February 5, 2012

Dormology- the Brightest and Best for Your Teen’s Dorm Room

dorm roomThe best and most fun years of a young adult’s life are the college years. That’s the time when they get to express themselves as young adults and make a few life choices on their own, without constant supervision. They enjoy expressing themselves and letting their personalities shine through, in their choice of friends, clothes and decorating flair for their dorm rooms.

Barring the rules that each university has regarding dorm decorating, your teen has unlimited flexibility when it comes to styling the place they will call home for at least four years. Their dorm room is where they will study, entertain, cook and just relax. It needs to be reflective of their personal style and taste and create a comfortable, inviting atmosphere for them to reside.

Productive studying and even a prolific social life is directly connected to the teen’s personality of their dorm rooms. Creating the best environment for them to inhabit is very important. Here are some things to do to help set the tone for great dorm living:

Lighting

Great lighting is important for studying, but it’s also important for creating a homey atmosphere. For special effects, you can use lamps with colored bulbs or lamps that bend in all directions. This helps you to strategically place them in the room where they will have the most effect.

Communication Systems

This is one area where creativity can really spark! Large calendars, memo boards or dry erase boards are a great way to implement a system for the roommates to communicate with one another and to have as a reminder about classwork or social events. Also, to really brighten up this idea, you can use a designated area of the room as the communication area and decorate it with posters, photo magnets, memo boards and colored markers. You can also use a laundry line to hang things from like notes, tickets or pictures.

Pictures

A nice array of photos and frames helps your new college student to create a bright, relaxing atmosphere for their room. It also reminds them of the comforts and love from home while they’re away at college. Photo collages and custom frames hanging from the walls can create a really nice, warm room for them. You can also use photos to brighten up the room by using brightly colored frames, customized frames with quotes on them or having photos enlarged to poster sizes to make them really stand out.

Your teen can really use their creativity here to make their dorm room very special. Other things that make the dorm room special are brightly colored bedding with a collegiate sports theme, flowers or bold colors that reflect their personality. Storage space is also an area of creativity by using hooks, wire and/or plastic tubs, under the bed storage systems and making full use of corner spaces with curtain rods and fabrics.

It’s fun to create a personal space that reflects their personality and style. Take the things that are important to your teen and make them work to create a special place that they will have for a long while. Offers.com has a great amount of savings through their lighting coupons, which makes lighting up your teen’s dorm roon a financially sound decision,  as well.

Check Yourself! Using Online Pop Quizzes to Help With Studies

Short quizzes and long tests are tools used by learning institutions around the world since they first opened their doors to children hundreds of years ago. Even in the home environment, self generated quizzes and tests made up of questions from old exams are some of the most popular ways for people to come to grips with their studies.

Online Quiz Tools

Long gone are the days where students had to slowly and painfully write out their own self-check quizzes. By using sites like ProProfs, students can create exams and quizzes and even share them with their friends and study partners.

The beauty of using an online tool like those offered at ProProfs, is that users can integrate pictures, videos and audio files with their quizzes. This allows for a wide range of educational uses, such as deploying a documentary video before a history quiz, to see how much relevant information was taken in whilst watching the film, or including a foreign language sound clip with a question asking the user to translate what was said.

Quiz owners can make it so that quiz takers are given feedback relating to their score as soon as they complete the test, without needing any input from a human grader, which can help provide really useful information when it comes to identifying potential gaps in a students knowledge.

quiz statsDue to their accessible nature, flexibility and the fact they can be set up remotely, these kind of online quiz tools are becoming increasingly popular amongst parents and teachers as well. Many of whom have already set up publicly accessible quizzes that can be found at ProProfs relating to various fields of study. Anyone can access these public tests and they are well worth checking out for inspiration if you need some ideas for quizzes of your own.

Going Back to School in the Digital Age

school-digital-age

The decision to return to school can be an overwhelming idea, especially if the person has old ideas and images of a traditional classroom. Nowdays, school doesn’t have to include mounds of books and countless hours of studying the traditional way. The student who has decided to return to school to further their educational achievements may not be aware of all of the user-friendly tools that are available today to make their new lifestyle as a student much more resourceful and encouraging.

The digital age of computers has advanced to unbelievable proportions of convenience and flexibility. The constant change of technology in the digital arena makes many different things both accessible and preferable for the working student. There is so much school work and assignments that are now handled virtually, that there’s really no excuse or reason why a student can’t perform exceptionally in their academic pursuits. Digital resources also streamline communications for the student to the instructor. This is especially helpful if the student has a non-traditional work schedule and is not able to communicate with his professors on a daily basis at regular office times. [Read more...]

Let Me Stop You Right There! An Interview with Dr. Pamela D. Straker

pam

Dr. Pam Straker is returning to share with us ways that we can eliminate stress within the workplace. Whether you are an employer, an employee, or a small business owner, there are always stressors throughout our day.

Dr. Straker will be available to answer your questions. Hope to see you on the show!

October 13, 2010 at 2:00 p.m. EST  http://DivaTalkRadio.com/live

I will be interviewing Dr. Pamela D. Straker about her new book “Let Me Stop You Right There And 28 Other Lines Every CEO, Manager, And Supervisor Should Know”

Let Me Stop You Right There…is a humorous book that examines interpersonal situations, presented as scenes, that arise in the workplace. The scenes describe office situations which, coupled with pictorial illustrations, allow the reader to quickly identify events in their own work lives for which the lines might have been useful. Essentially, the book gives “one liners” every person who manages others will find useful one time or over and over again.

Dr. Straker, a licensed psychologist, life/business coach, certified school psychologist, and has more than 25 years experience as a mental health and management professional. In her current capacity as consultant, she serves as a Psychologist Peer Reviewer for the Optum Health/United Health Group. She recently served as a Trainer and Program Coach for Emotional Literacy within the Psychology Department of Yale University. Dr. Straker is also providing consulting services to the Special Services Department of the Hoboken, New Jersey Board of Education. Just to name a few!

The best part is, Dr. Pam is my friend and I’m honored to feature her on DivaTalkRadio. Plan to join us…you will laugh, be inspired, and enjoy yourself for the 30 minutes that Dr. Pam shares with us how to handle various situations.

www.DivaTalkRadio.com/live

This LIVE episode airs at10/13/10 at 2:00 p.m. EST

Original Show: 9/15/10 11:00AM PDT – 9/15/10 1:00PM CDT – 9/15/10 2:00PM EDT. Rebroadcasts of the show will be made available within 24 hours of the LIVE show.