Tech

How can Peer Effect Help Your Class? – Several factors influence a student’s education. For centuries it has been teachers who lead lessons and encourage participation. An even stronger influence has been a student’s peers.

Essential to the Learning Process

The interaction between classroom peers is normal and essential from kindergarten to 12th grade. It can help bring an isolated student into a community to engage in discussion. The peer effect has long-lasting results through an individual’s school and work life if done correctly.

Parent Influence Plateaus

In the 1970s, psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner developed a theory of five ecological systems of influence. These areas describe how children learn and observe as they grow. For instance, preschoolers tend to be influenced more by family members.

However, as they enter school, taking advice from their parents reaches a plateau. Instead, they’re influenced by their teachers and peers. Other students’ daily activities, like creative school project ideas, get stronger over time. Eventually, it extends into the following two spheres of influence. These are the mesosystem and ecosystems.

Peer Instruction

The peer effect only works with the right instruction. The teacher can’t be an authoritarian who expects their students to listen without participation. Instead, they need to maintain an authoritative posture. In other words, trust they can do the work together.

This form of instruction is widely used in science-based courses like physics. Nevertheless, it can apply to any evidence-based class or lesson, for instance, a discussion of a historical era or the best way to perform a math equation.

The basics of peer instruction are:

• Instructors pose a challenging question to their students.
• Initially, the students individually answer the question.
• Next, students work with a partner or group of class peers to discuss their answers.
• Then, when they mutually decide on a response, the students answer the question again.

Here, the peer effect takes hold. Together, they establish a belief that there’s no wrong answer. In turn, this engages debate between the peers to determine a suitable response. For those who don’t normally participate, the peer effect encourages them to say something.

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The Downside of Peer Effect

For the most part, the peer effect positively influences students. Yet, as children grow, the motivation of their friends or groups can reduce their interest in instruction. Their influences could cause them to be disruptive in class or completely uninterested in school.

The way to turn this peer effect around is to engage the student continually. Imagination and problem-solving are important tools to keep a child interested. Yet, this slowly vanishes as classes adjust to a pre-college assessment environment.

Continual engagement with their peers in a classroom environment not only maintains their excitement. It also helps them troubleshoot issues in the adult world. Plus, if they establish strong peer interactions in school, individuals will most likely continue to seek out others to solve a challenging issue.

Overall, schools must continually examine the peer effect in their classes. This allows them to fine-tune teaching methods and establish an interesting curriculum. In addition, they can refer to Adobe Education Exchange for further guidance.

How Augmented Reality Apps Are Changing the Home Renovation? – Undertaking a home renovation can be challenging, especially when you don’t have an army of contractors and interior designers to aid you. Making decisions about the right couch and the perfect place for a kitchen island isn’t as straightforward as you might imagine. That’s especially true when you’re an investor with no background in decorating.

Thankfully, we live in a technologically advanced world with plenty of helpful tools at our fingertips. If you’d like to learn more about real estate tech that will endure in a post COVID world, follow this.

This article explores how augmented reality apps are changing the home renovation game for the better. We’ll be doing a deep dive into what AR is, the best apps on the market, and the benefits of using them in your next remodel.

What is AR?

Although augmented reality is quickly gaining traction for its usefulness in the real estate world, many people still aren’t clear about it. AR creates virtual simulations using digital tools and real-world spaces to cut straight to the point. In other words, it is a way to visually reimagine what a room would look like with a new set of chairs or a different wallpaper. Like how drone technology is changing the real estate market, AR offers users the opportunity to shift their perspectives with more comprehensive views.

Additionally, using AR is pretty easy because many of these apps are available for download on any smartphone. With a few taps, you could examine how 3D furniture would look in your house before buying it. Here are some of the best apps on the market:

What are the Best AR Apps for Landlords?

1. IKEA PLACE

IKEA PLACE is a wonderfully easy-to-use 3D staging app that merges reality and imagination. It’s one of the most popular tools for its simplicity and true-to-scale furniture models. Professional Property Management of Northern Virginia suggests using the latest technology to assist with property management and recommends using user-friendly tools.

They’re also constantly updating their vast selection of curated objects, which improves the user’s experience.

You can browse through their featured collections for user favorites or explore on your own through different categories. Place anything from chairs to tables and carpets to find your home’s correct size and style.

2. MagicPlan

If you’re looking to create or redesign your floor plan, look no further than magicplan. Magicplan’s niche is measuring, estimating, and creating reports of your floors in minutes. This app is a great tool to have in your kit for budget-conscious investors because it’s free. That’s right; you can access state-of-the-art sketching tech without spending a dime.

Also, magicplan has no time limit, so you create as many 2D and 3D plans as possible. More so, their custom reports are incredibly accurate at estimating the pricing for your project, which can save you a lot of stress.

3. Build.com

This app offers incredibly detailed visualizations of 3D pieces in your home. They’re great at letting users experiment with various appliances like lights, kitchen faucets, and plumbing fixtures. You can even interact with the items by toggling them on or off. For example, you can see how different lamps illuminate your bedroom.

One of their best features lets you connect with live project experts. These professionals range from designers to contractors and can give helpful advice on what products work best. That way, you can clear up any confusion before ordering your favorite things.

4. RoOmy

If your renovation has more to do with interior design, then roOmy might be the right fit for you. The creators behind this app specifically sought to improve its staging capabilities, making it perfect for trying custom designs.

You’ll undoubtedly find it amongst many furniture options if you’re looking for inspiration. Users can experiment with different furniture designs like Ethnicraft, Gus Modern, or Japandi and see which product complements their rental. You can shop for these designs from well-known online stores like Amazon, Crate & Barrel, Target, etc.

4. Housecraft

Like roOmy, Housecraft is a staging app that lets you see how furniture looks in your home. However, it isn’t synchronized with top online stores but has a selection of generic furnishings and styles. That also means that you can resize these objects to your taste and see which measurements work best in your rooms.

Housecraft is an excellent visualization tool for people still in the early stages of planning. It gives you a perfect starting mark on which you can build the rest of your remodeling plan. After seeing how these objects look in your home, you can buy the best fit.

5. Wayfair

Wayfair, one of the most famous American furniture and home-goods brands, also has an excellent AR app. With this tool, you can shop for anything in your home. Visualize what your rental space would look like with selections from one of the world’s most extensive collections in your palm.

One of their best features is that the app learns from your previous choices about your taste and preferences. Thus, you can easily find picks curated specially for you. Further, if you’re on a budget, the Wayfair app allows you quickly sort through your options by price. You don’t have to fall in love with a feature before realizing it’s too expensive for your needs. When you’re ready to bring your dream home to life, you can place an order for your favorite object. Then using their real-time tracking device, follow up on your delivery’s progress.

6. Houzz

Another excellent home solution is Houzz. Like many other AR tools on this list, it also has e-commerce functionality. In other words, you can buy a couch from the comfort of your couch. This hyper-interactive tool helps discover new bathroom, kitchen, and bedroom remodeling ideas. Further, you can save photos of your different experiments and compare them with other designs later.

Besides generating brilliant new home ideas, you can also save more money on sales. Find the perfect vanity, cabinet, or dresser from over 5 million products.

Uses of AR Apps in the Home Renovation Industry

1. Allows you to take automated measurements

It’s common knowledge that when you’re planning a renovation, you have to break out the tape measure, or do you? One of the main reasons AR gear is helpful to property owners is that it saves you the hassle of trying to calculate your room’s exact dimensions. Many of the latest apps can automatically estimate a room’s length, breadth, and height. All you have to do is point your phone at the corner. That saves you a tremendous amount of time and energy, which you can channel to other aspects of your renovation.

Another advantage getting precise measurements gives you is that it allows you to calculate how much material you need. It’s always annoying to drive back to the store to get more wallpaper or discover that you have excess leftover paint. In other words, it allows you properly budget for the materials you’ll need.

2. Makes renovations faster

Renovations are short to medium-term projects that take several days or months to complete. Often, you might find yourself corresponding with your designer or architect for weeks before reaching a decision. However, AR technology allows you to collaborate with your contractor while actively ongoing work. That makes decision-making faster by cutting down communication time. As a result, property owners can speed up their remodel and start reaping the benefits of their changes.

3. Leaves room for modification

Sometimes you might have your heart set on a particular design. Perhaps you’ve seen it looked great in the catalog or theory. However, once the walls start coming down, you might not like what you see or change your mind about what you want. The problem is that it might already be too late at that point, or making any alterations would be too costly. Using AR can guarantee your satisfaction by removing that gamble.

With modern tools, you can adjust building models and design as you see fit. That allows you to explore different layouts without altering the original. In the end, you can decide on what looks best to you without wasting too much time or materials.

4. It is economical

Home renovations can be an expensive undertaking. After all, brand new countertops aren’t cheap, and some investors even have to take out a loan. The last thing you want when you’re spending so much money is to end up with a project you don’t like. However, AR technology allows you to cut costs by managing your resources.

Firstly, you spend less time discussing modifications with contractors who charge you by the hour. Also, accurate measurements precisely estimate the number of raw materials you need to complete a project. AR proves to be an effective and economically-friendly tool by conserving such resources.

5. Creates a helpful layout for repairs

If you’re outsourcing your remodeling to an expert, you might bother yourself trying to understand the different layouts. However, if you’re a DIY enthusiast going at it alone, you need all your help. With AR apps, you can get more definitive pictorial and interactive guides during your project.

In addition, with the on-site project information, you can make informed decisions on the wall, windows, and outlet locations. That makes it easier to adhere to standard building plans and protocols.

6. Facilitates getting assistance from experts

Many AR apps allow you to embark on a renovation project like a pro. While that’s great, sometimes you might realize that you’re out of your depth and need the assistance of an expert. Another advantage of using AR tools is that they facilitate getting in touch with the professionals or services you need.

For example, some apps give you the option of ordering directly from a store nearby. Thus, after helping you visualize the perfect color and space it would occupy in your room, you can make your model a reality. Additionally, some tools let you consult with an expert on your design. This feature is handy for extensive remodeling projects like adding an extra room.

7. Reduces vacancy time

While some renovations might not greatly hinder your day-to-day schedule, extensive projects might require you to vacate the premises. Since real estate generates income from rent, it runs at a loss while your apartment is empty. Thus, it would be in your best interest to complete your renovations on time, so you secure new tenants.

As we highlighted earlier, AR tools can significantly boost your renovation timeline. It provides tools that improve communication, cut down reworking, and facilitate decision-making that can hold back progress. As a result, you can get your listing back on the market sooner by letting you conclude your remodeling plans faster.

8. Improves your interior design

Imagine going to the store to buy a chair, only to realize it looked better in the shop but is ill-suited to your house. That means the money, time, and energy you spent selecting, transporting, and installing the piece was a total waste. If you specialize in letting furnished or vacation rentals, this scenario might sound like a nightmare to you.

Rather than taking that risk, use an AR home decor tool to try different kinds of furniture in your space. Depending on your app, you can cycle through multiple designs, colors, and accessories to what works best for you. This customization feature can take your interior design game from mediocre to exceptional.

Conclusion

Home renovations are an excellent way to boost your home’s value, make it more efficient, and attract high-value customers. We hope we’ve been able to shed some light on how augmented reality apps are changing home renovation. After all, the mark of a savvy real estate investor is one that uses modern tools to make their job easier and their investments more profitable.

To recap, we defined augmented reality to simulate virtual changes to your physical space. Further, we highlighted some of the best AR apps on the market for the task. Then we concluded with the benefits you stand to gain by implementing augmented reality in your next remodel.

Author Bio

Bay Property Management Group is a full-service property management company that provides top-notch service throughout Baltimore, Washington DC, Philadelphia, and Northern Virginia. Offering over 12 years of industry experience and a highly qualified team of property managers, leasing professionals, and maintenance technicians. Find more information at baymgmtgroup.com.

Why is Test Automating Salesforce is a Game Changer? – Undoubtedly, Salesforce is the most popular Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. One of the greatest advantages Salesforce customers have is that it can also be used to create custom enterprise apps across marketing, sales, and service. Moreover, it can also be integrated with numerous enterprise apps like Oracle financial management, Workday HCM, etc. To offer new features, improve the performance, security, logic, and usability, Salesforce rolls out three seasonal updates i.e. Spring, Summer and Winter.

Although the benefits of these updates are numerous, customers need to test updates prior to deployment in production. The reason being these updates can impact the existing business workflows, customizations and integrations. Due to the frequency of Salesforce seasonal updates, customers are facing challenges in testing Salesforce applications.

Manually testing Salesforce updates requires a lot of time and effort. Furthermore, there can also be issues like inadequate risk coverage, inaccuracies due to human intervention, and opacity as manual testing processes are totally human dependent.

Hence, in order to increase the speed, efficiency and accuracy, Salesforce test automation should be utilized. In this article, we will learn about Salesforce test automation and understand its benefits.

What is Salesforce Test Automation ?

Test automation is a process in which the necessary steps like test design, execution, and maintenance are automated. Incorporating automation helps you deploy continuous testing in which defects are detected during the design phase, keeping defect fix cost at minimum while keeping business risks at bay. Salesforce test automation is specifically an automated testing process adjusted to cover the advanced complexity of all the different pieces that make up a Salesforce application.

Although the benefits of automation are numerous, implementing it can be a challenging task due to its complex architecture.

Challenges of Test Automation

Custom Applications:

Salesforce is highly customizable and can be tailored to meet your business goals. In case of custom development, it is recommended to involve business users to create test cases as they are the ones who know business processes best. However, the challenge with this approach is that most available test automation platforms are developed with a programming mindset and require technical users to create test cases. Since business users are non-technical, they find it difficult to create test cases with a script based test automation platform.

Regular platform updates:

Salesforce is popular for its seasonal platform updates. To ensure that these updates do not affect the existing features, it’s important to perform test automation. Apart from this, whenever a business process change occurs, new business logics are implemented, or new integrations are set up, a Salesforce instance needs to be tested. However, what to test during regression testing can be challenging. If regression suites are selected based on personal experience, it might lead to inadequate coverage. If too many cases are executed, it will consume a lot of time and still not ensure adequate coverage.

Dynamic Elements:

Conventional test automation platforms use element locators to automate Salesforce. Since Salesforce features dynamic elements, it requires a lot of effort to identify and locate elements to automate. Even if you’re able to locate elements, it will result in a flaky test script. You need a test automation platform that not only identifies elements but also keeps automation script maintenance effort minimum.

Benefits of Salesforce Test Automation

There are several benefits to instigating automated testing in your Salesforce instances as mentioned below:

Increased test coverage:

You can route hundreds of tests with robotic testing. These will allow you to cover different situations, leaving no stones unturned. Especially with complex softwares like Salesforce which has multiple integrations and workflows. It is difficult to have test coverage with manual testing. As Salesforce comes up with frequent updates, test automation helps in quickly testing the platform in a short period of time.

Increased accuracy:

While executing regression tests, it might become monotonous for business users which might cause overviewing of bugs. Moreover, in case of manual testing, due to heavy dependency on humans, accuracy is always an issue. On the other hand, automation testing for Salesforce enables faster execution of test scripts and delivers accurate results. Improved accuracy can be witnessed since human dependencies are minimized.

Early problem detection:

Test automation helps you incorporate continuous testing. Continuous testing enables early, often and more comprehensive testing. This will help to detect bugs in the earlier stages of the development cycle. If defects are resolved in the earlier stages there is a rare chance of defects maturing till later stages, which becomes difficult to resolve.

Money & time savings:

Manually testing a Salesforce application is a time consuming and costly process. Test automation helps to test the same number of test cases in very less time. And time saved is money saved. Also, Salesforce test automation will allow you to save money by detection problems earlier and avoiding them in invention. Also, you can use the freed-up time for other valuable tasks.  Furthermore, you can reclaim automation scripts across multiple test cases, saving you resources.

Conclusions:

As we know that Salesforce is a complex software with updates happening frequently, it becomes difficult to test it quickly, qualitatively and also takes a huge cost and effort for manually testing it. Test automation perfectly addresses these concerns, saving time, cost, and efforts.

What Languages are Used to Code Hybrid Application? – Instead of relying on PCs and laptops to access the web as was the case not long ago, there is a growing demand to access web content and work with mobile devices. This is where applications designed specifically for mobile devices (commonly known as applications or Apps) came into being.

We can call them Native Applications. The growth of native apps was incredible. The use of mobile applications alone constitutes the largest part of the total of computer applications. Native applications have become the dominant strategy for companies to offer their services. Users connect not only to access web content, to communicate and interact with the company, or to get work done, but also to build their brand and manage their customer relationship.

By native applications we mean applications written using the tools and APIs provided by hardware and mobile operating system providers such as Google and Apple. These are tied to a particular platform like Android or Apple iOS.

Although the native app development approach is currently dominant, it is not perfect.

To provide an alternative to the native app development approach, there are other approaches, the most popular one is Browser App approach. This approach is a response to the limitations of ‘separate sites’. It is based on the desire to run an application from any mobile browser. Supporting different devices and not depending on the platform. Development is based on open source standards, and with an emphasis on code reuse leveraging the “write once, run everywhere” concept.

However, the “browser app” approach has some shortcomings. For example, from a technical point of view, even though these browser apps could work on any mobile device, they are still not essentially true mobile apps. They cannot be downloaded because they are accessed from the web and run primarily from the browser. Therefore, they cannot work without an Internet connection.

But to solve this, the figure of Hybrid Applications emerged.

In recent years, hybrid mobile apps have become an emerging and promising alternative to native app development. This approach allows developers to create a single mobile app, called a hybrid app, that uses web standards and distribute it consistently across multiple mobile platforms with (minimum to) no changes. Hybrid mobile apps have many advantages. They allow developers to use standardized web technologies like HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. You also have the ability to access native APIs. The advantage of using standard web technologies is that there is a lower learning curve. Furthermore, some frameworks allow us to maximize development time by applying the “write once, run anywhere” concept. In general, no worries for “newbies” though as they can easily find several reliable hybrid app development services.

What languages are used?

Developers can write a hybrid app like a regular app, and access to native hardware components like camera, notifications, or local storage is achieved through native JavaScript APIs. The application is compiled into platform-specific native packages and is ready to use on the mobile device or to distribute in app stores. This is perhaps the biggest reason why there has been a rapid growth of hybrid mobile apps compared to native apps.

In contrast, hybrid apps are based on both a native app and a mobile web app. Like a mobile web app, it is written in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, but is compiled as a native app for distribution through app stores. From a user point of view, there is little difference between a native app and a hybrid app. Meanwhile, since the device has a web browser, a hybrid app can work just like a native app. From a development standpoint, a hybrid app is truly cross-platform.