Dealing with passive-aggressive grunting and eye rolling from our classmates and co-workers is something we all would like to avoid.

You even sense the negativity coming from teachers.

Exposing yourself to these gray attitudes can be upsetting and discouraging.

Here are 7 ways to cancel the noise of negativity.

1) Highlight Your Attributes

Harvesting negativity is the easiest part. You have stacks of SAT handbooks and resumes to fill out. T

he last thing you want to do is slow down your progress. Highlighting your attributes serves as a boost to your esteem, energy, and health.

Grab a piece of paper or open a text document and create a list of accomplishments.

Channeling your positivity through drawing is excellent too.

2) Try Something New!

Get A Hobby

When someone tells you to “get a hobby”, it isn’t that insulting. If the person is blunt, it could be a handy suggestion.

Either way, find hobbies! Now, no one is saying that you should do something that overwhelms you.

If you want to take apart a PC and rebuild it, only to realize that you don’t have time, don’t do it. Start out with simple hobbies!

Who knows? That one hobby can build upon your potential. We learn lessons from the simplest things.

3) Ask For Help, Please!

Excessive pride ruins motivation.

Asking for help isn’t as scary as you think it is.

Having a problem and letting it build up beyond your control won’t help you in the long run.

4) Visualizing Your Goals Optimizes Your Outcome

Yes, visualizing what you want and what you need to achieve has a massive affect on you!

How else are you going to climb that mountain or paint that piece if you don’t visualize the process to materialize the outcome?

There is nothing more satisfying than smiling while you’re thinking about it.

All of a sudden, you smile again because you’ve accomplished your goal.

It’s not easy! It will take practice. If you think it, you will achieve it.

As long as it’s within reason.

5) Planning is Key

Planning doesn’t have to be an ABCD rhythm.

When we do that and we fail C or D, that really brings us down. Plan all possible outcomes.

If you have plan A down, jot down all of the possibilities that could happen.

Understand that you must consider negative results.

6) Take A Breather!

Try to do deep breathing exercises.

Bottling up anger isn’t good for anything. Even your brain becomes slower due to stress.

Go to a quiet place, fix your posture, and just breathe for a few minutes.

Carefully analyze the problematic situation between breaths.

This method lets you sort it out and it helps provide clarity.

7) Positive People Are Important

Overly positive people can be a nuisance, and they can ignore their problems too.

Reasonably positive people are valuable.

Surround yourself with people who are helpful and drum to their own beats. Strive to stand as a leader.
Next time you find yourself staring aimlessly at the clutter you’ve accumulated, follow these tips.

Remember that it is fine to fail repeatedly.

Brush yourself off and continue to march forward.

Decades ago, students made use of printed maps for their classroom learning.

With the advent of technology, students of the modern days have replaced these printed graphs with a high tech alternative.

Instead of bringing a folded piece of map with them to school, all they need are their mobile devices.
Mobile applications such as Google Maps readily provide students with all the geographical information that they need, whether it be local, regional, national or even global.

What’s more is that these applications do not simply provide a continental view of the world, they provide street view perspectives, which are certainly more interactive.
With all these features, these applications make classroom learning more interesting for students.

In the recent years, teachers have turned to these applications to augment their teaching.

If you are looking into using such in your class, then this article will show 10 ways to use Google Maps in the classroom.

Read on and find out how you can transform your boring lessons into interesting ones:

1. Easy Reference

Google Maps provide an accessible reference any time you need geographical information. With just a few clicks, students can easily access any type of map that they need.

2. Longitude and Latitude Games

Apparently, maps can be fun too and you can play some games with them!

Looking back to your geography class, you are most likely familiar with longitude and latitude games. You can use Google Maps to make it more exciting and accurate.

You can play longitude and latitude games by doing a sort of “scavenger hunt.”

By describing a location through its longitude and latitude values, students can compete with each other by determining what location is being referred to.

3. Earth Picker

Earth Picker is one of Google Maps’ exciting features that will increase the students’ knowledge regarding geography.

With this feature, you can create a contest and have students enjoy while learning.

4. Google Sightseeing

Google Sightseeing is another feature of Google Maps that showcases the most spectacular places on earth.

This feature increases a sense of awareness and appreciation in students while they learn about geography.

5. My Maps

My Maps allows its users to create their own maps.

With this Google Maps feature, students can explore the depths of their creativity and make their own geographical graphs.

This can also be used as an evaluation if the students were truly able to gain substantial geographical knowledge.

6. Smarty Pins

Smarty Pins is a game created by Google in relation to its Google Maps application.

Basically, it quizzes students about a variety of topics ranging from arts to current events. This can be used to have a classroom trivia.

7. Video Tour Creation

With Google Maps, users can attach videos to a certain location.

With this feature, students can create a video tour, which makes geographical learning more informative and interesting.

8. Community Maps Creation

Students can now make maps of their own communities using My Maps.

This activity will test the students’ knowledge of local geography and this will also promote a sense of belonging to their respective locales.

9. Distance and Area Measurement

With Google Maps, students can easily measure a location’s distance and area.

With just a few clicks, they can conveniently access these values that are vital for learning, most especially in subjects such as Mathematics and Geography.

10. 3D Representation

My Maps also allows users to view maps in a three dimensional perspective. This gives students more accurate geographical information while entertaining them as well.

Video games have been a hot topic for years and the nicest thing that was said about them, was that they are just a waste of time.

But recently there have been arguments that games could be used to make this world into a better one.

It may seem crazy at first.

What good could it do, to play Candy Crush or Angry Birds all day long?

Or have we just been blinded by the negative press games have been getting?

What potential do video games really have?

Studies that used to focus only on the negative effect of gaming, such as violence or addition, have started exploring other outcomes.

Jane McGonigal, a game designer, has done her own research to prove to the world that gamers do not need to feel guilty about spending time in the virtual worlds.

According to her, people who play games can be more optimistic and hopeful in their daily lives.

Many games teach them to work in a team and be resilient when it comes to failures.

Games can be very rewarding and when you have accomplished something considered hard you will feel satisfied and extremely good about yourself.

Some companies have even requested that you put your gaming experience on your CV.

But do you really want to tell your future boss how many wipes it took you to clear an instance or raid?

Or how many hours you spent robbing banks? Perhaps not.

Gabe Zickermann, author and a gamer himself, believes that games can be used to motivate children.

Used the right way games can be a fun learning experience for them. With this they are able to get better at reading as well as solving problems.

Gamification

In this process game mechanics and thinking are used to motivate people to solve problems.

Zickermann argues that, like in games, people should be rewarded and that teamwork should be supported.

SuperBetter

McGonigal created a game called SuperBetter that was initially supposed to help her get better.

She was suffering from a serious depression.

Not long after feeling better she changed the game and opened it up online. The feedback she got was extremely positive.

Her game had been helping people with various health problems such as depression, terminal illnesses or cancer.

Playing is essential to humans

Dr. Stuart Brown, a psychiatrist, has worked with murderers. His work has showed that playing is important to every human being and that the lack of it can lead to violence.

It can also be a hindrance in personal development.

According to him gaming helps personal growth.

Transfer from game to reality

One problem however is that while players spent a lot of time and energy in games, they are often less interested in putting the same time into their lives.

It is just more interesting to kill a raid boss in World of Warcraft than running errands.

And even quests such as bring milk from here to there are more interesting in a game than in reality.

Unfortunately we don’t get those experience points and currency for doing those jobs.

But perhaps we can learn to reward ourselves a little every time we finish a certain “quest” in real life.

McGonigal thinks that immersive games are the answer to that problem and is already working on several.

Maybe then we can put the addition of “just one more game/round/instance/quest” to a good use and make this world a better place.