Betty Caldwell and Stressless Tests™

If you have ever “choked” on a test – or taught or parented someone who has – you know why Betty Caldwell’s Stressless Tests™ program www.stresslesstests.org is in demand. The extracurricular program helps students, from sixth graders to adults, experience less stress, more confidence, and higher performance in the classroom.

Like most successful entrepreneurs, Betty knew from the start the importance of astute marketing. She began by following her instincts.

Soon after developing the program, she produced an animation-based supplementary aid on DVD to give to her students. Check out a clip here.

Betty explains, “Many of my students are creative, visual learners. The DVD is a natural teaching tool for them, as it incorporates animation, sound, color, humor, and strong visuals. Research has shown that with this type of animated presentation, the level of learning is measurably enhanced. And, it supports my own highly interactive teaching style.”

The video is all computer-animation based. “I found that by using a series of animated characters, I could create something a lot more interesting than the usual PowerPoint presentation. I built in some visual humor, and just had fun with it. It works well with all ages, from 6th graders to medical students. ”

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Crisis Management Training with I.J. Hudson

I.J. Hudson is the Communications Director with the law firm Garson Claxton LLC in Bethesda, Maryland.  He specializes in providing crisis management and media training services that draw upon his 32 years in broadcast journalism, most recently, 22 years at NBC4 in Washington, DC.

For this featured guest posting, we asked I.J. to touch on some of the points he stresses in his crisis management seminars and one-on-one training.

Why is crisis management so important?  “As a news reporter, I have interviewed a lot of people in crisis situations.  Many of them were just like you and me, private citizens.  Tragedy or controversy had pushed them into the limelight.  There were company officials from railroads, utilities, construction companies, airlines and others who should have been prepared to get out their message.  But some were like ‘deer-in-the-headlights.’ They simply tried to answer questions without managing the situation.  That’s very dangerous.”

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“Audience-Friendly” Experimental Animator, Eric Dyer

Eric Dyer is an award-winning experimental animator and a professor in the Visual Arts Department at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

Animator Eric Dyer

“Whenever people ask me what kind of films I make, I answer ‘audience-friendly experimental films,’ because if you just say ‘experimental films’ people tend to run away. The term ‘experimental’ is often misused by filmmakers who have made films that either are not fully fleshed-out or simply do not make any sense.”

Eric continues, “For me, experimental film is about exploring the expressive possibilities of burgeoning technologies and systems of my own design.”

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One Man’s Vision to Fight Poverty

World poverty. Is it a hopeless situation?

Many of us give of our time and money to do what we can. Usually our laudable actions are part of targeted campaigns, since most of us feel that the term ”world poverty” is just too amorphous. 

But indeed, there are those among us who think “big-picture.” One such person is Ramesh Kulkarni, and he has taken his thoughts on how to eradicate world poverty one step further.

Ramesh has produced a one-hour documentary titled, “The American Way: Connecting the Dots.” In it, he lays out his macro-economic solution for world poverty.

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