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Alone and Together

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Alone and Together

Use your imagination to write the opening of a short story or poem inspired by this illustration or, tell us about a memory from your own life that this image makes you think of.

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

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 and may appear in print.

Find more Picture Prompts here.

Word of the Day: phlegmatic

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Word of the Day: phlegmatic

The word phlegmatic has appeared in six articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on April 10 in “Benfica and the Great Champions League Question: What If?” by Rory Smith:

On the night Enzo Fernández left Benfica, nobody mentioned his name. As they gathered in the changing room before their game on the last day of January, his soon-to-be-former teammates would have known roughly what was happening. The club was settling the finer points of Fernández’s $130 million transfer to Chelsea. The player was awaiting permission to fly to London.

… “It is not about trading players or profit,” Soares de Oliveira said. “We would prefer to have the player six months later than have to sell him. But we cannot say no.”

All it can do, instead, is chart a steady course through the churn. Schmidt has tried to be as phlegmatic as he can about the whole thing. He encouraged some players to use Fernández’s departure as a launchpad: The deal came too late in January for Benfica to source a replacement, so someone had to step up and take his place.

Can you correctly use the word phlegmatic 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 phlegmatic 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.

The Word of the Day is provided by Vocabulary.com. Learn more and see usage examples across a range of subjects in the Vocabulary.com Dictionary. See every Word of the Day in this column.

How Do You Get Over Rejection?

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How Do You Get Over Rejection?

Life is full of rejections — when trying out for teams, applying to schools, hunting for jobs and forming relationships. For high school seniors participating in the college application process, rejections can be plentiful and brutal.

What are your strategies for handling the inevitable rejection? Do you bounce back easily, or does the sting go deep? Do you take rejection personally, or do you see it as a normal part of life?

In “Sorry, You’ve Been Rejected. Now Let’s Party,” Danielle Braff writes about a school in Los Angeles that throws an annual rejection party each spring for high school seniors:

At Downtown Magnets High School in Los Angeles in mid-April, Lynda McGee, one of the school’s college counselors, checked her paper shredder. She needed to make sure it had the optimal effect: loud, obnoxious and finite.

Soon, her high school seniors would parade into the room clutching rejection letters from colleges across the nation, and those papers need to be masticated as dramatically as possible.

“You have to learn that you will survive and there is a rainbow at the other end,” said Ms. McGee, who started the school’s rejection party about a decade ago and has been fine-tuning the event ever since.

Today, about one-quarter of the senior class attends the party. The only ticket required is a rejection letter.

“You have to print it out, because there’s no satisfaction with deleting an email,” Ms. McGee said with a laugh. Each student takes a turn announcing the name of the college that scorned them before putting the letter into the shredder as the others cheer.

Then they receive an ice-cream sundae, and pledge to not be defined by the college they attend. “Ice cream heals all wounds,” Ms. McGee said with the confidence of a teacher who has done her research. The student with the highest number of rejections (this year, 17) receives a gift card to Barnes & Noble.

Students, read the entire article and then tell us:

  • What are your strategies for dealing with rejection? What advice would you give to other teenagers?

  • Would you want your school to give a party like the one at Downtown Magnets High School that celebrates rejection as an ordinary life event, something that everyone experiences and that doesn’t define who you are?

  • Are you a college senior who applied to colleges? Have you received any rejection letters, and if yes, how have you handled them?

  • What other kinds of rejection have you experienced? Which ones were the easiest to move past, and which ones hurt the most? Why?

  • In the article, Mark R. Leary, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University, explains how social media and societal norms often tell us that we should conceal rejections and any negative situations, leading to the false belief that there’s something wrong with you. Does that idea resonate with your experience? What messages do you think social media and society send about rejections?

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 and may appear in print.

Find more Student Opinion questions here. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate these prompts into your classroom.

A Surge in Book Bans

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A Surge in Book Bans

The American Library Association found that 2,571 titles were challenged last year, an increase of nearly 40 percent over 2021. Many of the most banned titles deal with race, gender or sexual orientation, including those pictured above.

Has your school or community taken books like these off reading lists or library shelves? If so, which titles were removed? Why? How has their removal affected you or other members of your community?

What is your opinion of these challenges in general? Proponents say they protect students from inappropriate materials and give parents more control over their children’s education. What do you think?

Tell us in the comments, then check out a related photo burst or this article to learn more.

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 and may appear in print.

Find more Picture Prompts here.

Word of the Day: morale

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Word of the Day: morale

The word morale has appeared in 363 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on April 12 in “Mass Layoffs and Absentee Bosses Create a Morale Crisis at Meta” by Sheera Frenkel and Mike Isaac:

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, has declared that 2023 will be the “year of efficiency” at his company. So far, efficiency has translated into mass layoffs. He has conducted two rounds of cuts over the past six months, with two more to come; these will eliminate more than 21,000 people. Mr. Zuckerberg is also closing 5,000 open positions, which amounts to 30 percent of his company’s work force.

At the same time, some of Meta’s top executives have moved away and are managing large parts of the Silicon Valley company from their new homes in places like London and Tel Aviv.

The layoffs and absentee leadership, along with concerns that Mr. Zuckerberg is making a bad bet on the future, have devastated employee morale at Meta, according to nine current and former employees, as well as messages reviewed by The New York Times.

Can you correctly use the word morale 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 morale 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.

The Word of the Day is provided by Vocabulary.com. Learn more and see usage examples across a range of subjects in the Vocabulary.com Dictionary. See every Word of the Day in this column.

How To Get Feedback on a Coding Project — & Why You Should

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How To Get Feedback on a Coding Project — & Why You Should

As a programmer, you’re probably used to getting real-time feedback on every line of code that you write — a program either runs or it doesn’t. But when it comes to a completed project that you’ve coded (for a portfolio or just for fun), it can be tough to find folks who can give you holistic advice or recommendations. 

Receiving feedback from other people is how you improve the quality of your code and ultimately become a better developer. With another dev’s perspective and suggestions, you might discover a technique or workaround that you hadn’t considered, identify a bug to fix, or spark an idea that’ll make your project more effective. 

Learn something new for free

While it’s a bit intimidating to put your code out there for people to judge, feedback is really just information that you can use to grow. Most of the time, people want to help you improve, not tear you down — so try to take the notes with a growth mindset and a grain of salt.

Also, keep in mind that you’ll receive positive feedback and compliments about your project, too. Don’t forget to file those kudos away for the next time you need motivation to keep learning and improving. Here are some ideas for different ways to seek feedback on your next coding project. 

Get your project on GitHub

GitHub is a collaborative code-hosting platform that’s designed for developers to share code and work on projects together. When you post a project on GitHub, you’re sharing the code and any other files and materials needed for a project. From there, other GitHub users can review your code, find bugs, or suggest changes. There’s a strong social element to GitHub, so be prepared to discuss the ins and outs of your project with other developers. 

When Codecademy Software Engineer II Joseph Gollapalli was first learning how to code, he started contributing to an open-source game server on GitHub in his spare time. Working with a community of maintainers around the world introduced him to concepts that are now a regular part of professional development, like code reviews and unit tests. “The project taught me how to collaborate with people and introduced me to new concepts, and had a giant impact on my career,” he says. (And he still keeps in touch with programmers from the project to this day!) 

If you haven’t used GitHub before, start with our course Learn Git & GitHub. We’ll walk you through the GitHub workflow and how to start getting involved with the GitHub community. Then check out this blog for a guide to the GitHub lingo you’ll come across when you start contributing to projects. 

Share your project with our community

There are lots of different ways you can solicit feedback from other people in the Codecademy community. In the Codecademy forums, there’s a section where you can discuss your personal projects or ones that you make in our courses and paths. It’s a safe space where you can ask questions when you get stuck, ask folks to review your code for feedback, and help other devs out with their projects. (Here are some more best practices to follow when you’re using our forums.)

You can also submit your work to be featured in our learner project showcase. Each month, our curriculum team will review the coding projects created by learners like you, and choose the standout projects to highlight on our website and share with our community. It’s an awesome opportunity to get your best work noticed — and beef up your resume while you’re at it. 

Explore meetups and hackathons

Attending local meetups or participating in hackathons are great ways to network with other devs and work jointly on projects. For example, Kailie Arbeau, a WordPress Developer living in a small town in New Brunswick, Canada, found local coding nights where other people working in tech would meet up and present what they’re working on. “Coding is such an individual thing, because you’re on your laptop alone,” she says. “But it can also bring people together.” 

Not sure where to find coding communities? There are Codecademy chapters all around the world, where learners can get together to share projects and ideas, study together, or team up to solve coding challenges. Check out the upcoming meetups to get involved. 

You can also see if there are hackathons in your area that you can participate in to get experience working on team-based coding challenges or projects. Websites like Major League Hacking and Devpost can help you find hackathons to join. 

Post about your work online

Beyond our Codecademy-specific communities, there are tons of online forums where you can share your work with the public, like the popular Q&A platform Stack Overflow or the subreddit r/learnprogramming. 

Quick tip: Ask for specific feedback, rather than inviting open-ended opinions or vague critique. For example, you could ask: “Is there a more efficient way to query this data?” or “How do I include images on this site?” 

Just ask

Shoot your shot, and reach out to a developer or peer asking if they have the bandwidth to review your project. The worst thing they can do is say “no,” and then refer you to someone else who is available to look over your project. More often than not, people are willing to pay it forward and give advice or input to aspiring developers. 

If your end goal is to get a job in tech, you’ll need experience collaborating with other developers on projects. A standard part of working as a developer is conducting code reviews, where you look over another team member’s code for critiques, possible improvements, and outstanding questions. 

Sharing your projects and seeking input from folks in the tech community is a proactive way to start establishing your presence and creating a network. Down the line, those connections and relationships could lead to job opportunities. 

How to Use Blog Labels & Categories

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How to Use Blog Labels & Categories

When creating content for your blog, you will be touching on different topics, problems, and solutions. In time, the number of your posts will grow, and it may be hard for your visitors to locate the content they are most interested in. Because of that, you should start using labels and categories from the very beginning of your blogging journey. They will help you sort out your content to keep track of everything and improve your visitor’s experience. Today I will show you the most important things you should do when working with blog labels and categories.

In this post, I will use word labels and categories to describe the same thing – a feature that lets you label your post with categories. However, such a feature is called labels when you are on the Blogger platform and categories when using WordPress.

1. Make a List!

Curate a list of your top blog labels/categories and strategically use them for your blog posts. It benefits your blog to have a handful of frequently used blog labels rather than a new blog label for each new post.

If you have more than a hundred blog labels and each label is only used a few times, take a moment to organize your blog labels. Delete any duplicate labels and delete any blog label used less than a handful of times.

2. Use Them Sparingly

Plan to use a maximum of 3-5 blog labels/categories per blog post. Less is more here. Using a dozen labels per blog post will only confuse and overwhelm your readers and make your blog post appear disorganized. Search engines may also see this as spamming. Using more blog labels will not benefit your blog and could hurt it.

For each blog label/category, use a maximum of three words per label. Phrases of several words should be avoided. Think of blog labels as keywords or folder labels. You wouldn’t have “my summer activity ideas for the kids” on a folder tab when you can have the shorter and more succinct “kid summer activities” instead.

3. Use At Least One Label

Make sure each blog post has at least one label/category. Don’t leave a blog post, no matter how short or unimportant it may be, without a blog label. If you are going to do a quick announcement, create an announcement label and save it for future announcements or incorporate your announcement into your next lengthier blog post. This helps your blog appear more uniform as each post has a label and no blog post gets lost in your blog archives.

4. Avoid Being Too Specific

Don’t be too specific with your blog labels/categories. Think of blog labels as general folders where you would organize your content. You wouldn’t create a folder titled “summer 2024 party ideas” and expect to use it more than one summer for your blog. A more general term such as “summer party ideas” would benefit your blog as you could revisit this topic each year and use this blog label to grow a collection of blog posts focused on summer party ideas.

If you plan to use a blog label only once, do not create it. When adding a new label, plan to have more posts with it to ensure you effectively use it

If you have questions about using blog labels or categories, leave them in the comments.

Film Club: ‘Away’

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Film Club: ‘Away’

More than five million Ukrainian children have been displaced since Russia’s invasion last year. Andrei and Alisa, who left Ukraine at age 16 in the spring of 2022 and relocated to Budapest, are two of them. “Away” is a 20-minute Op-Doc video that provides an intimate window into the collision of childhood and war and the innumerable difficulties many of the displaced young people face — including separation from family members, disruptions to their education, mental health challenges and economic instability.

What can we learn about how the war in Ukraine is affecting teenage refugees? 

Students

1. Watch the short film above. While you watch, you might take notes using our Film Club Double-Entry Journal (PDF) to help you remember specific moments.

2. After watching, think about these questions:

  • What questions do you still have?

  • What connections can you make between this film and your own life or experience? Why? Does this film remind you of anything else you’ve read or seen? If so, how and why?

3. An additional challenge | Respond to the essential question at the top of this post: How are teenage refugees coping with the war in Ukraine?

4. Next, join the conversation by clicking on the comment button and posting in the box that opens on the right. (Students 13 and older are invited to comment, although teachers of younger students are welcome to post what their students have to say.)

5. After you have posted, try reading back to see what others have said, then respond to someone else by posting another comment. Use the “Reply” button or the @ symbol to address that student directly.

6. To learn more, read “Someday This War Will Be Over.” Ruslan Fedotow, the filmmaker, writes:

I was finishing my second semester of a master’s program in documentary filmmaking in Budapest when Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of refugees rushed into Hungary, and my classmates and I went to the train stations to offer our help.

Seeing those forced to leave their homes, I wondered what I could do as a documentary filmmaker. Can film express what they are going through? Did I even have the right to try to tell their stories? Even after finishing this film, these questions still haunt me.

The short documentary above is my attempt to capture the poignant story of two young Ukrianians, Andrei and Alisa, as they try to rebuild their lives away from home and without their parents.

Want more student-friendly videos? Visit our Film Club 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.

The Importance of Professional Development at Work

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The Importance of Professional Development at Work

Industries and the way of working are changing at a rapid pace. The evolution of AI (artificial intelligence), trends, and competitors, with economic and business climates stress the importance of both employees and employers to keep pace. Companies seek the most dynamic and versatile of employees to join their organisations. Thus, professional development is a route to help avert workplace stagnation in an ever-changing employment market while building on business skills. The best investment you can make is in yourself.

“Personal development is the belief that you are worth the effort, time, and energy needed to develop yourself,” – Denis Waitley

Understanding what professional development is

Professional development is the process of acquiring new skills through educational and career training programmes after joining the workforce. These processes can include obtaining certifications, attending classes and industry-related conferences or seminars, or participating in workshops all with the goal of enriching and expanding your knowledge in your chosen industry.

Many jobs require office workers to continually undergo professional and educational training. In these cases, professional development is a prerequisite for them to keep working in that field, and maintain their license, certification, and/or designation.

Added to this, companies can offer in-house professional development opportunities in the form of mentorship programmes or training sessions. Organisations can use Learning Management System platforms to assist their employees to ensure they grow in their skillset.

The importance of professional development

The goal for many employees is to grow in their role and move up the ladder through career advancement like getting promoted or moving into new industries. When you intentionally take on the task of growing professionally, you not only hone your current skills but also learn new ones and put yourself in a better position to meet your personal and professional goals.

  • Sets you apart from other applicants in job applications
  • Indicates your growth and expertise in your chosen career field
  • Your initiative to ongoing training tells employers that you are independent, have an interest in learning, and are invested in growing yourself professionally
  • Allows you to hone hard and soft skills
  • Builds your network
  • Keeps you updated on key industry knowledge, practices, techniques, and trends
  • Unearths and develops leadership skills
  • Increases your hireability and possible earning potential
  • Ensures your skills and capabilities are on par with the standards of those in the same field

Professional development creates a platform for you as an employee to discover how you can advance your career and motivate you to go after leadership roles and opportunities you may not always have put your hand up for before.

The benefits of professional development for employers

Employers desire to have a strong workforce. This is created by having a strong and skilled team who can meet their tasks, perform, and help the company reach its objectives. Make use of free learning management systems that empower you to create and monitor learning paths for your employees. Employers who encourage and create a culture of learning and development reap the rewards of this.

  • Lower turnover rates
  • High productivity
  • Increased employee job satisfaction
  • Boosts employee confidence and morale
  • Employee engagement

Furthermore, if employers take on the role of investing in their teams’ professional development, they make themselves a more attractive organisation to recruit high-value talent

Steps to develop yourself professionally

Sometimes the most challenging aspect of learning new skills is time. Employees spend a significant portion of their week at work or doing work-related activities, leaving little time for anything else, let alone professional development.

  1.   Set objectives

It’s difficult to hit a target if you don’t have one. Set clear learning objectives for yourself. Write down what you want to achieve and why. Note down a plan of action that will help you organise your time and commitments better.

  1.   Manage distractions and challenges

Once you have a plan in place, you have a clearer picture of the potential obstacles, challenges, and distractions that you may encounter and divert you away from your goals. Write down how you plan to overcome these when they come.

  1.   Set boundaries

We tend to think setting boundaries is solely for other people. But boundary setting is for us and helps us draw the line of what we will and can say “yes” or “no” to. You need to learn to be assertive yet flexible in these and understand that at times, your plan may need to experience a slight shift. This should not deter you, but instead, keep you focused.

  1.   Make your time count

Work, family, friends, and many other things already take up much of our time. Carve out dedicated time to your professional development and make sure it’s at a time when you will be focused and energetic to absorb what you are learning. Use your time well.

  1.   Find a professional development learning platform

Alison offers over 4000 courses across sectors for you to choose from and begin your professional development journey.

These guidelines will not only help you meet your professional development goals, but you will also find that they are valuable skills you can transfer into your workspace.

Professional learning and development take time. It requires dedication, good time management, and support. Your life and career are in your hands. Even if employers force you to upskill or reskill yourself, it’s what you do with what you learn that ultimately matters. “There is no more profitable investment than investing in yourself. It is the best investment you can make; you can never go wrong with it. It is the true way to improve yourself to be the best version of you and lets you be able to serve those around you best,” Roy T. Bennett

Will A.I. Replace Pop Stars?

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Will A.I. Replace Pop Stars?

Have you used or experimented with any A.I. tools and programs such as ChatGPT, DALL-E or WOMBO Dream? Are you excited by the possibilities of artificial intelligence or fearful of its dangers and abuses?

Last week, an A.I.-generated track with fake Drake and the Weeknd vocals went viral, sending a scare throughout the music industry before it was taken down by streaming services. Did you hear the song? If so, could you tell the vocals were imitations? What is your reaction to the story? Does it portend a future of A.I replacing pop stars?

For Drake and the Weeknd, two of the most popular musicians on the planet, the existence of “Heart on My Sleeve,” a track that claimed to use A.I. versions of their voices to create a passable mimicry, may have qualified as a minor nuisance — a short-lived novelty that was easily stamped out by their powerful record company.

But for others in the industry, the song — which became a viral curio on social media, racking up millions of plays across TikTok, Spotify, YouTube and more before it was removed this week — represented something more serious: a harbinger of the headaches that can occur when a new technology crosses over into the mainstream consciousness of creators and consumers before the necessary rules are in place.

“Heart on My Sleeve” was the latest and loudest example of a gray-area genre that has exploded in recent months: homemade tracks that use generative artificial intelligence technology, in part or in full, to conjure familiar sounds that can be passed off as authentic, or at least close enough. It earned instant comparisons to earlier technologies that disrupted the music industry, including the dawn of the synthesizer, the sampler and the file-sharing service Napster.

Yet while A.I. Rihanna singing a Beyoncé song or A.I. Kanye West doing “Hey There Delilah” may seem like a harmless lark, the successful (if brief) arrival of “Heart on My Sleeve” on official streaming services, complete with shrewd online marketing from its anonymous creator, intensified alarms that were already ringing in the music business, where corporations have grown concerned about A.I. models learning from, and then diluting, their copyrighted material.

Universal Music Group, the largest of the major labels and home to both Drake and the Weeknd, had already flagged such content to its streaming partners this month, citing intellectual property concerns. But in a statement this week, the company spoke to the broader stakes, asking “which side of history all stakeholders in the music ecosystem want to be on: the side of artists, fans and human creative expression, or on the side of deep fakes, fraud and denying artists their due compensation.”

Artists and their labels are confident, at least for the time being, that the social and emotional component of fandom will separate the work of the real Drake from a fake one, even if an A.I. version can nod at his emotional preoccupations and musical tics.

But whether superstars could have their pockets picked, or become altogether obsolete in favor of machines that can imitate them, is only one side of the equation. Royalty-free music generators can be used now to compose a rap beat, a commercial jingle or a film score, cutting into an already fragile economy for working musicians.

And as generative A.I. booms and rapidly improves across text, images, sound and video, experts say the technology could reshape creative industries at all levels, with fans, artists and the systems that govern them having to adjust to new norms on the fly.

“It is now possible to produce infinite media in the style or likeness of someone else, soon with little effort, so we all have to come to terms with what that means,” the musician Holly Herndon, who has studied and used A.I. in her work for years, wrote in an email.

“The question is, as a society, do we care what Drake really feels or is it enough to just hear a superficially intelligent rendering?” she asked. “For some people that will not be enough. However, when you consider that most people listening to Spotify are doing so just to have something pleasant to listen to, it complicates things.”

The article concludes with a discussion of some of the opportunities and possibilities A.I. might provide for artists and the music world:

But for musicians like Herndon, who has provided her own A.I. voice as a tool for other musicians — complete with a system for compensation — and created a company, Spawning, to build consent guidelines for A.I., there can be magic in harnessing the future fairly and ethically.

“There is more opportunity in exploring this technology than trying to shut it down,” she said.

While meme art like “Heart on My Sleeve” may quickly become “a real cultural force,” she added, “the novelty will eventually be exhausted.” What will remain are the artistic possibilities “when anyone can assume the identity of someone else, even just for a second, as an expressive tool.”

As the technology continues to advance and is adopted in novel ways, someone may eventually do for A.I. voice models — part of what Herndon calls “identity play” — what producers like Prince Paul and J Dilla did for sampling.

“As an artist I am interested in what it means for someone to be me, with my permission, and maybe even be better at being me in different ways,” Herndon said. “The creative possibilities there are fascinating and will change art forever. We just have to figure out the terms and tech.”

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