We seem to be setting ourselves up for disaster education. Efforts are underway not only to adopt value-added models to rate the effectiveness of individual teachers, but to use these models to identify those at the very bottom who might later lose their positions and those at the very top who might then be eligible for merit pay. Yet in all the policy discussions and public commentary, there's been little focus on learners and on how, precisely, we define the qualities of a good teacher.
The movement to revise methods for teacher evaluation to include such models came about in an effort to undermine current evaluation systems that tend to rate most teachers as satisfactory (Hull, 2011). => http://bit.ly/ka9Fzo
The caps lock button, which causes everything you type to be in capital letters, is often pressed by accident. The results aren't life threatening, but having to retype a sentence or two can really tick me off. Many have looked all over the internet for a way to warn them when the Caps Lock key is mistakenly pressed.
It turns out that the answer is right inside Windows! Windows has a feature called "Toggle Keys". When the toggle keys feature is enabled your computer emits a beep when the caps lock or num lock keys are pressed, and a different beep when they are pressed a second time to turn them off => from the Pivotal Personal Best ezine this week (available until 13th June) http://bit.ly/jnAOxS
Goodnight Nobody
by Jennifer Weiner
Chick Lit star Weiner's fourth novel, following In Her Shoes (2002), which has been adapted as a major motion picture starring Cameron Diaz, follows bored, upper-middle class, suburbanite mother of three Kate Klein as she becomes entangled in a local murder case.
Goodnight Nobody is chock full of plot twists and turns. Weiner's readers will root for Kate, whose humor and warmth amidst her struggles to transcend the roles of mom and wife make her a loveable, fully realized character.
Selling for just $5.50 at Pivotal Preloved Books
On Saturday, the Journal’s Meghan Cox Gurdon, who covers kids books for the paper, wrote a story called “Darkness Too Visible” in which she argued that fiction aimed at young adults in recent years had become rife with pathologies. “[K]idnapping and pederasty and incest and brutal beatings are now just part of the run of things in novels directed, broadly speaking, at children from the ages of 12 to 18,” she wrote. => http://on.wsj.com/kUUeID
"Discoveries are often made by not following instructions, but by going off the main road; by trying the untried." -- Frank Tyger
I’ve been an emcee for a few gigs — and being a female doesn’t always put me as a first choice in the stereotyping! I do wear a black tuxedo (women’s style — classy) with red bow tie and cummerbund, with heels.
Tips:
Look the part to begin with! (whether male or female) — it ADDS to the show ambiance.
Interview people in the audience about this event — that night — they are already there — dressed up and ready to have fun! I did this at a large retirement roast for the big wig. During the happy hour, I walked around and interviewed his friends and colleagues, asking: "If you could describe Greg in one word, what would it be?" People loved it — got them in the mood for the event — and were thrilled how those words (quoting the individuals) were used throughout the presentation and introductions.
What doesn’t work? Like ANY presentation, to show up unprepared — either by not knowing your subject (or roastee), your audience, or not knowing your material!
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I speak on humor and I often do "master of ceremony-ing". I have found several things that work well:
Research all of the people/programs you will introduce. Find out anything you can so that your introduction is not canned but sounds more like you know the people well.
Plan to use humor and interesting comments as segues from one person/program to the next. I have a database of jokes/stories/quotes and I find the ones that fit with the topic or person that I am introducing and then use it as a segue.
Comment on what just happened. Nothing is worse than for something to happen on stage and the emcee goes right on with the next introduction as if he/she missed the point. I make it a rule to find something humorous or meaningful about the previous person/event when I come back on stage and I use that to begin my transition to the next introduction.
Keep it short. If the emcee takes too much time, it takes the focus away from the event. That doesn’t mean that the emcee can’t be funny and meaningful but it should always support the main event.
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Most speakers’ calendars are pretty empty around the holidays while mine is fully booked because I emcee corporate holiday parties earning as much or more than I usually earn for a keynote speech.
I believe that the job of the emcee is to be “invisible.” We should make everyone else the “stars,” make the event fun and keep the program on schedule. Know your audience and be as helpful as possible to the company you are working for.
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Probably the biggest tip for emcees is to tell the client that as emcee, during the event, you will only answer to one person and you will only make changes in the program if that one person approves. This reduces confusion and makes life a lot easier for the emcee. Every single emcee program I have done has gone smoothly as a result.
These tips and many others are included in the booklet “How to Be a Great Emcee,” available for download for only $4.95.
These tips have been collected from top professional speakers who know how to run a meeting successfully.
This article is aimed at people working with children, but would be just as effective for a group of adults. Storytelling is such an important skill for the public speaker, that any of these ideas could stimulate an improvement
Oral storytelling is one of mankind's oldest traditions. It's probably the origin of teaching too. Storytelling skills are excellent ones for children to learn, and attending storytelling sessions given by an adult will pay dividends. Kids learn to improvise, gain an understanding of basic story structure, sequence a story correctly, speak with confidence and engage an audience.
Busy Baldacci, already on his third hardcover of the year (after The Sixth Man and One Summer), here launches a new series starring combat veteran John Puller. Now a top-notch investigator in the U.S. Army’s Criminal Investigative Division, Puller is asked to look into the murder of an army man and his wife, a Pentagon contractor, in their isolated rural home. => http://bit.ly/mrzgjj
“A sage thing is timely silence, and better than any speech”
Plutarch
