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PA Cyber introduces hybrid of virtual and self-paced online courses

8 Aug

finally fastTechnology news from the Finally Fast team

“FLEX” courses, a hybrid model combining some of the best features of self-paced and virtual online instruction, are being offered this year at the high school level by the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School.

The new FLEX curriculum is a hybrid of the self-paced Lincoln Interactive and real-time Virtual Classroom (VC) courses, said Dr. Michael J. Conti, CEO of PA Cyber.

“FLEX is a great option for students who do not want to commit to a full-time VC class, but who can benefit from the structure and live teacher interaction of synchronous instruction,” said Dr. Conti.

FLEX courses available in grades 9-12 for the 2012-2013 school year are English 10, American History, World Cultures, Earth Science, Biology, Spanish 1, French 1 and German 1. More courses are to be offered in the FLEX model if it proves to be as effective and popular as the school’s curriculum developers anticipate.

In FLEX courses, students will meet with their teacher and classmates live online one day per week (Tuesday or Thursday) for 90 minutes in Blackboard Collaborate, the online meeting program used for VC classes.

On the remaining four days, students will be required to independently complete one lesson each day in Schoology. Schoology is a secure online learning management system used by PA Cyber to create and share academic content.

Jennifer Shoaf, PA Cyber director of curriculum and instruction, said the FLEX option provides students with more structure and real-time teacher interaction than self-paced Lincoln Interactive courses, while allowing the student to work and study independently on the course material. FLEX teachers will be available for individual tutoring on a regular weekly schedule.

Because they are so new, FLEX courses are not listed in the school’s 2012-2013 course catalog. Shoaf said instructional supervisors are sharing information about FLEX courses with students and their parents, so that they can then make the best decision about which model of instruction matches the student’s learning style and educational goals: self-paced Lincoln Interactive, Virtual Classroom or FLEX. FLEX courses are available to all PA Cyber high school students with the consent of their instructional supervisors.

Every independent day begins with the student viewing a short introductory video from the teacher explaining the day’s lesson. Lessons may include working on projects, doing research, participating in discussion groups, and other tasks. Each self-paced lesson is designed to take approximately 50 minutes.

Each day’s lesson will be available at 8 a.m. If the lesson contains an assignment, the assignment will have a due date that may be that same day or a different day. The student has until midnight of the due date to turn in the assignment.

“Courses offered in the FLEX model keep students on pace,” said Shoaf. “The schedule and calendar for FLEX will be the same as for our Virtual Classroom courses, in which students start school on a certain day and end on a certain day.”

“PA Cyber continues to lead the way in educational innovation,” said Dr. Conti. “Our teachers and curriculum staff deserve credit for introducing an exciting new option in online learning.”

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AFA Congratulates Advancing Teams in CyberPatriot Competition

3 Jan

Finally FastTech News from the Finally Fast Team

The Air Force Association’s CyberPatriot recently announced the top scoring teams who will be advancing to the third and final preliminary round of the nation’s largest high school cyber defense competition.

CyberPatriot, an education initiative produced by AFA in 2008, is a one-of-a-kind cyber defense competition that provides students hands-on learning about cyber security. CyberPatriot IV brought in more than 1,000 team registrations from all 50 states, U.S. Department of Defense Dependent Schools in Europe and the Pacific, and Canada in the two-track competition. Teams have registered from public, private, parochial and home schools in the Open Division, and JROTC units of all Services and Civil Air Patrol squadrons filled the All-Service Division.

 

During the second round of competition, held the first and third weekends of December, teams set out once again to defend virtualized networks of computers. Teams were scored according to how quickly and effectively they established and maintained secure networks. The scores of the first and second preliminary rounds were aggregated to determine which teams moved forward.

“There was a tremendous amount of effort being displayed by all the teams who participated in CyberPatriot IV, and we congratulate them for their hard work,” said Bernie Skoch, CyberPatriot Commissioner. “As these students are competing against their peers and having fun, they are also building skills and key knowledge in an area that is critical to our nation’s success. We are proud to be able to provide such an energetic and exciting venue for learning, and look forward to the remainder of this year’s competition.”

After Round 3, the top 12 qualifying teams of each division receive all-expenses-paid trips to the CyberPatriot National Championship Competition held in the Washington, DC area, in March 2012.

The final preliminary round for the All Service Division teams will be on January 13, while the Open Division competes again onJanuary 27.

CyberPatriot is presented by the Northrop Grumman Foundation, with founding partners SAIC and the CIAS at the University of Texas-San Antonio. CyberPatriot is also a member of the U.S. Cyber Challenge (USCC), a national coalition of public-private sector entities collaborating to enhance the workforce with the next generation of cyber security professionals through skill development activities, mentoring, and resources, and the facilitation of scholarship, internship and employment opportunities.

The Air Force Association (AFA) is a 501(c)(3) organization that educates the public about the critical role of aerospace power in the defense of our nation, advocates aerospace power and a strong national defense, and supports the United States Air Force, the Air Force family and aerospace education. AFA has more than 200 chapters nationally and internationally representing more than 119,000 members.

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Google Analytics Version v5 Coming Soon

23 Nov

FinallyFast.comBusiness news from the Finally Fast team

As the sun sets on the old Analytics interface, version v5 is coming closer to reaching fruition. While the beta version has already been available for users to try out, Google says in a matter of weeks the new version will be activated in all user accounts. You will still be able to switch back to the old version while you get your feet wet with the new interface, but only until January 2012. After January, version v5 will be fully integrated and the old version will be gone. With all the cool new features on the v5 interface, however, we don’t see any need to switch back. New Features include:

Visitor Flow

Visitor flow provides a great visual for how visitors navigate your pages and where they drop off. In the drop down bar, you can choose what flow chart you want to see, whether it be direct traffic, referral traffic or even mobile traffic. This feature also lists the numbers of visitors to each pages, how many go on to another page and how many drop off.

Real Time Tracking

Real Time Tracking provides a visual breakdown of real time visitors to your website. You are able to see the number of visitors fluctuate as they enter and exit your website each second. You are also able to see where in the world these visitors are coming from on a map, how many pages they have visited and the amount of time they have spent on the website.

Mobile Tracking

With mobile search becoming more prominent, Analytics v5 has added the capability to track mobile devices, as well as iPods and iPads. The Analytics team was even nice enough to provide images for each mobile device, just in case you forget what an iPhone looks like.

Multi-Channel Funnels and Goals Funnels

The multi-channel funnels give you a visual breakdown of what traffic sources preceded a conversion. This is a useful tool which can reveal what is more influential in yielding conversions. Under the ‘Conversions’ tab, you can find funnel visualization and goal flow, which are also unique visual tools which can help track conversions.

Key Differences Between the New and Old Versions

Even with the addition of all these new features, many of the key features of the old Analytics version have been preserved. The overall layout and menu bar have changed slightly, since Google has done away with the ‘Dashboard’, ‘Intelligence’ and ‘Goals’ tabs from the old interface and added the ‘Advertising’ and ‘Conversions’ tabs on the new menu.

New tabs have been added along the top, where ‘Home’ will take you to your dashboard and ‘Standard Reporting’ will take you to the familiar reports. ‘Custom Reporting’ allows the option to create your own reports based on customized factors.

In addition to the new features, some of key features from the older version have been switched around. For instance, the ‘Keywords’ tab, which used to be under

‘Traffic Sources’ in the older version is no longer there. Instead, you can find keyword tracking by going to Traffic Sources > Overview and your keywords are there on the right hand side.

Even with the new features and alterations to the layout, the new Analytics platform is straight-forward and easily understood. The Analytics team did a great job of providing an enhanced version of the Analytics we love, creating a visual approach to the variables that matter most, like conversions and site navigability.

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Threat Report Reveals Google replaces Microsoft as Number One Vendor for Vulnerabilities

16 Nov

Finally FastInternet safety tips from the Finally Fast team

Google replaced Microsoft as the number one vendor for reported vulnerabilities, with a total of 82, due to existing vulnerabilities in Chrome as the browser grows in popularity. Oracle came in second, with 63; Microsoft fell to third place, with 58, all according to Trend Micro’s Third Quarter Threat Report.

Trend Micro threat researchers also witnessed a significant shift from mass compromises to targeted attacks, particularly against large enterprises and government institutions. Their work led them to the uncovering of one of the most notable groups of targeted attacks during the third quarter – the LURID downloader.

These attacks, which were classified by Trend Micro as advanced persistent threats (APTs), targeted major companies and institutions in over 60 countries, including Russia, Kazakhstan, and the Ukraine. The cybercriminals behind these attacks launched over 300 malware campaigns in order to obtain confidential data from and take full control of affected users’ systems over an extended period of time. LURID was successful because it was targeted by its nature. By zoning in on specific geographic locations and entities, LURID compromised as many as 1,465 systems.

Other notable security attacks, scams, breaches and exploits

Trend Micro threat analysts came across a new DroidDreamLight variant with enhanced capabilities and routines. Disguised as battery-monitoring or task-listing tools or apps that allow users to see a list of permissions that installed apps utilize, copies of this new Android malware littered a Chinese third-party app store.

In the first half of July, Trend Micro researchers spotted a page that enticed users to click a link to get free invitations to Google’s latest stab at taking a slice of the social media pie—Google+. Instead of invitations to join the site, however, all the users got was an “opportunity” to take part in a survey that put them at risk.

LinkedIn users were also part of a criminal scam that tricked them into clicking a malicious link to a supposed Justin Bieber video that redirected them to a malicious site.

The most notorious spam runs this quarter led to the download and execution of two banking Trojans: The first campaign featured a spam that purported to come from the Spain National Police; the second supposedly came from the Internal Revenue Service.

India and South Korea was part of the top three spam-sending countries. The United States, which commonly takes the top spot, was not on the top 10 spam-sending countries list most likely due to the arrest of several spambot operators.

Notable security research wins

In addition to the discovery of the LURID downloader, Trend Micro and other global security teams made impressive takedowns in Q3:

After months of monitoring, Trend Micro researchers uncovered a SpyEye operation controlled by a cybercriminal residing in Russia with the handle, “Soldier,” and his accomplice in Hollywood, California. This botnet operation, which amassed more than US$3.2 million within six months, targeted large enterprises and government institutions in the United States, as well as organizations in Canada, the United Kingdom, India, and Mexico. More details on this win can be found in Trend Micro’s research paper, “From Russia to Hollywood: Turning Tables on a SpyEye Cybercrime Ring.”

Trend Micro researchers were also able to gather in-depth information on two of the largest FAKEAV affiliate networks to date—BeeCoin and MoneyBeat. More details on how FAKEAV affiliate networks work can be found in the research paper,”Targeting the Source: FAKEAV Affiliate Networks.”

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Why You Still Need a Web Site

10 Oct

FinallyFastBusiness tips from the Finally Fast team

Although you must leverage Facebook, Twitter, Goggle+, and word-of-mouth marketing to increase awareness of your brand, your web site will remain more popular with consumers than all of the business pages on social media sites combined. Here are five key reasons why you still need a web site:

Branding

Since it’s your site, you set the design, which affords you the flexibility to optimize the user experience in ways that directly support your business model and brand-related goals. There’s no competition on your web site, just a branded experience that you direct yourself.

IT and Engineering Jurisdiction

When you control your own site, you have complete jurisdiction over its code, hosting environment, page count, content, plug-ins and more. Controlling your own web site provides you with the flexibility that you need to make small or sweeping adjustments at will, an advantage you don’t get with third-party web sites. With sites like Facebook, you can change minor graphics and some content but not code, navigation scheme, server speed or the graphic user interface.

Content

Speaking of content, more of it can be found on your own web site than on a third-party utility or platform, and none of it competes side-by-side for your visitor’s attention. Create compelling and useful content that speaks to why someone is visiting your site and you stand a higher chance of that visitor taking action with respect to your products or services. And since inventory (i.e., web pages) is virtually unlimited on a site under your control, you have ample opportunity to add additional content and calls-to-action in the format you deem most appropriate.

Search Engine Optimization

If garnering multiple, relevant and highly positioned placements in the SERPs (search engine result pages) is part of your sales and marketing strategy, a web site is a must. When properly coded and managed, your site delivers natural and sustaining search results that drive qualified traffic to the exact pages on your site where you want visitors to be.

Analytics

While many social utilities, platforms and networks provide access to data related to demographics associated with those visitors that your profile and how often they do so, web site analytic tools go much deeper. They can provide you with the type of business intelligence you need to determine in real-time how your online marketing performs and stacks up against the competition.

Remember, when it comes to your content, you should always lead first with your web site, followed by leveraging social, email marketing, point of purchase, mobile, apps and other forms of marketing and outreach to drive traffic to your web site where you can generate qualified leads who convert to paying customers.

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What to Look for in an SEO Provider

30 Sep

Finally FastBusiness tips from the Finally Fast team

The impact of the Internet on modern business has resulted in an intense interest in Search Engine Optimization, the practice of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via organic search results. But not all SEO providers are created equal. Here are some key things you should look for in you SEO provider.

Keyword Research

The first thing a good SEO provider will do is discuss with you your list if keywords and key phrases.  Using keyword research tools they will discuss recommend the most appropriate keyword and key phrase selection for your business.  There’s no point having a website at the top of Google for a phrase which no one ever searches.

Site Analysis

Is your current website search engine friendly?  How your website is structured plays an extremely important role in a good SEO strategy. Having the ability to engineer a website to tell the search engines who you are, what you do and where you do it, is just as important as the search engines being able to read and index content on your website.  A quick online analysis will help identify what your SEO provider has to work with and what work needs doing to your website.

Competitive Analysis

An excellent indicator of what level of SEO work is required in order to achieve your online marketing objectives is to analyze your competition.  The amount of time, effort and money that your competitors have invested into SEO, will help determine how much you have to in order to achieve similar results.

Link Building

Once your website has a solid foundation, your Search Engine Optimization provider should be talking to you about your link building.  Your website will rank higher up the search engines the more one way, incoming links from high other ranking website your website has.  This is often a very time consuming and continuous process.

Feasibility Study

A SEO provider should be able to quickly tell you how feasible your targets are.  Even if they find that your online targets are unachievable given either time, website structure or budgetary constraints, they should always be able to provide you with an Search Engine Optimization solution which often involves a staged approach in terms of both time and investment.

Business Proposal

After discussing all of the above with you, an SEO provider should be able to provide you with you with an approximate quote for your Search Engine Optimization Solution.  As long as an SEO provider is open honest and transparent with what they are doing and how they are going to do it, you should be able to make substantial progress and acquire more traffic.

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How to Set Up a Sales Tracking System

19 Sep

Finally FastBusiness tips from the Finally Fast team

Many of the most successful people in sales will tell you that the key to high sales is actually the right sales tracking process. By analyzing the accounts that got away, a sales manager can uncover underlying weaknesses in his or her offering, identify areas upon which the sales force can improve, and learn valuable information about key competitors.So how do you get started implementing a sales-tracking system that incorporates strong win-loss analysis? Here’s where you should start.

The Template

Start by putting together a simple written report template that allows both clients and would-be clients to quickly rate your company’s performance in three key areas: the sales team, sales tools and collateral, and product features. For example, under sales team include attributes such as understanding of the account, understanding of the business issues, and understanding of the technology issues. Ask your clients to evaluate your competition using the same metrics. You can always ask for a follow-up appointment if a purchasing manager’s answers are inadequate.

Ask about your Competition

It’s useful to get a price-to-value comparison of your company compared to the competition.  You can also ask open-ended questions about competing products. What features did a rival product have that ours lacked?  Was another product perceived to be a better value? A sales loss driven by pricing concerns may have nothing to do with the sales rep’s performance.

First and Last impressions

It’s useful to know how a potential client first discovered your company. Then, ask questions that get at your positioning in the market. How did a corporate buyer view your company before a sales rep even stepped in the door? And how did his or her perceptions change during the sales process? A good final question: Would you recommend my company to others?

The Interview

Once your report template has been returned to your company, it’s time to ask for an interview. But don’t ask your sales reps to conduct the post-mortem reviews. After an extended attempt at closing a sale, a rep may have a hard time being objective. And buyers don’t want to have a heart-to-heart with a declined sales rep for fear the rep will try to attempt the sales all over again. It’s best to hire a neutral third-party to conduct the interview ask an in-house manager removed from the sales trenches to carry out the task. A marketing director, for instance, is in a better position to ask sensitive questions about a salesperson’s professionalism and product knowledge. Marketing directors are also more likely to ask whether a brochure, web page, or white paper influenced a buying decision, in addition to a rep’s sales skills.

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How to Engage your Audience through Social Media

16 Aug

Finally FastBusiness tips from the Finally Fast team

If you’ve been on the Internet at any time during the last ten years, you know that consumers want more than content; they want to make a human connection. It’s no longer enough to push information out to your audience. Today’s geo-located, email checking, text messaging, status updating, smartphone wielding social consumers are hungry to engage with their favorite businesses.

So what’s the best way to engage with them? It goes beyond providing a positive shopping experience, excellent customer service and content that informs, entertains and makes their lives better. Customers really want to know you care about them as well as their business. They want to make a connection with you. The challenge to grow a business goes way beyond finding new prospects. It’s about how to engage them. As marketers and business people, everything you do comes down to making these meaningful connections with our customers.

While consumers generally are showing a desire to engage with businesses online, in a world where everyone is bombarded by marketing messages wherever they go, consumers become more discerning about which businesses deserve their time, attention and patronage. So how can you engage the busy social consumer and make that important human connection? Here are a few ways to start you off:

Polls

Post a survey, poll or open-ended question on Facebook asking customers to identify their biggest challenge or most pressing concern related to your business or cause in 2011. Report back to your audience on the results. If anything unexpected, insightful, trend-spotting or controversial bubbles up, use those ideas to spur other conversations.

Ignite a Conversation

Send out a thought-provoking question related to your industry on Twitter. Make it something people care about — an interesting trend, results of study, a surprising report or something in the news. Link back to more info on your website, blog or Facebook page. Use a Twitter hashtag to mark keywords or topics in tweets and keep track of the conversation.

Utilize the Results

Weave the results of your social conversations with customers into your content, across media channels. Good conversations seed good content, and vice versa. Write about things that people will want to talk about and share on their social networks.

Moderate the Discussion

Social consumers want to engage and interact with businesses in two-way conversation. Be sure that once you start a discussion, you’re present to monitor and participate in it. When a topic catches fire and gets people gabbing, jump in and fan the flames to keep the chatter going.

Experiment

Of course, some efforts to engage consumers will be more successful than others. It’s about finding what resonates with and engages your audience, and that’s not always going to be predictable. So, do some experimenting to determine what sticks. What you share and how you share it is up to you.

 

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How to Repair Your Credit Now

8 Aug

Finally FastPersonal finance tips from the Finally Fast tips

Credit repair begins with you. Many people have bad credit and they don’t even know about it or they think they have no way to repair it. But before you take any steps to repair your credit, you need to know your credit score.

Your credit score is a 3-digit number, usually between 300 and 850, that lets lenders know how you are paying off your current debts and how much of a credit risk you may be to them. Your credit score is based on the information listed in your credit report, which contains a history of your past debts and repayments.  Credit bureaus use computers and mathematical calculations to arrive at a particular credit score using all of the information contained in your credit report.

Each credit bureau uses different methods to do this, which is why you will have different scores with different companies, but most credit bureaus use the FICO system.  FICO is an acronym for the widely used credit score calculating software offered to the credit bureaus by the Fair Isaac Corporation. Credit scores are often redder to as FICO scores or FICO ratings. Everyone has the right to see his or her credit reports and to repair this score.

One you have copies of your reports and know your scores, you can take the following steps:

Pay Your Bills On Time

This is the simplest step, and the most important. Your best bet is to set up automatic payments with all your creditors. If you can’t make a payment, call your creditor and make something work so that they won’t report it to the credit bureaus.

Increase Debt to Limit Ratio

There are two ways you can do this: keep your balances low or increase your limits. Always make sure your balances are below 35% if possible. Increasing your limits will help the ratio as long as you don’t increase your debt on those accounts too.

Diversify Your Credit

Unless you have a mortgage or car loan, you will need to start with the basics. First, get a checking account with your bank with a line of credit, and then get a credit card attached to your bank account. Finally, get a merchant store card.

 

Talk to Your Creditors

Creditors want their money too and they will negotiate to get it. Always talk to your creditors before paying off a bill. Use your leverage to negotiate the removal of the negative items upon final payment.

Dispute Negative Items

The main reason most people get denied loans is because of past negative items. The Fair Credit Reporting Act gives you the right to dispute any and all items on your credit reports that you feel classify as inaccurate, unverifiable, or misleading. If the bureaus cannot verify that the information on your reports is indeed correct, then those items must be deleted.

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Five Ways to Improve Cash Flow Now

26 Jul

Business tips from the Finally Fast team

As businesses are still struggling to crawl out of the recession, entrepreneurs are searching for methods to generate as much cash flow out of their businesses as possible. Their basic approach is to acquire their receivables as quickly as possible and slow down their payables, yet avoid jeopardizing relationship with suppliers. For some businesses this means collecting from your customers as much as seventeen days, or stretching your payables an additional ten days. Other companies have even extended their accounts payable periods with a credit card. But there are better ways to improve your cash flow; here are five tips to get you started.

Generate a Forecast

Before you make any adjustments to your business practices to improve your cash flow, you need to generate a Forecast in order to determine where your cash flow currently stands and where it may go in the future. These will also hap you determine some secondary necessities. For example, will more sales for your business require more employees and a larger inventory? Generate a rolling twelve-month forecast in order to see where to expect surges in expenses and examine your bill payments.

Reevaluate Your Terms

One way to improve cash flow is to analyze the balance between your customer terms and your supplier terms. Look at the terms you’re offering to customers and determine if they still work for you and how well your customers are performing according to those terms. When it comes to supplier terms, you’re going to want to see how their terms compare to their competition. And be sure to keep an eye out for discounts for early payment.

Segment Your Inventory, Customers, and Suppliers

Another technique is to segment Your Inventory, Customers, and Suppliers. When reviewing your inventory, consider the impact of your sales. One thing to watch out for is having too much of your cash tied up in inventory that only sells sporadically. This cash should be invested in items with comparably quicker turnover. Next, segment your suppliers, separating them into regular suppliers and one-off buys. The better terms and discounts will come from negotiating with the regular suppliers. Finally, take a good look at whom your “key customers” are. Are they as valuable as everyone believes them to be? Are they paying you when you need them to pay you?

Improve your Collection System

Next, you need to improve your collection system. Evaluate how long it’s taking for your business to get paid, your collections activity, your customer contact, and any past disputes. Is your company keeping up on all of these? What do you do to enforce discipline when a payment is late?


Make Improving Cash Flow Everyone’s Problem

Finally, make improving cash flow everyone’s problem. For example, in order to get your sales staff on board, institute a policy where if something is written off, the revenue is backed out of commissions.

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