Thursday, January 26, 2012

All You Need To Know About Nursing Education

Unlike in the earlier years when nursing was viewed as apprenticeship that was commonly undertaken by the religious lot and the convents, lately it has become one of the most admired career paths, due to the several benefits attached to the career. For anyone looking for an exciting and rewarding career, you agree with me that nursing is with no doubt one of them. However, one has to go through some intensive training for them to be qualified and certified. Considering the wide range of institutions claiming to offer the best nursing education today, you need to be very careful in choosing the best institution. First, you need to ensure that the online education offered is not mediocre. The only way you can do this is by taking time to find out if the institution you pick on is reputable, not to mention that it should be certified and licensed by the relevant bodies in your area of residence.

You can also get the best schools by seeking recommendations from people who have gone through this career path before. A good institution will make sure that the students are well versed in the medical fields both practically and theoretically. The course takes four years to complete and can be specialized into quite a good number of areas. This includes the nursing specializations in pediatric, mental health and postoperative nursing among many others. The entry levels are quite numerous. One can choose to go for the diploma, undergraduate or the masters program depending on their qualifications, at the time they make the application. Whichever program that you are interested in, you can be sure to reap some good benefits in the long-run. The better news is the fact that, one can take the nursing online education. You can hence let go the worries of a busy schedule that will never let you take the course in peace. From the comfort of your home, you can take the online classes when you are most flexible and become a certified nurse just as long as you meet all the requirements.

To find the best most affordable institutions to take the courses from, one needs to take time to compare the rates of several institutions. This way, they have a chance to settle on the lowest prices school. One also needs to ensure that if they pick on an online school, it is recognized and the online courses are recognized in their area of residence. One cannot afford to have online nursing education in a place where people have no idea that it even exists in the first place. This would be a waste of both time and money.

How to Get a Child Psychology Online Degree

Child Psychology Degree - What is it?

Child psychology is a branch of developmental psychology that focuses on the social, mental and emotional development of children. While developmental psychology focuses on the physiological, cognitive and social development that occurs throughout life, child psychology focuses on the child exclusively. With this degree, you become licensed to treat only children, improving their lives through behavior change.

Child Psychology Online Degree - Education and Training

Most child psychologist's hold a masters or doctorate degree. If you don't like school or don't think you can handle much more than a bachelor degree - maybe a career in child psychology is not for you.

Why should I obtain a Child Psychology Degree Online?

There are many benefits to online education and online degree programs. The number one advantage is flexibility. You are able to work on your studies on your own time and at your own pace. It is easy to study online while having family or/and a full time job. You don't have to attend a scheduled class but instead, participate in online discussions and forums in the evening, early morning, weekends or whenever fits your schedule best. Additionally, you will be able to interact with faculty and students from different parts of the country as well as international. The breath and depth of knowledge you will obtain will be impressive.

Where do you work with a Child Psychology Online Degree?

Child psychologist work in a variety of environments, including day care centers, schools, developmental centers, clinics and pediatric hospitals, advocacy, government, publishing, the arts and research. In these positions they administer IQ and educational assessments, diagnose and treat learning disabilities, and work with children and parents to manage behavior.

Friday, January 20, 2012

Broadcasting Schools Refine Natural Skills

Broadcasting schools have always offered training for television and radio news professions, but these schools now train students for online newscasting and journalism as well. Natural skills and attributes, such as a strong voice, good diction, writing skills, love of public speaking and communications, working well under pressure to meet deadlines, and ability to research facts and issues to create sound stories, are all good indicators for success in this field.

Degrees from traditional four-year colleges and universities prepare students for bringing mass communications of all kinds to the eyes and ears of the public. Broadcasting schools located in vocational and technical schools and community colleges also train for local news broadcasts, sports announcing, political press, music and entertainment broadcasting, and much more. Advanced programs in broadcasting often focus on "new" types of broadcast journalism, some of which are advocacy journalism, infotainment and celebrity journalism, science journalism, and investigative journalism.

A broadcasting education can also prepare students for careers behind the scenes, operating cameras and microphones, or managing recording equipment and other broadcasting devices. Students can get experience with editing, producing, and directing news broadcasts for radio, television, and media of all kinds.

Broadcasting schools in colleges and universities, as well as online these days, provide important services to magazine, newspaper, radio, television, and Internet journalism. They provide skills for exposing the public to vital communications about people and events; they help develop the skills tomorrow's journalists need to report and influence public opinion, public affairs, political action, and public response. Broadcasting schools affect the world by teaching effective ways of creating and reporting stories, filming the actions, shaping, hosting and editing news, and providing the public with education and entertainment.

Future broadcast journalists learn to take on duties of developing ideas for stories; conducting interviews, researching, preparing, and shooting video; preparing scripts and news copy for live and taped programs; preparing and publishing radio, television, and Web productions; and acting as radio DJs and television anchors.

There are many large and small broadcasting schools in traditional and online colleges and universities providing extensive studies that can lead to bachelor and master degrees in various areas of Journalism. If you truly enjoy reading, writing, journaling, and news, check out some broadcasting schools that focus on your special interests and begin the journey. This may be first step that sets you on the career path of your dreams!

Monday, January 16, 2012

Newspaper Reading for Language Students

A Khmer student wrote to me on YouTube and asked me to produce videos about how to read English language newspapers.

"I'd like to ask you to make videos how to read newspaper and translate it from English to Khmer. I Khmer and I having a problem to understand English phrases." Wrote the student.

Language learners often write telling me about some area of learning or area of their lives where they are experiencing difficulties of comprehension and ask me for a trick or a guide to help them learn.

As I have said in numerous other language learning articles, there are no tricks and no hints. The more hours you invest, the better you will get. And if your goal is to read at a native speaker level, then you need to read things a native speaker reads. If you are a 22 year-old university graduate, then you need to be reading at that level in the foreign language. And you won't get there by reading textbooks ABOUT the language. You will get there by reading books, articles, and textbooks IN rather than ABOUT the language.

If we analyze this latest email, the student says he has trouble reading, and he specifically singled out newspapers.

Obviously, reading is reading. On some level, reading a newspaper is no different than reading a novel or reading a short story.

If you are reading novels and short stories, you should be able to read newspapers. If I asked this student, however, he is probably is not reading one novel per month in English. If he were, newspaper reading would just come.

Therefore, the problem is not the reading or the newspapers, per se. The problem is the lack of practice.

I never took a course called "Newspaper Reading" in English. I just started reading newspapers. And at first, I had to learn to deal with the language, structure and organization of newspaper writing, but no one taught me, or you. It just came to us. The same was true for German or Spanish newspapers which I can read almost as well as English. No one taught me, or taught Gunther or Pablo, it just came through practice.

A point, that I have made many times in articles, is that when you begin learning a foreign language, you are not an idiot. You are not starting with an empty brain. One reason it takes babies three years to learn their native tongue is because they are also learning what a language is and how language works. You know all of that, and much more. Babies don't know that there is such a thing as grammar. Every single piece of vocabulary has to be learned. A seven year old may not know the words "population, economy, government, referendum, currency" in his native tongue. So, reading a foreign newspaper would be difficult for him, because reading a newspaper in his mother tongue is difficult for him.

If you are an adult, coming from a developed country, with at least a high school or university level of education, you should already be able to read newspapers in your native tongue. At that point, reading a newspaper in a foreign tongue is simply a matter of vocabulary.

True there are different uses of language, and styles of writing. And newspapers do have style which differs from other kinds of writing. But you just read, and read and figure them out.

The problem with most learners, however, is that they aren't reading novels and short stories. Most learners need to just accept that they need practice. They need to read, and read, and stumble, and fall, and read again, until they get it.

I didn't develop a taste for reading the newspaper in English until I was in my late twenties. But, by that time I had read countless books in English, and completed 16 years of education. I only began reading newspapers because I had to read foreign newspapers at college. Then I learned to read the newspapers in English first, to help me understand the foreign newspaper.

One of the problems, specifically with Khmer learners is that there is so little written material available in Khmer. American students have had exposure to newspapers, magazines, novels, reference books, poetry, plays, encyclopedias, diaries, biographies, textbooks, comic books... Most Khmers haven't had this exposure.

Know the Truth - Abstinence Education Works

Abstinence education is a useless construct of the Right...right? A survey of mainstream media would lead you to believe just that. the truth, should it ever get out, is shocking. There is an abundance of evidence that shows abstinence education is effective in reducing teen pregnancy. This evidence is important to consider now that the Democratically controlled congress has cut Title V funding (abstinence education) from the budget.

In Georgia, since adopting abstinence education the teen pregnancy rate has dropped 46 percent. The steepest declines occurred when abstinence was at its highest funding stage. This pregnancy decline started in 1995 when the state of Georgia made abstinence its statewide policy. Think about that, a 46 percent decline in teen pregnancy as a result of a statewide policy of abstinence education. Shouldn't that have received at least a footnote in the anti abstinence campaign the mainstream media has been waging?

A randomized controlled trial conducted by jimmott it al. found that abstinence-only intervention significantly reduced sexual initiation among young African American adolescents after a 24-month follow-up period, and did not reduce condom use for those virgins who did become sexually active.

An evaluation of "Reasons of the Heart" abstinence curriculum found that adolescent program participants were approximately one half as likely as the matched comparison group to initiate sexual activity after one year. The program effect was as strong for the African American subgroup in the sample as it was overall.

The "Sex Respect" and "Teen Aid" abstinence-only programs reduced the rate of initiation of sex by more than one third for the high-risk students in a Caucasian high school sample after 12 months.

These are just a few of the many peer reviewed studies out there that show abstinence education get positive measurable results. Have your heard of any of them? Why did the media ignore peer reviewed studies that showed abstinence education works? And, if the evidence that abstinence education works is so prevalent, why has funding for Title V been discontinued?

There is one study however, that enjoyed wide exposure and acceptance. It was quoted and covered by all the major news outlets. Can a study become a media darling? The Mathmatica Study did. The Mathmatica study showed conclusively that abstinence education doesn't work...right? If you read the headlines that is what you would have come away with. Headline after headline: "Abstinence Education Proven Ineffective". The Mathmatica study was championed by all the mainstream media and quoted by politicians that wanted to do away with abstinence programming. So, let's take a look at Mathmatica

The Mathmatica studey examined four abstinence programs, that's right, four. Those four programs showed no positive outcomes for teen sexual behavior (of this there is no debate, the four programs were not effective in reducing teen sexual activity). take a close look at the number of program Mathmatica examined: four. That's it. Now the headlines and articles never mentioned that only four programs were looked at. Why? The headlines and articles that ran in the national newspapers and were story leads on ABC, CNN, NBC, and CBS were clear: "Abstinence Education Ineffective". Wouldn't a much more honest and accurate headline have been, "Mathmatica Study shows four abstinence education programs ineffective"? Why did the mainstream media withhold the information that Mathmatica only looked at four programs? Can you honestly evaluate a national movement with thousands of programs by looking at four of them?

All four of the programs Mathmatica evaluated used a non-representative study sample. The four programs served African American youth from poor single-parent households. Why didn't the mainstream media cover this?

The programs themselves were flawed. I know that's harsh, but they were. The very structure of the programs guaranteed they would not be successful. The four programs that Mathmatica looked at had intervention ages that were young. Some students were involved with the program as young as 4th and 5th grade. And then never again. That's right, none of the programs had any contact with the students during the 9th, 10th, or 11th grade when transition to sexual activity typically occurs. Of course the programs failed. How could they succeed? How can you expect to impact sexual behavior if you don't intervene during the years that sexual behavior starts? They were failed programs to begin with.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

How Has Technology Improved Education?

Teaching and learning have taken on a whole new dimension due to the major impact of technology in schools. Teachers now have a medium to communicate effectively with one another and share ideas to better their teaching skills. They now have a pool of endless resources they can utilize to offer students the assistance they need to develop their ability and advance. The computer has improved education in many ways. There is now the reduced use of paper, which plays a role in environmental conservation. This positively supports what teachers are trying to instill in their pupils; it is important to preserve the natural environment and take care of our surroundings. There is no better way to do it than putting a stop to cutting down trees.

Other notable areas of improvements as a result of technology are;

- Information on different subject matter is readily accessible. This is not only beneficial to teachers, but students as well. There is no limit to the knowledge one can attain from the internet. What's more, the material available is diverse since it's presented by people from different parts of the world. This opens up a student's viewpoint and allows for fresh, new ideas to arise.

- There is a lot of software that schools can use to create far more interesting presentations and programs. Students can use the software on projects thus they have a way to express their tasks effectively and in detail.

- Technology has helped do away with distance and time restrictions. Online education has opened numerous possibilities for students and teachers alike. You can now school or teach from anywhere in the world. Many online schools are accredited and registered with the necessary government bodies. This means that every individual interested in acquiring a higher education has the opportunity to do so now. Many people who have jobs also have the chance to pursue further studies without giving up their careers.

- The introduction of schools online has made education more enjoyable and achievable. Because this allows a visual and audio mode of communicating, everyone can share ideas, knowledge, as well as information and make others the better for it.

Through technology, education has been transformed. Learning and teaching has become more interactive. It has also done away with barriers as knowledge can now be shared across borders. Different cultures can now openly appreciate one another as they learn the various ways of life. Technology has undoubtedly improved the scope of education and through this there will be more technological advancements. Thus, technology and education are correlated; they work together to develop each other.

How Do You Educate Your Special Needs Child for the Real World When they Grow Up?

Educating your special-needs child is extremely important, if they are to ever grow up and participate in the real world. There are many learning disabilities that children will grow out of, and they will be able to overcome in order to live normal lives, active lives, and participate fine in society. Of course, there are some things which are almost impossible to predict, which just goes to prove that your special-needs child's education never really stops.

The other day I was discussing this with a very nice couple whose special need teen was not really cut out to go to college, and they didn't graduate HS in the regular class, nevertheless they got the appropriate education for their particular child, and they would have to continually work with their offspring to prepare them for the real world. Luckily, there are other social services available to help them through this process, but life will always be somewhat of a challenge.

There was an interesting piece not long ago, on FOX News titled; "TSA Admits 'Bad Judgment' After Disabled Man Subjected to Airport Pat-Down" which was published on June 10, 2011. The news segment noted;

"A Detroit father told FOX that the TSA singled out his special-needs son for a pat-down while the family was headed to Disney World. The TSA admitted was a case of bad judgment. The Detroit Metro Airport took his son Drew, 29, and asked him about the padding underneath his pants, which turned out to be adult diapers. Drew, who is severely mentally disabled, had trouble understanding the agents' orders because his family said he has the mental capacity of a 2-year-old."

When the father intervened to explain, the TSA folks said to step back, let them do their job, they knew what they were doing, and not to interfere. Perhaps, you can understand how difficult this was for the family, but it gets back to my main point, and that is; just because your child can understand how to perhaps count money, dress themselves, do limited cooking, and perhaps live on their own, doesn't mean they are prepared for all the things that might occur in their lives.

In this case it turned out to be quite an event, and perhaps a traumatic one for the mentally disabled individual. Maybe the biggest problem here is that many people in our society do not understand how tough it is, but maybe some good will come out of this story in the news, and remind us all, that these special needs folks are also members of our society, and we need to look out for them as well. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.