Opportunities Unshackled: The Effect of Educational & Vocational Programming on Prison Life

This study examines the impact of educational and work opportunities on incarcerated individuals’ prison experience. Using data from the John Howard Association’s (JHA) ‘Measuring the Quality of Prison Life Survey’ (MQPL) distributed to all Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) facilities, we examine prisoner perceptions of well-being, security, professionalism, and harmony to understand the quality of life in prison better. When comparing groups, we found a statistically, significant positive relationship between participation in educational and vocational programming and higher reported scores for all domains. Throughout this experience, we deepened our understanding of Illinois prison culture and informed JHA\u27s prison advocacy work

An Historical Retrospective on the Origin of and Changes to the Worker\u27s Compensation Insurance Industry

Workers\u27 compensation insurance companies have been at the vanguard of workplace safety initiatives maintaining laboratories, training facilities, intern programs, and hierarchical structures. Up until the late 1980\u27s, risk control services were provided to clients as a customer service, with the costs hidden in the premiums. Many companies estimated 4-5 percent of the premium amount was devoted to risk control departments. The late 1980s brought about a change that some attribute to a misapplication of Deming\u27s Total Quality Management (TQM) philosophy. Insurance companies tried to make the move to accountability, thinking that it would drive customer service to a Deming level and would create even higher profits. To accomplish this, companies made every department, including customer service functions such as risk control, profit centers. Risk control services that were previously funded through hidden costs were now sold at a rate of $130 -$200 per hour. Within companies, departments that traditionally had worked together began to avoid each other because of internal cost factors. Taken to the extreme, the result was that companies began to feed on themselves. Moral decisions were replaced by a cost benefit analysis: profit became the primary focus. Large deductible policies produced the second major change that impacted the role of risk control. Finding persons willing to go on the record regarding the impact is difficult, but the results are easily deduced. When there is a large deductible, the insurance company\u27s assets are not in danger until losses approach the deductible amount. Large deductibles mitigate the insurance companies losses, but the health and safety of client employees are often minimized and even ignored. Because so little is written on this subject, primary research consisting of interviews was conducted and opinions were compiled. Most respondents concurred that the profit center fixation had adverse impacts on employee health and safety

Using Ozobots to Learn Character Traits

Technology is utilized in everyday life. As such, teachers can employ educational robots and technology to assist in growing skills in collaboration, communication, computational thinking, and problem-solving. Educational robots also appear to increase engagement and motivation in students to participate in lessons. This study employed design-based research (DBR) to explore the use of Ozobots in teaching character traits in a fourth-grade classroom. Together with fourth-grade teachers, a set of lessons was created that employed Ozobots to engage students in learning character traits. Two technology integration frameworks, technological pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK) and Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition (SAMR), were incorporated to ensure that the technology integration lessons were developed with structure and intent. Through the DBR study, findings showed that educators could utilize Ozobots to support teaching character traits through instructional lessons. The lessons can be modified for additional grade levels depending on student needs. Implications for future studies include more research on how Ozobots and other educational robots may be suitable to help with reading and writing skills

Newspapers and their Relationship to the Black Agenda

The news media, by print or electronics, influences and shapes society\u27s attitudes; it is essential then, if not vital, that the media accurately reflect every aspect of our society - including the good, the bad, and the ugly. By keeping this nation - as well as the world - in its proper context, we can better understand - and thus better solve - the problems that envelop us, such as racism, sexism, unemployment, hazardous waste, and the consequences of a nuclear meltdown. To help present an accurate picture of who we are and what\u27s happening around us, the news media need input from every diverse segment of society - and not merely from that limited view of society held by many of our unenlightened publishers, editors, news supervisors, and reporters

A Study to Determine the In-service Needs of Vocational Education Teachers in the City of Chesapeake

The questions presented here will give specific meaning and direction to the problem under study. The data collected in this study will provide answers to these research questions: 1. What is meant by in-service education? 2. Are supervisors aware of teacher in-service needs? 3. Who should arrange in-service education sessions for vocational teachers? 4. What are the characteristics of an effective in-service program

A Short Tutorial on Inertial Navigation System and Global Positioning System Integration

The purpose of this document is to describe a simple method of integrating Inertial Navigation System (INS) information with Global Positioning System (GPS) information for an improved estimate of vehicle attitude and position. A simple two dimensional (2D) case is considered. The attitude estimates are derived from sensor data and used in the estimation of vehicle position and velocity through dead reckoning within the INS. The INS estimates are updated with GPS estimates using a Kalman filter. This tutorial is intended for the novice user with a focus on bringing the reader from raw sensor measurements to an integrated position and attitude estimate. An application is given using a remotely controlled ground vehicle operating in assumed 2D environment. The theory is developed first followed by an illustrative example