Some people are calling it distance-free learning for the Medical Assistant. Distance Learning happens wherever the learner is most available, free from the traditional boundaries of geography. It could be in the next room, or in the next state. It uses whatever technology is most available and appropriate to allow effective learning wherever needed.
It changes the rules. Now, you and your colleagues, the learners, are more able to adapt and use your newly-gained knowledge for your real world challenges immediately. Laboratory work is done at your own location.

Typical Methods of Distance Learning for Medical Assistant programs and other schools include:

One-way video/two-way audio via satellite

Two way video and audio conferencing

Multiple user audio-only conferencing

World Wide Web-based access to educational programs

Internet and e-mail-based distributed educational programs

Online labs using innovative distance education technology (excellent for the Medical Assistant student)

A critical element of effective distance learning today is the learning environment. Interaction within that environment can occur by many technical means: e-mail, fax, telephone, two-way video. Interestingly, this interaction is becoming more asynchronous Qmeaning it doesn’t have to happen at the same time for all participants.

Medical Assistant distance edcuation is quickly becoming the norma and not the acception for the future generation of new Medical Assistants. The Medical Assistant that can integrate technology with their profession and on-going education is at a GREAT ADVANTAGE to the students studing in older classroom modules and settings. The next generation of Medical Assistants will be educated by distance education technology and will replace the older traditional classroom trained medical assistants. Detailed information about Medical Assistant distance education is now available at the St. Augustine Medical Assistant website: www.medassistant.org

Dr. Mark Stout, Physician and Dean of Education for St. Augustine School of Medical Assistants

Fractions. Ugh! I could just hear the squeals coming from my
students any time we entered the realm of these nasty little
demons. Anytime we embarked on an area of mathematics that would
require heavy fraction work, students would act as though we
were entering Hades after an arduous crossing of the river
Acheron, led by the fearless ferry-man Charon and his
three-headed dog Cerberus. Ouch! It was that bad. Yet in all
reality, these bugbears we call fractions are not nearly so
demonic as they are made out to be. And when we consider how
important they are in the study of all areas of mathematics, we
best give them their proper place–and respect. At the early
ages, children stumble over these entities because they are
inherently difficult to reckon with. Unlike whole numbers, which
consist of one part, fractions (or rationals, as they are
called) consist of two: the numerator, or top part, and the
denominator, or bottom part. Pretty much everyone knows this.
And these monsters are quite friendly when we perform the
arithmetic operations of multiplication or division (which will
not be discussed here; you’ll just have to wait until I write
that article). However, add or subtract–now we’re talking
serious business. Students would cringe at the thought of adding
two fractions with unusually different denominators, not to
mention three fractions with different bottoms. I guess “bottoms
up” would not apply here.

At any rate, truth be told: adding fractions is not difficult.
We just need to get on a common playing field and by that I
refer to the common denominator. Specifically, we want the
lowest common denominator, or LCD, for short. Once we have the
LCD, we do a quick conversion on the numerators and then add
them together. Case closed. Yet getting to this LCD is what
gives students the most trouble. Now I could go into the method
of getting the LCD by first decomposing each bottom into
primes–a process known as decomposition into primes–and then
obtaining the LCD by taking out the all the distinct primes as
well as the common primes to the highest power–ugh, I’m already
getting confused by all this mumbo jumbo. Hey wait, isn’t there
an easier way?

Yes. Thankfully, there is. Since most students learn to get a
common denominator (not necessarily the LCD, though) by
multiplying the two bottoms together, we will base our method on
that procedure. The only problem with this method is that they
might need to multiply two large numbers together. By large, I
mean perhaps 12 x 18 or 24 x 16. Most students have a calculator
to resort to so this is really not an issue. (Although if they
learn my techniques, they won’t need the calculator.)

Okay, let’s get to the meat of this method. Let’s take a
specific example. Suppose we needed to add 5/18 and 5/12
together. First, we need to get the LCD of 12 and 18. Before we
multiply these numbers together, we need to observe that the
greatest common factor of 12 and 18 is 6. The greatest common
factor, or GCF of two numbers, is the largest number that
divides evenly both given numbers. To get the LCD, all we need
do is multiply the two given numbers together, 12 x 18 = 216,
and then divide this result by the GCF of 6, to get 216/6 = 36.
Presto! The LCD of 12 and 18 is 36. No prime decompositions, no
taking out distinct primes, no worry about highest powers.

Finally, to add the two fractions, we need to multiply the
numerators by an appropriate factor to get the adjusted
fraction. For example, since 36/18 = 2, we need to multiply the
5 of 5/18 by 2 to get 5/18 = 10/36; similarly, since 36/12 = 3,
we multiply 5 by 3 to get 15; thus 5/12 = 15/36. Finally, 5/18 +
5/12 = 10/36 + 15/36 = 25/36.

Try this method out for size, and I’m sure you won’t be taking
any boat rides with Charon or Cerberus any time soon. Till next
time…

He also made money by collecting and selling lost golf balls. Buffett’s interest in finance was clear extremely early on in his life.

He started playing the stock market with one of his sisters when he was eleven. At twelve, he was betting on horses, and by high school he had started a business (pinball machines) with a friend, which earned him fifty dollars a week. Not only did he own a business by graduation, but he also had bought himself forty acres of Nebraskan farm land with his profit. Graduate school was a formative time for Buffett.

It was there that he met Benjamin Graham, an economic scholar whose work Buffett had begun studying in college. Buffett believed strongly in Graham’s theory that it is wise to look for stocks of companies which are undervalued, which will most probably prosper with a little time. Thus began Buffett’s untraditional approach to portfolio management. After working for his father’s investment banking company for the three years after business school, Buffett returned to Graham and worked as a security analyst at Graham’s company for two years until 1956.

In that year, at the age of twenty-five, Buffett started his own investment company, the Buffett Partnership, using $5,000 of his own funds and collecting $100,000 from interested friends and family.

One of the smartest moves made by Buffet’s company at that time was to invest in American Express. In 1963, a scandal surrounded AmEx, and Wall Street believed the company was near the end. But Buffett, always with his wits about him and his thinking cap on, noticed when in restaurants and shops that customers were still using the card to buy. He went ahead and bought 5 percent of the stock, which by 1961 had risen from 35 to 189 market points. Buffett is now chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., which makes the long-term investments which Buffett is so adept at choosing.

Mark Crisp
The Momentum Stock Trader
http://www.stressfreetrading.com

Unless you work with easy, mellow students, you will love our
“Top 10 Best Classroom Management Interventions to Turnaround
Problem Student Behavior.” These interventions are taken from
Youth Change Workshop’s Solution Center ( HREF=http://www.youthchg.com rel="nofollow">http://www.youthchg.com). There
are hundreds of strategies on the site, ready to be used by
teachers, counselors and youth workers. If classroom or group
management is an on-going nightmare, it will take more than
these ten new techniques to transform your class or group into a
dream, so be sure to check out the web site for methods that are
especially designed to rein in even the most uncontrollable
students.

1. Teacher Telegram (or Counselor, Therapist… Telegram) A
veteran, “world-class” special ed teacher was working with a
student when the child suddenly flipped over his desk and fled
the room. You won’t believe what this teacher had done! She had
written on the student’s math paper! That child interpreted that
help to mean that the teacher thought he was too stupid to do
the work himself, and bolted from the room in anger. Of course,
had this teacher known that the child would react in that
manner, she would have been happy to let the child do the
writing, or she could have written on scratch paper instead.

This incident is a classic, common situation that could have
easily been avoided if only the teacher had known the child’s
views. The Teacher Telegram surveys your youngsters to gather
the information you need to avoid problems that can perhaps be
averted or minimized. Make your telegram have about five
finish-the-sentence statements, and include queries like: “Some
of the things I like about your class are…,” “The one thing I
wish you would do differently is…,” “The one thing that helps
me is…,” “The one thing that does not help me is…,” and “My
other comments are…” You may be pleasantly surprised at how
much this little device, done periodically, can reduce or end
problems.

2. Studies have indicated that when girls are involved in
sports, they are far less likely to become pregnant, drop out or
engage in serious misbehavior. To encourage your female students
to consider sports, ask your girls to craft collages or posters
entitled “Silly Boys, Sports Are for Girls.”

3. A Taste of the Real World It can be very hard to convince
youth that they will desperately need education. For children
who have very poor reading skills, here’s an interesting and
compelling activity. Create a menu in a foreign language and ask
the students to order. To get you started, here are some Dutch
dinner items, but you can also go to a page like and enter
English menu terms and have the words translated into German,
French or other language. You may wish to actually serve some of
the items your students order. Select items that are very likely
to be viewed as distasteful, so you might consider offering
treats like sardines, stewed prunes and liver, foods that might
be thoroughly disliked, but are easy to purchase.

Choose Your Dinner Gebakken garnalen (Pan-Roasted Shrimp)
Gegrilde lamskoteletten (Grilled Lamb Chops) Vegeratische
pastachotel (Vegetarian Pasta) Rijstpudding met frambozencoulis
(Rice Pudding) When your students protest that they can’t figure
out what to do, let them know that could be their on-going adult
experience in the world if they don’t learn to read.

4. Education– You Can’t Live Life Without It Ask your students
to list out the most difficult things that they may face during
their lives. Elicit answers like manage a serious illness or
find a job. After reviewing the list, ask the students to
identify if education would help or hurt in each situation.
Assist students to note that education almost always helps, and
never hurts. Assist students to realize: Education– You Can’t
Live Life Without It.

5. There’s Always Welfare Hurry up. Welfare is going the way of
the buggy and 8 track tape deck. The number of welfare
recipients has dropped a phenomenal 50% in the past six years.
Plus, in most cases, you can be on welfare for five years and
then you are out for life,– yes, life. The amount of money
given out is down by as much as 90% in some places. The average
person may live nearly 80 years so welfare may be available only
6% of the time. To convey how tiny 6% is to your youngsters,
give 6% of your class a small treat, like a mint. Or, give each
student $300 in play money and then take all but 6% away,
leaving each youngster with just $18.

6. Three Little Lies To convincingly teach students how hard it
is to tell and keep a lie, ask each youngster to tell three lies
about things that are occurring that day. So, a typical lie
might be: “I have pink hair,” said by a brunette. Ask students
to repeat each lie at least three times an hour all day. The
next day, discuss how much energy, concentration and focus it
took to maintain those lies, and relate the discussion to actual
lies students have told in the past. Include in the discussion:
“Who does lying really fool?” Assist students to realize that in
many ways, the liar really most fools himself or herself.

7. Pay Attention Adults often expect young people to magically
know how to pay attention, but no one may have actually taught
the child how to do so. To teach the skills needed to pay
attention, teach each of these five skills one at a time: Get
your area ready, get yourself ready, watch the action, listen to
the action, control your body. You should use pictures, rag
dolls or other attention-grabbing devices to teach and drill the
skills into habits. But, until you teach the skills, you
shouldn’t expect them.

8. Can You Compute? Internet and/or computer skills are becoming
required for almost any job. You may have to scan a badge to
clock in at your job, or log onto a network to get your
assignments. Have your students strut their stuff by performing
internet or computer tasks. Here’s one to start: Find where to
get bakeapples, and locate a shipper to transport. Answer:
Bakeapples are a Newfoundland, Canada food; UPS could provide
shipping. Discuss with students where they can hone key internet
and computer skills.

9. Computers Rule For good or bad, computers are becoming
absolutely key to everyday work and living. More and more mail
is being sent over the internet, but at the same time, spam is
becoming a bigger and bigger hassle. Here at Youth Change, we
receive about 300 spams each day. It has gotten harder and
harder to spot the real e-mail from the junk e-mail. In fact, an
invitation to present our workshop in Europe was at first
deleted as our spam deletion program thought it was junk mail.
So, save up your real mail and junk e-mail (eliminating
offensive or personal items) then ask students to sort through a
very large amount of e-mail. Alternatively, create simulated
e-mails to use instead. Note how many times important items like
bills, renewal notices, and password information, are deleted.
Be sure to include bogus virus alerts, e-mails containing
“viruses”, and deceptive offers in the e-mails you give students
to process. When students mishandle items, note that education
and computer training can help.

10. Misbehaved Employees Wanted To show students that present
classroom management problems, that misbehavior won’t be
tolerated in the adult world, ask them to search the employment
classified ads for employers who seek employees with behavior
problems.

WANT MORE ANSWERS TO YOUR WORST “KID PROBLEMS?”

A quick Top 10 list is no replacement for having all the skills
and information you need to work with youth and children. Based
on the recent questions to the Live Expert Help Area of our web
site, many professionals struggle with major gaps in their
training. Many of you have said that you’re uncertain how to
rein in rowdy youth, or you wish you had a broader mental health
base, or better understood what to do about fragile kids. We’re
here to help youth professionals help troubled youth. Consider
getting our free Problem Student Problem-Solver magazine at our
site, link below, or downloading some of our lightening fast,
problem-stopping ebooks.