Smartphones are taking over from standard mobile phones and the ability to access the web so quickly and easily through these devices has resulted in a growing number of businesses investing in Smartphone marketing. There are a number of different ways that you can capitalize on this growing trend including SMS marketing, mobile website marketing and App marketing.

While SMS marketing is effective both on our old mobile devices as well as on the new smartphones, it is mobile website marketing and App marketing that are the big winners. Mobile website marketing makes use of an easy to read template of your website to be hosted alongside your normal website. Making use of re-directs, you can ensure that people visiting your site from a mobile device will automatically be directed to your easy to read mobile site. Although mobile websites do make use of some of the interactive features of your smartphone, they are not always as interactive as they can be.

Why Apps are So Popular for Smartphone Marketing?

Mobile Applications for small business take your mobile website that much further with interactive features which can be used to create content to use for your marketing as well as to reward your customers. Making use of the GPS feature to offer turn by turn directions to your business as well as offering GPS discount vouchers to anyone who visits your store at pre-designated times make use of the phones built in features to enhance your customers experience.

What makes Apps stand out from mobile websites the most is the convenience for the end user as well as for your business. Customers can achieve far more with the touch of a single button and as we are now becoming more prone to instant gratification and prefer to complete tasks that are easy to perform, Apps make functions like telling a friend about a special discount they have just received as easy as touching a button. This one touch word of mouth promotion tool makes App marketing so popular with many companies experiencing a massive growth in their downloads through this single tool.

Mobile marketing is here to stay and there are numerous companies that can offer you quality Apps for the same price as converting your website into a mobile site. The additional features that can be included such as shopping cart, loyalty programs, survey forms and free push notifications ensure that smartphone marketing can be both cost effective and will add huge value to your customers experience with your brand.

Companies have been investing in promotional ceramic mugs for decades and they have become one of the best selling products. Simple, practical and durable, mugs can feature your brand logo, message and contact details and be exposed to a large audience base. If you’re looking to produce your own range, here are the top three types of ceramic mugs.

Cambridge Mugs

The Cambridge ceramic mug is the most frequently seen mug at trade shows, exhibitions and conferences. At these events, you can give away free mugs to interested customers and use it as a chance to talk them about business matters. Cambridge mugs have a corporate appearance and large print area so your brand can get maximum exposure, which is ideal for ensuring that new customers remember your company name and potentially buy your products and services.

Marrow Mugs

If you want to impress clients with a stylish, stunning type of ceramic mug, then marrow mugs are excellent for making a positive impact. They can be pantone matched with your brand colours and are finished with a glossy effect to really stand out from other average mugs. Promotional marrow mugs are also quite large, so you should take advantage of the size and think about perhaps placing a few sweets or treats inside the mug to give as gifts to long term clients or even your employees. The gesture is sure to build a positive relationship and act as an incentive for clients to continue to buy your products.

Photo Mugs

Photo ceramic mugs go one step further when it comes to branding, as you have the option to print full colour images onto the mug. They provide the clearest message to your customers and if you buy in bulk, they will be seen by a huge audience base. No other marketing method offers this kind of exposure at a reasonable price. Quality should not be overlooked and they would make great business gifts for friends and family, who will appreciate the thought.

Ceramic mugs will continue to be popular for marketing campaigns and branding exercises, since they are used by almost everyone. The way to grab attention is creating a unique design with your business details included, therefore customers can remember your brand and easily contact you. The next time someone’s sips on their cup of tea or coffee, it could be your brand they are seeing so consider creating promotional ceramic mugs today and see how it can enhance your business.

Trade Show Displays Do Come With Expected Fringe Expenses

While there’s no question about the solid validity of utilizing a customized trade show booth as part of a cohesive marketing campaign, there are financial implications to exhibits that should always be considered. Procuring an exhibit marks a sizeable initial investment. Also, subsequent expenses stemming the event itself also can play a role in the overall return on investment enjoyed by an organization. Fortunately, while eliminating these fringe expenses isn’t likely, it is very possible to minimize them in various areas by employing a little ingenuity.

It’s important to note that going into full-blown penny pincher mode with the trade show booth itself is an ill-advised way to save a few bottom line dollars. Also, going broke with every imaginable feature and option can quickly translate into unnecessary decadence. Always ensure that your final design incorporates a healthy balance of eye-catching sizzle with efficient and useful tools for a final look that will make you proud and won’t deter the crowds.

Know Where To Pinch Pennies With Your Trade Show Booth

While you may need to spend a little more on the trade show booth itself, no one says your business must pay top dollar to ship it. Never get complacent about your chosen shipping service. Instead, always do your research before each event to ensure your team stays on top of freight expenses from various vendors. Also, checking in with the business running the event can provide additional information on whom to use and whether there are discounts offered to participating businesses.

Trade show exhibits held out of town will always deliver some form of traveling and lodging expenses. Securing flights and hotel rooms for employees can quickly add up. The best way to keep these expenditures at a minimum is to plan well in advance. Check with the hosting business to determine if there are attendee discounts to consider when booking. Always know the cancellation policy of the hotel to help best plan for the unexpected. Also, whenever possible, always opt for an airline carrier that does not charge hefty change fees.

There is no written evidence which can tell us exactly who has coined the phrase educational technology. Different educationists, scientists and philosophers at different time intervals have put forwarded different definitions of Educational Technology. Educational technology is a multifaceted and integrated process involving people, procedure, ideas, devices, and organization, where technology from different fields of science is borrowed as per the need and requirement of education for implementing, evaluating, and managing solutions to those problems involved in all aspects of human learning.

Educational technology, broadly speaking, has passed through five stages.

The first stage of educational technology is coupled with the use of aids like charts, maps, symbols, models, specimens and concrete materials. The term educational technology was used as synonyms to audio-visual aids.

The second stage of educational technology is associated with the ‘electronic revolution’ with the introduction and establishment of sophisticated hardware and software. Use of various audio-visual aids like projector, magic lanterns, tape-recorder, radio and television brought a revolutionary change in the educational scenario. Accordingly, educational technology concept was taken in terms of these sophisticated instruments and equipments for effective presentation of instructional materials.

The third stage of educational technology is linked with the development of mass media which in turn led to ‘communication revolution’ for instructional purposes. Computer-assisted Instruction (CAI) used for education since 1950s also became popular during this era.

The fourth stage of educational technology is discernible by the individualized process of instruction. The invention of programmed learning and programmed instruction provided a new dimension to educational technology. A system of self-learning based on self-instructional materials and teaching machines emerged.

The latest concept of educational technology is influenced by the concept of system engineering or system approach which focuses on language laboratories, teaching machines, programmed instruction, multimedia technologies and the use of the computer in instruction. According to it, educational technology is a systematic way of designing, carrying out and evaluating the total process of teaching and learning in terms of specific objectives based on research.

Educational technology during the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age
Educational technology, despite the uncertainty of the origin of the term, can be traced back to the time of the three-age system periodization of human prehistory; namely the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age.

Duringthe Stone Age, ignition of fire by rubbing stones, manufacture of various handmade weapon and utensils from stones and clothing practice were some of the simple technological developments of utmost importance. A fraction of Stone Age people developed ocean-worthy outrigger canoe ship technology to migrate from one place to another across the Ocean, by which they developed their first informal education of knowledge of the ocean currents, weather conditions, sailing practice, astronavigation, and star maps. During the later Stone Age period (Neolithic period),for agricultural practice, polished stone tools were made from a variety of hard rocks largely by digging underground tunnels, which can be considered as the first steps in mining technology. The polished axes were so effective that even after appearance of bronze and iron; people used it for clearing forest and the establishment of crop farming.

Although Stone Age cultures left no written records, but archaeological evidences proved their shift from nomadic life to agricultural settlement. Ancient tools conserved in different museums, cave paintings like Altamira Cave in Spain, and other prehistoric art, such as the Venus of Willendorf, Mother Goddess from Laussel, France etc. are some of the evidences in favour of their cultures.

Neolithic Revolution of Stone Age resulted into the appearance of Bronze Age with development of agriculture, animal domestication, and the adoption of permanent settlements. For these practices Bronze Age people further developed metal smelting, with copper and later bronze, an alloy of tin and copper, being the materials of their choice.

The Iron Age people replaced bronze and developed the knowledge of iron smelting technology to lower the cost of living since iron utensils were stronger and cheaper than bronze equivalents. In many Eurasian cultures, the Iron Age was the last period before the development of written scripts.

Educational technology during the period of Ancient civilizations
According to Paul Saettler, 2004, Educational technology can be traced back to the time when tribal priests systematized bodies of knowledge and ancient cultures invented pictographs or sign writing to record and transmit information. In every stage of human civilization, one can find an instructional technique or set of procedures intended to implement a particular culture which were also supported by number of investigations and evidences. The more advanced the culture, the more complex became the technology of instruction designed to reflect particular ways of individual and social behaviour intended to run an educated society. Over centuries, each significant shift in educational values, goals or objectives led to diverse technologies of instruction.

The greatest advances in technology and engineering came with the rise of the ancient civilizations. These advances stimulated and educated other societies in the world to adopt new ways of living and governance.

The Indus Valley Civilization was an early Bronze Age civilization which was located in the northwestern region of the Indian Subcontinent. The civilization was primarily flourished around the Indus River basin of the Indus and the Punjab region, extending upto the Ghaggar-Hakra River valley and the Ganges-Yamuna Doab, (most of the part is under today’s Pakistan and the western states of modern-day India as well as some part of the civilization extending upto southeastern Afghanistan, and the easternmost part of Balochistan, Iran).

There is a long term controversy to be sure about the language that the Harappan people spoke. It is assumed that their writing was at least seems to be or a pictographic script. The script appears to have had about 400 basic signs, with lots of variations. People write their script with the direction generally from right to left. Most of the writing was found on seals and sealings which were probably used in trade and official & administrative work.

Harappan people had the knowledge of the measuring tools of length, mass, and time. They were the first in the world to develop a system of uniform weights and measures.

In a study carried out by P. N. Rao et al. in 2009, published in Science, computer scientists found that the Indus script’s pattern is closer to that of spoken words, which supported the proposed hypothesis that it codes for an as-yet-unknown language.

According to the Chinese Civilization, some of the major techno-offerings from China include paper, early seismological detectors, toilet paper, matches, iron plough, the multi-tube seed drill, the suspension bridge, the wheelbarrow, the parachute, natural gas as fuel, the magnetic compass, the raised-relief map, the blast furnace, the propeller, the crossbow, the South Pointing Chariot, and gun powder. With the invent of paper they have given their first step towards developments of educational technology by further culturing different handmade products of paper as means of visual aids.

Ancient Egyptian language was at one point one of the longest surviving and used languages in the world. Their script was made up of pictures of the real things like birds, animals, different tools, etc. These pictures are popularly called hieroglyph. Their language was made up of above 500 hieroglyphs which are known as hieroglyphics. On the stone monuments or tombs which were discovered and rescued latter on provides the evidence of existence of many forms of artistic hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt.

Educational technology during Medieval and Modern Period
Paper and the pulp papermaking process which was developed in China during the early 2nd century AD, was carried to the Middle East and was spread to Mediterranean by the Muslim conquests. Evidences support that a paper mill was also established in Sicily in the 12th century. The discovery of spinning wheel increased the productivity of thread making process to a great extent and when Lynn White added the spinning wheel with increasing supply of rags, this led to the production of cheap paper, which was a prime factor in the development of printing technology.

The invention of the printing press was taken place in approximately 1450 AD, by Johannes Gutenburg, a German inventor. The invention of printing press was a prime developmental factor in the history of educational technology to convey the instruction as per the need of the complex and advanced-technology cultured society.

In the pre-industrial phases, while industry was simply the handwork at artisan level, the instructional processes were relied heavily upon simple things like the slate, the horn book, the blackboard, and chalk. It was limited to a single text book with a few illustrations. Educational technology was considered synonymous to simple aids like charts and pictures.

The year 1873 may be considered a landmark in the early history of technology of education or audio-visual education. An exhibition was held in Vienna at international level in which an American school won the admiration of the educators for the exhibition of maps, charts, textbooks and other equipments.

Maria Montessori (1870-1952), internationally renowned child educator and the originator of Montessori Method exerted a dynamic impact on educational technology through her development of graded materials designed to provide for the proper sequencing of subject matter for each individual learner. Modern educational technology suggests many extension of Montessori’s idea of prepared child centered environment.

In1833, Charles Babbage’s design of a general purpose computing device laid the foundation of the modern computer and in 1943, the first computing machine as per hi design was constructed by International Business Machines Corporation in USA. The Computer Assisted instruction (CAI) in which the computer functions essentially as a tutor as well as the Talking Type writer was developed by O.K. Moore in 1966. Since 1974, computers are interestingly used in education in schools, colleges and universities.

In the beginning of the 19th century, there were noteworthy changes in the field of education. British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), right from its start of school broadcasts in 1920 had maintained rapid pace in making sound contribution to formal education. In the USA, by 1952, 20 states had the provision for educational broadcasting. Parallel to this time about 98% of the schools in United Kingdom were equipped with radios and there were regular daily programmes.

Sidney L. Pressey, a psychologist of Ohio state university developed a self-teaching machine called ‘Drum Tutor’ in 1920. Professor Skinner, however, in his famous article ‘Science of Learning and art of Teaching’ published in 1945 pleaded for the application of the knowledge derived from behavioral psychology to classroom procedures and suggested automated teaching devices as means of doing so.

Although the first practical use of Regular television broadcasts was in Germany in 1929 and in 1936 the Olympic Games in Berlin were broadcasted through television stations in Berlin, Open circuit television began to be used primarily for broadcasting programmes for entertainment in 1950. Since 1960, television is used for educational purposes.

In 1950, Brynmor, in England, used educational technological steps for the first time. It is to be cared that in 1960, as a result of industrial revolution in America and Russia, other countries also started progressing in the filed of educational technology. In this way, the beginning of educational technology took place in 1960 from America and Russia and now it has reached England, Europe and India.

During the time of around 1950s, new technocracy was turning it attraction to educations when there was a steep shortage of teachers in America and therefore an urgent need of educational technology was felt. Dr. Alvin C. Eurich and a little later his associate, Dr. Alexander J. Stoddard introduced mass production technology in America.

Team teaching had its origin in America in the mid of 1950′s and was first started in the year 1955 at Harvard University as a part of internship plan.

In the year 1956, Benjamin Bloom from USA introduced the taxonomy of educational objectives through his publication, “The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, The Classification of Educational Goals, Handbook I: Cognitive Domain”.

In 1961, Micro teaching technique was first adopted by Dwight W. Allen and his co-workers at Stanford University in USA.

Electronics is the main technology being developed in the beginning of 21st century. Broadband Internet access became popular and occupied almost all the important offices and educational places and even in common places in developed countries with the advantage of connecting home computers with music libraries and mobile phones.

Today’s classroom is more likely to be a technology lab, a room with rows of students using internet connected or Wi-Fi enabled laptops, palmtops, notepad, or perhaps students are attending a video conferencing or virtual classroom or may have been listening to a podcast or taking in a video lecture. Rapid technological changes in the field of educational have created new ways to teach and to learn. Technological changes also motivated the teachers to access a variety of information on a global scale via the Internet, to enhance their lessons as well as to make them competent professional in their area of concern. At the same time, students can utilize vast resources of the Internet to enrich their learning experience to cope up with changing trend of the society. Now a days students as well teachers are attending seminars, conferences, workshops at national and international level by using the multimedia techno-resources like PowerPoint and even they pursue a variety of important courses of their choice in distance mode via online learning ways. Online learning facility has opened infinite number of doors of opportunities for today’s learner to make their life happier than ever before.

Technology is an improved route to an unimproved target. Technology is associated with innovation. It involves the transformation of ideas into something useful. Innovation is just not limited to creative people and organizations, but also involves the availability of technological and scientific talent. Technology and innovation are synergistic. Technology has definitely changed our lives and for the better.

Looking back in time, we realize how much our lives have changed due to the fruits of technology. It has provided us with freedom and less consumption of time and resources. Pointing out a particular technology for the drastic changes in one’s life is simply not possible. A nation’s economic growth can be measured according to the level of technology. This is because a number of factors are responsible for affecting an individual’s life style. The most important factor for deciding the working of a particular technology is the presence of competition. One kind of technology seems beneficial only until a technological advancement does not occur.

The most effective piece of technology is the mobile phone, and now a days being equivalent to a civilization. Due to technological changes, the dependency upon technology has increased many folds. Some advancement occurs at such a pace that they become self-defeating. The ability to convert carbon dioxide into fuel energy is a breakthrough process and once well established in would change our dependency on nonrenewable and limited sources.

With time, the use of internet is rising rapidly. The World Wide Web literally connects over 700 million people round the globe. The state-of-the-art technology has improved our means of communication as well as our educational standards. Due to the innovations in technology, an individual can gain knowledge about any topic at any place and at any point of time in his/her life. It has allowed the ease of availability of education. It has also improvised upon ways to fulfill our needs and to meet our expectations. Innovations in today’s tech-world can help us to solve urgent problems.

The revolution in technology has given rise to chat rooms, discussion rooms, personalized web pages and online databases. The IT sector has completely changed the outlook of human communication with e-mails, video conferencing and instant messaging. With the advent of technology, people are building bridges to decrease the distances in their mind. One basic drawback that has taken place is that people are becoming lethargic due to high trends in technology. It is shortening our ability to pay attention. Robotics, automation and computerization are on the go for changing our lives. Implementation of robotics will give higher efficiency and cheaper labor, thereby increasing unemployment rate.

Now the other side of technology is not so green. It is because of improvised technology only that we have seen nuclear and atomic wars. This has also leaded to increase in pollution as well as corruption. Hence, one must know how to balance between manpower and automation. In the world of automation, cars have created freedom as well as concrete jungle. Technology is affecting our near future so it becomes our responsibility to streamline it in the right direction.

This is a question that is seriously being asked on many Internet Forums as we speak. What has triggered this is the latest Google Algorithm update where it is reported that Google is now giving less importance to article directories.

The most important point that most of the questioners seem to forget is that Google values unique content. That’s what it wants. It doesn’t want to serve up ten identical articles in it’s top 10 results. It then follows that of course, they will give preference to one article, if many duplicate articles are found. But how do they decide which article?

It’s a good question and worth exploring. Firstly, they will give priority to uniqueness. If everything else is equal, then unique will win every time. But what if there is more than one copy of the article on the Internet? Well, they will give serious consideration to the site who displayed the article first. The first time their spiders discovered the article.

The other significant factor is the importance of the site the article is displayed upon. If yours is a brand new blog, then that will not carry very much weight at all. But then again, if you submit your article to a large and trusted directory, an authority site, such as EzineArticles, then your article has just been given a large push up the algorithm ranking.

Of course, it’s not just as easy as that to get a page 1 ranking in Google for your article. It’s not easy making money on the net. You have to consider keyword research, competition, search volume, keyword density and keyword positioning. It all counts. Then of course, you’ve got to get people talking about your article, or at least linking to it. This is another whole subject on it’s own, but just remember this:

If you write a unique article, of value, and submit it one of leading article directories, such as EzineArticles, then you are one giant step closer to making money on the net. Of course, there is a little point in getting your article listed on page 1 of Google if it is on EzineArticles and no one clicks through to your site after reading your article. That’s why you need a good incentive in your resource box to encourage visitors to either read another one of your articles or indeed, to click through to your site, where you will have a nice free offer waiting

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