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Reconnecting with Schoolmates far easy in an App-Driven Life!

February 9, 2022
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Miss your childhood memories?

What if it will be like if you reconnect with your schoolmates after years!

It’s true that school friendship is innocent and a lasting one. As we grow older and move on with our lives running behind time and profession, we lose friends, classmates, and teachers who have contributed something to become who we are today. It’s a good feeling to reconnect with school mates, recapture old memories and move ahead with old friends of life.

And that’s pretty easier in today’s App Driven life. Technology has become a part of our life and a powerful medium of communication, no matter how far, communication is promising and certainly finds your missed schoolmate and there are many ways to locate a person.

First and foremost idea is to surf your friend name along with your school name on Google. If their profile is somewhere on web, definitely you spot them in the search results. Then it’s simple to get connected.

Some find on LinkedIn where a discrete option is available to find people, refined by school and location. Especially on LinkedIn, the professional network, it’s more likely to meet many of your friends on the network using Find Alumini or just by searching their name with school info.

Sites like Classmates.com has more than 55 million registered accounts and class directories spanning more than 25,000 high schools and it’s a great resource for Americans to locate school friends.

All above are some quick tips to locate your missed schoolmate but interestingly some schools/colleges take advantage of technology and plan earlier to help their students stay connected with their school and schoolmates with various apps even after their graduation.

Before we discuss, here are few examples of how

Stanford University law school created its own Facebook-like social network for alumni and students that includes legal wikis that they can collaborate on for specific practices, said Lisa Farris, associate director of web communications and identity at the Stanford law school. The wikis include overviews of different practices, key skill sets and more information that students and alums can share together.

M.I.T. (@MIT_alumni) has had similar results with its LinkedIn alumni group, which it allows students to join before they graduate so that they can network with alumni.

These founded networks help collectively to

  • Unite Students & Alumini
  • Conduct Education Conferences
  • Help find a job
  • Make meaningful connections &
  • Share inspirations, thoughts and reflections

Besides school owned & operated networks, there are many networking sites available for free to achieve school & student networking

  • LinkedIn Groups
  • Facebook Page for School
  • A place on School’s website

While Social Networking or the so-called networking benefits in lot of ways, schools/colleges equally should be concerned over the unethical internet activities. This is certainly possible to execute and here’s what we recommend to ensure that the purpose of the network is well-maintained.

In this comprehensive approach, schools need to

  1. Define a clear policy & the educational motto of the network. The instruction on usage must be circulated and well educated among the audiences to effectively utilize the medium.
  2. Apart from School-owned network, Schools must take time in imparting education about online safety and responsible use and the threats involved in the usage since student’s addiction in these network is getting increased.
  3. There must be effective oral and technical monitoring.

Of course, helping former students stay connected is just one reason universities are turning to social media; Awareness is another, and there are many more. At the end of the day, it is evident that through technology, everlasting connection with school is possible. Even if your school doesn’t have a network, make your first step in finding and connecting your schoolmates that benefit each other and possible in an App-driven life!

 

Tips to Improve Student’s Attention in Classroom

December 4, 2022
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Students who pay less attention to subjects in their classroom face extreme struggle in being successful. Some of the factors assumed for the lack of attention in classroom are continuous usage of digital devices, misbehavior to seek others attention and psychological fallout. Some educators work out to find a righteous solution to improve student’s attention well before beginning to teach.

Today, at PenPencilEraser Community, we share some workable solution to capture student’s attention in classroom, researched and compiled with popular resources online.

SHARING POSITIVITY IN CLASSROOM

The context of the strategy is to invent and use some tricks to gain positive attention of students. It is important for teachers to capture student’s attention towards him/her in the classroom to deliver the subject without distraction. Following ideas better explain the purpose of this strategy

  • Ask question to student who is pretty sure of the answer
  • Make eye contact and smile at the student
  • Gift little compliments for progress
  • Appreciate student’s work and behavior
  • Apart from lesson, give some examples of encouragement
  • Invite students to summarize the lessons they understood at the end of the session
  • Initiate brief conversation with every student

AVAIL VISUAL OR AUDITORY LESSONS

The era is advancing technically, and it’s the right time to rapidly revamp the classroom architecture with interactive digital devices to deliver classes. The outcome of implying tech classroom is for more engaged students who think deeply about the course content.

Teacher’s role apart from digital classroom plays the best part. But how? It is nothing but varying the tone, volume and the facial expression which can actually trigger student’s interest. Adjusting volume either high or low trigger student interest and curiosity. While instructing, it is important to teach with expressions to infuse emotions that makes students involve in the subject. Volume modulation is again an other powerful strategy that really works. Whenever a context or the most important part of a context was uttered in a low voice or whispered, it defines the mystery and conspiracy that make student curious and excited to listen careful Whereas when you raise your voice, it represents that some highlighted facts is explained. This one is a known fact that teacher’s usually try to grab their student’s attention just with their voice alone and they have ability to control the classroom with the power of their voice.

EVADE EMBARRASSING MOMENTS

When talking about achieving a positive atmosphere in classrooms, some students might be subjected to reprimand for any complaints in studies, behavior or scores. Before taking any disciplinary actions, think of an alternate solution to realize their mistakes instead of making them feel embarrassed with punishments. Frequent punishments affect the student’s personality and in fact has adverse effect in shaping their individuality. Use strategy to skip punishments and bring some extra time to address their fading attention. Be neutral while reacting student’s mistakes.

INTRODUCE NEW STYLE OF LEARNING

Constantly changing the seating or enhancing the classroom environment keeps students active and give a fresh atmosphere to study. For the long year, with the same routine, classrooms become dull and boring for students. Changing the usual way of learning definitely evoke attention among students and a new set up will energize the students making them more attentive in the classroom.

PRACTICE CHECKLIST & ORGANIZATION

Time management is important and when students use time efficiently, the scope of learning more new things is obvious. Timing any activity in classroom will help student get conscious of timing and stay attentive throughout the task.Timing pupils almost always causes them to focus on the activity at hand and mentally prepare for the upcoming change.

EMPLOY ATTENTION  SIGNALS

Attention signals are several and you can apply one that suits your classroom. While on research, we have found different styles teachers imply to keep their student active. Some interesting deal of teachers listed down for your reference:

“At our school, every class decides beforehand on a ‘stop-word’, which could be a single word or short phrase related to the topic. i stand up, clap twice, call the word, and wait as the pupils fall silent. i also give points to those who stop and look.” - Jane Clockwind, Teacher

“A really good way to get the attention of the class without losing your voice is to stand at the front of the class with one hand in the air. Then make a long, continuous ‘shhhhh’ gradually getting quieter as more and more children realize you require their attention. I have found this to be particularly effective as it gives children those few extra seconds to finish their sentences and snippets of conversations that really just can’t wait!” - Sonja Cheal, Teacher

APPLY HUMOR INSIDE CLASSROOM

School students are young and are pretty fun lovers. Teaching with a fun accent obviously let students enjoy their classes and help in improving their classroom attention. Humor is a valuable tool, The usual classroom setup with daily routine of periods is dull and boring but if sprinkled with humor say putting a fun drawing in the board or adding a fun element while teaching captures the attention of students because laughter can reduce the stress and anxiety and improve self-esteem and self-motivation. The psychological results out of laughing help improve student’s attention in classroom as well improve the bond between the teacher and the student. Above all, Humor brings life to the content.

CONDUCT A SELF RESEARCH

This one is left to self analyze and understand student’s attention ration on a self experiment. To figure out, split the class into two groups and teach a lesson, one in traditional manner and for the other groups with some positive tips and attention seeking activities. Test the difference on your own with the two batch of students. The result certainly accentuate the importance of concentration for students in classroom.

Your points or experience in improving student’s attention are most welcome!

The 7 Must-Have Skills for Students of the Future

November 4, 2022
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What’s actually needed for Students of Tomorrow? Is it just Education or something more?

The world of today is advanced and the civilization faced tremendous changes these years in accordance to the developments happening each day. The future is simply impossible to figure out, the exact scenario of lifestyle and jobs what people will do. But at this stage, new education challenges arises for all countries to reform the learning agenda shaping students of future. Education sector must realize and act to bring in programs today that build skills for students of tomorrow.

The fact is our business and personal lives has more connection to the data accumulated from all over the world. Any business from any place in the world can make a difference in a person’s life making the world look more interconnected. This expectations in changes welcome more changes in the way of business in every industry. In such a rapidly evolving landscape, education is the key to survive and today, we discuss what skills do actually students must also build on parallel to their learning period.

Consolidating below the 7 most and must-have skills to impart in Student’s Education for building a stronger future:

Moral Living Cognizance

“Fill the brain with high thoughts, highest ideals,
place them day and night before you,
and out of that will come Great work”
-  Swami Vivekananda

Apart from Education, Students of today and future should adhere to moral policies to understand and live a meaningful life in essence. The sole purpose of education is to influence students how to think, act and connect between characters and as well approach the life positively. Hence, schools must term the social glue in education that defines how individuals should live together more in real world than in the virtual world.

 

Fitness Physically and Mentally

As opposed to moral education, physical education becomes important for a student well-being. Mental well-being is again a credible factor to consider in children education. Program and activities are crucial to shape minds of students to think broad and explore more which eventually improve student’s performance. Educators should put in conscious efforts to eliminate habits of laziness and sloppiness and help acquire habits of self-control and diligence amongst students physically and mentally.

 

Critical Thinking & Logical Skills

Gone are the days of business which is monotonous and reserved. All businesses of today strive hard with series of improvement to beat competition and acquire the market. The market is global with eCommerce meaning the competition is global. Students must be aware of this competitive world and should develop their intelligence to be able to think rapid and smart to solve the problems in their career. They must be responsive enough to analyze a situation and deliver the right solution. With more number of students entering profession with strong capabilities to rethink products or services, it marks the transformation of the world of tomorrow.

 

Effective Communication

In today’s world, one must be frequently communicating over a number of channels such as phone, social media, business meet, and online forums and so on. Effective communication is highly mandatory to deliver your points and win the situation. Unless or until this skill is developed, students run into extreme struggle to find their position in their career. To do this, students must be very well aware of its importance right at their schooling and the school must take all steps to educate the consequence in case of poor communication with facts and figures to stress its urging importance. From drafting an email to sharing a comment on social network, schools can teach their students to understand the etiquette of communication on all platform which will greatly help in their career and also behave well in the society.

 

Digital Learning Talent

The information uploaded to web is exponential which may not be covered to read even in a life time. Hence, it becomes critical to increase the interest in finding and knowing information and as well understand the difference of usual and trivial information on web. Making the most of internet in terms of downloading reference materials, finding answers of questions, discussing issues on a common platform can nurture brain with wealth of information to store for future reference. Plenty of website are available online to make learning easier and interesting which are credible for student’s education.

Naturally, there must be an Appetite to Learn for students of tomorrow.

 

Leadership Skills

An importance skill to develop for students of future. Variety of tools and activities are available to build the characteristics of leadership. These program aspire students and encourage to improve self-confidence, humility, enthusiasm, authenticity, emotional intelligence, responsibility, courage and flexibility. Preparing curriculum with room for activities to experiment and develop leadership quality make extraordinary leaders of tomorrow. More than a leader, it is important to acquire leadership quality for a student to face challenges in search of opportunities and go through tough times at life.

 

 

Team Work

Team work involves collaboration and serve as an empowerment to unite and strengthen each other capacity in a group.  Students learn how to cooperate and be loyal to the team while involving in team building activities. Apart from developing leadership quality, being a good team player adds value to their profession. Many successful organizations of today achieved their success with team work founded on trust, loyalty, talent and confidence. Every kid must be given a chance to be a team leader and as well a team player to handle the pattern of responsibility and build their capabilities in handling both on the same extent. Extraordinary team work bring cheers to the entire team and students must be a good team player to adopt to the profession of tomorrow.

 

This applies to education globally, all are united somewhere and somehow and the aforementioned points if given equal importance to learning irrespective of borders will delight the world together. Let’s break the traditional pattern of studies and teach what is really required. A drastic transformation is expected to integrate real-world context in education.

Biometric Authentication Getting Popular !

September 8, 2022
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Use of Biometrics promotes healthy academic administration at schools. Biometrics is the best solution for verification and identification at schools. It secures, saves time, money and energy and improves the standard of the school. Employing Biometric benefits in terms of convenience and is the safest measure to track students and also to maintain accurate data of peoples at schools.

Why your school need a Biometric System?

 

 

Filtering the benefits, employing Biometric at schools include the following

  1. Unique for School: All people of school carry his/her identification to school, making oneself as a citizen of the school.
  2. Measurability: The verification process is instant and the data is processed in a flash with accuracy in the biometric system. The waiting time is reduced.
  3. Ease of Use: Biometric technologies over other automatic identification systems is proved to be of ease for the people who actually use the system. In other kind of identification system where a proof of identity in form of objects is required, Biometric certainly overcome the situations in case if the person forget to bring along or lost the card making him/her in trouble.
  4. Comparability: Makes it digitally comparable to others. The reports are being linked to the system with which varied reports can be generated to better compare and understand the statistics.
  5. Inimitable: Biometric are unique and matchless, the records are proof written and irreproducible by other means. The less reproducible, the more likely it will be authoritative.

Besides verifications, schools depend on Biometric popularly to manage attendance, library access, labs and in school vehicles. These are the obvious places where Biometric is employed, besides many schools use it to identify the visitors into the school and in event days.

In Attendance: Biometric system can deliver the accurate timing report besides saving time and paper. This applies to students, teachers and all staffs in the school. Every single record is accurate and since Biometric is strictly adhered to verification elements which is unique from individuals to individuals, it reduce or eliminate fraudulent data.

In School library: The use of Biometric at Library help in recording the library usage. Fingerprints, unlike a card or money, cannot be lost or forgotten on the way to school!

This Biometric Authentication has transformed over the years utilizing more than one physiological or behavioral characteristic to allow access into the system of purpose. It is capable enough to scan from fingers to veins based on the purpose. The accuracy and the authentication of the biometric is undeniable. Most advancement are taking place in this thought. Technology outsmarts the smarter minds and gets going rapidly. The recent innovation in the biometric concept is identifying with the person body odor. This gives much more in personal identification. It has travelled from the finger print, voice, face and so now the new technique with new concept.

 

 

Here’s the list of advanced biometric system in market today

1. Smartcards: Smartcards void the need of verifying the facial nuances by direct contact, instead the biometric system is capable of reading the facial and related information encrypted in the card. This technology is used to minimize the time in scanning the facial image at the point of verification. It used Radio Frequency Identification to verify, helpful at places where no network access exist.

2. Vein Recognition: Vein recognition works by sending infrared rays and capture the image by reflection method. This way, the deoxidized hemoglobin in the vein absorbs the infrared rays and thus make the vein appear as a black pattern which will be the captured pattern. This is insisted at places where ultimate security is required.

3. Multimodal Biometrics: This technology uses more than one biometric identifier to verify the person. It is to improve the accuracy at situations where verification should be confirmed to process.

Cutting-edge schools are realizing the advantages of Biometrics and are testing or deploying to improve both the data handling and the student’s safety which also enhance the school process. More than all, safety is the foremost factor that any school consider of high importance. With biometric attendance, schools make sure student gets off the school at the right place. The technology works great and Parents love it.

The possible advantage are many, and schools are one among the places where the system is huge and is defined by the peoples in it. Hence, a Biometric System will be supportive and of great support for the management.

The concept of cost savings and RoI is positive with School Management Software

August 5, 2022
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Adding technology to your school subtracts expenses to a greater dismay. Here’s the exact list of expenses you can avoid by installing a school management system.

For the list of benefits added here, we have cited PenPencilEraser‘s school management system which the schools are already experiencing it to be to prove the statements highlighted below.

1. Delivers enhanced Resource Management for schools

 

By installing a school management system, Super Admin(usually Principal, VP or Authorized person of the Management) who is in charge of all school administration task monitor and manage all works on the system. This system of control call off the requirement to enroll separate staff to administer different departments of school such as Fee, Payroll, Inventory, HR Finance and so on.

A Super Admin can feed all data into the system and track all money management flow in the school with a few clicks and in software like PenPencilEraser, money management is a distinguished feature in built to streamline the expenses and income of schools. Such system has the facility to create n number of users with different admin privileges to access the system and the super admin can divide the task to different admins who complete prompt on the system.

2. Conveying information through sophisticated channels

 

Personal communication often is required at schools to contact parents and teachers on any important announcement or emergencies through call or message, accounting to the cost to the management. Especially for a school of high strength, it’s time consuming and costlier. A school management software with communication features inbuilt, SMS can be rolled out in no time saving cost, time and energy together.

3. Cutback the running time for future

 

Time is priceless, and when a school management system saves your time, you can utilize it in finding other ways to improve the academics, streamline the management and more on the whole giving more time to focus on strategic task at your school.

4. Paperless Administration as Resultant

 

One exceptional quality of any school management system is it reduces the amount of paperwork and the cost incurred for spending on stationary. In PenPencilEraser, the teachers can apply leave online with their individual login created for every staff at the school wherein the head of departments approve/deny the leave which gets notified to the leave applicant. Such intelligent system get rid of minute paper works which saves money to a greater extent.

5. Multiple Board Management on a composite dashboard

 

The other notable advantage is that when schools follow different board structure combined, managing all boards efficiently together requires accuracy and individual staffs to maintain the activities. This again can be avoided by a school management system since all the board structures can be predefined and school can start working with a single admin to control the activities of school dashboard.

To conclude, Many licensed or subscription based models of school software exist in the market. Considering the total operation cost held to the management, installing a school management system definitely lowers the expenses and also found to be a better return on investment concept for schools. These online software can hold records of any size with their cloud computing technology and is scalable and customizable to meet schools of any size and structure.

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