Tuesday, August 25, 2020

Why Do We Consider Odysseus to Be a Hero free essay sample

For what reason do we believe Odysseus to be a legend? Is it safe to say that he was all projectiles and swagger like the saints of today? Is it true that he was a testosterone and force covering sort of legend we find in computer games? No, however he was brave in any case. His unwaveringness, valor, humankind and in particular, his knowledge, separates him from numerous different legends from his period and from our own. He epitomizes the most significant goals of Homeric Greeks and is depicted as a glad traveler, yet in addition as a mindful dad and a spouse. Dedication is one of the most significant of Homeric Ideals. Odysseus has consistently been viewed as faithful to his family in lthica and the men who he went with. A few instances of his dedication towards his family are his Journey itself, crossing blustery oceans and horrendous local people to see his family once more. His exceptional reliability propped him up for a long time until he was at long last rejoined with his dearest family. We will compose a custom article test on For what reason Do We Consider Odysseus to Be a Hero or then again any comparative subject explicitly for you Don't WasteYour Time Recruit WRITER Just 13.90/page He likewise never dismissed his objective to get back, during his stays with the two hot goddesses Circe and Calypso. His stay with Circe can be viewed as unfaithfulness to Penelope; notwithstanding, it was important to liberate his men from their pig-structure charm. Remarkable valor is an exceptionally basic quality among legends from untouched periods and Odysseus is no special case. He confronted the most fearsome animals, for example, Cyclopes, Scylla and Charibdys. He even blinded Polythemus, child of Poseidon. While he may have sobbed for his fallen men during these experiences, his mental fortitude not even once floundered, and drove him to outperform these obstructions regardless of how frightening. What's more, his excursion to Hades cooled his men deep down, yet Odysseus never surrendered to fear. Beowulf likewise had valor to save. His abhorrences may even have been more prominent then those experienced by Odysseus. Both had viewed their family butchered before their eyes, both have killed beasts, however Beowulf consistently slaughtered his prey alone. It takes unmistakably more boldness to confront a cruel adversary without your confidants to help you. Odysseus regularly shows that despite the fact that he might be a saint, he was as yet human. His feelings and how he communicates them show that he is as yet human to the exclusion of everything else. This would make him simple to identify with by the peruser/crowd. This is one zone where Odysseus outperforms Beowulf. While Beowulf may have had unparallel fearlessness, quite a bit of his characteristics were frequently brutal. Beowulf didn't show to have extremely solid family bonds, while family bonds are the motivation behind why Odysseus never abandoned his twenty-year Journey home. He may have been simpler to identify with during the time where his story was being told in bars where almost every man at one sought to be a respectable warrior. In any case, to the cutting edge peruser, Beowulf may appear to be a stacking ass of muscle that while having solid qualities, demonstrated little feeling. This makes Beowulf appear to be less practical then Odysseus. The most prestigious chivalrous nature of Odysseus was his knowledge. This is the thing that attempted to fight through each obstruction that came his direction. Odysseuss shrewd is the principle motivation behind why he remained alive, why Greece at long last crushed Troy with the Trojan Horse, and at last the motivation behind why he figured out how to return home despite seemingly insurmountable opposition. In any event, when faced by the goddess Athene, he stays wary and designs inventive lies on the spot. His aptitude in the craft of misdirection spared his life during his experience with the Cyclops Polythemus. To start with, by persuading the Cyclops to drink the wine and placing him into a profound rest where his single stayed open. Furthermore, by honing the storage compartment of an olive tree into an incredible steak, warming it over a fire and afterward pushing into the Cyclopes one eye. Third by calling himself Nobody with the goal that when Polythemus called for help he stated, Nobody is murdering by sly! justifying a diverting response from the remainder of the Cyclopes instructing him to tell his dad.

Saturday, August 22, 2020

People reaction Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Individuals response - Essay Example I have a distinctively clever yet obstinate companion. He is a forceful individual who utilizes either verbal words or his physical capacity to communicate activities. He is factious since he generally fights more than a couple of issues with different companions. Despite the fact that we live in nearness, he is a bossy individual, tricky and overbearing over others (Rush and Lowe 52). For the most part, he attempts to constrain his contemplations on others. Hence, his tendency delineates a rude person who consistently bothers others unconsciously. In light of his temperament, others see him as an impolite individual, manipulative and angry. My sibling is an innovative and dynamic individual. He is ever bustling taking care of something or helping my folks with work. While at work, he shows his desire of accomplishment through quality administrations and yield. He is a confident individual with a significant level of certainty. Notwithstanding, he has given some level of recklessness since he hurries into settling on choices that occasionally are hindering to his prosperity. To limit on the terrible attribute, he attempts to be wary and scrupulous (Rush and Lowe 52). He for the most part requests different people’s conclusions before setting out on a

Saturday, August 8, 2020

How we grew organic traffic by 332.91% with user-generated content

How we grew organic traffic by 332.91% with user-generated content Can you name a more iconic duo than content and SEO in the history of marketing? Go ahead, I’ll wait . . . As  marketers, it’s our duty to take SEO into consideration when we’re creating pages and content. Product feature announcements, use case blog posts, guides for certain verticals whatever the content, youll want it to rank well on search engines. User-generated content, or UGC, can be defined as any piece of content created by users/consumers of a product or service. UGC can also help you massively with making content rank. User-generated content is different for SaaS. It’s not only a chance to create a cornucopia of exponential search traffic. It’s also an opportunity for users to be creative with their ideas and use your platform as their public canvas. This means theyll share the content online, publish it, present it, share it across social platforms, embed it in blog articles. If your product is visual and promotes UGC, your users should be proud to showcase the content they create. UGC at MindMeister: Our Public Mind Maps Library At MindMeister, weve worked towards developing a library of user-generated content with our collection of public mind maps. It’s our belief that people can distill and share concepts easier through mind maps, so we encourage users to publish their mind maps and share their knowledge with others too. As a result, from the very start of MindMeister, weve worked to build up an extensive library of user-generated mind maps. Luckily for us, Google loves to rank content generated by your users too. Not only is UGC original, but it’s also an unbiased page of content that’s created by someone outside of your marketing team. Plus, by indexing and ranking user-generated content, we reward power users with more exposure for their mind maps and content. Its a win-win situation. We currently have almost 4 million public mind maps indexed in Google and were not planning to stop anytime soon. After a manual penalty from Google in 2014 and multiple modifications to the tech stack, our website traffic started to flatten out. This meant our public mind map library needed some love, so we rolled up our sleeves and got to work. The results speak for themselves: That’s an increase in organic traffic of 332.91% YoY! Heres how we made this jump in traffic and what’s next on our UGC roadmap: Organic search isn’t what you think it is In the past, you would pursue a handful of keywords like crazy and throw everything and the kitchen sink at them. Today, Google is a more dynamic environment, where your search results may be influenced by a multitude of factors that are not even under SEO reach. According to  Dawn Anderson, your search engine results page, or SERP, may show different results based on: Your personal search experience The device youre searching on The time of day/week youre searching on Your local and geographic location. And it doesn’t even matter if you’re logged in or not to your Google account. Google slowly moved from update to update, from a one size fits all SERP, to a more personalized approach, to results and suggestions. This is because two different people can easily have two different search intents for the same query. Google’s Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, tweeted in May 2018 that the personalization of search results is very light. This either implies that they don’t take search history into consideration, or that theyre uncomfortable admitting it Either way, its clear that the customer journey is not a well-defined funnel anymore, but a cyclical system where the path to conversion is created from a number of micro-moments. After all, if youre providing UGC, in our experience, almost 90% of your traffic will be made up of people browsing for unrelated information. Discover Project Planningwith Mind Maps Creating a library of linkable assets Creating a library of UGC makes a lot of sense, especially for freemium SaaS businesses. Surprisingly, not a lot of companies deploy these tactics. It combines the best of both worlds: an unlimited pool of creativity from the users and a public example of how you can use your platform. A win-win-win situation for your SaaS, the content creator, and the visitor.  However, as mentioned, only a handful of B2B SaaS companies have built UGC platforms. After all our changes, MindMeisters public mind maps started ranking rapidly, going up to 166k keywords. But it wasnt a smooth ride. As you can see in the chart below, at the end of 2017, we implemented a new mind map layout that was heavily dependant on JavaScript. As Google was discovering and indexing these new pages, our rankings started dropping. To work out how to fix it, we looked to other successful SaaS businesses, sharing UGC themselves. One of the most known examples of SEO ready user-generated content is SlideShare. It became a popular destination for B2B companies that wanted to diversify their content strategy and maximize the output of their content. While they consistently dropped from the beginning of 2017, SlideShare ranks for 7 million keywords. They created the perfect environment for users to upload, convert content and share slides. They also made sure their content is easily picked up and indexed by search engines. This gives an extra incentive for users to repurpose their content on the platform. Another example of a SaaS business that profited a lot from embedding user-generated content into their acquisition strategy is Trello. By allowing their users to create public boards, they encouraged users to get creative with the product. From organizing cooking recipes to roadmaps for software, people started creating and sharing their boards and template boards. Trello was exposed to more and more people through the help of their users, creating a snowball effect. Not only have they managed to rank for 419k keywords, but theyve also received an impressive number of backlinks. Another company that benefits from UGC is Airtable. They combine a curated library of template spreadsheets on a multitude of topics with a “Universe” of content pages created by their users. While their user-generated content is not fully optimized for search engines, you can see it gave them quite a big boost. They rank for over 25k keywords. Some companies try to create such public libraries on their own, for example, design tool  Canva. And theyre doing a good job at it. They are ranking for 654k keywords on a multitude of topics. Even so, their pages lack crawlable content and a UX that enables sharing.  But the biggest issue with their approach is the lack of user-generated content. As a result, theyre missing out on a lot of creative potential. As you can see in the examples above, you can get a lot of exposure by enabling users to share their creativity through the unique perspective of your SaaS product.   Turn Plans Into Actionwith agile task management 6 Major Takeaways from a Successful User-Generated Content Strategy You can see in the examples above, each company takes a particular approach to creating user-generated content. But whether it’s MindMeister, SlideShare, Airtable, Trello or Canva, the same principles apply: 1. Make sure your content is crawlable and indexable One of the biggest problems with SaaS user-generated content is having content that’s inaccessible to Google. So that means you need to ease off on the JS and avoid (or build around) iframes. While Google says they don’t have a problem reading content that’s served through JavaScript, we saw an overall better performance when we transferred many elements to HTML and reduced the dependency on JS. The best solution is to isolate the JS or iframe and serve HTML content around it. As a result, we now have two URLs instead of one: Old URL layout /548246400/kanban-vs-scrum?fullscreen=1 New URL layout /548246400/kanban-vs-scrum The process of having your pages on Google is more complex. The URLs need to be accessed by the Crawler a.k.a. Googlebot. Then it sends the pages to the Indexer a.k.a Caffeine, which analyzes the pages layout and its content. The Google Crawler doesn’t render pages or execute JavaScript, so any content embedded won’t be discovered in this phase. Instead, the page needs to go from the Crawler to the Indexer to find the URLs and send them back to be crawled. It makes the discovery and indexing of new pages very painful. Inspired by Barry Adams Pubcon presentation Another solution that was announced at Google I/O 2018 is  serving “Dynamically Rendered” HTML to search engine bots. The server detects the bot by checking the user agent and serves a version of the page that can be fully understood by crawlers, while serving the initial page to the users. And all of this can be done by telling the servers to serve different content based on the user-agent. John Mueller explained that this can be done for any type of search engine bot and it’s especially useful for large websites with JS heavy code, such as user-generated SaaS pages.  2. Remove crawl waste and dead-ends The problem with SaaS websites that have user-generated content is that Google will only crawl a small portion of your website. Plus, it will try to prioritize what it thinks is important. For example, for MindMeister, from over 3 million URLs, only 200k get crawled on a daily basis. To make sure that our crawl budget doesn’t get wasted, we looked at what ranks and gets traffic, in order to ensure that search engine crawlers ignore the rest. We found out that a huge portion of our crawl budget was wasted on user profiles. The majority of public users had between 1-2 mind maps on their profile. And they werent getting any traffic from Google either. We scrapped all user profile URLs from the XML sitemap and we blocked them in robots.txt to make sure Googlebot ignores them completely. All the pages we excluded from Google were pages that had thin content, no traffic, and no backlinks. This change helped Google invest more crawl budget into public mind maps, which gave us more ranking opportunities.  Worth mentioning that having those pages removed from the sitemap or placing a noindex tag won’t have an impact on the crawl budget. 3. Canonical and Hreflang tags need to work together After we’d implemented the URL system above, none of the old URLs were being replaced in search results by the new URLs. Apparently, Google thought the un-optimized, JS filled iframes were better than the crawl friendly pages. Our website supports 12 languages, which means 12 URLs for each piece of user-generated content. This is the case for both new layout and old layout pages. In short, thats a lot of pages. . . As we wanted Google to organically replace all the old layout pages with the new layout pages, we set canonical tags between them. These created a conflict of signals for Googlebot. The hreflang says Hey, pay attention to me! and the canonical says Hey, Im not in charge here! When this type of conflict happens, Google will disregard both tags and will take a decision based on other factors, which was bad for us. We had to create a scheme of directives that made it clear to the crawler which pages need to be indexed. This tagging structure ensures Google will not override any tags and will index and rank the proper pages. 4. Internal links are a powerful ranking factor Having a good internal link structure is beneficial for multiple reasons. Google finds and indexes pages on your website based on your internal link structure. You’ll have to index a large database of user-generated content, and you’ll keep adding a lot of new pages on a weekly basis. Having an optimized and easy to crawl link structure enables Google to find new pages more easily. Another reason would be the fact that they pass link equity from page to page. Having an organized taxonomy for your URLs is considered a solid foundation. But that can only take you so far. You need to create links between UGC pages that are relevant and offer more context to the content (for Google and for the user). For MindMeister, this is the Recommended Maps section: Each page has 5 relevant mind maps that users can click through. That way we can both reduce the bounce rate and ensure that crawlers have relevant URLs to crawl through. 5. Make use of Schema markups While schema markups are not a ranking factor and they do not cause pages to rank higher, there is certainly some correlation. User-generated content does not have a specific schema for structured data, so youll just have to be as generic as possible. You can use either CreativeWork or  MediaObject  to help with this. By having Schema markups you can specify to Google different types of information, like a featured image, the content, author, comments and likes, and so on. There are multiple formats, but I prefer JSON-LD. It is the newest format to express structured data and its also the preferred format by Google. This is also the only method through which you can move the code from the HTML body to the head. Having JSON-LD markup allows us to offer the Indexer more information regarding our public mind maps. This might lead to Google featuring the page into a rich snippet, improving SERP visibility, leading to higher click-through rates. 6. The UI needs to enable visitors to share or convert These user-generated content pages also act as landing pages. The problem with most UGC strategies is that, as shared, 90% of your traffic will be from people who are not interested in your product. Most of the keywords youre going to rank for will have an informative intent, rather than commercial. But at least these visitors are exposed to how your product can be useful. As a result, you still need to appeal to the visitors that could potentially qualify as your target audience. You need to make sure that you have the right actions to enable users to either share the content further or create an account. Our visitors have the possibility to download, share or embed the mind map on their website. In the recommended maps section, we inserted CTA banners offering the possibility to create a free account. You can play around and test what type of call-to-action provides the best conversion rate. The type of action your visitors might be interested in depends on how your SaaS works. For example, Airtable offers their visitors the possibility to create a free account and copy the public database. Make sure to not hinder the interaction of the visitors too much and ensure that its a helpful interaction rather than a forced one. People are more likely to remember a bad experience than a good one. In Summary While weve achieved an increase of 332.91%, the SEO pipeline is far from over. There are still lots of low hanging fruits for us to address, like page speed and XML sitemap optimization. By scaling the number of indexed pages, we will encounter growing pains along the way, but were now in a much better position to deal with these challenges as they arise. In summary, if you consider implementing a user-generated content strategy for your SaaS business, make sure that: The pages have crawlable content. Bear in mind that usually a SaaS product is heavy on JS, which the Crawler cant access. Look at the structure of the website and remove any redundant pages from being crawled. Make sure the search engine crawler is paying attention to the pages that are UGC. Make sure all the tags and attributes dont have any conflict. It can easily happen when working at scale and Google might end up ranking the wrong pages. An optimized internal link structure is a multifaceted diamond. Make sure content pages link to and are linked from other relevant content pages. Schema markups are extremely helpful, as search engine algorithms become smarter at understanding code and content. Make sure you enable your visitors to share or convert without being too aggressive. Implementing a user-generated content strategy in SaaS can provide a great way for your target audience to interact with your platform and learn it’s best use case from your existing users. As you’ve seen in this article, if optimized properly, UGC can expose your brand to a continuously increasing audience. As you increase your user-base, the amount of published content and the amount of URLs will increase as well. If youre careful and abide to Googles rules, you should enjoy an  abundance of traffic. If you have any questions or comments, make sure to reach out to us in the comments below! Intuitive Task Management

Saturday, May 23, 2020

Immigration Act Of The Border - 1473 Words

Border Patrol began in 1904 when illegal crossings at the border were prevented by seventy five â€Å"mounted guards† who were given directives by the U.S immigration service to patrol the border (U.S. Customs and Border Protection, n.d). Patrols were, however, not consistent because of limited resources and little supervision. They attempted to prevent Chinese illegal migration as they patrolled along the border in California. However, from 1915, resources such as horses, cars and boats were added to a more specified group, authorized and named â€Å"mounted inspectors† by Congress. They patrolled the southern border with instructions from Commissioner-General of Immigration (U.S. Customs and Border Protection, n.d). Their patrolling efforts were†¦show more content†¦The U.S. government under Franklin Roosevelt therefore provided the required resources such as badges, uniforms, revolvers, salaries and oats for horses already owned by some of the recruits. Oper ating under two directors in charge of the Mexican border office and Canadian border office in 1932, the Border Patrol worked to counter liquor and alien smugglers at the border. The Immigration and Naturalization Service was formed in 1933 when President Franklin Roosevelt merged the Bureau of Naturalization and the Bureau of Immigration. In December 1934, classes in horsemanship and marksmanship were attended by thirty four trainees after the first Border Patrol Academy was initiated in El Paso (U.S. Customs and Border Protection, n.d). Although cars and radios were used in the patrolling exercise, horses remained convenient for the Border Patrol because of the rugged terrain. The Border Patrol became more effective as the duties continued to be executed over the years and much of its efforts as seen during the war years (Wallechinsky, n.d.). It expanded more after the Immigration Service was shifted to the Department of Justice from the Department of Labor in 1940. The number of officers in Border Patrol rose to 1531 and after World War II, more personnel joined the force (U.S. Customs and Border Protection, n.d). The Border Patrol’s effectiveness during the war was seen in its ability to manage detention camps, to exercise strong control at the border, to assist U.S.Show MoreRelatedIllegal Immigration Is The Act Of Migrating Across A National Border1310 Words   |  6 Pages By its nature, illegal immigration is hard to measure and control. But to fully understand the solutions and properly analyze them; the origin, causes, and effects must be clear. Illegal immigration is the act of migrating across a national border without a legalized permissi on from the target country. Illegal immigration has long been a problem in the USA since the latter half of the 20th century. In spite of all the laws that was issued the door was left open especially for the Mexican immigrantsRead MoreThe Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act1454 Words   |  6 Pageschanged after the terrorist attack in 2001, making most of the American public scared of future terrorist attacks increasing their negative thinking toward immigration. After that horrible day, the government started making changes to their immigration policies, therefore creating awareness of immigrants. These biased thoughts about immigration create concern and angst towards these groups, which lead to prejudices. The media also likes to use realistic threats toward the American people includingRead MoreThe Border Security, Economic Opportunity, And Immigration Modernization Act Of 20131776 Words   |  8 Pagesthe â€Å"Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act† and the â€Å"Safe Communities, Safe Schools Act of 2013.† This assignment seeks to answer why these bills have failed to make it through Congress. The rise of political polarization in the past decade has led to our current political landscape: one marked by increased divided government that highlights the undeniable fact that a President can only get things done when the political environment allows for it. The â€Å"Border SecurityRead MoreIllegal Immigration And The United States1640 Words   |  7 Pagesthe United States Illegal immigration and border patrol are becoming two of America’s top problems. The border separates Mexico from the United States, in particular Arizona and Texas. The fence is becoming a bigger issue for illegal immigrants to cross which, in turn, is making it an issue for border security. Different comparisons between Arizona and Texas and their state laws on illegal immigration will be made, the federal government’s policies on illegal immigration, and President Barack ObamaRead MoreThe Policy, Illegal Immigration Reform And Immigrant Responsibility Act Of 19961486 Words   |  6 PagesIllegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, Division C of Pub.L. 104–208, 110 Stat. 3009-546, shortened to IIRAIRA or IIRIRA, was enacted September 30, 1996 (Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996). The IIRAIRA is a federal law designed to reduce illegal immigration and to apprehend undocumented aliens (Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996). It vastly changed the immigration laws within the U.S. Immigration and NationalizationRead MoreOpen Border Policy and Illegal Immigration1844 Words   |  7 Pagesï » ¿Open Border Policy and Illegal Immigration Introduction Immigration is one of the contentious issues that continue to elicit mixed reactions from different parties. In most western economies, debates on immigration policies have been on the rise in the recent decades. Whereas the international human rights have confirmed that freedom of movement is one of the basic human rights and hence no one can be deprived, most governments have put restrictions on immigration. Furthermore, the enactmentRead MoreThe Immigration Of Illegal Immigrants1643 Words   |  7 Pageshas been worldly known for its characteristics of prosperity, opportunity, and freedom which ultimately form the famous â€Å"American dream,† in which so many individuals desire. While this country’s reputation and culture was built on the basis of immigration, the ideals and viewpoints of this topic have strayed far from welcoming over the years. Both the Democratic and Republican parties find faults in the overflow of illegal immigrants coming into America, but di ffer in their strategies of devisingRead MoreEssay about America’s Broken Immigration System957 Words   |  4 Pagescontroversy on the issues concerning a solution to America’s broken immigration system. Democratic and republican parties can’t seem to agree with one another, leaving reform at a stand-still. Democrats are focused on giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship while Republicans are focused on border security. The fact is both of these approaches should work in unison with each other to provide the most efficient route in fixing immigration. Providing a path to citizenship has been labeled as grantingRead MoreImmigration : Federal Of State Responsibility1228 Words   |  5 PagesBryson Huitt Professor Shine Government 2306 15 November 2015 Immigration: Federal of State Responsibility? There are few topics in America today that are more hotly debated than immigration. Because of our nation’s economy and current leadership, immigration seems to be a much more sensitive topic in today’s society than ever before. From the time our country was founded, people have immigrated to America for a better life. In an effort to escape religious persecution, war, or just to haveRead MorePolitical Dimensions Of Us Immigration Policies1207 Words   |  5 PagesPolitical Dimensions of US Immigration Policies Japanese and Chinese Immigration and Exclusionary Immigration Policies Anti-immigrant driven exclusive immigration policies barred Japanese and Chinese immigrants from immigrating to the United States and accessing the privileges of citizenship. Through the Immigration Acts of 1917, 1921, and 1924, the US government insured that Japanese and Chinese immigrants could not immigrate to the United States by creating an artificial geographic area or â€Å"Asiatic

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

How to Communicate With Special Education Parents

The best way to avoid crises with parents or even, heaven forbid, due process, it’s good to have regular communication methods in place. If parents know you are open to hearing their concerns, you can nip any potential misunderstandings that lead to a crisis in the bud. Also, if you communicate regularly when you do have concerns about problem behaviors or a child in crisis, parents won’t feel blindsided. Find Out How a Parent Prefers to Communicate If a parent doesn’t have email, that won’t work. Some parents only have email at work, and may not want to receive messages by email. Some parents may prefer phone calls. Find out what are good times for a phone message. A traveling folder (see below) is a great means of communications, and parents may just prefer to respond to your messages in a notebook in one pocket. Parents Are Stressed Some parents may be embarrassed about having children who need services—for some parents parenting is a competitive sport. Some special education children are poorly organized, extraordinarily active, and do poorly at keeping their rooms clean. These children can stress parents out. Another issue for parents of special education children is that they often feel that no one sees the value of their child because of their challenges. These parents may feel the need to defend their child when you really just want to share a concern or work out a mutually agreeable solution. Don’t Play the Blame Game If these children weren’t challenging, they probably wouldn’t need special education services. Your job is to help them succeed, and you need their parents’ help to do it. Make Your First Email or Phone Call a Positive One Call with something positive you want to tell the parent about their child, even if it’s â€Å"Robert has the greatest smile.† After that, they won’t always pick up your emails or phone calls with dread.  Keep records.  A communication form in a notebook or file would be helpful. Handle your parents with TLC (tender loving care) and you will usually find allies, not enemies. You will have difficult parents, but I will discuss them elsewhere. Email Email can be a good thing or an opportunity for trouble. It is easy for email messages to be misunderstood since they lack the tone of voice and body language, two things that could assure parents that there is not some hidden message. It is good to copy your building administrator, your special education supervisor or a partner teacher all of your emails. Check with your special education supervisor to find out who he or she would like to see receive the copies. Even if they never open them, if they store them, you have a backup in case of a misunderstanding. It is especially important to email your supervisor or building principal a heads up if you see trouble with a parent brewing. Phone Some parents may prefer a phone. They may like the immediacy and the sense of intimacy created by a telephone call. Still, there is potential for misunderstanding, and you never know exactly what frame of mind they are in when you call. You can set up a regular phone date, or just call on special occasions. You might save this for just good news, since other kinds of calls, especially calls involving aggression, may put parents on the defensive since they haven’t’ had a chance to prepare for it. If you leave a message, be sure you say Bob ( or whoever) is fine. I just need to talk (ask a question, get some information, share something that happened today.) Please call me at . . . Be sure to follow up a phone call with an email or a note. Restate briefly what you talked about. Keep a copy. Traveling Folders Traveling Folders are invaluable for communication, especially on completed projects, papers or tests. Usually, a teacher will designate one side for homework and the other for completed assignments and the communication folder.  Often a daily Home Note can be included.  It can be part of your behavior management plan as well a means to communicate. It is still good to save copies of parent’s notes, or even both sides of the conversation, so you can share them with an administrator should you see trouble coming down the pike. You might want to either put a plastic insert with a list of what should come home each night and directions for how to complete the folder or staple the same to the front cover of the folder. You will find parents will be pretty good at packing this folder in the child’s backpack. Stay In Touch--Regularly However you decide to communicate, do it on a regular basis, not just when a crisis arrives. It might be nightly, for a communication folder, or perhaps weekly for a phone call. By keeping in touch, you not only can share concerns, but you will be eliciting the support of parents in reinforcing the good things you want to see happen for their child.

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Using Mixed Method Both Qualitative Quantitative Research Free Essays

Background Once upon a time there was a successful line of convenience stores. We’ll call this group of stores â€Å"QuickStop†. At some point a staff-member realised that QuickStop seemed to be patronised by many more men than women. We will write a custom essay sample on Using Mixed Method: Both Qualitative Quantitative Research or any similar topic only for you Order Now This was passed along to the management team and they asked the store tellers to informally keep track of the proportions of men to women who came into their stores. It turned out that the theory seemed to hold true, and in fact far more men patronized QuickStop than did women. This information was passed along to the other managers at other QuickStop stores and they found the same trend. This received some higher level management attention and they began to wonder why this was occurring. Eventually management made the decision that this was too large a group of potential customers to lose, and a decision was eventually made to study this phenomenon and to understand why it was taking place, and if anything could be done about it. Research Objective A research project was designed to understand how women felt about shopping at QuickStop stores and why. It was decided that this research should be qualitative and the specific methodology would be In-depth-Interviews (this is research with one professional interviewer and one respondent at a time – in this case the decision was made because there were suspicions that there could be sensitive issues that wouldn’t be discussed as candidly in a group setting). Qualitative Research About two dozen current or potential female customers were paid to come into a research facility to discuss the use of convenience stores in general, and later in the interviews the discussion was directed specifically to QuickStop convenience stores, in particular. The results were very surprising to the management team. The major qualitative findings included  the following: i. Women viewed convenience stores to be primarily designed for men, with little or no consideration for women, ii. The bathrooms at convenience stores were believed to be the dirtiest that could be found in a city – â€Å"gross† was the most common description – and that perception permeated everything that women felt about convenience stores in general iii. QuickStop was seen as one of the worst of convenience stores â€Å"kind of the place for a man to buy gas, get a six-pack of cheap beer and cigarettes, but not the kind of place I want to go†. Quantitative Research Once the management team had an understanding of what issues they faced with female customers, they felt that they needed to understand how broadly these beliefs were held. Now they needed to get some hard numbers, and that meant that they needed to conduct quantitative market research. The research objective for this phase of research were: i. Understand how female customers of QuickStop differ from those that don’t regularly visit these stores. ii. Understand whether or not a renovation of QuickStop could entice each group to visit more frequently (or at all depending on whether the respondent currently avoided QuickStop entirely). For the quantitative phase of research they decided to conduct 250 telephone interviews with a combination of female respondents. The requirements to participate in this phase of research were that: half of the respondents stated that they had used QuickStop at least five times in the last year, and the other half admitted to intentionally avoiding QuickStop altogether, although they did use other brands of convenience stores. The major results  from the quantitative phase indicated that: a. Over 76% of all female QuickStop customers were women under 30 years old, without children, while women with children and with higher incomes were 5 times less likely to shop at QuickStop b. The good news was that of the women who didn’t currently use QuickStop, 64% said that if these stores were to update their color schemes, clean up their bathrooms and update their health and feminine products that they would be willing to try QuickStop again. The two phases of research (qualitative + quantitative) gave the QuickStop management team a very good understanding of where they currently stood with female customers and why. Their quantitative research also indicated that those women who were not currently using their stores would â€Å"forgive† them if they changed their ways. Their decision now was to decide if gaining more middle-aged women as customers was worth the cost of updating their stores and spending more money to keep them clean and neat, and better stocked with the types of products that middle-aged women with children needed. Research note: in general when conducting two phases of research (in this case qualitative and quantitative market research) it’s most often the case that the first phase (qualitative research) is conducted first as a â€Å"lead-in†. Qualitative research tends to help the management team understand the underlying issues, and the second phase (quantitative in this case) helps to understand how pervasive/wide spread these feelings/attitudes are among a certain target audience. How to cite Using Mixed Method: Both Qualitative Quantitative Research, Essays

Friday, May 1, 2020

Effectiveness Of Employee Involvement †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Effectiveness Of Employee Involvement. Answer: Effectiveness of employee involvement Employee involvement can have a positive impact on the performance of employees. The fact that the decisions and thoughts of the employees are taken into account by the managers acts a motivation for the employees (Wallace et al. 2016). Hence, the factors that support the involvement of employees include excellent opportunities for career development, transparency and the level of learning that the employees may get. These factors are supported by the fact that the motivation of the employees plays an important role in the success of an organisation. Moreover, the decisions of the employees play a crucial role, as the employees are involved in the designing of the products. Hence, the managers cannot generate the ideas that can be generated by the employees while designing a product. This also provides a learning experience for the employees as wrong decisions can help them to understand their mistakes. Hence, such experience can allow the employees to become a future leader and stri ve for the success of a company. Level of involvement required According to Andries and Czarnitzki (2014), it is important for managers to provide a level of involvement for the employees. Some of the decisions regarding designing, manufacturing or technical expertise can be consulted with the employees involved in these fields. However, the level of involvement needs to be checked so that the employees do not get enough freedom to take decisions at random. Hence, the level of involvement needs to be limited to only in the field of expertise. Managerial decisions such as planning or appraisal system need to be made confidential. These are top-level decisions that are to be made without the involvement of the employees. However, freedom needs to be provided to the employees in terms of applying any innovative tactics. Such freedom allows the employees to be more creative in their work. Thus, an involvement of the employees needs to be limited to the field of work rather than any managerial activities. References Andries, P. and Czarnitzki, D., 2014. Small firm innovation performance and employee involvement.Small Business Economics,43(1), pp.21-38. Wallace, J.C., Butts, M.M., Johnson, P.D., Stevens, F.G. and Smith, M.B., 2016. A multilevel model of employee innovation: Understanding the effects of regulatory focus, thriving, and employee involvement climate.Journal of Management,42(4), pp.982-1004.