Hey there, great news! You can now get your hands on the amazing 2024 Free Blog Planner in a stunning blue color. This year’s limited edition color is absolutely gorgeous and is available in both the Blog Planner and Life Planner. We’re excited to give you the chance to try out this beautiful color palette for free by providing you with some planner pages, just like last year. With this planner, you can plan the year ahead with style and ease.
2024 Free Blog Planner
If you’re looking for a way to get started with planning your blog, the Free Blog Planner is a fantastic option to try out. It’s been downloaded by thousands of bloggers already, and we’re thrilled to hear that it’s helping so many people organize their blogging and work toward their goals.
I hope those nine pages will give you a great start in blogging. Give planning a try, and you will see how huge a difference it can make!
What’s included in the Free Blog Planner download package
The following 9 pages can be downloaded in US Letter size (8.5 x 11) ABSOLUTELY FREE:
Calendars
2024 Calendar
Undated Monthly Calendar
Undated Monthly Editorial Calendar
Post Planning
Post Brainstorming Guide
Weekly Post Planner
Other
Cover Page
Contacts
Blank Planner Page
There’s no better way to grow your blog than by strategic goal setting and regularly tracking your progress towards reaching your blogging goals. Using the Free Blog Planner downloaded here and its extension is key to blog organization and blogging success!
Make this your year! Get your Planner by clicking the button below
Looking for other sizes or colors?
We got you! Make sure to check the full version of the 2024 Blog Planner. There are 50 pages (including 9 from the free planner) in four sizes and two color options.
It is the most comprehensive blog planner kit with everything you need to plan your post, social media, and goals.
Our blog planner has been downloaded by over 200,000 bloggers and is the most popular, well-utilized blog planner out there. It has also been designed for driven, full-time bloggers who are determined to increase blog income and traffic. With our Ultimate Life Planner, it is everything you may need to plan your year.
Are you ready to absolutely slaughter your blogging goals?
By Scott Shireman, Global Head of Coursera for Campus
Last week, we were honored to host Coursera’s Future of Higher Education Summit 2023, with delegates from more than 20 countries at our Silicon Valley headquarters. The event brought together leaders from over 60 universities and companies to discuss the evolving educational landscape, focusing on adaptability, collaboration, and innovation.
Speakers included Fanta Aw, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, NAFSA Association of International Educators, Jeff Selingo, journalist and New York Times bestselling higher education author, Barb Oakley PhD, Professor and creator of the globally renowned Learning How to Learn course, and Tsu-Jae King Liu, Dean of UC Berkeley College of Engineering.
Here are some of the key takeaways from two days of engaging panels, workshops, and peer-to-peer conversation: Student-centered experiences are critical to achieving positive outcomes
Digital transformation, globalization, and demographic shifts are reshaping higher education. Holistic models like micro-campuses, “credit for prior learning,” and industry-integrated curricula address challenges like overcrowded classrooms and outdated facilities while preparing students for a dynamic global landscape. Leaders emphasize the need to look beyond mere entry and completion, focusing on comprehensive development for improved educational and job outcomes.
University-industry collaboration can address changing workforce needs
Investments in digital transformation, generative AI, and other technologies are creating a skills and talent shortage, and policies like the CHIPS & Science Act in the US and National Education Policy in India highlight the urgency for cross-sector collaboration to address the gap. The delegates widely recognized the efforts of leading companies, including Google, IBM, AWS, and SAP, which are working with universities to offer students supplementary career prep, micro-credentials, and hands-on skills training.
AI is seen as both enabler and disruptor for higher education
Generative AI will reshape many aspects of how we design and deliver education today. Learning experiences can be more personalized, interactive, and accessible. Content and curriculum production will be faster but require more guardrails for quality control. Assessments may become more hands-on and qualitative to protect academic integrity. AI is also impacting the job market for graduates, as many will be expected to use AI-powered tools in the workplace.
Micro-credentials are growing in acceptance and adoption globally
Industry micro-credentials are redefining employability standards for universities, offering a flexible way for students to complement their broad-based education with practical skills aligned with their career goals. Leaders discussed practical strategies for integrating micro-credentials into degree programs, including offering Professional Certificates for credit as career electives, extra credit hours, or readings for in-class coursework. Faculty participation in design and delivery of hybrid programs is critical to successful implementation.
Digital learning experiences are becoming more immersive and experiential
Institutions are leveraging digital tools like Labs and virtual reality to create more engaging, inclusive, and experiential learning experiences outside the classroom. For example, popular courses in human physiology and public speaking have VR experiences from Coursera and Meta that enable learners to practice skills in a hands-on virtual environment. Universities are even creating digital twin campuses with Meta to increase skills competency in areas that previously couldn’t be studied online.
We’re proud to convene this community of university and higher ed leaders to exchange ideas, insights, and best practices that can help ensure that the next generation of talent has the skills, knowledge, and credentials needed to unlock their full potential.
“Barbie,” the movie, was the blockbuster hit of the summer, earning over $1.4 billion worldwide, and demonstrating that Barbie, the 64-year-old plastic doll, still holds an important place in our collective psyche. Did you ever play with Barbies? Have you seen the movie — and if so, what was your reaction? Even though Barbie never went away, she certainly grabbed the spotlight with full force this summer. What do you think about Barbie — the doll, the movie and the recent cultural phenomenon?
The “Barbie” movie arrives today as the culmination of a nearly 15-year process that started when Universal Pictures acquired the rights to the character — which isn’t an unusually long time in Hollywood, where scripts regularly languish in turnaround until a combination of big names and deep pockets brings them to life. But Barbie’s film debut also comes in the context of a much longer and more tortuous journey with an existential question at its core: After all these years, does Barbie still matter? And if she does, then … why?
From the moment Barbara Millicent Roberts — Barbie — came on the scene in 1959, the doll was controversial. Male toy executives, conditioned to believe that little girls wanted to play with babies, were flummoxed by this representation of a fully grown woman. But little girls, as they do, understood. Barbie became a sensation. And then a lightning rod. Then a concern. For the past 64 years, Barbie has been at the center of countless debates about who women are, who they should be, how they look and what they want.
Barbie looms as simultaneously an unrealistically proportioned airhead and a striving Everywoman. Most of the time she can’t utter a word, yet she’s believed to speak for a critical mass of us. Perhaps that’s why the “Barbie” movie that finally exists is the only one that could exist: one that acknowledges and embraces that weirdness under the vigilant gaze of a corporate chaperone. The trailer’s tagline (“If you love Barbie, this movie is for you. If you hate Barbie, this movie is for you.”) is confirmation that Barbie is, in the most literal way, everyone’s business.
I get it. At 6 years old, I was offered a choice between two dolls for my birthday: the Bionic Woman or Barbie. I didn’t, in contemporary toy-representation parlance, see myself in Barbie; the Bionic Woman’s brown hair and jumpsuit much more accurately mirrored my ponytail and hand-me-down corduroy overalls. Barbie, with her white-blond cascade of flosslike hair and a plunge-necked pink dress, was nothing like any woman I’d ever seen. Wasn’t that the point?
I chose Barbie.
Students, read the entire Opinion essay and then tell us:
What do you think about Barbie — the toy, the film and the character’s place in our larger culture?
Did you watch the movie? Did you get dressed up to go to the theater with friends? What was your reaction to the movie and all the buzz surrounding it? Why do you think it was such a big hit?
Did you play with Barbie dolls when you were younger? Or know people who did? What role did Barbie play in your childhood?
Since she landed on toy shelves in 1959, Barbie has been controversial. Ms. Zeisler writes, “Barbie became a sensation. And then a lightning rod. Then a concern. For the past 64 years, Barbie has been at the center of countless debates about who women are, who they should be, how they look and what they want.” Do any of those debates have significance for you? Do you agree with the author that there is a “weirdness” about Barbie, how she “looms as simultaneously an unrealistically proportioned airhead and a striving Everywoman?”
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.
What do you think this image is saying? How does it relate to or comment on society? Can you relate to it personally? What is your opinion of its message?
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.
With Fiji facing a pivotal election on Dec. 14, the case is the latest example of government criticism being met with the strong arm of the law, over seemingly trivial issues.
Outside of the region, Fiji is perceived as a Pacific haven: the palm-fringed paradise emblazoned on high-end bottled water, with golden beaches and endless azure waters. Yet to its smaller neighbors, it is a powerhouse to be reckoned with — and one that often portends their own shifts toward or away from human rights and democratic freedoms.
Fiji is one of the largest Pacific island nations, with a population of around a million people, a powerful military and a G.D.P. many multiples those of Samoa, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. But its image of picture-perfect vistas and dreamy vacation homes belies a turbulent electoral history and what analysts describe as a growing disregard for civil liberties, which have together elevated tensions ahead of a critical election next month that many fear may devolve into unrest.
Daily Word Challenge
Can you correctly use the word devolve 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 devolve 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.
Affiliate marketing has evolved into a highly profitable avenue for both individuals and businesses. By endorsing products or services and reaping commissions on successful sales, affiliate marketers possess the potential to establish sustainable streams of income. However, the market is ripe with countless affiliate organisations, and affiliates need to discern the most suitable programme tailored to their unique needs and aspirations. In this article, we’ll guide you through the steps to help you pick the perfect affiliate partner.
What to Look for When Choosing the Best Affiliate Programme
When navigating the world of affiliate marketing, selecting a suitable programme is a critical decision. Here are a few factors to help you make the most out of your affiliate marketing career.
Understand Your Niche
Before plunging into the realm of affiliate marketing, it is essential to gain a deep understanding of your niche. Your niche epitomises the specific area or subject matter you are passionate about or have expertise in. Choosing an affiliate programme that perfectly aligns with your niche will streamline the content creation process and strengthen your connection with your target audience. This can be instrumental in building trust and credibility, as your audience will perceive you as an authoritative figure and thought leader.
Research Affiliate Programmes
Once you’ve identified your niche, search for affiliate programmes that align with it. Here’s how:
Search online: Harness the power of the internet to discover affiliate programmes that line up with your niche. For instance, if your interest lies in the world of fitness, search for “fitness affiliate programmes.”
Affiliate networks: Joining an affiliate network can provide you with a wide-ranging selection of affiliate providers that span across various niches.
Product and service providers: Many companies have their own affiliate programmes. If you lean towards certain products or services that you would like to promote, find out whether the respective company offers an affiliate programme that you can sign up for.
Follow industry leaders: A lot of well-known social media influencers and producers are also affiliate marketers, so pay attention to them. Follow them to learn the best programmes to enrol in.
Evaluate Commission Structures
Different affiliate programmes offer different commission structures. While some offer a percentage of the sale as a commission, others extend a fixed amount for every sale or lead generated from affiliate links. Take time to mull over which type of commission structure fits in with your objectives and the specific products or services you want to be an affiliate for.
Review Product Quality and Relevance
Promoting products or services of high quality that are directly relevant to your target audience is an essential aspect of being a successful affiliate marketer. Research and test the products yourself, as this will help you maintain the unwavering trust of your audience. The more you know a product or service and can speak authentically about it, the better you’ll do in creating worthwhile content for it. Promoting subpar or irrelevant products has the potential to inflict irreparable damage to your reputation as an affiliate marketer.
Check Affiliate Programme Terms
Make sure to carefully read the affiliate programme’s T&Cs. Pay close attention to things like how you get paid, when you get paid, and any rules about how you can promote products. Ensure that what the programme offers and its terms match what you’re looking for.
Assess Marketing Support
Think about how much help the affiliate programme offers you with marketing. Do they give you things like banners, links, or email templates to make it easier to promote? Will they offer you additional tools, resources, and support to help you thrive as an affiliate? Having strong marketing support can really make your job easier when you’re promoting their products.
Track Record and Reputation
Dedicate time to investigating the track record and reputation of the company and its affiliate programme. Consider reviews and testimonials from fellow affiliates to get insights into their experience with the organisation you’re interested in partnering with. An affiliate programme that has a good reputation is inherently more likely to pay its affiliates consistently and receive unwavering support.
Analyse the Competition
Take a good look at how many other affiliates are in your niche. If a certain programme has a lot of competition, it might be harder to succeed. It may be worthwhile to consider if you can find a less crowded programme that still fits well with your niche.
Not yet an Affiliate Marketer?
It’s easy to become an Affiliate and even easier if it’s with Alison. There is no application form, so once you’ve created your Alison account, you can become an Affiliate with a click of a button.
Register as an Affiliate
Visit our Affiliate Page and click the button “Become an Affiliate”. Once you accept the T&Cs, you are fully registered. It’s that easy! You can also join one of our informative webinar sessions and speak directly with an Alison representative to learn more about empowering others as an Alison affiliate.
Invite
Use the Affiliate link generator located at the top of any page on Alison.com. Share your affiliate links online with your friends, family, colleagues, neighbours, and anyone else you can think of who might benefit from our free educational and professional tools.
Earn money
You will receive 20% of the revenue generated by the new learners who come to Alison through your affiliate links.
Choosing the best affiliate programme requires careful thought and thorough research. Make sure you understand your niche, check commissions, review product and service quality, and examine all the programme details and support to make an informed choice. Remember that affiliate success takes time, so pick a partner that excites you and motivates you to invest time and effort. With dedication and the right affiliate organisation, you can build a rewarding and successful affiliate marketing business.
Do you ever watch TV while you’re doing homework? Listen to a podcast or music while driving? Talk on the phone while cleaning your room? Text or scroll while hanging out with friends?
If so, you’re probably familiar with the practice of multitasking — doing two (or more) things at once. Or, at least, trying to.
A few months ago, I was teetering on the brink of feeling overwhelmed by life’s responsibilities, afflicted by the ambient anxiety that seems to be an intrinsic part of life in the 2020s. In an effort to maintain — or maybe restore — my sanity, I embarked on a personal endurance challenge.
Other people, at similar moments, begin competing in grueling triathlons, or head off on intensive meditation retreats. Me? I decided to give up listening to podcasts or music while running, or driving, or loading the dishwasher, or doing almost anything else. To just focus, in other words, on what it was I was actually doing, one activity at a time.
It was surprisingly hard. Once you’ve finished mocking me for treating such a trifling alteration to my habits like a grand existential struggle, I have one request: Try it. Identify the small tricks you use to avoid being fully present with whatever you’re doing, and put them aside for a week or two.
You may discover, as I did, that you were unwittingly addicted to not doing one thing at a time. You might even come to agree with me that restoring our capacity to live sequentially — that is, focusing on one thing after another, in turn, and enduring the confrontation with our human limitations that this inherently entails — may be among the most crucial skills for thriving in the uncertain, crisis-prone future we all face.
The essay concludes:
The uncomfortable truth is that the only way to find sanity in an overwhelming world — and to have any concrete effect on that world — is to surrender such efforts to escape the human condition, and drop back down into the reality of our limitations. Distracting yourself from challenging tasks by, say, listening to podcasts doesn’t actually make them more bearable over the long term; instead, it makes them less enjoyable, by reinforcing your belief that they’re the sort of activities you can tolerate only by distracting yourself — while at the same time all but ensuring that you’ll neither accomplish the task in question nor digest the contents of the podcast as well as you otherwise might.
At work, the way to get more tasks done is to learn to let most of them wait while you focus on one. “This is the ‘secret’ of those people who ‘do so many things’ and apparently so many difficult things,” wrote the management guru Peter Drucker in his book “The Effective Executive.” “They do only one at a time.” Making a difference in one domain requires giving yourself permission not to care equally about all the others.
There will always be too much to do, no matter what you do. But the ironic upside of this seemingly dispiriting fact is that you needn’t beat yourself up for failing to do it all, nor keep pressuring yourself to find ways to get on top of it all by means of increasingly extreme multitasking.
Instead, you can pour your finite time, energy and attention into a handful of things that truly count. You’ll enjoy things more, into the bargain. My gratifying new ability to “be here now” while running or driving or cooking dinner isn’t the result of having developed any great spiritual prowess. Rather, it’s a matter of realizing I could only ever be here now anyway — so I might as well give up the stressful struggle to pretend otherwise.
Students, read the entire article and then tell us:
How often do you multitask? What are some common situations in which you find yourself trying to do multiple things at once?
If you are a multitasker, why do you think you do it? Does it actually help you focus? Does it make getting through a painful or boring task a little easier? If you are not a multitasker, why not?
Mr. Burkeman writes that we’ve “long known that multitasking doesn’t really work.” Does that statement surprise you? Do you think that multitasking works for you? Why or why not?
Mr. Burkeman writes, “Distracting yourself from challenging tasks by, say, listening to podcasts doesn’t actually make them more bearable over the long term; instead, it makes them less enjoyable, by reinforcing your belief that they’re the sort of activities you can tolerate only by distracting yourself.” What do you think of that statement? Do you agree?
Do you think that practicing more presence in your daily activities could help you feel less overwhelmed and anxious, as it did for Mr. Burkeman? Why or why not? If you’re up for it, try the challenge of focusing on just one activity at a time, even for one day, and report back on the experience.
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.
The oily visage of a butter cow is an alluring sight at state fairs across the nation, but few people have taken the time to think about what’s inside them. Warning: It’s not more butter.
Instead, like any large sculpture not hewn from a solid block of clay or ice (or sometimes butter), the cows and other large dairy-based sculptures are assembled around an internal framework, or armature. This has come as a surprise to some on social media in recent days.
… Sarah Pratt, the butter sculptor for state fairs in Iowa, Illinois and Kansas, added that not using an armature would “be like taking all of the bones out of a dairy cow and expecting it to stand.”
Daily Word Challenge
Can you correctly use the word armature 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 armature 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.
1. After looking closely at the image above (or at the full-size image), think about these three questions:
2. 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.)
3. 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.
Each Monday, our collaborator, Visual Thinking Strategies, will facilitate a discussion from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Eastern time by paraphrasing comments and linking to responses to help students’ understanding go deeper. You might use their responses as models for your own.
4. On Thursday afternoons, we will reveal at the bottom of this post more information about the photo. How does reading the caption and learning its back story help you see the image differently?
The Reveal
We’ll post more information here on Thursday afternoon. Stay tuned!
Students 13 and older in the United States and the 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.
Learning to code so that you can land a job in tech can feel daunting. That’s why we’re sharing inspiring stories from Codecademy’s community — to show how people like you (yes, you!) can embark on a learning journey and end up with a totally new career. We hope these stories serve as a reminder that there’s no single path to a more fulfilling work life.
Today’s story is from Daniel Hardej, a 31-year-old Support Engineer at GitHub, living in Perth, Australia. Got questions for Daniel? Join us for a live virtual event with Daniel on September 18. Read more stories from Codecademy learners here — and be sure to share your story here.
Why I chose to learn to code
“I graduated from university in mechanical engineering. Initially, I worked in the oil and gas industry for a couple of years, and in the meantime, I was starting an e-commerce coffee company. When the coffee company started going well, I left my job to work on that full time.
At the start of last year [2022], we started thinking about selling the company and closing down the business. I just started looking for new jobs knowing that I wanted to get back into tech and engineering. I was okay at coding at the time. I thought, This will be a good time to just start chopping up again. Codecademy was the perfect place for that, and it was the beginning of the one-year plus streak that I’m on at the moment.”
Join our live Q&A with Daniel
How I made time to learn
“Fortunately, coding was like the one stable thing I had at the time. It was almost a form of meditation. As we started trying to sell the business, my day-to-day commitment wasn’t as intense, so I could fit in at least 20 to 30 minutes of a bit of studying. There’s no secret recipe, shortcut, or life hack. It was just the consistency that really helps. I was setting aside some mental energy to do at least 30 minutes of each thing that I was learning.
“I think I applied to nearly 300 jobs over the course of last year, and probably had nearly 50 interviews. At first just I was applying for anything that I found vaguely interesting, even if I wasn’t cut out for it. Applying for jobs is a skill in itself; the more you do it, the better you get at figuring out what you want to do and speaking at interviews.”
Not sure if you have what it takes to apply for a job? Learn more.
Use our job-readiness checker to instantly measure your compatibility against a job description, and see which skills you should learn next.
How I got in the door
“I was on LinkedIn and the GitHub job was just in my ‘recommended jobs’ roundup. I’ve used GitHub for ages since university, and I was putting a lot of my personal study projects up on there. But it never even occurred to me that I could work at GitHub until it was suggested to me to apply.”
How I nailed the interview
“It was a long process with about six interviews in total. One thing that stood out was that it was actually quite fun interviewing. Every single person I spoke to was really cool, and I was fortunate enough to get along well with some people who I work directly with today. The interviews were definitely designed to challenge you, but also just get a feel for your personality.
The technical interview, which is typically the more daunting part, was quite collaborative and friendly. One of the senior engineers who I work with basically presented these problems. She said, ‘Take a few minutes to read through, and ask me any questions to clarify. At the same time, talk through what you’re thinking and tell me what your ideas are. How would you go about solving this?’ The only limitation was you just can’t ask, ‘What is the answer?’ That was a pretty good representation of how people work at GitHub as well. Everyone’s constantly pinging each other on Slack or asking if you have 10 minutes to spare just to do a Zoom meeting to chat about something.”
Applying for jobs is a skill in itself; the more you do it, the better you get at figuring out what you want to do and speaking at interviews.
Daniel Hardej
Support Engineer at GitHub
How I evaluated the offer
“I was always open to going back into a corporate job where I would have a boss again, as long as I had a manager who I could trust and there was a mutual respect. The other thing was I wanted to work for a product I believed in. I already used GitHub and I was happy becoming a champion of the product and of the company as well.”
How can you showcase your passion for an organization or product? Learn more.
“I felt like I came in quite prepared. A big part of the job is using Git and GitHub itself, which Codecademy has really good courses on, as well as working with the command line and with Linux administrative tools.
I work on support engineering, so it’s focused more on delivery of solutions for customers. The products we work on are GitHub’s core productivity tools and [AI developer tool] Copilot as well. It is cool being on the inside because we get access to the pre-release features of Copilot. We get to try and play around with the beta version of all these things before they’re publicly available, which is awesome.”
What I wish I knew before I started learning
“The tricky thing isn’t necessarily learning the coding itself, but it’s deploying and managing your code. You can write code for a beautiful website or an iOS app, but how do you go from just having it in your own computer to being able to publish and deploy production-ready code? There’s not a clear way to learn the full cycle of building, modifying, deploying, reporting bugs, fixing them — and then deploying it again.
For anyone trying to get a tech job, you have to be a little bit delusional applying for jobs. Anything that can help you figure out what you’re doing or just practice interviewing is good for you as well.”
Not sure where to start? Check out our personality quiz! We’ll help you find the best programming language to learn based on your strengths and interests.
Want to share your Codecademy learner story? Drop us a line here. And don’t forget to join the discussions in our community.
