Daily Archives: July 16, 2010

Books, Courses, Education, Education Services, Elementary School, Knowledge, Lessons, Pre School, Schools, Society, Student, Teaching

Debut Author Covers Life Cycle of Black Swallowtail Butterfly in Inspiring New Children’s Book

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In her thrilling new children’s book The Caterpillars that Grew… and Grew … and Grew, debut author and illustrator Robin Murray follows the three-year old Maddison as she explores the world through her magical magnifying glass and learns all about the amazing life cycle of the Black Swallowtail Butterfly.

When the Black Swallowtail Butterfly makes its debut each spring, seeking out colorful flowers for nectar, Maddison is able to identify it from its unique wing shape and distinctive black, yellow and cornflower blue markings. After the butterfly lays its eggs on dill, parsley, fennel or carrots, they can see a little caterpillar munch its way out of the egg and start eating. Finally, the caterpillar stops eating and find a place to spin its chrysalis, its cocoon.

And there it rests quietly, hanging by a little silk thread. Several weeks later, an amazing thing happens to Maddison’s surprise. Really close to the chrysalis, she glimpses a little head will poke out and the butterfly come into the world. Still wet, she watches as the new butterfly pumps fluid from its body into the veins of the crumpled wet wings. As the veins fill, the wings expand. Soon, a lovely butterfly stretches its black wings open and shut, practicing for its maiden voyage into the sky as wide-eyed Maddison is filled with awe and wonder about this miraculous transformation.

From egg to growing caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly, Maddison and Mimi, her grandmother, take readers of all ages on a delightful adventure and teach youngsters all about plants to best attract butterflies as well as host plants best suited for feeding hungry growing caterpillars. By releasing each beautiful butterfly, they make the world a more beautiful place for all mankind. Realize the importance of preserving and protecting one of God’s most tiny, beautiful creatures and learn about the ways to preserve the butterfly’s as well as the larva’s natural habitats today in Murray’s entertaining and inspirational book The Caterpillars that Grew … and Grew … and Grew, a window that inspires children and adults to ask questions, explore and learn all about a very popular and beautiful species of butterfly that lives in the southeastern part of our country.

Via EPR Network
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Promethean Partners With Bloodhound Supersonic Car Project

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Promethean, a global leader in interactive learning technology, has become the official interactive education technology partner of Bloodhound SSC (SuperSonic Car) Project.

Bloodhound team members have held the World Land Speed Record for the past 26 years, however the new Bloodhound project aims to design and build the first car capable of achieving 1,000 mph and smash the World Land Speed Record. The three year project is lead by Richard Noble OBE and Wing Commander Andy Green OBE who set the current record of 763mph (1228kmh) in October 1997.

Promethean will work with the Bloodhound SSC team to support its international education programme and engage young people in the science that underpins this challenge. Supported by an array of global technology companies and universities, a key objective for Bloodhound is to inspire young people to pursue Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) education and careers.

The project will provide open access to its science and engineering research data and design iterations involved in the development of the Bloodhound SSC. Ultimately this will be the catalyst for a raft of cutting-edge research in fields such as; aerodynamics, materials technology, composite manufacturing and sustainable high-tech engineering.

“In the 1960’s, the goal of putting a man on the moon inspired an entire generation to take interest in STEM. We hope Bloodhound will have the same “Apollo Effect” for this generation” said Jim Wynn, Chief Education Officer at Promethean.

Promethean will be installing its ActivClassroom technology in Bloodhound’s education centres, creating the ‘classroom of the future’ and will be equipping Bloodhound’s education ambassadors with relevant software and educational resources for use in schools.

Via EPR Network
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Henley Business School and Lane4 Develop Business Coaching Programme

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New research from Henley Business School and the performance development consultancy Lane4 has highlighted how team coaching is being used successfully to improve business performance – but also how much further it has to go.

The survey, ‘Coaching Teams At Work: Embryonic Yet Powerful’, reveals that almost half of the organisations surveyed (45%) use both individual and team coaching and there are some glowing endorsements of the impact it has. The top benefit is increased employee engagement at 28%. Other benefits include improved trust within the team (22%), increased productivity (19%) and more effective and innovative solutions (18%).

However, more than half the organisations surveyed don’t use team coaching, for four main reasons: managers haven’t had any training in team coaching (32%), managers don’t understand the benefits of team coaching (31%), managers don’t feel confident coaching their teams (25%) and some feel their teams object to being coached (13%).

Dr Patricia Bossons, director of the Henley Centre for Coaching & Facilitation, said that this can be overcome: “Managers sometimes perceive coaching to be something done by people outside the business to people inside the business – just as in sports’ coaching where the coach is not normally a player as well. In business however, managers are now required to be player-coaches – a role many have not received training for – this is something we need to address if the obvious benefits of team coaching are to be more widely felt.”

To address these issues and make the powerful benefits of team coaching in a business context more accessible Henley Business School and Lane4 have developed, and will deliver, a new programme, Coaching High Performance Teams, from October 2010. The partnership will leverage the two organisations’ combined academic rigour and experience of coaching teams in a business environment as well as Lane4’s heritage in Olympic sport and expertise in performance psychology.

Via EPR Network
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Pioneers of the Essay Industry Split with Controversial Brand

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15 years ago, Jens Schriver and Maximo Migliari, just youngsters at the time, launched an essay site with the contentious name Cheathouse.com. It instantly caused a commotion within the academic community where the assumption was made that such an initiative was unethical by nature and could only encourage dishonest conduct.

”We should have gone with the name WriteWork instead of Cheathouse from the beginning. But back then we thought it was catchy – we were just kids with no clue of what was in store for us. We’ve grown up since then and so has our business.” Says co-founder Maximo Migliari.

The essay site promptly caught the interest of the international press and all of a sudden Schriver and Migliari were featured on CNN, BBC and NPR.

As a reaction to the poor public labeling, the two founders resolved to find out for themselves whether their members actually were using the essay site for cheating.

Personal interviews were carried out and hundreds of members filled out questionnaires. The results showed clearly that a minor portion planned to use the essay site for plagiarism while the vast majority actually perceived the site as a legitimate academic resource that assisted them in finding primary sources and improving their grades.

What is more, the study showed that the minority with dishonorable intentions were mostly high school students – an interesting aspect when considering that the main audience was university and college students.

“Maximo and I are perfect examples that getting inspiration from essay examples doesn’t necessarily facilitate plagiarism and cheating. We both have university degrees and during the years we spent studying neither of us ever turned in an assignment that wasn’t original – despite the fact that we were running one of the most comprehensive essay resources in the world.” Says co-founder Jens Schriver

Since then, Schriver and Migliari have focused their resources on tuning their site to earnest university and college students – changing the name to WriteWork is an crucial step in the right direction.

Among the new features that will be appear on WriteWork in the near future is a collection of outlines for writing essays, research papers and book reports as well as a guide for citations and bibliographies.

Via EPR Network
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