users can actually engage with. For example, you’ll get practice building an interactive game and a shopping website using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Handlebars.

A custom URL

Give your wedding website a memorable URL (that even your nieces and nephews will be able to type) with our course. It’ll walk you through how to build, deploy, and host your own domain with the domain name registrar NameCheap, and you’ll also learn how to use Bootstrap, a popular CSS framework with a library of pre-written CSS rules.

An embedded registry

Many registry sites like Zola and MyRegistry give users the option to embed a HTML snippet into a custom wedding website so users can browse and shop the registry on-site. Technically, you don’t need to know any code to copy and paste a snippet, but having a grasp of HTML is a good tool to have under your belt and will give you more flexibility to make adjustments if you need.

A countdown

Build anticipation for your event with a countdown timer that expires on the big day. You can create this using JavaScript — but it’s slightly trickier for beginners, because it involves some asynchronous functionality.

Kenny Lin, Domain Manager at Codecademy, shared an example of how you could code a countdown timer. Check out his workspace here, or use the code JavaScript snippet below in your own website:

// Edit the string to get your desired countdown change 'December 31, 2022' to your own date
const desiredDate = new Date('December 31, 2022');

// Get the time to use in a later calculation
const datesTime = desiredDate.getTime();


// Assigning the interval to a variable to clear and reset on a second to second
const countdownInterval = setInterval(function() {

  // Get today's date and time
  const currentTime = new Date().getTime();

  // Find the distance between now and the count down date
  let timeDiff = datesTime - currentTime;

  // Calculating the different units of time
  const days = Math.floor(timeDiff / (1000 * 60 * 60 * 24));
  // Remove days' time from timediff
  // Continue this pattern for hours, minutes, and seconds
  timeDiff -= days * 1000 * 60 * 60 * 24;
  const hours = Math.floor(timeDiff / (1000 * 60 * 60));
  timeDiff -= hours * 1000 * 60 * 60;
  const minutes = Math.floor(timeDiff / (1000 * 60));
  timeDiff -= minutes * 1000 * 60;
  const seconds = Math.floor(timeDiff / 1000);

  // Grab the 'counter' element
  let counter = document.getElementById('counter');
  counter.innerHTML = `${days} Days, ${hours} Hours, ${minutes} Minutes, ${seconds} Seconds`;

  // If the count down is finished, write some text
  if (timeDiff < 0) {
    clearInterval(countdownInterval);
    counter.innerHTML = 'Countdown's up!';
  }
// Every 1000 milliseconds the counter text renews
}, 1000);

An impressive layout

You can turn to our course Create a Professional Website with Velo by Wix to learn how to quickly make an interactive wedding website from expertly designed templates. Velo is Wix’s full-stack development platform. “With Wix, you don't need to worry too much about HTML and CSS, because Velo will take care of that for you,” Jiwon says. And most people complete the course in 20 hours, so it’s not a huge time commitment.

Local weather forecasts

Stressed about the weather for your outdoor or destination wedding? Consider adding up-to-date local weather information to your website using a third-party API. Using the Wix .fetch module, you can add data from Open Weather App, like historical weather, precipitation maps, and hourly forecasts.

Some final tips

As you start to build your wedding website, you’ll want to avoid these common web dev pitfalls that can mess with a website’s functionality and user experience. Another handy wedding-planning skill? Learn how to manage your guest list and RSVPs through our pro skill path Analyze Data with Microsoft Excel. And if you’re really feeling ambitious, you could even build a mobile application for your wedding after making your way through our iOS Developer Career Path.

Building a personalized wedding website is just one example of what you can do with web development. Sharpen your skills with HTML and CSS code challenges or explore the many jobs in the vast field. Codecademy has tons of resources for folks who are interested in jumpstarting a web development career. With our Front-End Engineer Career Path you’ll learn to use JavaScript, React, and Redux to build dynamic websites, and even build projects that you can include in a portfolio.

Web Development Courses & Tutorials | Codecademy

Web Development is the practice of developing websites and web apps that live on the internet. Whether you’re interested in front-end, back-end, or going full-stack, the content in our Web Development domain will help you get there.

How Sustainable Software Design Combats Climate Change — & How To Get Involved

By
onlinefreecourse
-
0
How Sustainable Software Design Combats Climate Change — & How To Get Involved
Sustainable software design

Making simple tweaks to be more environmentally conscious in your daily life — like shopping second-hand or unplugging your devices — can often feel like a drop in the bucket when it comes to reversing climate change. And while mitigating the overwhelming effects of climate change will take a lot more than remembering to compost your banana peel, the collective effect of these habits amounts to something.

Even as you write code or develop software, there are steps you can take to be better to the planet, according to Asim Hussain, Microsoft’s green cloud advocacy lead.

Asim focuses on creating sustainability solutions for people who are in the business of building software. “I’m trying to answer the question: What can people do in their jobs — or the things that they’re sitting at their desk eight hours a day doing — to have a more positive impact on the planet?” he says.  

Through lots of research and experience as a developer, Asim came up with a group of guiding principles that developers can use to build green software. With this framework in mind, you can ultimately utilize fewer physical resources and use energy more intelligently to reduce your software’s carbon footprint, he says.

The 8 principles of sustainable software design:

  • Carbon: Build applications that are carbon-efficient, meaning they extract as much value as possible for each gram of carbon they emit into the atmosphere.
  • Electricity: All software requires electricity, so how can we build products that are energy-efficient?
  • Carbon Intensity: Consume electricity with the lowest carbon intensity, which is the amount of carbon by weight emitted per unit of energy consumed.
  • Embodied Carbon: Move away from “planned obsolescence” by building applications that are capable of running on older hardware without sacrificing performance.
  • Energy Proportionality: Maximize the energy efficiency of hardware by running work on fewer servers with the highest rate of utilization.
  • Networking: Reduce the amount of data used and decrease the distance it has to travel across a network.
  • Demand Shaping: Building “carbon-aware” applications is a matter of adding eco modes that adjust your computer’s demands to times or regions when the supply of renewable electricity is high.
  • Optimization: Keep track of step-by-step optimizations that make your product more carbon-efficient, like cost or performance.

The cool thing about these principles is that they don’t just apply to engineers or people writing code; they’re useful for “anybody who’s even remotely involved in or has any influence in the building or running of software,” Asim says. Of course, the tangible ways that people implement these principles into their daily lives vary depending on their specific role.

For example, a machine learning engineer and a web developer would use different techniques and tweaks to implement the principles. “Machine learning tends to be very CPU-intensive,” Asim explains. “Maybe you’re pushing more to your end-user device? So, if you’ve got a machine learning model, instead of making API calls to a server, what can you do on this device so that you don’t need to do that transfer?”

A web developer or mobile developer, on the other hand, might make specific choices that ensure a product won’t become obsolete as hardware and operating systems get more advanced, Asim suggests. “So, you’re always testing websites on older browsers, and you’re making sure things work on older hardware,” he says. There are even more benefits to this down the line: If software is built to outlast these updates, people will end up wasting less hardware.

How to get involved

These are just a few examples of how sustainable software design can change the way you write code and develop technology. Here are some other ways that you can get involved with the movement:

  • Join the ClimateAction.tech Slack community: Connect with thousands of like-minded tech workers who want to address climate issues in the workplace. On Slack, you can ask questions, share resources, or just have meaningful conversations about climate tech.
  • Contribute to open-source projects: Asim’s nonprofit, Green Software Foundation, has a handful of sustainability-focused repositories on GitHub that you can contribute to (heads up: you need to become a GSF member before you start making changes to repositories). For example, one of the projects involves figuring out a methodology to calculate the carbon intensity of a software application.
  • Share this wisdom with the rest of your team: Don’t discount the impact that one person can have on mitigating the effects of climate change. “If you’re in a dev team, all you need is one person who thinks of climate as a priority, and they’ll change the processes that will change the DevOps pipeline,” Asim says. Host a brown-bag presentation for your colleagues on sustainable software design, or share a link to this blog in your Slack channels.

Catalog Home | Codecademy

If you’re not sure where to begin or what to learn next, this is a great place to start. Check out our top coding courses, Skill Paths, and Career Paths.

Should Parents Give Children More Responsibility at Younger Ages?

By
onlinefreecourse
-
0
Should Parents Give Children More Responsibility at Younger Ages?

At what age do you think children should be allowed to play outdoors without supervision? Take a walk or bike ride alone? Go to a local store? Take public transportation? Stay home alone?

How old were you when you first did those things? What memories do you have about them?

In the Opinion essay “On Japan’s Adorable ‘Old Enough!’ Show and the State of American Childhoods,” Jessica Grose writes about a long-running reality show that depicts children reaching common milestones of independence, at ages that may surprise you. The article begins:

An aggressively adorable reality show that’s been on for decades in Japan recently hit Netflix. It’s called “Old Enough!” and it depicts Japanese little ones, some as young as 2, taking their first solo journeys (the show’s original title is translated as “My First Errand”). These tiny children are shown toddling by themselves to the grocery store, to their grandmother’s house to pick something up or to a local farm to yank an enormous cabbage out of the ground.

Sometimes they get distracted from their appointed mission and start playing, and they often notice and interact with the camera operators, who appear in the background of many scenes. But the narrative is basically the same every time: A child overcomes fears or hesitations by running an errand, learning to politely ask questions of supportive and kind adults when help is needed to figure out how to pay for lunch or cross a busy street. And the kids are brimming with pride after accomplishing their tasks.

In addition to being utterly charmed by how cute the show is, my response was: This wouldn’t fly in the United States. If there were an American version, parents who allowed their children to appear would probably be framed as irresponsible, or the kids would be shown to need parental support at every turn.

You’re probably also thinking: America is not Japan. And that’s correct. Our cultures are quite different. One glaring example is gun violence, something that’s rare in Japan and alarmingly predictable in our country. But, sadly, we know that the presence of an adult doesn’t necessarily protect children from that horror. Another difference is infrastructure. As a University of Tokyo professor explained to Slate’s Henry Grabar: “Drivers in Japan are taught to yield to pedestrians. Speed limits are low. Neighborhoods have small blocks with lots of intersections. That means kids have to cross the street a lot — but also keeps drivers going slow, out of self-interest if nothing else.” But even given these differences, we should at least entertain the idea that Americans have over-rotated on protectiveness in the past few decades and need to reconsider letting their kids do more by themselves.

The article ends:

America is vast, and parents know their kids and their specific neighborhoods best — I’m not about to send my 5-year-old to the bodega by herself quite yet. But I hope watching “Old Enough!” will make more American parents consider the possibility that our cultural norms need a reset, or at least a rethink. I watched the show with my youngest, and she was so jealous and irritated that the kids, some of whom were younger than she is, were allowed to do so many exciting things mostly on their own. Seeing the looks of joy on the “Old Enough!” kids’ tiny faces after completing their quotidian assignments certainly made me want that sense of triumph for my daughters, however they might achieve it.

Students, read the entire essay, then tell us:

  • Have you seen the show “Old Enough!”? If not, now that you’ve read about it, do you want to?

  • The author writes that an American version of the show “wouldn’t fly.” Do you agree? Why or why not?

  • Do you think parents and guardians in small towns or rural areas in the United States should be more open to allowing their children to do things outside the home than those in big cities? Why or why not? What other factors do you think adults should take into account when deciding what to allow their kids to do?

  • How old were you when your parents or guardians first allowed you to do things alone? What do you remember? How were you affected?

  • When you look back now, do you think the adults in your life made the right decisions about the ages at which you could handle various responsibilities, or do you wish you’d been younger (or older)? Why?

  • The writer says she hopes that the show will lead American parents to “consider the possibility that our cultural norms need a reset, or at least a rethink.” Do you agree? Do you think American parents (or parents in your country, if you are not American) are overprotective? Why or why not?

Want more writing prompts? You can find all of our questions in our Student Opinion column. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate them into your classroom.

Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, 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.

Constructive Criticism

By
onlinefreecourse
-
0
Constructive Criticism

A study published online last month found that most people are reluctant to share constructive criticism even if it would ultimately be useful to the other person. The same study found that most people would genuinely like to hear that type of feedback.

How well do you receive constructive criticism? Do you find it useful or detrimental? Was there a time when constructive criticism brought a positive change to your life?

Is it easy for you to give others advice on how to improve themselves? Why is it sometimes difficult to change things that might make our lives better?

Tell us in the comments, then read the related article to learn more.

Want more Picture Prompts? Find them all in this column.

Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, 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.

1...1,1151,1161,117...1,666Page 1,116 of 1,666

Recent Posts