Blog: 2011

“Happy Parenting…”

Submitted by pressrw on 12/29/2011 9:26AM

I recently spent a Friday at a local high school in a freshman Parenting class. I wanted to experience how the students came into the classroom to pick up a RealCare Baby for a weekend experience.

When I arrived at the room at 3:00 it was quite chaotic as the two Parenting teachers and three student helpers ran around the room setting up the materials on 19 desks.  This wasn’t unorganized – just an excited frenzy.

They lined up one car seat on each desk and placed a Baby, diaper bag, bottle and extra diaper in each seat. I noticed that each item had a matching number written on it – we later found out that number was assigned to each freshman and corresponded with the ‘Baby Bundle’ number.

Each Baby was pre-programmed to start at 4:00.  The freshmen had been given care lessons in class the week before, so they were prepared as well. 

Soon the bell rang and the freshmen began to file into the room. The helpers asked them to go to their assigned bundles. They would go to each student and snap an ID on their wrist, explain each Baby item and tell them “happy parenting” or “congratulations mom!”  Then the freshmen were off, walking down the crowded halls with a car seat and diaper bag in hand. 

The room had high energy even though the freshmen were very quiet.  I asked one how she was feeling about the project and her response was, “I am already tired thinking about this.” 

By 3:15 each Baby was gone to its weekend home. The helpers gathered their things and left and the teachers looked at each other in hopes that everything would go smoothly throughout the weekend.  

I was surprised that sending out 19 Babies at one time could be such a quick process and be so organized. This did make me wonder if all teachers sending out this number of Babies had similar processes. 

So tell me – how are you organizing your infant simulators and what tips do you have for sending your students off on a “happy parenting” experience?   

The Spirit of Christmas

Submitted by pressrw on 12/21/2011 9:10AM

The Spirit of Christmas has many meanings.  Wikipedia defines it as general feeling of emotional beneficence associated with Christmas.  When you Google it, movies and albums entitles “The Spirit of Christmas” pop up.  Some may simply say, “a warm fuzzy feeling you get inside.”

This year for Realityworks, the Spirit of Christmas is associated with our holiday season gift drive for those who cannot afford to buy presents this season. 

We received information about two local families and wish lists for their children.  Realityworks employees banded together to bring in toys, dress-up clothes, games, lots of socks and movies for the six kids on our lists. Gift cards for groceries were given to the parents along with hand-knit goodies for the moms. 



Giving back to our community is very important to all of our employees, and during this Christmas season we truly felt the Spirit of Christmas! 

We wish you and your families Happy Holidays, and we hope you have that warm fuzzy feeling inside all season long!

The Realityworks Team


Lost bottle cap solution!

Submitted by pressrw on 12/20/2011 8:34AM

Teachers often report that students tend to lose bottle caps. Here is a tip which we hope will help reduce your losses.

Supplies you’ll need:



  • bottle

  • cap

  • drill (1/4” bit recommended)

  • the most heavy-duty yarn you can find

 



  1. Carefully drill a small hole in the side of the bottle cap.

  2. Tie one end of the string tightly around the bottle’s mouth, tucking the string under the lip, if possible.

  3. Thread & tie the other end through the hole you just drilled in the cap.



If they still lose the bottle caps….well, our 5-Pack Replacement Bottle Caps are a popular item (item # 10040706, $10).

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Using RealCare Baby in a Clinical Setting

Submitted by pressrw on 12/14/2011 11:28AM

The National American University (NAU) in Bloomington, Minn. believes skills laboratories are an important part of nursing training.  These settings provide a realistic environment before students work with real patients to work on nursing skills, such as CPR and drawing blood.

NAU decided to incorporate RealCare Baby in a health promotion course, to provide students with true-to-life interaction with infants. In addition to the feeding, burping, soothing and diaper-changing, students also practice taking vital signs and measurements.

Several RealCare Babies are put into a demonstration mode and simulation modes, depending on how long they will be working on infant care.   NAU has an ample supply of infant simulators so students can all work on skills simultaneously. In many cases, theory is presented through lectures and presentations, and then the students move into simulation during two-hour sessions in the lab. The learning is magnified when students see skills demonstrated and then they do it.

For a complete story on National American University using RealCare Baby infant simulators visit - http://www.realityworks.com/images/Story-NationalAmericanUniversityMN-InfantSimulators.pdf

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Babies Babies Everywhere

Submitted by pressrw on 12/13/2011 8:47AM

 
Baby turns up when you least expect it. I had one of these unexpected ‘Baby sightings’ recently. Whenever it happens, the reaction I have is one of pride, delight and wry humor.  I am a Product Manager here at Realityworks and watching over the RealCare product line is one of my responsibilities.  I am also a high school dance judge and travel to competitions around the state judging on some weekends.
 
I recently attended a dance competition at Milwaukee Lutheran High School.  During the day I saw at least three different RealCare Babies in attendance as well.  I watched with amusement as these dancers (a/k/a weekend parents) tended to their Babies between performances. 
 
During the lunch break, I saw one exhausted dancer/ Baby mama trying to get her Baby to stop crying while she tried to eat some lunch herself.  She was muttering to herself, “Would you please stop already!”   After lunch, I heard one Baby crying during a team performance.   After the performance was over, I heard the dancer moan, “Oh no.  I missed it” meaning she must have missed a care event.   I also observed the looks of the general public as these young teen moms were carrying around Baby in the infant carrier. 
 
Seeing Baby in action during a weekend simulation really drives home the point of why we do what we do.  Parenting doesn’t stop because you have homework, a dance competition or a job.  Putting Baby in the hands of teens is the best way to show them what they could realistically expect if they had a Baby and why it is so important to wait until they are ready to handle it.

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Realityworks Cares

Submitted by pressrw on 12/07/2011 9:15AM


As employees of Realityworks we can use a number of “in-kind” hours throughout the calendar year.  These are paid hours we can use to volunteer our time in our community at various organizations.  From my point of view this is a major perk, because I love being able to support my community by giving of my time. 

We can choose our own serving opportunities, and the Realityworks Charitable Giving Committee sponsors volunteering events as well. The latest event was at The Community Table (TCT), a local organization serving the community one meal each day, 365 days a year.  TCT relies completely on volunteers to cook the meal, serve it and clean up afterwards.  We created one team for each of these shifts so we could have several employees be part of this event.  With all of our team members we donated over 25 hours of time! 


TCT is a great experience to be part of. Most of the food in the pantry and coolers is donated from local businesses. The site kitchen manager comes up with a recipe each day using the donated goods, keeping nutrition in mind and with a goal to never waste any food. 

Our cooking team made Salisbury steaks, mashed potatoes, green salad and fruit. Right when we arrived we were put to work mixing the gravy, chopping the vegetables and grilling over 120 Salisbury steak patties! We had to work as a team to make sure we could finish the meal in time for the lunch at 11:30, and that the meal tasted good! When the next Realityworks team came in to do the serving we were happy to be pulling the last patties off the grill and loading the pounds of potatoes into the serving trays. 


Our new motto, “Realityworks Cares,” was in full force today and we plan on continuing this tradition for a very long time. Realityworks does care – about our customers, our employees, and now we are showing our community that we care about them too! 

Filling the Gap!

Submitted by pressrw on 12/06/2011 8:50AM


As I traveled into St. Louis for the 2011 ACTE convention, I was excited to see what new things exhibitors would present, what motivational things keynote speakers would say, and what ideas would rise up to fill the gaps and help students excel.

While in St. Louis, it also seemed important to visit the St. Louis Gateway Arch, the tallest national monument in the United States. It seems fitting to have a Career and Technical Convention in the shadow of one of the greatest technical structures in the United States. Wow – what a magnificent man-made structure! Looking at the arch makes me wonder what it must have been like to be welding at the top when the final steel fittings of the massive structure were being put into place. It’s 630 feet tall! Touching the base, I wondered about the welders that made the welds.  To think about welding 630 feet in the air makes my stomach a little queasy, and it also makes me realize how incredible a feat that was. I never actually got to the top – my fear of heights got the best of me, and we will talk about that later.

I found a new respect for welders’ hard work while observing the arch. Related to that is the hard work of all members of the CTE community. Realityworks was in St. Louis to unveil our new welding program, a state-of-the-art welding simulation that is affordable and practical for any shop classroom lab or computer lab. To be presenting a simulation that was designed by welders and that will save welding instructors money and reduce safety issues was something I was excited about.  But I did not realize until I saw the arch that each piece of that stainless steel structure was done through the hard work of a welder, who in turn was taught by a welding instructor.

All of this helped me connect my arch experience with what I hear on the news about how our country needs infrastructure repairs and new construction. The people doing that are going to be the welders taught by the CTE teachers of today, at this convention. Could it be that a welder who one day may repair the arch may start their welding career by using the RealCareer Welding Simulation as an introduction to their welding course in high school or tech school? I hope so.

I realized as I reflected on the ACTE convention that it exists to help fill the gap between learning and teaching. Our hope at Realityworks is to help create experiential learning tools that produce more competent welders. We want to aid welding instructors in their instruction of welding and fill the gaps of safety issues and cost effectiveness.

As I demonstrated the welding simulation to agriculture instructors, welding instructors, CTE directors, and interested bystanders, there was a constant energy. These instructors were able to understand that we are a partner in filling the gap with a simulation that helps them both economically and also in creating experiential simulations for their shop or classroom. 

This brings me back to my fear of heights as I stood at the base of the Gateway Arch. Something I think is amazing about the arch is that it was engineered to be flexible; it was designed to be able to sway with the wind. The engineering feat was that it can move up to an inch in a 20-mile-per-hour wind, and sway as much as a foot-and-a-half if the winds hit 150 miles per hour. In today’s day and age instructors are being asked to be more and more flexible, working to find new technologies to teach and instruct the 21st Century learners in their classrooms today.  Just like I didn’t take the risk of overcoming my fear of heights, I wonder if a concern in the classroom at times might be fear of new technology. And the risk of trying something new. Talking with CTE directors, agriculture teachers, and welding instructors about the RealCareer Welding Simulation, the buzz and the desire was there to help students learn welding virtually before using precious metal and consumables. They’re ready to take the risk. 

As I left the ACTE convention and got my last glimpse at the arch, I realized that one of the greatest man-made structures in America was built with the hands of CTE instructors. Being able to rub shoulders with the great instructors and administrators at ACTE made me excited to be working to help fill a gap by bring an affordable, versatile, and effective learning tool like the RealCareer Welding Simulation to educators in 2012! CTE is a great gateway to a great American future.

Written by Jamey McIntosh, Product Manager for Realityworks, Inc. and former High School Teacher


 

Some funding FUNdamentals

Submitted by pressrw on 12/02/2011 10:52AM

If you have been looking for new ideas for fundraising or finding funding to grow your Baby program, this may be of interest to you!  We recently released a newly upgraded funding center on our website.  It can be found by clicking the following link:  http://www.realityworks.com/funding/index.asp.



On the site, you will be guided through four specific funding areas in the order that you are most likely to find success.  “School Funding” will include helpful information and links to Perkins funding, capital equipment and operating funds, Title funds and local education foundations.


“Fundraising, Sponsorships and Donations” includes direct links to over 20 foundations that are known to support pregnancy prevention, parenting and programs for youth.  You can also find and submit ideas of your own by clicking on ‘Fundraising Ideas.’


“Parent Teacher Associations/Organizations & Booster Clubs” are parent-run groups supporting youth initiatives in schools.  This section includes links to two national organizations and each of these sites has many fundraising ideas that have been successful for these types of organizations around the country.


“Grants” includes links to three websites that can be searched for actual grant writing opportunities.  There are also many grant writing resources including sample documents that can be used to assist in your grant writing efforts.  Direct links to data resources are also a hidden gem you’ll find here.  There are several national organizations you can search for data, statistics and research on teen pregnancy prevention, parenting and child abuse prevention.


A ready-to-use presentation can also be found here.  It can be used to educate foundations about why these products and programs are needed locally.  We hope that you will find these resources and ideas to be helpful and empowering.


 

Account Services thoughts about the NEW Online Store

Submitted by pressrw on 11/28/2011 4:43PM

A note from your Account Services team:
 
Did you notice RW’s new online store? We’re pretty pleased, too, even there is no new-store smell. 
 
Let’s be clear: It’s not that we don’t want to talk to you anymore! 
 
We’ve heard you ask for it, and now it’s here. We know the store’s convenience is important to busy men and women, such as 99.99% of our customers. Clickety-click, get a receipt instantly...that’s attractive. 
 
Sure, it might get a little lonesome here in Account Services. Now that you can order supplies and certain other items online, we will hear fewer voices over the phone each day! 
Perhaps now we can understand how that iconic appliance repair-man felt, all those years. (But just for the record, at least HE had a dog…and a TV contract). 
 
Remember, you can still call us for quotes, questions, the weather... Just sayin’. 
 
But don’t worry about us. We are always keeping busy finding other ways to serve our customers! Maybe we will also work on trying to get the new-store smell added…
 
Check it out here: http://store.realityworks.com/

Thanks for the Giving

Submitted by pressrw on 11/23/2011 2:20PM

At Realityworks, we are known for being the Experiential Learning Company. We strive to be a company that helps create quality and authentic learning simulations. We also know that we are could not do it without you! For every product we provide, be it the RealCare Baby product line, our RealCareer Business Education Simulations, or our newest product the RealCareer Welding Simulation, we know that these products are only as good as the educators being willing to use them. We strive to help create experiences that turn into life-long learning for your participant, but it is through the hard work and dedication of you that help make that all possible. So at Realityworks, we would like to say that this Thanksgiving, we are thankful for your giving, the giving of your time, energy, and efforts to change the lives of youth, your community, and impact the future. 
 
Happy Thanksgiving and Thank you! 
 
From the Realityworks Team 

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