Having a Positive Online Tutoring Experience

Struggling to learn something new can be very frustrating. When a child tries and tries to learn something, but he just can't understand it, the child's motivation to learn can be affected. An effective way of getting a child the help he needs is a tutor, specifically an online tutor. But, as the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. The same is true with children. Some don't seem to want to learn. So, though you want the best for you child, he often will resist help. With a bit of finesse, you can make sure he still has a positive online tutoring experience.

Online tutoring can be in many forms and many subjects. The key is finding the right one for your child. Does your child learn better from seeing or reading about something or hearing it? Different tutoring services are suited for different kids, and choosing the right one will help your child experience positive online tutoring. Some services offer voice-to-voice communication, and that is really helpful for kids who have weaker reading comprehension skills. But, a child that is a visual learner can be helped quite a bit by seeing the math problem, for example, be worked out.

Another important aspect for getting a positive online tutoring experience is to be prepared for the sessions. The more the student knows going in, the more he'll get out of the sessions. If completely unprepared, he will get less from the session as he is trying to learn the material for the first time. If, however, he as already seen some similar problem, but maybe is tripped up on one or two concepts, he will be in a better position to gain from a tutoring session. In addition, if he has already attempted to learn the material on his own, tutoring will greatly act to re-enforce the material--repetition is one of the best learning tools. As you can see, one of the keys to having a positive online tutoring session is preparation.

Lastly, and this is probably the toughest to do, is to go in with the right attitude. Attitude is another key component to getting positive online tutoring. If a child simply does not want to learn, it will be very hard to force him to. If, however, the child is convinced he is going to get something out of a tutoring session, he probably will. Undoubtedly, some kids will be embarrassed about having to get help, and others believe that they have mastered a topic, but their grades say otherwise. Positive online tutoring can help these kids, but only if they are willing to learn. Convincing a child to take the time to learn is something that is not only difficult but very tricky. However, once a child starts to see gains from 1 or 2 tutoring sessions, he'll be eager for more!

Improving Customer Relationship Skills with Online CRM Training

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) training is useful to know the customers of a company and how to effectively interact with them to achieve your business goals. Computer based training on CRM system allows the beginning of this mission-critical learning.

A typical computer training class emphasizing on developing and enhancing customer loyalty is a collaborative job between the employer, providing the CRM guidelines and the employees accepting the challenge to take computer based training.

CRM training can help companies to retain their valuable customer data, but also to expand it making the business grow, as the employees become successful business professionals. Viewed from any angle it is an advantageous situation for each of the participants.

Computer training courses may include one of several of the following component: tutorials, online study guides and manuals, CRM systems, self-study materials and programs, educational videos, Internet computer training class, and other educational resources.

Customer Relationship Management is considered more than an art, the true science of building profitable and mutually beneficial relationships with customers, providing professional training, business and management skills courses, and even exam preparation to obtain CRM certification.

Although CRM Systems were originally a series of server-based applications for marketing, sales, and support business functions, today the terms is usually used to refer to a plan developed to track and analyze customer needs, linking actual marketing campaigns to sales results, and monitor sales activities to improve forecasting accuracy.

Computer based training can provide employees with the adequate tools to identify all the different stages that integrates CRM planning. Several organizations providing computer-training courses through an Internet computer training class, simulating the customer's activity to better understand the goals of the course.

It is estimated that CRM systems are the force that make Virtual Teams Work because, in fact, many companies stick to the original concept involving software developed to assist the individual in every step of the Customer Relationship Management.

Computer based training often comes with samples or full applications of programs such as Business Intelligence, CRM OnDemand, Customer Data Integration, Sales Analytics, Sales Forecasting, Incentive Compensation, Marketing Management, Email Marketing, Event Planning, Marketing Analytics, Marketing Resource Management, Call Center and Service, Help Desk, Self-Service, e-Billing, Sales Training, and other.

Chicago Schools with Mostly Low-Income Students See Inequitable Funding Standards

Most parents assume that their children are getting an equitable education, regardless of where they attend school or in what district. However, Chicago may differ in educational opportunities, depending upon several factors -- the most prominent being the percentage of low-income students and the quality of property values within the different districts. With many of the schools providing education to low-income students, these factors impact the quality of education your children may receive.

Let's look at schools in Chicago General George Patton School District 133. Its low-income students comprise 97 percent of the overall students educated within the district. The state standard per student funding is $8,786. Patton receives $10,144 per student, 15 percent above the standard. Sounds good? It's not.

Low-income schools must provide for the special needs of the low-income students, such as extra tutoring programs, remedial programs, preschool, and free lunches. Once the normal costs of special education and transportation are added in, there is little left of the school's budget for typical needs, let alone educational enhancements. Some of the Patton students cannot even take textbooks home to study, because there are not enough for each student.

Low-income schools must provide such services to ensure the children living in poor families have the same education advantages as their other children. With no formal education before kindergarten, they need the extra schooling that many times must continue throughout elementary school.

Now let's compare Patton to Northbrook School District 27 (not in the Chicago area). It has a school budget of $20 million per year for 1,310 students -- $15,308 per student. It has only 0.6 percent low-income students and a sky-high property tax base from which to draw funds -- according to the Northern Multiple Listing Service, the average home in this school district carries more than $2 million in value.

Northbrook spends very little on low-income student services. They can afford well-educated teachers. Students have access to wireless laptops starting in fourth grade. They provide continual teacher professional development and administration support. Student has daily physical education classes, art and music twice a week, and daily interaction with technology -- they have over 700 computers and a seven-person technology staff. Their gifted program meets several times a week for children in kindergarten through third grade, and daily for as long as three periods for fourth graders. They provide after school activities, such as the broadcast club, chess club and competitive sports.

The low-income Chicago schools cannot compete with wealthier districts, and the children are not as prepared for college or post-graduate careers. Chicago schools education advocates are concerned with the wide variation in school district per student funding amounts across the state, which ranges from $4,437 to $23,798 per student. They believe it is unfair that poor Chicago schools have to choose between the basic needs of children in poorer families and education enhancements that are demanded by parents in wealthier Chicago schools.

Some of the contributing factors for inequalities in Chicago schools are:

o Chicago schools have to pay teachers more than rural schools, since their cost of living is higher in Chicago; but much less than wealthier schools -- many teachers do not have a college major or minor within the subjects they teach (mathematics, for instance),

o Most Chicago schools spend more on bilingual education to serve the growing immigrant populations,

o Low-income Chicago schools have higher costs for administration and support services to address the students' attendance, emotional and academic issues, and

o Low-income Chicago schools receive most of their funding from state and federal government grants; whereas, wealthier school districts receive the bulk of their funding locally, most of which is from property taxes.

The funding source also causes difficulties for low-income Chicago schools. State and federal grants come with more strings attached than local funding. They dictate to the Chicago schools how the money is used and cause more administrative costs in dealing with the associated red tape. These Chicago schools are vulnerable to the whims of the politicians, who may create or cancel a program to ensure reelection. The financial status of the state and federal budgets affect low-income Chicago schools annually. Lastly, many grants are tied to specific programs and initiatives, taking away a lot of the choices and flexibility that the wealthier schools enjoy.

So, when choosing a school for your children from the Chicago schools system, determine the percentage of low-income children that make up the school's student body and research the median property values for the area. Ask the school principal what percentage of their funding is from government grants and what comes from local funding. You will be glad you did -- and so will your children!

Graphic Design Training -- Enhancing Your Computer Graphic Design Skills

Graphic designers nowadays require not only creative abilities, but also some understanding of other graphic design-related areas such as computer graphic design.

During the 80's, the advent of desktop publishing and of design software such as Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia Fireworks, put the power and versatility of the computer at graphic designers' fingertips. Designers for the first time were easily able to manipulate images and create 3D images using the computer. Computers are now considered to be an indispensable tool in the graphic design industry, though some traditional graphic designers may still prefer to use manual and traditional tools for their creative endeavors.

With modern graphic design concepts and methodologies always changing, graphic designers need to continually advance their knowledge of different graphic design techniques, innovations and graphic design software packages. At present, the basic instructions in graphic designing cannot guarantee for a competitive product anymore without the use of high technology, so that the demand for highly skilled graphic designers is higher than ever.

To become a computer graphic designer, the basic requirements include good creative abilities, good computers skills, and good communication skills.

Computer graphic design helps graphic designers complete their tasks faster and easier. They can effortlessly translate ideas into visual imagery, save it onto their computers and edit it whenever alterations are necessary.

There are great many benefits if you undergo computer graphic design training geared towards arming you with a wider range of cutting edge graphic design skills. Having computer design training also means a greater choice of employment. Computer graphic design skills are in great demand in such sectors as:

1. Advertising agencies - You can use your newly acquired graphic design skills to design appealing and eye-catching advertisements for different media.

2. Web design companies - Help design appealing web pages.

3. Design studios - Apply your design skills to photo editing such as editing the contrast and the brightness of colors on the photos.

4. Publishing houses - Perform layout design and editing tasks. Publications usually follow a distribution schedule; so make sure you are able to meet deadlines.

5. Corporate advertising departments - Design professional corporate ads.

6. TV and film companies - out of all the other jobs, this is where a graphic designer is most suited as it requires a comprehensive application of the designer's skill and ability, especially if working on animation films.

Your computer graphic design training will open new doors for you into a world of greater opportunities. Your computer design knowledge, combined with your dedication and commitment, will surely help you reach your goal.

Reference and Education Article Category

Using calculators is a part of our modern way of life. Today it is not a problem for kids to get a calculator and put it into practice. Really, why must they toddle if they may ride a bike? On the face of it using calculators at school allows keeping away from many troubles.

By the help of a calculator we can carry out complicated mathematical operations quickly and accurately. Calculator proponents claim that calculators simplify tasks and allow students to spend less time on monotonous calculations and more time on understanding problems and determining the best methods for solving them; calculators allow students who would normally be turned off to math because of dissatisfaction or boredom to increase their mathematical understanding. Furthermore, every teacher of mathematics knows that there are graduating pupils in primary school who had not mastered the multiplication table, have difficulties with subtraction within the limits of 20 and so on. Give all of them calculators and they will obtain desirable result without sweating, puffing and having a dread of mistakes and therefore will become more confident about their math abilities.

But this good-looking picture is too charming to be a realistic one. There are several circumstances which make using calculators at school not so attractive. Firstly even a brand new modern calculator which has amazing computational power is a device only. Each calculator is as good and as accurate as its operator. To use it in proper way a pupil must know its manual well. Calculators of different kinds use different orders for carrying out mathematical operations, pressing keys, and their manuals have a bad habit to get lost. It is very easy to make simple mistakes when using one. You must think of the rough size of answers, so that you can see if an answer is sensible or not. To avoid mistakes you must repeat all calculations. If you get two different answers, then you must repeat all calculations for the third time.

Very often even advanced students make mistakes - pressing wrong buttons, forgetting to change a mode, rounding values too soon, forgetting to use brackets rightly ... And what about bad achieving pupils? Can you imagine that a pupil who does not know what brackets are for can use them correctly? How can a kid who cannot mentally multiply 8 by 7 weighs up a result?

For advanced students a calculator is a comfortable vehicle, which helps him to reach their aim more rapidly and more easily, but in case of need they can go out of it and move themselves. And what is more they very often perform better without a calculator since in many cases mental computations are quicker, easier and more errorless then computations with calculator.

Whereas for bad achieving pupils a calculator is a motored wheel chair for cripples, without which they cannot move. They are afraid to carry out mentally simple arithmetical operations and waste precious time when pressing keys.

Besides that there is another significant hazard. A person who all the time uses a calculator gradually loses his/her mental computational skills. Very often even advanced pupils take calculators when they need to make simple computations which can be easily implemented in head. Their brains slowly but surely get accustomed to walking on crutches and became indolent to use mental computational abilities, whereas skills, which are not used, became forgotten very soon. In certain cases it leads to difficulties in math's learning.

Both my experience (32 years in the classroom) and my investigations (20 years of studies) shows that pupils with unsteady elementary mental computational skills (addition and subtraction within the limits of 20, multiplication and division within the limits of 100) have great difficulties while learning the other basic topics of arithmetic and algebra. In other words they are doomed to poor progress in school math. Even calculators cannot help them. If you want to see some figures and diagrams you can read my article "Influence of a Level of Elementary Mental Computation Skills upon Success in School Mathematics" at my web site Prevention of Failure in School Mathematics (reference - My Articles).

Do not think that I am trying to stop progress and calling to finish with any computing stuff at school. It is obvious that we can not manage without calculators today, but we must remember about simple mental computations and their significance for success or failure in math. I consider that it is necessary to lay emphasis once more - extensive using of calculators (especially at the first six or seven grades) leads to degeneration of pupils' mental computational skills and afterward to deterioration of their learning ability. This is the main hazard of using calculators at school.

The Power Of The Unconscious Mind - The Secret To Student Success

One of the best ways I know of to give a massive boost to your ability to learn and to enhance your grades beyond all recognition is to leverage the immense power of your unconscious mind.

'The thinking process is unconscious. We become aware of the results consciously. All change takes place at the unconscious level. We become aware of the change consciously when we are ready.' Joseph O'Connor

What on earth does this mean???

Well, read on ......

Roughly two million bits of information per second come into the human nervous system. We are literally bombarded with information. To maintain sanity, our conscious mind filters out most of the stimuli and Miller (1956) discovered we can consciously handle only seven plus or minus two bits of information at a time.

The unconscious mind deals with everything else over and above the seven (plus or minus two) bits of information that you are not consciously paying attention to at a particular time. As soon as we switch our attention to something, then it becomes conscious. Some parts of your physiology will always be unconscious. This should not surprise us really. Our unconscious mind takes care of us all the time! We do not run our heart, lungs, kidneys, immune system etc... consciously do we?

I want to show you how to bypass the conscious mind in order to access the immense powers of your unconscious mind. The unconscious mind is around 90% of your total mind power as opposed to the 10% of the mind that you usually use in your normal daily waking state. The unconscious mind is a source of great treasure - of skill, of memory and experience.

The power of positive thinking can be significantly enhanced and reinforced by the use of affirmations. An affirmation is a short statement in the present tense repeated frequently to impress itself onto and be accepted by the unconscious mind. The ideal affirmation must be short and totally unambiguous. This is important, as the unconscious mind cannot easily assimilate long or complex statements. The unconscious mind is much more easily influenced by short, appropriately worded statements.

The majority of people however, are in the habit of negative thinking - of dwelling on problem areas in their life by repeating exactly what they do not wish to happen. This often ends up compounding the original problems and making them even worse. For example, a student might keep on saying to themselves:

"I will never be successful in my examinations".

Or: "I always get sidetracked when I am studying".

Or: "I simply can't concentrate".

The student who constantly repeats these negative affirmations, either consciously or unconsciously, will be much less likely to succeed in their examinations, and may never be able to concentrate or get their studying done.

Underlying almost every negative emotion is a thought or belief, and most often these are unhealthy thoughts or beliefs. By unhealthy I mean they are not effective in getting you what you want in your life. They don't serve you.

The belief (often unconscious) is like a trigger. It sets you up to fail in certain situations.

Remember this! If you do not THINK and fill your head with positive thoughts and beliefs, then negative ones will always come in to fill the gaps.

Please NEVER, ever, ever, ever underestimate your own abilities. It is never a question of can you do something. The real question is will you?

In the examples above, the student was repeating the negative affirmations in their head. They should instead replace them with the equivalent positive affirmations. Such as:

"I know I will be successful in my examinations ".

Or: "I am focussed when I sit down to study".

Or: "my concentration is improving".

This might well seem difficult to do, particularly in what may seem to be difficult circumstances or where the reality appears to be totally the opposite. However, believe me, like most things, it is just a question of practice.

Where attention goes, energy flows! You become what you think about most of the time.

The more often an affirmation is repeated, consciously or otherwise, the more quickly and effectively it will become real. But take care because this works just as effectively for both positive and negative affirmations. A great time to repeat positive affirmations is just before drifting off to sleep at night or just after waking in the morning before you get up. At these times your conscious mind communicates best with your unconscious mind. If you can repeat the affirmations throughout the day and even write them down and place copies around your home, so much the better.

An even more powerful possibility exists as an alternative to affirmations that are stated aloud or within the mind. This is the power of "Subliminal messages".

The power of subliminal messages has been proven over many years to be a highly effective way of programming the unconscious mind by using either audio or visual methods. In fact,subliminal messages are so powerful in the way they work on the unconscious mind, that in 1974 the US government banned all forms of subliminal message advertising on radio and television.

Subliminal messages reach the unconscious mind by working at a level that cannot be detected by the conscious mind. The conscious mind therefore never has an opportunity to reject them and the unconscious mind can receive and act upon them.

There are two main ways of using subliminal messages in a most powerful way - visual and audio.

Visual subliminal messages are affirmations that are flashed before the eyes so quickly that the conscious mind cannot perceive them. The affirmations therefore go directly to the unconscious mind, which perceives and acts upon them immediately.

Audio subliminal messages work in a similar way by being played at a frequency that is just above the normal threshold of human hearing. Again, as with visual subliminal messages, although the conscious mind cannot perceive these affirmations, the all-powerful unconscious mind can perceive them, and will therefore immediately act upon them.

Driving School - Learn How to Drive

Driving schools are becoming more popular by the day. Everybody wants to know more and more about them. This includes young people who can't wait for the opportunity to take the wheel in their hands, and also the concerned parents looking for a good school to send their kids. Gone are the days when fathers used to take their kids out of the city to teach them how to drive. Blame it on the constraint of time and their working hours which do not permit them to do it. Now though, thanks to the number of driving schools around, their worries can be put to rest. Driving schools can help young drivers become more aware of proper driving techniques and etiquette.

Driving schools are very reliable:

Driving schools take care of almost everything that has to deal with driving; from teaching the students about driving different cars, to teaching about the engines and also about defensive driving. The good thing about joining a driving school is that by attending at a qualified driving school you can actually reduce the tickets and fines you get, and you may even lower your auto insurance premiums. But the question is how to find a qualified or a good driving school? Keep in mind that the best driving school can be the one that has been recommended to you by a friend or relative. You can also rely on your local auto insurance dealer or contact the public safety office in your state.

Know your school well:

Even after choosing a driving school, there are certain things that you should enquire about, which may help you decide if this driving school is for you. The driving instructor should be your first concern. Ask how long your instructor has been a driving instructor. The instructor should be able to offer you combined and integrated tuition providing both theoretical and practical training. Ask about the cars they use, how old they are and if you will have an individual pick up service. You should also find out about their rates or if they have discounts for block booking.

Defensive driving:

In this course you would learn how to determine fitness of yourself and your vehicle for safe driving. This is for all driving; a motor vehicle for personal, or commercial use. They would teach you how to drive defensively, and the importance of using safety belts and air bags. You would also be taught about how to look out for pedestrians and other vehicles etc which are using the road along with you, as many people tend to ignore or miss them resulting in unwanted accidents.

If you are attending a driving school for a certain purpose, you may be required to attend certain driving schools designated by the agency for which you wish to receive credit.

Online course:

There are also many online schools now on the internet that you can easily enroll. You just have to browse through and look out for the school that suits you best. These driving schools provide quality courses for safe driving in both content and user interface. Many people join these courses which are well prepared, and may include text, videos, and animations to help you become a better driver in an interesting and interactive way. They cover everything from the traditional driving safety information to specific rules and regulations like the speed limits and so on.