Title: Phrasal Verbs- Finish
Topic: Phrasal Verbs
Level: Intermediate
Information: Choose the correct answer.
Link: https://www.usingenglish.com/quizzes/580.html

Title: Phrasal Verbs - Take 2
Topic: Phrasal Verbs
Level: Intermediate
Information: Choose the correct answer.
Link: https://www.usingenglish.com/quizzes/581.html

Title: Phrasal Verbs - Back
Topic: Phrasal Verbs
Level: Intermediate
Information: Choose the correct answer.
Link: https://www.usingenglish.com/quizzes/582.html

Title: Easily Confused Words
Topic: Vocabulary
Level: Advanced
Information: Choose the correct answer.
Link: https://www.usingenglish.com/quizzes/585.html

Title: Phrasal Verbs - Roll
Topic: Phrasal Verbs
Level: Intermediate
Information: Choose the correct answer.
Link: https://www.usingenglish.com/quizzes/586.html

The utility's five-year capital plan totals $63 billion, 80% of which will support investments in grid modernization and zero or lower-carbon emitting generation.

Have you been interested in taking a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), but don't know where to find one or how to get started?

Class Central is a free MOOC aggregator that provides links to a wide variety of courses from universities like Stanford, MIT, Harvard, etc. (offered via Coursera, Udacity, edX, NovoED, and others).

The site allows you to search for MOOCs according to the course name, instructor, subject, start date, length of course, and course provider. Class Central also offers a "MOOC Tracker" service that will send you email notifications when a MOOC that is of interest to you becomes available.

MOOCs are a great idea for your students if your school doesn't offer advanced courses for a particular subject and they are also great resources for instructors and others. Try one and I think you will find out how they can be a benefit to you. I did!

After a few weeks of cold weather, cloudy skies and snow on the ground my mind begins to wander and think of where I would rather be than here. Hawaii sounds good, doesn't it? Unfortunately, my bank account usually says no to those types of dreams so I found AirPano.com which, at least, took my mind off of how cold I am and provided me a poor man's virtual vacation.

AirPano.com was actually better than I expected as it provided incredible 360 degree imagery of landmarks and cities from all over the world. Their website features "over 700 panoramas showing over 120 amazing locations of all continents including Antarctic and the North Pole" and panoramas from some 50 other locations are in the works.


Source: AirPano.com

Much of the AirPano imagery now includes interactive pinmarks that you can click on to learn more about the places that you are visiting (as you can see on the Venice, Italy panorama below). I think AirPano is a great way to learn about other parts of the world, not only from the amazing images, but also from the history and facts about each site that they provide. Last, but not least, it is a great way to get your mind off of the cold winter weather...


Visit Venice, Italy on AirPano.com

The CareerTech Testing Center (CTTC) works closely with instructors, industry representatives and credentialing entities to identify and develop assessments and assessment preparation materials that are aligned with recognized industry standards.

Study guides are designed to help students prepare for the assessments. Each study guide includes:

It's unbelievable that 2016 is here and the school year is half over, but that also means we are closer to the busiest time of year for those of us in the assessment industry.

I hope everyone has created and follows a secure assessment policy, but if not, John Kleeman, founder of Questionmark, created Ten tips for Securing Your Assessment System, which provides a secure foundation for your assessment system.  It seems security breaches most often occur as we get busy and are more prone to creating shortcuts in our work, but a "system" should help minimize these errors.  Please read John's post in its entirety and address any weaknesses in your assessment security:

What can you do to make your assessment system more secure? How can you avoid a disruptive data breach where people’s personal information is disclosed? Using a vendor who takes security seriously reduces risk, as I wrote in my blog article Eight ways to check if security is more than skin deep. But security involves both vendor and user. This post gives ten good practice tips on how you as a user or administrator of an assessment system can reduce the risk of data breaches.

1. Don’t give yourself or other administrators unnecessary privileges. Follow the principle of least privilege. It may sound counter-intuitive, but most administrative users don’t need access to all capabilities and data within your system. Limiting access reduces the impact of a data breach if an account is compromised or someone makes a mistake. If you are using Questionmark, allocate appropriate roles to limit people to what they need.

2. When someone leaves the project or organization, remove their access. Don’t allow someone who has left your team to still have access to your assessment data.

3. Follow good password security. Do not share passwords between people. Do not use the same password for two accounts. Choose strong passwords and change them periodically. If someone asks you for your password, never, ever give it. And if a web page doesn’t look right, don’t type your password into it.

4. Install all the patches and secure the system. A common cause of security breaches is failing to install the latest versions of software, and attackers exploit known vulnerabilities. You need to be proactive and always install the latest version of system and application software, set up good technical security and follow the vendor’s recommendations.

If you haven’t got the time or resources to do this properly, move to a cloud solution. In a cloud SaaS solution like Questionmark OnDemand, the vendor is responsible for updating Windows, updating the application, monitoring security and ensuring that everything is up to date.

5. Install good quality antivirus / anti-malware software. Reportedly there are nearly a million new or variant malware and viruses produced each day. Protect your computer and those of your co-workers with up to date, professional software to address this threat.

6. Protect any downloaded data. Questions, assessments and reports on results are generally safer on a server or in an on-demand service than on a workstation. If you need to download data locally, set up security procedures to protect it and try to ensure that any download is temporary only.

7. Dispose of data properly. Deleting a file on a computer doesn’t erase the data, it simply erases the index to it. If you use a reputable service like Questionmark OnDemand, if a disk is repaired or reaches end of life, it will be securely destroyed for example by degaussing. But if you download data locally or use installable software to manage your assessments, you need to do this yourselves. A recent study suggested that about half of used hard drives sold online contain residual data. Make sure this is not your assessment data!

8. Be careful about clicking on a link or attachment in an email. Phishing attacks use email or malicious websites (clicking on a link) to collect sensitive information or infect your machine with malware and viruses. Such attacks could even be aimed at your organization or assessment activity directly (this is called spear phishing!). Think before clicking.

9. Be aware of social engineering. Social engineering is when someone tries to trick you or someone else into a security breach. For example someone might ring up and claim to be a student who wants their results, but really is an imposter. Or someone might spoof an email from your boss asking for the questions for the next test to review. Be wary of strange phone calls or emails that ask for something urgent. If something seems suspicious, clear it with a security professional before you give them info or ask a caller to hang up and call them back on an official number.

10. Conduct security awareness training. If you’re not already doing this, organize training sessions for all your authors, proctors, administrators and other users to help them be security aware. if you can, deliver tests after the training to check understanding. Sharing this blog article with your co-workers would be a great way to start.

To see more Questionmark posts click HERE.

Follow us on Twitter!  @CareerTechTest

Whether you're a social media novice or not, hashtags may seem confusing and inessential. These short links (hashtags) preceded by the pound sign (#) are integral to the way we communicate online and it's important to know how to use them.

Can hashtags be fun? Absolutely!

On Twitter, the pound sign (or hash) turns any word or group of words into a searchable link. This allows you to organize content and track discussion topics based on those keywords. So, if you want to post about the NFL Super Bowl, you would include #SuperBowl in your tweet to join the conversation (or simply search for the hashtag to follow the discussion). Clicking on a hashtag will allow you to see all the posts that mention the subject in real time.

I also recommend using a social media management platform, such as HooteSuite, TweetDeck, etc., where you can create columns with hashtag topics.  I like the ability to monitor several discussions, i.e. #edchat, #lrnchat, #careerteched, at once and all on the same screen.

I've created a list of popular educational hashtags and tried to categorize them for you (see below). It definitely isn't all inclusive, but it's a good starting point and I hope you will share any new educational hashtags you find interesting and helpful!  (Also, hashtags are now a staple to social media and their use has been extended to other social media platforms.)

Popular Educational Hashtags
Hashtag	Category
	Career and Technology Education
#careerteched
#CTE
#vision15
	College
#highered
	Curriculum
#cchat
	Distance Education
#disted
#elearning
#k12online
#mlearning
#onlinelearning
	Groups and Chats
#edchat	Educational Technology
#educhat	Education Chat
#lrnchat	Social Media and Education
#oklaed	Oklahoma Education Chat
	Instruction/Learning
#blendchat	Blended Learning
#blendedlearning	Blended Learning
#education
#elearning	Electronic Learning
#flipclass	Blended Learning
#GBL	Game-Based Learning
#ntchat	New Teachers
#onlinelearning	Blended Learning
#pbl/#pblchat	Project-Based Learning
#studentcentered	Blended Learning
#teachered
#teachers
	Language
#bilingual
#efl	English as a Foreign Language
#ell	English Language Learning
#esl	English as a Second Languae
#tesol	Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
	Leadership
#edleadership
#eduleaders
	Resources
#education
#educational videos
#educationresources
#learning
#lessonplans
#library
#research
#teachers
#TLChat	Twitter Librarians
#TT	Teacher Tuesday where educators suggest others to follow
	Special Needs
#gifted	Gifted Education
#GTChat	Gifted Education
#spedchat	Special Education
	Science
#STEM
	Technology
#1:1
#apps
#blendchat	Blended Learning
#BYOD	Bring Your Own Device
#EdApps	Educational Apps
#edtech	Educational Technology
#edtechchat	Educational Technology
#elearning	Electronic Learning
#ipadchat	iPad
#iNACOL	International Association of Online Learning
#iste	International Society for Technology in Education
#mlearning	Mobile Learning
#mobile	Mobile Learning
#slide2learn	iDevices and Learning
#vitalcpd	Effective Use of Technology in the Classroom
#web20

Want to know how sleep "resets" your brain? How memories are formed and retained?  Then watch The Benefits of a Good Night's Sleep, embedded below, and learn how sleep balances and regulates the body's vital systems which, in turn, affects declarative and procedural memory.

This short TED-Ed lesson by Shai Marcu is an important topic as school starts and students will soon be staying up late or all night in order to cram for tests and other educational requirements. Marcu goes into detail describing the neurological importance of 8 hours of sleep, but the application is interesting as going to sleep three hours after memorizing math formulas (declarative memory) and one hour after practicing music scales (procedural memory) is the most ideal.

I'm left wondering what I might have accomplished if my sleep and learning patterns were consistent during my formative years...
    

Measuring power quality and finding a bugbear in the network which is messing with the power are considered a highly paid job. Every electrical network and its problems with harmonics, transients, or disturbances are unique and need careful planning, setting... Read more

The post How to measure power quality? What devices should you use and what to measure? appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

The first technique to control harmonic-related problems in the industry involved substantial use of single-tuned filters to offer a low-impedance path to harmonic currents. Interestingly, it is not difficult to find harmonic-producing loads in the megavolt-ampere range in the industry... Read more

The post Six methods to control the flow of harmonic currents and decrease harmonic distortion limits appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

Most living rooms require flexible lighting design solutions because they serve a broad variety of changing functions. The lighting in a typical living room should comfortably serve small group conversation, larger social gatherings that include casual eating and drinking, and... Read more

The post Visual Tasks of Typical Living Room Lighting appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

Once the branch circuit loads are calculated, the feeder circuit loads may be calculated by applying demand factors to the branch circuit loads. General Lighting Loads (Article 220.42) Show window or track lighting (Article 220.43) Receptacles in other than dwelling... Read more

The post 8 NEC Basic Feeder Circuit Sizing Requirements appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

New Lesson Plans Entry: 'Present and past abilities dice games' has just been added to the Lesson Plans area of UsingEnglish.com.

New Lesson Plans Entry: 'Adverbs of frequency mastermind' has just been added to the Lesson Plans area of UsingEnglish.com.

New Lesson Plans Entry: 'Passive voice key word sentence transformations' has just been added to the Lesson Plans area of UsingEnglish.com.

New Articles Entry: 'How to write formal IELTS General Writing Task 1 letters' has just been added to the Articles area of UsingEnglish.com.

New Lesson Plans Entry: 'IELTS Writing Task Two tasks on feelings' has just been added to the Lesson Plans area of UsingEnglish.com.

New Lesson Plans Entry: 'Things to avoid in IELTS Listening giving reasons practice' has just been added to the Lesson Plans area of UsingEnglish.com.

New Articles Entry: 'Analysis of official IELTS formal letter tasks' has just been added to the Articles area of UsingEnglish.com.

New Lesson Plans Entry: 'Things to avoid in IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 giving reasons practice' has just been added to the Lesson Plans area of UsingEnglish.com.

In the intricate landscape of electrical engineering, the ability to decipher and interpret schematic drawings is a skill that separates the adept from the novice. This technical article delves into the art of understanding schematics, unraveling the complexities through a... Read more

The post A roadmap for engineers seeking mastery in the language of electrical schematics appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

This technical article discusses the essentials of transformer differential protection and restricted earth fault protection schemes, contrasting the two and elaborating on why the latter is necessary. Furthermore, it reveals the outcomes of stability tests performed on a 502 MVA... Read more

The post Mastering stability test of power transformer: Differential and Restricted Earth Fault (REF) protection appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

Wastewater pumping stations are very common application examples of three-phase induction motors. There are numerous varieties of power supply and control logic, depending on exact conditions in the place of installation, the role of the pumping station inside a sewer... Read more

The post Design and control considerations for an example of the waste water pumping station appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

"Candy Girl" sounds like a shoegazer's modern take on Berlin's "Take My Breath Away" — the song that soundtracked the makeout scene in Top Gun. Cool but still beautiful, it's touching, revealing and almost painfully intimate.

Despite ongoing advancements in measurement technology, instrumenting a process for feedback control remains a technical challenge. Today’s sensors are certainly more sophisticated than ever before, and fieldbus technology has simplified many installation issues considerably. Nonetheless, much can still go wrong... Read more

The post Selecting Wrong Sensor As a Mistake #1 In Instrumentation appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

Generally speaking, there are four ‘Poors’ that can lead to incorrectly installing instrumentation sensors: Poor placement Poor control Poor protection Poor grounding Each of above sensor ‘poors’ are described below, and by the way… have you read what is the mistake No.1... Read more

The post Installing Sensors Incorrectly As a Mistake #2 In Instrumentation appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

Capacitive voltage transformers (CVTs) are used on higher voltage levels, starting from 66 kV and upwards. The type of the CVT is always a single-pole one, thus the connection is between phase and earth. The higher the voltage level is,... Read more

The post Capacitive Voltage Transformers (CVT) For HV Measurements appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

Power can be provided from mains power or from local gas turbines or diesel generator sets. Large facilities have high power demands, from 30 MW and upwards to several hundred MW. There is a tendency to generate electric power centrally... Read more

The post Typical electrical distribution scheme and SCADA system of an oil/gas production plant appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

Passengers will be able to use their mobile phones as tickets from this spring London, 23rd April 2014 – Thames Clippers today announced that they have signed a five year contract with Masabi, the leader in mobile ticketing and payments for transit, to bring smartphone ticketing to its River Bus […]

The post Thames Clippers and Masabi to Launch Mobile Ticketing on Central London River Bus Services appeared first on Masabi.

Riders will be able to use their phones as tickets on both Metro-North Railroad and Long Island Rail Road NEW YORK – April 30th, 2014 – Masabi, the leader in mobile ticketing and payments for transit, today announced that New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) has selected the company to […]

The post Masabi to Launch Mobile Ticketing with New York’s MTA appeared first on Masabi.

As part of our announcement that we have entered a global partnership with MasterCard, Masabi’s Head of Innovation Ben Whitaker and MasterCard’s Head of Transit Centre of Excellence sat down to explain why we believe working together will help customers get around cities and how this benefits transit operators. If […]

The post Masabi and MasterCard Partnership Video appeared first on Masabi.

This article provides guidance on how to conduct gas monitoring and explains the various alerts that can be set. The many sorts of defects that might lead to partial discharges are discussed, and various partial discharge measuring techniques are described,... Read more

The post SF6 Gas Monitoring and Alarming Practices in Gas-Insulated Switchgear (GIS) Systems appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

Acquiring the skill to operate a nuclear reactor bears resemblance to acquiring the skill to pilot an aircraft. The majority of airplane pilots rapidly acquire proficiency in performing take-offs and landings. The process that requires significant time and exertion, particularly... Read more

The post What can go wrong with the nuclear power plant in the case of a grid loss: What to do? appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

After we changed everyone's passwords a couple of weeks ago, people were asking some questions about passwords and personal data.  Firstly, we don't hold much personal data- as people have usernames, we don't know real names. We do ask for the year and date of birth to comply with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). We ask for an active email account and send a link that has to be clicked on to complete the registration. This is to make it harder for automated registration by advertisers and spammers. We also ask where you're from, where you are based now and what your first language is. There are also optional fields where people can add biographical information and interests if they wish. Unless you use your real name as a username or connect via Facebook, the data is anonymous. If an acount is deleted, this information is deleted from our records.

This technical article aims to delve into various aspects of electrical connectivity, symbol representation, and isolation methodologies, shedding light on fundamental concepts and practical applications within the field. From the intricacies of electrical connection and circuit topology to the symbolism... Read more

The post Mastering Electrical Connectivity: From Circuit Topology to Switching Classifications appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

This technical article will try to shed some light on the main and auxiliary circuit diagrams of switching three-phase motors via contactor and switching directly. We’ll cover some fundamental schematics with an old-school explanations and logics on how they work.... Read more

The post Main and auxiliary circuit diagrams of switching three-phase motors via contactor and directly appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

This technical article is dedicated to the main and auxiliary circuit diagrams of switching three-phase motors. We’ll now discuss a little more complicated schematics than the previous article. We’ll cover seven schematics of switching pole-changing three-phase induction motors with one... Read more

The post Main and auxiliary circuit diagrams of switching pole-changing three-phase motors appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

In the domain of electrical engineering, seal-in contacts stand as pivotal components in control circuits, ensuring the sustained operation of electrical devices beyond the initial activation. These mechanisms play a critical role in maintaining the energized state of circuit elements,... Read more

The post Mastering schematic drawings: Analyzing seal-in contacts in motor control circuits appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

The accurate measurement of the voltage, current or other parameter of a power system is a prerequisite to any form of control, ranging from automatic closed-loop control to the recording of data for statistical purposes. Measurement of these parameters can... Read more

The post How to make the right selection of a digital transducer for power system measurements appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

Let us remind ourselves of the basics of substation transformer parts, their operation principles, and do’s and don’ts for safety measures and precautions. For novice substation engineers it’s important to recognize every single detail of a transformer and later to... Read more

The post A quick reminder to substation transformer basics and safety precautions, dos and don’ts appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

As their name indicates, emergency operations are intended to eliminate, as quickly as possible, a danger that occurs unexpectedly. The emergency break is designed to cut off the electrical power, whereas the emergency stop takes account of the danger of... Read more

The post Emergency breaking, stop and isolation intended to eliminate danger as quickly as possible appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

This technical article analyzes the safety requirements against indirect contact employed in particularly special medical locations (e.g., hospitals, medical, and dental practices, etc.), where environmental conditions may increase the risk of indirect contact and therefore the electroshock, precisely microshock. Generally... Read more

The post The ground is not just ground! At least not in hospitals, medical, and dental practices appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

You should know that single-phase motors are rarely rated above 5 kW. Fractional-kilowatt motors, most of which are single-phase, account for 80−90% of the total number of motors manufactured and for 20−30% of the total commercial value. A typical modern... Read more

The post The most used types of single-phase motors in the world appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

In 2004, I embarked on an intensive nine-month training program in protection and instrumentation. This experience laid the foundation for my deep understanding of substation protection systems, combining both theoretical knowledge and practical application. The first protection scheme we delved... Read more

The post Mastering Distance Protection and Calculations Part 1: Advice and Serious Warnings appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

The first part of this article series delved into the fundamentals of overcurrent protection, exploring the intricacies of relay coordination, the impact of source impedance, and the application of distance protection. These foundational concepts laid the groundwork for understanding how... Read more

The post Mastering Distance Protection and Calculations Part 2: Never Mess Up Protection Accuracy appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.