The most common place for pain to occur in the body is in the head. Two such pains are known as headaches and migraines. Headaches and migraines are a misery and often affects our daily life and tasks such as our job and family responsibilities. They arise from pain triggered in the head or upper neck of the body which affects the tissues surrounding the brain. Some can be severe, but it is very rare that headaches or migraines are caused by something serious. There are many types of headaches that fall into two categories. The first category is "Primary," and the second category is "Secondary." Pretty straightforward right? The primary category includes headaches such as migraines, tension-types, and clusters. The secondary category includes headaches that are caused by infection, diseases, injuries, or medications.  As much as we want one to be, there is no permanent cure for headaches. As we celebrate National Headache Awareness Week, it is important to keep track of headaches and learn the different ways to prevent them. Prevention starts with a proper evaluation of your headache. How strong is the pain? Can you still work with the pain? What type of pain is it? And, what is causing the pain? If you are able to answer these questions, you are able to better track your headaches. •    Keep a headache diary: Track and report all your headaches along with the symptoms that you are having. You may also include the time of a day and notes. •    Try Acupuncture: Acupuncture may also be another way to prevent and treat primary headaches. Acupuncture helps reduce the effects of migraines, but only if you are comfortable with needles on your face. •    Get a Massage: Like acupuncture, massage helps relieve stress and reduces the pain of headaches in the brain and neck. •    Sleep: Proper sleep with the right amount of time helps prevent headaches. Without enough sleep, the body gets tired quickly and easily. Wearisome and tiredness are common triggers of headaches and migraines. •    Drink water and eat healthily: Keeping hydrated and never skipping meals lowers the risks of getting headaches. Stay consistent in your regular routine and write in your headache diary. If headaches or symptoms get worst, please call or visit your doctor. A life without headaches may be farfetched, but we can definitely take steps to lower the risks and prevent headaches. Continue celebrating National Headache Awareness Week, and learn more about headaches and prevention.   Sources: http://www.headaches.org/ http://www.everydayhealth.com/headache-migraine/headache-prevention.aspx       

Over the next few months, we would like to shine a spotlight on all the hard working staff behind Ed4Online. This week, we'd like to introduce our Director of Student Services, Allison Mack. Allison has been with Ed4online for nearly three years beginning as the company’s first registrar. She was instrumental in the development of the Student Services department and has experience in a variety of positions including student support, textbooks and student resources. As Director of Student Services, Allison oversees all departments that support Ed4Online’s student and faculty in the classroom. This includes the enrollment process, student & faculty support, textbook support, career coaching and financial responsibilities. Allison graduated with a Sociology degree from Northern Michigan University. She enjoys working with people and helping them achieve goals & succeed in their accomplishments. Allison and her husband, Joe, have been married 18 years and have 2 sons. The oldest will start high school in the fall and the youngest will be in 7th grade. She enjoys exercising, cooking, traveling and sports. At Ed4Online, we recognize that it takes a lot of talented people to run a successful organization and we are proud to have Allison as a member of the Ed4Online team!          

There is a huge selection of websites and apps for students to choose from and some can actually be quite helpful for keeping a student organized and on task.  Below are ten apps and websites that we think are fun and useful! 1. Any.do Winner of Apple's Intuitive Touch Award and Android's Best App of 2012, Any.do allows you to make and review a checklist of daily tasks and then sends you reminders when those tasks need to be accomplished. 2. College Tips College Tips is an online college survival guide for college students that contains advice, resources and tips for surviving college written by college students themselves. 3. Flvto With Flvto, students are afforded an easy way to listen to video presentations on the go, even when they don’t have Wi-Fi access.  4. Ice Cream Apps Ice Cream Apps provides students the software to take care of tasks like capturing screenshots, converting video formats, making slideshows and all kinds of things that a college students’ coursework may require. 5.  IFTTT IFTTT (If This, Then That) acts a personal, virtual "assistant" that allows you to create "recipes" (Do and If) for your smartphone.  "DO" Recipes run with just a tap and enable you to create your own personalized Button, Camera, and Notepad. For example, you can turn on or off your lights with a tap of a button! "IF" Recipes run automatically in the background. Create powerful connections with one simple statement — if this then that. For example "if I post a picture on Instagram, download it to Dropbox". 6. Mint Mint helps you get financially organized. 7. OpenStudy The OpenStudy community is full of people just like you. Use OpenStudy to meet other like minded college students to study along with.  Have a question on a topic? Get an explanation from someone fast. 8.  Freedom It’s just so easy to get distracted by interesting news and articles when you’re supposed to be studying. Turn Freedom on, tell Freedom how long you'd like to focus, and you're offline and able to work. But don’t worry - if you need to cheat and get back online, you can simply reboot. 9. Slack Slack is "on a mission to make your working life simpler, more pleasant and more productive."  The website integrates with DropBox, and can be used by study groups and project partners with open, efficient communication. 10. Study Blue StudyBlue is a collaborative learning ecosystem that empowers learners to master any subject. Students can connect with others through a shared library of more than 250+ million pieces of user-generated content. With Study Blue, college students can use the convenient service to make flashcards that help them create notes online as well as create formal study guides without going through piles of text. Do you have any great apps or websites you’d like to share? If so, please post them in the comments section below!   Sources: http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/21-most-useful-websites-every-college-student-needs-know.html https://www.tkc.edu/news/10-free-apps-and-websites-make-college-life-easier http://www.buzzfeed.com/microsoftskydrive/websites-to-help-you-survive-c...            

Continuing with our Ed4Online Staff Spotlight series, this week we are pleased to introduce Erin Fouse. Erin is the Director of Partner Services for Ed4Online where she has been working for the past two years. Erin has a Masters Degree in the Science of Psychology and has also earned a BS in Psychology and BA in Elementary Education from SUNY Potsdam. Erin has spent the past 20 years working in the field of education, 15 of those years as a teacher at various levels. Since leaving the public school system, Erin has moved to working in the adult education arena, assisting Military Spouses, WIA Candidates, Veterans and the general public with working on vocational rehabilitation and earning professional and national certifications through Ed4Online’s online education programs.  Erin is a former military spouse whose husband retired from the US Army after 23 years of service. They have four daughters who range from college age to middle school. Erin enjoys reading and spending time with her family.  At Ed4Online, we recognize that our success is due in large part to the hard work and efforts of our talented staff. We are proud to have Erin as a member of the Ed4Online team!           

It's important to think good, speak good, and do good. If we want to see positive change in the world, then we need to connect to goodness. Shari Arison From donating your time, money or gently used household items to various charities and organizations, to giving blood and plasma through the American Red Cross, there are many great ways to give. "Doing good" benefits your long-term health and happiness while helping others - a win-win situation if we’ve ever heard of one! We’ve scouted out a few suggestions that make it easier to contribute to great causes, right from your laptop. We’d love to hear your favorites as well! iGive There are plenty of portals where you can start your online shopping, but iGive gives a percentage of your purchase at over 1,000 stores to the charity of your choice (an average of 3% donated). A browser add-on automatically activates iGive when you're at a participating store and also shows you coupons and offers for the store. The site boasts that with 350,000+ shoppers since 1997, $7 million has been sent to 35,000+ causes. Google’s One Today You can also use Google's One Today app on Android or iOS whenever you're feeling generous and give just $1 to the charity of the day. Kiva enables you to give a loan (as little as $25) to a small business in developing countries. The site allows you to read through hundreds of borrower stories of people looking for loans to grow businesses, go to school, switch to clean energy and more. Once you make the decision to give a loan, you'll get progress reports on the project. While there is a risk you won't get repaid, 98% of Kiva loans have been repaid.  When borrowers repay, you can use that money to empower another person by supporting a new loan, choose to donate the money to Kiva or withdraw it. AmazonSmile If you're going to shop at Amazon anyway, why not have part of your purchase automatically go to charity? That's what Amazon's program AmazonSmile does. Just head to the site every time you shop Amazon and it's just like shopping on Amazon, except better—0.5% of your purchase goes to the charity of your choice. Goodsearch is an online shopping mall that donates a percent of your purchase price to your cause when you shop at one of 3,000+ partner stores including top retailers like Amazon (1.5% donation), Expedia (up to 5% donation), and Staples (2.5% donation). You can also find 25,000+ active discounts and money-saving coupons so you can save money and give back at the same time! The site reports $11,810,028 raised for causes so far! Survey Monkey has a member site where people can sign up to take surveys for charities. Once you sign up and complete your profile, you will get invited to take surveys and every time you finish a survey, $0.50 gets donated to whichever charity you pick from the list of charity partners.   (Ed4Online has not received any compensation for mentioning any of the above charities or organizations in this blog and is not affiliated with any of the charities or organizations with the exception that we do proudly support Kiva as part of our Corporate Social Responsibility program. It is up to the discretion of any individual and/or organization to determine if any of the above-mentioned websites are of interest or use). Sources: http://lifehacker.com/top-10-effortless-ways-to-support-a-good-cause-1663783823 http://lifehacker.com/how-can-i-contribute-to-charities-without-donating-mone-1450001098 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dylan-nord/10-charity-apps-that-support-charity_b_3188736.html          

This week, we continue our series of "Staff Profiles" introducing you to the tremendous talent behind Ed4Online. It is with great pleasure that we introduce you to Marissa Wilson. Marissa is a Curriculum Designer with Ed4Online and in August she will celebrate her one-year anniversary with the company! Marissa holds a Master’s degree in Early Childhood Education and hopes to get her certification in Instructional Design within the next year. In her downtime, she enjoys traveling, swimming, photography and learning about new topics. Marissa currently resides in St. Petersburg, FL. Marissa's favorite quote is: "What lies behind you and what lies in front of you pales in comparison to what lies inside you" by Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Please join us in recognizing Marissa as a key player on the Ed4Online team!          

There are a myriad of reasons adults return to school. Some are planning a career transition, others need new skills or certifications to advance and still others enroll in courses for enrichment, development and to study subjects of personal interest. Whether it has been one year, ten years or even forty years since you were enrolled in college, there are a number of steps you can take to ensure you’ll be successful in your new endeavor. 1.       Sign Up for a Non-College Class If you're nervous about sitting in a classroom or dealing with homework and assignments again after all of these years, you may want to consider signing up for a non-college/not for credit course in your area as a trial. Many community colleges and local libraries offer classes that cover a variety of topics. If you haven’t been to school in awhile, taking one or more of these courses can help you re-familiarize yourself with homework and assignments, and help you gain confidence in your ability to succeed before you enroll in courses for credit. 2.       Think about your learning style As students, we all have our own type of learning style.  Our learning style defines how we take in, understand and process information and it impacts our ability to problem-solve.  Most of us have more than one learning style, but there is often one dominant method that we relate to more than the others. There are three main primary learning styles; Visual, Auditory, and Tactile. (To learn more, visit Ed4Online’s blog: https://ed4online.com/blog/what-your-learning-style#sthash.I4poYtcy.dpuf) 3.       Find the best program for you As you are making the decision where to attend college, take the time to research what resources each institution offers non-traditional students. Do they offer part-time, full-time and/or online curriculums? Are you interested in a multi-year program or an accelerated, shorter program? Are there ways to earn college credit from prior learning or life experiences by taking an exam? Are there student centers, discussion forums or events to help bring non-traditional students together? Which program will best meet both your career goals and personal needs? 4.       Network With Other Non-Traditional Students Going back to school can be overwhelming for anyone at any age. Seek out other students in similar situations as yours; whether on campus or in your course’s online discussion boards or chat rooms. 5.       Seek out resources Online searches, MOOCs, the local library or even school websites often offer refreshers on proper writing format, research methods and more. Take the time to bring yourself up to date on the proper way to complete assignments so that you’ll receive the best grade possible. Don’t be afraid to ask questions if the material is not sinking in. Take advantage of every opportunity to grow, learn and develop. Attend help sessions with professors and other students, whether online or in person. 6.       Approach school assignments as if they are work assignments Those who have been in the workforce are familiar with deadlines, and developing plans of action to reach them. Schedule enough time to research and complete the assignment so that you allow yourself ample time to edit and rework if necessary. 7.       Make your education a priority. Taking courses as an adult can be difficult. We often have jobs, families, and other obligations all vying for our time. It’s important that you make coursework a priority and schedule time to study and complete assignments. Remind yourself why you are enrolled in courses; whether it’s for personal enrichment or to create new or better job opportunities - take the time necessary to apply yourself to your coursework! Ed4Online has valuable resources built into our programs and curriculum to help ensure student success. We have skilled Educational Consultants on staff, we offer an Online Student Center as well as Career Coaching. Visit us today to learn more about the Ed4Online difference! Sources: http://www.howtolearn.com/2012/07/best-ways-to-get-yourself-ready-to-go-back-to-college-after-taking-a-few-years-or-many-to-work/ http://blog.online.colostate.edu/blog/value-of-education/re-adjusting-to-academic-life-study-tips-for-adults-returning-to-college/ http://blog.studentadvisor.com/7-tips-help-adult-learners-go-back-school/        

This week we are proud to introduce you to Kristy Rolen. Please read the letter below to find out more about Kristy and the amazing work she does with Ed4Online. "My name is Kristy Rolen and I work with Student Services managing the Online Student Center.  I graduated from Taylor University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Work with an emphasis in statistical research.  I have been with the company for about a year now.  My job is a perfect fit for me because I enjoy helping others use technology to improve their life. One of my professional goals is to continually learn new ways to engage the online student by providing practical tips and tools that allow them to be successful. I recently celebrated my 20th wedding anniversary with my awesome husband, Terry and we have 3 kids that range from college freshman to 5th grade.  This fall we will experience the bittersweet feeling of sending our oldest off to college. One of my personal goals will be to readjust to life with 1 less child around as well as learning to parent a young adult. One of my favorite quotes says that "Wisdom is nothing more than healed pain".  Most times our biggest life lessons come from our struggles.  Difficulties in life make us a stronger and better person. My tip for students would be to learn to embrace the difficult aspects of your life. The more we resist the tough areas of our life the more stress this will create.  Embracing difficulties gives us power because when we own our struggles we also own the solution. It is a privilege to serve the Ed4online student community.  See you in the Online Student Center! Kristy Rolen"        

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) announced its 2015 Best Websites for Teaching & Learning at the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference held in San Francisco in June of 2015. AASL's annual list honors internet sites that "foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation and collaboration".  Four of the top Media Sharing websites selected by the AASL in 2015: 1. Tackk: Ridiculously Simple Creation + Sharing According to Google, Tackk is "prime edtech for your blended-learning classroom". Educators can use Tackk to create, collect and review assignments for their students and share lesson plans with fellow teachers. There is no software to download, no login required, and no design/development skills needed.  Students can use Tackk to create robust reports — complete with text, links, photos, graphics and videos — within minutes! Even better, Tackk automatically saves content, and that content can be shared immediately with teachers or via social networks. https://tackk.com/ 2. PearDeck PearDeck integrates seamlessely with Google Classroom, so Google Apps for Education (GAFE) users can get started easily! The creators of PearDeck state that "Learning happens when we think and grapple with problems on our own. Learning also happens when we collaborate and share." Which is why Pear Deck brings them both together. With PearDeck you can: 1. Plan and build an interactive presentation deck directly from your Google Drive. 2. Launch a live, interactive session on a projector. 3. Ensure that every single learner joins the live session and participates on his or her device. https://www.peardeck.com/ 3. Soundtrap Use Soundtrap to create music online. You can plug in your own instrument, use the software instruments available in Soundtrap or record a song directly with your computer microphone. Soundtrap works on Mac, Windows, iPad, Android tablets and phones, and much more. Everything is stored in the cloud allowing you to start, edit and collaborate on your recordings wherever you are. With Soundtrap you can share the music making experience in real-time with others! https://www.soundtrap.com/ 4. Appsbar Appsbar is a free mobile app builder and is free to all app builders and app lovers. This website contains user friendly instruction, video tutorials and offers tech support. Create highly functional and individualized apps that are ready to be published in popular app stores. Appsbar apps can be made for almost any operating system. Start building your free mobile app today! http://www.appsbar.com/ At Ed4Online, we love to stay up-to-date on the latest in education and share that information with you! Stay tuned for future blog posts where we discuss some of the other sites and apps that made the list, or, to read the complete list of AASL’s 2015 Best Websites for Teaching & Learning please visit: http://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2015/06/aasl-announces-2015-best-websites-teaching-learning          

This week we continue with our Ed4Online Staff Series - sharing our fantastic team member's stories and backgrounds in order to allow you a glimpse of the people and talent behind the Ed4Online brand.  The following letter is from Dr. Laura Quinn, an integral part of Ed4Online's curriculum design team. "I have been working in curriculum design with Ed4Online for almost two years. I currently work as a senior curriculum designer with the Health and Human Services (HHS) courses. I have my Master degree in Marriage and Family Therapy and my Doctorate in Industrial and Organizational Psychology. I worked with clinical populations and in non-profits for many years as a therapist and program manager, but my love has always been training. My research was in leadership development and continued education, and my doctoral focus was in organizational development. I find that training and design allows me to blend my love of cognitive science, neuropsychology, and being creative. My husband is currently serving in the Navy (active duty). We have two children and a retired greyhound. In my spare time, I love to read, sketch, knit, run, hang out with my family, and spend time exploring what each new location we live in has to offer. In the coming year, I plan to brush up on my cognitive psychology as it applies to learning and continue to build my design skills. The best thing about watching my kids learn and develop is that I get to watch them enjoy making new connections between knowledge and have those wonderful "aha" moments. We never stop having those. Our brain is an amazing organ capable of continuous growth and healing. Because of my love for neurology, my tip for students as they approach new or challenging endeavors is to use your brain to its full capacity." "Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible."  ~ Francis of Assisi   Ed4Online's staff is hard at work bringing you the latest in-demand course offerings. Please check out our course catalog and see what's new today! https://ed4online.com/