For those who enjoy no bars held learning, almost anything can turn into a tool for aiding it. One such tool in the recent times has been the mobile. With the increasing popularity of the smart phones, a number of learning avenues and techniques have opened up for those who like to go on learning irrespective of where they are or what they are doing. Here’s a list of ways in which mobile proves to be the most important learning tool for the modern user. 

The application:
The most common feature of smart phones is the ability to offer access to applications. The applications that are developed for learning a subject, a language or a skill may all be used on the mobile and one may be able to go on increasing their knowledge with the help of the application.

Web searches:
A lot of times the mind feels intrigued and yearns to know the nuances of things. When there is no one to explain, you tend to turn to the mobile for all the information that you need. The online search feature that a web driven mobile offers is one of the biggest instruments that aides learning.

The video playback feature:
Videos and tutorials play a major role in learning trends in the modern times. Almost everyone refers to watch a video or a tutorial in order to learn as compared to reading about a topic. The ability to play videos on the mobile makes it the most loved gadget among those who rely on tutorials for their knowledge database.

As times change and the world advances, the small inventions such as smart mobiles are the ones that make the greatest impact on the knowledge accessibility for people. Without the mobile, one may feel lost out. 

A Powerful Participation Tool
Smartphones encourage participation in classes. Many a times, kids are shy or ashamed to ask questions. So they can text their questions to their respective teachers. The smartphones can also be used for note making when there is an important session going outside the class. They can also opt for voice recording. Phones could also be used for taking pictures of class assignments or lecture images.

Enhanced Literary Units
There are many teachers who have made their smartphones work like literary units. Here, you can choose a particular piece of literature, and create a Google+ community for class. The students in this case use smartphones to access and participate in that community.” The students hence can read novels on their smart phones.

Cooperative learning through apps
The teachers can also employ apps in her classroom, while incorporating phones into weekly lessons. Here students work in groups to ensure that the students who don't own smartphones aren't singled out.

Keeping the Focus
Teachers can help out students to keep their focus on the task by inning them to G+ community for the shared task. Here she can see who posts in Google+ and responds to surveys in her forums.

​Tips for Getting Started
Here are a few tips to get started with smartphones into classroom activities.

1. Get Comfortable With Your Smartphone
2. Start With a Conversation
3. Fix Rules of Engagement
4. Set Expectations
5. Do Periodic Check-Ins

 

• Multimedia usage in classroom helps educators in engaging the students 
  
• It also helps to educators with valuable learning opportunities
  
• Multimedia gives a high recall value to remember a picture than a paragraph, an animated video of a concept worth more of a lecture and a video demonstration of any specific process (or an instrument) than a scientific narration.
  
• There is no doubt educators consider multimedia as a great tool to improve student learning. 
  
• Multimedia empowers students to create and design rather than absorb representations created by others. 
  
• It improves reflective thinking. 
  
• It also provides students with suitable learning resources according to their learning styles and abilities. 
  
• Most of the educators and administrators are adopting latest educational technologies in order to reach the 21st century learning standards. Of all those tech approaches, usage of multimedia is one of the great tools to engage students. Let’s hear what educators suggest about new ways of using multimedia in classroom.
  

Personalized learning using multimedia resources:
Multimedia resources also help different learners in meeting their learning needs. As different students have different learning styles, educators can provide them with suitable learning resources easily using multimedia. Educators frequently use YouTube to provide visual learners with online videos, podcasts for auditory learners and interactive games for tactile learners.

Group Learning:
There are different multimedia tools like blogs, social networks and wikis that enable students to work together in learning a particular concept. Students should use these to share their works with others, giving feedbacks on others’ works. 

Geothermal energy refers to the heat that dissipates from the core of the earth, in the form of active volcanoes, hot water springs, and natural geysers. Like all forms of heat, the geothermal energy can also be converted into electricity. Several countries have developed geothermal power plants. The energy however is not tapped from active volcanoes or such dangerous areas. Rather wells similar to petroleum wells are drilled, and hot ground water is pumped out onto the generators to produce electricity. In places without groundwater, surface water is sprayed onto the hot rocks and the heated water, and steam is later pumped out. Geothermal is a clean and renewable energy source.

Bottled water is much more than just water in a bottle; it comes with multifarious environmental impacts and the worst being water pollution. The process of bottling water involves, extraction of water, processing to meet water quality, bottling, labeling, packing, and transportation. Each of these steps impinges the environment adversely. 

Majority of bottled water is sourced from groundwater reserves of the planet. Groundwater, although a renewable resource, takes a long time to replenish naturally. Moreover, there are no known human interventions, which can hasten the replenishment of groundwater resources. Bottled water manufacturers typically use around 2 to 3 liters of water per liter of bottled water, resulting in increased wastage and indiscriminate abuse of sensitive water reserves of the planet. 

The water treatment plants are an essential features of every bottled water manufacturer, needed to conform to the regulatory norms of water quality. However, these processing plants make use of chemical purifiers, which are later, disposed in landfills or large water bodies, leading to widespread chemical contamination of soil and water. 

Used plastic bottles are a major by product of bottling industry. Unlike the popular belief, not all bottles can be reused and 90% of the bottles end up in landfills. The other byproducts of bottling, such as tags, caps, threading, etc. several times find their way into the oceans, travelling thousands of miles along the oceanic current and affecting the aquatic flora along the way. 

This along with the fossil fuel wastage during transportation results in manifold impact on the water reserves of the planet. According to the Water Policy Report (2008) the indiscriminate use of bottled water can result in acute potable water shortage in near future. 

A man made satellite radios information from outer space...A teacher, many miles away, instructs a class by television...An elevator whisks passengers to the top of the Empire State Building....An underwater cable sends messages from one continent to another...A city becomes ablaze with man-made light as darkness falls...A mother sets a dial on her electric oven and bakes a cake.

All these and many others are examples of electricity at work, for today we live in a world of electrical marvels. All around us are gadgets and appliances that work by electricity. All we do is flick a switch, and there it is-power to serve us. Electricity warms us in winter and cools us in summer. Electricity cooks our food and washes our clothes. Electricity provides light to chase away the gloom of night. Electricity gives us movies and television to entertain in leisure hours. Electricity turns the giant wheels of factories and mills. There is almost no end to what this obedient and faithful servant can do for man.

One can imagine what would happen if suddenly all electric power were to go off. This actually happens. Most of the things we do day in and day out come to a stop. And life was very much like that in the days of the late 19th century, the days before electricity. Light was provided by candles and oil lamps. Transportation was slow, for it depended upon horses to move carriages or coaches, and the wind to move ships. Letters crossed the oceans in sailing ships and moved overland no faster than a horse could run. News was days, weeks and sometimes months old when it arrived. Food was cooled with ice and cooked with fires of coal or wood. Cloth was woven by hand; were made by hand and washed by hand. Radio, television, movies were unheard of.

And then came electricity; its beginnings were very simple, but in time it grew like a snowball that rolls down a hill and grows larger and larger. First a discovery was made. Then certain facts were noted, and finally an idea was formed. With the first discovery serving as inspiration, another discovery was made. As man learned more and more about the strange and wonderful force called electricity, new developments came more rapidly. The more men understood, the more they advanced and the more ways they learned about how to put electricity to work. Electricity is one of those wonderful gifts of nature that has been with us for a long, long while, in fact ever since the beginning of time.