Educate – Kids today to Save them from themselves Later! Energy Drinks & Alcohol

This is for sure not a technology post, but I believe it’s important.

For most of you this is not a reality yet as the kids your might be dealing with are hopefully too young to be drinking alcohol.  They can certainly get energy drinks and this should also be limited and controlled.   Habits started today will continue when they can drink alcohol and they will!

I have tried a few energy drinks – just to try…  I have heard about Alcoholic Energy Drinks and always thought it was a bad combination.  Well the FDA is looking at this currently as there has been a number of deaths due to the consumption of this type of product.  This I had not heard about till I read the New York Times article – F.D.A. Expected to Act on Alcoholic Energy Drinks.

This is great news that they are moving forward, though a number of experts believe too slow in doing something about it.  Well truly it has to be only the START of the process,  I say this because kids will be kids and they will buy the two products and do the mixing themselves.  I was at an event a few months ago at a BAR and guess what was served up as an optional mix for your alcohol You guessed it – A ENERGY DRINK – you mix it and drink it!

Stopping the Alcoholic version is not going to solve anything – once again kids will be kids and all we can do is make sure they are aware and hopefully they make the right decisions.  I guess we can make it harder to got the product – I would think any store on campus should not be selling Energy Drinks, but again as with everything else – they will get it somewhere.

New York Times article – F.D.A. Expected to Act on Alcoholic Energy Drinks.

Education – Education and knowledge is what our kids need!

Related Articles

• The Case Against Banning Four Loko (dailyfinance.com)

Technology used Right! Keep attention – Keep on track – Keep them Alert!

I always like when technology is used and it gives a huge return in kids education.  Yes it means changing the way your lesson plans are presented, yes it means being creative and a little more work in preparation – but doesn’t the end result justify the investment.  It can even make your job of teaching more enjoyable and rewarding when you see more kids staying on track and engaged in the class.  At the end of the day we want the kids to leave school each day with some understanding, some new insight and thinking about and growing in some manner.

I have heard and seen advertising for these clickers for sometime, but never really understood just how valuable these could be.  I thought it was just another technology gimmick!  How could these really be used to keep kids on track and gaining their full attention throughout a lesson.   What a great article that ran today in New York Times, talking about how many Universities are utilizing this technology to do just that!  About half-million students are using them today.

EVANSTON, Ill. — If any of the 70 undergraduates in Prof. Bill White’s “Organizational Behavior” course here at Northwestern University are late for class, or not paying attention, he will know without having to scan the lecture hall.

Many kids don’t really like these clickers, while others believe it helps them keep on track and do what they really should be doing in class. 

Though some Northwestern students say they resent the potential Big Brother aspect of all this, Jasmine Morris, a senior majoring in industrial engineering, is not one of them.

“I actually kind of like it,” Ms. Morris said after a class last week. “It does make you read. It makes you pay attention. It reinforces what you’re supposed to be doing as a student.”

Take a read of the entire article to really get a good understanding – the key is to incorporate the clickers into your lesson plan and get the kids involved throughout the lesson.  This approach I believe can be used for any grade as it puts technology in the hands of the child that is more than a little familiar in using it already.

NEW YORK TIMES – More Professors Give Out Hand-Held Devices to Monitor Students and Engage Them

Technology at it’s best!