| Business Bytes By Barb | |
| A Newsletter for Business & Marketing Educators | January 1998 |
Public Hearings for New Course Titles
Public hearings on the proposed rule for new course titles and descriptions for Business and Marketing Education will be held on the dates indicated below. Interested persons may appear at the hearings and present testimony. Depending on the number of persons wishing to testify, the length of testimony may be limited. Written statements are encouraged, either prior to or at the hearings.
If mailed, written comments on the proposed rule must be postmarked no later than Wednesday, February 25, 1998. If delivered in person, by facsimile, or by email prior to the final hearing, written comments must be received by 4:30 p.m. on Monday, March 2, 1998. If presented at the final hearing on Thursday, March 5, 1998, 13 copies of written comments must be provided.
Written comments should be mailed, delivered, or transmitted to:
Jeffery P. Zaring Department of Education Room 229 State House Indianapolis, IN 46204-2798 Facsimile: (317) 232-8004 email: jzaring@doe.state.in.us Meeting Dates and Locations January 29, Thursday Jasper Greater Jasper Consolidated Schools 1520 Saint Charles Street 4:00-5:30 p.m. February 19, Thursday Plymouth Plymouth Community School Corporation 611 Berkley Street 4:00-5:30 p.m. March 5, Thursday Indianapolis 251 East Ohio Street Fourth Floor Rooms C-D 9:00 a.m.
You are encouraged to provide input on the new course titles and descriptions to the Indiana State Board of Education. For additional information, contact Barbara Beadle, Business and Marketing Education Specialist at (317) 232-9179 or bbeadle@doe.state.in.us.
Insurance Education Institutes
The Insurance Education Foundation Institutes for High School Teachers are designed for secondary educators who teach insurance as part of another subject such as business, consumer education, economics, social studies, and family & consumer science.
The purpose of this program is to enable you to become more effective in teaching insurance. The Institutes are designed to help you understand all lines of insurance, how the industry works and what insurance careers are available. You will also learn how to teach this often confusing topic to teenagers.
The Insurance Education Foundation provides a full scholarship for each teacher accepted into the program. This includes room and board (for two weeks), tuition, textbooks and all classroom materials. Teachers provide their own transportation and weekend meals. Institutes are held in June and July in California, Iowa, Alabama, Illinois, New York, and Virginia.
This is an excellent opportunity for business and marketing instructors. For more information contact Barbara Beadle or Nancy Coleman, Executive Director of the Insurance Foundation at (317) 876-6046 or 1 800 IEF-4811. Application forms must be returned by April 1, 1998. Screening of applicants is handled at each university.
OPAC System New Version
Biddle & Associates, Inc. announces the newest version of the OPAC System (Office Proficiency Assessment & Certification) testing package designed to measure skills needed in today's office. This program offers tremendous time saving potential for business instructors due to completely automated, self scoring testing. The OPAC System was developed by Professional Secretaries International and is the most comprehensive office skills and computer application assessment program available.
Tests include keyboarding, word processing, language arts, records management, basic math, financial record keeping, databases, spreadsheet, 10-key, data entry, medical and legal terminology and the new Test Write feature and Validation Module. With Test Writer you can create your own customized tests.
Visit the Web Site at www.opac.com for a free automated keyboarding test or call 800 999-0434 for more information.
Lack of Technology Workers
U.S. companies are hiring information technology specialists faster than universities can produce them, says a new survey from the Information Technology Association of America. As more and more businesses computerize or go online, the number of computer science graduates has actually dropped.
At large and mid-sized companies alone, the survey found about 190,000 vacant information technology jobs sit waiting for qualified workers, slowing the growth of the industry and making managers send work overseas.
Already among the best paid employees in America, information technology specialists are a scarce commodity. Therefore, the ITAA study reports, they can command higher salaries.
"Those who believe that such high wage increases are intrinsically good, even if caused by a lack of available workers, are not taking into consideration the overall loss to the economy when companies cannot grow because they cannot find needed workers," the industry association warns.
The survey points to school and university education, not better corporate recruitment and training, as the way to fill the workforce gap.
Copies of "Help Wanted: The IT Worforce Gap at the Dawn of a New Century" are available from the Information Technology Association of America. Call 703 522-5055 or visit www.itaa.org.
Microsoft Product Versions
It is very difficult to keep up with the "latest" version these days! Microsoft has new versions every time you turn around. Here is some information regarding versions that will make your life easier.
| Office Product | Software Included | Runs Under |
| Office 4.x | Word 6.0 Excel 5.0 PowerPoint 4.0 Access 2.0* |
Windows 3.1 Windows 95 Windows NT 3.x & 4.0 |
| Office 95 | Word 7.0 Excel 7.0 PowerPoint 7.0 Schedule+ Access 7.0* |
Windows 95 Windows NT 4.0 |
| Office 97 | Word97 Excel97 PowerPoint97 Outlook97 Access97* |
Windows 95 Windows NT 4.0 |
*Professional Version of Office only.
Microsoft replaced the version number in Office97 with the year (97). However, you will find many people referring to the version as 8.0. Since the Office 4.x will run under both Windows 3.1 and Windows95, it is still a very popular version to own.
Proposed New Course Titles
A team of approximately 30 business and marketing teachers met four times from April-June 1997 to revise and update the course titles and descriptions for business and marketing education courses. The focus of the new course titles was "What America's Students Should Know And Be Able To Do In Business and Marketing Education." The committee considered a number of issues such as employer expectations; infusing higher-order thinking, communication, and math skills into the curriculum; Core 40 requirements; career clusters; and business knowledge and skills that all students should understand. The NBEA Standards for Business Education and the MarkED Marketing compentencies served as a guide for the committee.
The course titles were presented to the Indiana State Board of Education on October 8, 1997, and the Board approved them for promulgation. There will be three public hearings (see main article) before the State Board votes on approval of the proposed course titles. The rule change will then be forwarded to the Attorney General for signature.
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New course titles must be offered in the schools by the school year 2000-2001. However, they may be offered as early as the 1998-99 school year if a school wishes to do so.
For further information, contact Barbara Beadle, Business and Marketing Education Program Specialist, 317 232-9179 or bbeadle@doe.state.in.us.
There will be a series of workshops in the spring to discuss implementation of the new courses and answer questions that schools may have.
Web Site
The Office of Career and Vocational Services has a new web site. Although we are still under construction, we encourage you to visit and offer suggestions that would be helpful in updating or adding to our site. Contact us at: http://www.doe.state.in.us/octe
Ten Tips for Motivating Students
Duana Easley, an educator at the Scarlet Oaks Career Development Center in Cincinnati offers the following guidelines for getting the most out of your students.
- Challenge them. Students know when they're learning. They certainly know when they're not.
- Visualize your students' success. Young people often first "see" their own success through the eyes of an adult they respect.
- Use a daily quote or story to set a positive tone for the day. Too often our students' lives are stuck in the negative.
- Set goals that inspire you and share them with your students. Report progress to them.
- Teach students the steps to accomplishing a goal. First the dream. Put it in writing. Illustrate it. Begin visualizing yourself accomplishing it. Break it into steps. Set a time frame. And get started. Reward yourself for progress.
- Compliment liberally. Make compliments specific. Put as many in writing as possible.
- Always make the connection between the classroom and the workplace. The first question a student asks about every activity is, "Why do we have to learn this stuff?" Always demonstrate relevance.
- Call home with good news about students. Let your students overhear you saying good things about them. Enlist parents' support.
- Help students identify negative self-talk. Work together as a class to eliminate it.
- Begin with the end in mind. What's the big picture? What is it we really want our students to walk away with/say about our classrooms 15 years from now? Then walk your talk. We teach by example.
The Business Disc
The nineties have been called the decade of the entrepreneur, and it's not changing. There is really no such thing as a secure job. Students need to know all their options for future employment including self-employment. This is where the newest, most sophisticated multimedia program, THE BUSINESS DISC CD-ROM for Windows can help. The two-part format of THE BUSINESS DISC: How to Start And Run A Small Business makes the learning process clear and enjoyable. In Part I, The Planning Phase, key decisions are made as the business plan is developed; in Part II, The First Year of Business, a one-year simulation of business operation tests skills and continues teaching.
Best of all THE BUSINESS DISC CD-ROM only requires a computer with Windows95 or 3.1, a sound card, and a 2x CD-ROM drive. For full details, a list of owners, and a free demo copy of the Entrepreneurial Attitude Survey, visit the website at http://www.business.com. Or you may contact Ralph France, Maryland Interactive Technologies at 800 526-0526 or TBDisc@aol.com.
Mouse Trap
Last winter, there was havoc at the Mississippi worker' compensation office in Jackson. Instead of handling disability claims, some employees were playing video games like Solitaire, Doom, and Minesweeper. "They wouldn't stop during working hours, even after directives were issued," says information officer Marilynne Nelson. "We're a high-visibility agency, and we can't afford to give the impression we're goofing off."
Enter DVD, the Irvine, California based maker of AntiGame, a software program that works a lot like a virus-detection program. It scans a network for games, which can easily crash the system, and then deletes them. Computer games have become a significant problem in the high-tech workplace, accounting for an astonishing $50 billion lost in worker productivity, according to DVD, and fortunately for the company, AntiGame is the only remedy on the market so far.
For information in this newsletter, contact Barbara K. Beadle, Business and Marketing Specialist Room 229 State House Indianapolis IN 46204-2798 317 232-9179-office 317 232-9121-fax bbeadle@doe.state.in.us
