SVHATS Revisited

In our efforts to better improve communication between students, volunteers and staff Cabrini Connections instituted SVHATS (Student and Volunteer History & Tracking System) in 2003. Since that SVHATS has proven to a an invaluable tool for gathering important information concerning the needs and wants of our volunteers and students.

To assist those who have expressed a problem finding the SVHATS hyperlink we have enhanced the lettering on the sidebar menu in both the volunteer and student section of the Cabrini Connections website. This enhancement although small will help as a visual reminder to our members to sign on to SVHATS everytime they log onto our site.

Additionally we have modified the "Weekly Reflection Sheet"; we changed the 5 points awarded to the student based on the volunteer signing in before 6:05pm to 5 points awarded for the volunteer signing onto SVHATS. We will also include a section in our Volunteer Weekly Newsletter that will reflect how many students and volunteers signed onto SVHATS the previous week.

We appreciate everyone who uses the SVHATS tool and encourage others to use it more often.

The 15th birthday of the web browser.

Tim Berners-Lee wrote the first web browser on a NeXT computer, called WorldWideWeb, finishing the first version on Christmas day, 1990. He released the program to a number of people at CERN in March, 1991, introducing the web to the high energy physics community, and beginning its spread.

In an article in the MorningSun from last week. The authors wrote "no other group is as entrenched in that technology as teens, who were just being born when that first Web browser came to be and were in first grade when the first Palm Pilot went on the market.

In most cases teens are using the media for social networking or to download music or for gaming. Prior to the Spring break it would be a good idea if both students and their mentors would consider exchanging not only email addresses but also social networking information as well.

As you know our technology goal at Cabrini Connections is to encourage a culture of learning among our students and volunteers and to further this culture of learning by teaching students and volunteers how to effectively use the Internet for learning and collaboration.

This week during the celebration of the teen years of web browsers would be an excellent time to help achieve part of goal by communicating with your student or tutor over the Spring break.

Building Blocks for Character

Positive Character is not something that a child is born with, it has to be taught. Children are constantly learning. They learn when we sit down and teach them, and they learn by watching others. Every influence they are exposed to has an impact, whether they observe their parents calmly discussing issues in the household, or they sit in front of the television watching violence. These influences shape their character.
As adults, we learn that to be successful in life we have to have mulitfacetted characters. WE don’t treat our spouses like we do our coworkers and we don’t treat our coworkers the same as we treat our friends. We must work to help our students apply these principles to their own lives now to begin to prepare them for a successful future. Many times a young person will tell you that acting respectful isn’t part of their character that they’d feel phony.
We have to remind them that there persona has to be multidimensional in order to make it in life. They can’t treat their mothers and fathers the way they do their friends on the street or they wouldn’t have a successful relationship with their parents, the same in school they shouldn’t treat their school time as they would their time in the streets, or they won’t have a successful chance at an education.
Self- Control... Honesty... Respect. These are all character traits that must be learned, we all know what kind of world we live in... but they can live in a better world.
It is so important to establish a foundation for excellence by teaching right from wrong and positive ways to deal with conflict in our lives. It is a given that every child born will face conflicts and have to make choices on a daily basis. If we can give them the tools they will need to be able to weigh their choices and choose to act in a positive manner, then they will have that foundation to be upright, moral citizens in the societies of tomorrow.

Connecting with our teens

These days, teens are growing up in a digitized and exciting ad world where bands promotes their iPods, McDonald's gets them to see Star Wars and an EverQuest II video game delivers them Pizza Hut. But with all these branded entertainment campaigns, what's working and what is doomed to turn off the savvy teen today?

1. Know what's hot.Teens are passionate about the following: Electronics and entertainment; iPod accessories; Target, the place to be seen; NetFlix, which is gaining momentum over Blockbuster; "American Idol", the only must-see TV show for teens.

2. Pick music over film any day. Music is something that does not have a shelf life of three weeks. Looking at music versus films, films are great, but there is a buzz about a film for three weeks and then it goes away. The buzz about an album that can last for a year or more.

3. Turn off the TV. TV is something that is in the background for teens as they are IM'ing with friends or doing other things. TV is "there" and present, and is something they pay attention to, but it does not define who they are.

4. Get into their social networks. 89% of the 200 kids surveyed by Buzz Marketing Group said they were fine when friends send them info about products through "My Space", but on the flip side, 92% of them were not fine when advertised to directly on "My Space".

5. Integrate causes that matter. Cause marketing is very important to teens. They care about changing and improving the world for the better.

6. Let them explore and discover. Wells calls teens the "Google Generation" because "Google" is more than a search to them. It's a window to things that they may not have gotten to so easily before.

7. Give them the tools to customize and document. Young people are really big on owning their own universe, being able to document it and share it with friends, which is why uploading photos or writing music are big trends.

8. Keep them communicating and connecting. Teens are creating their own community or "pods," as they're called. Instead of just having a big group of trendy friends, young people exist in their own "pods," mixing and mingling.

9. Find them on their cell phones. Since teens are on their cell phones more than ever, you can move a lot of her traditional research practices to cell phone based.

10. Be funny, cool and on the Internet. The company called "Myspace" is a great example. Teens sent its sites around to their friends right away, because it was the funniest thing they had seen.

DIY (Do It Yourself)

The do-it-yourself mentality is one of the things that built this country, and it is most certainly still deeply embedded into the fabric of American sensibilities. FedEx was dreamed up by a college kid. Apple Computer started out as a pet project of Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs that they birthed in Jobs’ garage, and Google was founded in a dorm room by a couple of grad students from Stanford University. The list of spunky and successful startups goes on and on. Do-it-yourself projects (DIY for short) have been brewing in garages, basements, and college dorm rooms for years. It was inevitable that these ideas found their way onto Web sites dedicated to DIY projects of all types, and the sites feed the growing legions of people searching the Internet for answers on how to do everything from knitting to building a computer to home remodeling. There is even a man whose DIY project is being considered the first cure for cancer. There is a bevy of interesting, wildly entertaining, and even mischievous Web sites out there that offer articles, instructions, and video of DIY projects. Have you ever wondered how to make your own solar-powered bicycle? Or wanted some creative ideas for entertaining kids at a party? Or tried to figure out how to fix your car without sending it to a repair shop? The answers are out there. Here are a few I've come across... http://www.instructables.com/ http://www.wikihow.com/Main-Page http://www.makezine.com/ http://www.diyhappy.com/

Cabrini Connection's College Application Fund

Please consider giving to the Cabrini Connections College Application Fund.

While students from families of modest means know that it costs a lot to attend college, the expense involved in applying often comes as a surprise. And the cost will increase in March when the price of the SAT Reasoning Test (formerly the SAT I) rises from $29.50 to $41.50 because a writing component is being added. Families know that the senior year of high school is not only stressful, but expensive, and unless families have done a great job of saving and planning, it puts them in a real pinch.

The cost of applying to and choosing a college can range from several hundred to several thousand dollars, depending on the decisions students and families make. There are fees for everything: applications, SAT or ACT exams; mailing extra copies of all those scores to schools; and even taking Advanced Placement tests. Students applying to highly selective colleges often take three to five AP tests in the hope they will score high enough to enhance their academic profile and earn college credits.

Application process can add up Not counting the cost of campus visits, the tab for a hypothetical student: Applications to 6 colleges Typical fees: $50 (as high as $75) 6 x $50 = $300 Take SAT Reasoning Test twice Test fee: $41.50 (after the price risesin March) 2 x $41.50 = $83 Take ACT once, with writing option Test fee: $42 (Many students take both the SAT and ACT) 1 x $42 = $42 Send scores to 6 colleges No extra charge for up to four colleges, $7 for each additional school. 2 x $7 = $14 Take Subject Tests Test fee: $17 to register, $8 a test. (Many highly selective colleges require three SAT Subject Tests — formerly the SAT II) 3 x $8 + $17 = $41 Take four Advanced Placement exams Test fee: $82 4 x $82 = $328 Source: USA TODAY research Total = $808

Workforce and Career Information

In my last post I discussed information I learned at our Tutor Mentor Leadership Conference. Although, all of the workshops and handouts were equally informative, I feel the most relevant to our goals was “Gateway to Quality Career & Workforce Information."

As I related in my previous post, here our students, as well as, their parents, our volunteers and their friends can sign on and discover invaluable information about the career types, availability, expectations, knowledge path as well as a dissection of other careers that fall within the same description and learning requirements. I would suggest that all of our mentors sign onto the site to help our kids see the steps the should take find the career path that suits them best.

However, I want to further emphasize the important tools that can be found on their site. The site is broken down into multiple levels but the most important and useful information can be found on the first page. It's broken down into 5 elements; Career Resources (ICRN), Labor Market Information Source (LMI Source), Workforce Info Center (WIC), Kids and Careers and ICOMPASS.

The first portal is the ICOMPASS link. This link is their online training tool that will help you better understand and use the workforce, labor market and career information. Or as they call it, "Your Guide to Illinois Workforce, Career and Labor Market Information. Upon entering the site you are invited to take their online course designed to help you use the the IDES trio of economy-related sites. You will be asked to register, once registered you will be given a list of training resources based on the available data bases related to the information you're training on. There are two types of registration; On Demand- for those who only need portions of the training for their personal knowldged and Competency Certificate- for those interested in completing the whole training. These includes tests and a certificate denoting successful completion of training. I recommend that if you and your student sign up you take the latter level training so that they have a certificate as reward for their efforts.

Once you've completed the training or if you opt to forego the training it's time to get into the nitty gritty of the site. At this time it would probably be helpful for the students to click into the Kids and Careers section of the site. Here you will find a PDF "IDES_kids_and_careers" which discuss various aspects of linking a kid to a career. They list "Best Bet" occupations and salaries as they relate to career choices, Career Planning steps, The educational requirement of various jobs and important targets and goals for students as they begin thinking of their career choices.

The next component of the site, Career Resources; offers a variety of career exploration products for elementary, middle and high school students as well as adults. Upon clicking you are given access to information on occupations education and financial aid, job search hints and a resume writer with links to employers nationwide, self-assessment tools and storage to keep the information gained here. It includes Career Click to see job titles along with educational requirements, skills needed for the job and predictions on whether these jobs will be available in the future. There are other training resources in the training publication section and CIS junior which is a must for any of our students planning for a possible career. Here they can match their intersest to occupations, find out about wages and what they'd do on a particular job and learn what to study to prepare for their future.

The other two components, LMI which is a database containing complete labor market reports, data and publications which can be viewed online or downloaded and WIC a portal that includes current and historical workforce and occupational information for job seekers, local workforce planning boards and economic development professionals. I strongly incourage our volunteers to link into the site and become familiar with its' offerings so we can be better armed to assist our students when they start asking about and looking for work. It's even a good way to answer the ever popular question, "why do I have to learn math when I really want to be a Fireman?"