Tag: education

Guest Post: 7 Reasons Why Lego Is Totally Awesome

What was your favourite toy growing up? More importantly, what is your favourite toy now? While most we grow out of most types of figures and games, there’s something about LEGO that rocks as much as an adult as it did when you were a kid. Here are seven reasons why LEGO is completely awesome.

1. The logo. The LEGO logo is awesome. It’s colourful. Bold. It promises fun straight away. It’s got that nostalgic brand appeal that seems to endure right into your adult years, like Heinz, Coca-Cola or McDonald’s. It promises simple fun with friends.

Even now, when I’m walking down a high street and see that red square with the bubble-style font it makes me smile, and brings out the kid in me. But as we’ll see, LEGO isn’t just for kids…

2. It’s for grown-up geeks as well as children. While the core audience for LEGO will always be kids, big kids love the toys just as much. While new-ish lines like Chima and Ninjago are more a children’s thing, surely the Star Wars, Super Heroes and Lord of the Rings lines have been brought in with one eye on the adult market? To see the adult fascination with LEGO, look no further than The Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon showing his passion for building a LEGO Death Star.

LEGO represents the fundamentals of popular video games, too. Recently a lot of geeks have been playing Minecraft to get their sandbox world-building fix. And rightly so, because Minecraft is amazing. But LEGO has that simple pleasure of physically building things. It’s tangible. Sort of like a real-life Minecraft.

3. There’s a whole theme park dedicated to it. You know you’ve made it when you can build an entire theme park dedicated to the thing you do. LEGOLAND in Windsor is a kid’s toy Mecca; you can play with all manner of imaginative building block creations, and there are areas specifically based around Pirates, Vikings, Pharaohs and Knights. Although I’ve been to the LEGO flagship store in Copenhagen, I’ve never been to the theme Park. But I will. One day.

Of course there are lots of things you could do in the UK this summer, but a visit to the Windsor site must rank pretty high. Here’s how to check out trains to LEGOLAND in Windsor.

4. It’s really reactive to pop culture. The modern brilliance of the LEGO brand is that it’s so on top of pop culture. Whenever something relevant is happening – like the Olympics – LEGO is on-hand to recreate scenes using stop-motion. During the Games last year we had swimming races, gymnastics and Usain Bolt’s 100m win all ‘reenacted’ with the famous blocks.

Best of all, LEGO has started putting out mini-films and remakes of classic movies scenes – such as the one above of Casino Royale. I think the appeal of this is seeing ‘adult’ themes and drama acted out with children’s toys. Plus there’s the joy of seeing the simple special effects; the practical magic that makes feel like you could reach out and touch everything in the scene.

5. It’s educational. Think LEGO is all about fun? Guess again. All that time we were fiddling around with colourful bricks, we were actually learning. We were developing our creative talents and problem-solving skills. We were learning to work with others. LEGO is also great because in a world of multi-media distractions, it’s an activity that kids can use to train themselves into unitasking – learning to concentrate on one project, and focus.

LEGO has taken this concept to the max, building its own school in Denmark. Although, sadly, it’s not made of LEGO. The International School of Billund will be based on developing children’s enquiring minds, and will basically be the most incredible experience ever. What’s next? LEGO University? Best. Uni. Ever.

6. There’s always something new coming out. Unlike some toy manufacturers, LEGO isn’t prepared to rest on its laurels and cruise along churning out the same stuff year after year. They’re constantly bringing out new figures, sets and product lines. This can occasionally backfire, though; a recent study suggested that LEGO faces have been getting progressively angrier over the last 20 years!

A good example of an ongoing LEGO line that you can dip in and out of is the Minifigures Collection. Each series has about 16 different figures, and they’re wildly different – you can end up with anything from a DJ, ice skater, futuristic spaceman or mythological warrior.

7. It’s just as good as when you were a kid. Perhaps the best thing about LEGO is that it’s still as good as when you were young. It’s more than just nostalgia. While the Heinz beans and Big Macs of today don’t match up to the memories of your youth, LEGO is just as brilliant as ever.

In fact, considering everything I’ve said, I guess I should be saying that LEGO’s better than ever! It’s great because it’s a different toy to different people. It’s literally what you make of it. And it’s a toy where the only the only limit – apart from bricks – is your imagination.

About the author: Andrew Tipp is a writer, blogger and editor. He works in digital publishing, and often writes about pop culture, web trends and cool technology. Andy has been a life-long LEGO fan, and is also interested in films, graphic novels, bacon, miso soup and zombies.

July 12, 2013
Guest Post: 7 Reasons You Need To Survey Your Employees

If you own your own business, or you manage a team of people, your days are probably filled with meetings, mountains of paperwork and trying to keep on top of your email inbox. However, if you’re responsible for a team of employees, you have a responsibility to be a good manager. You not only need to demonstrate strong leadership skills, you need to be able to track their progress, set goals and help them develop.

But how can you do that when you’re completely snowed under? Well believe it or not and employee survey is a perfect way of measuring your employees’ happiness and how they view you as their manager.

Not convinced? Well here are seven reasons why you need to regularly survey your employees.

1. You Measure Morale. By surveying your employees the first benefit you get is that you will be measuring their morale. If you have unhappy workers, you have an unproductive workforce – plain and simple. If you can measure their morale and identify the reasons why John from accounts is feeling down, you can put measures in place to improve his morale and boost his productivity.

2. You Measure Passion. On top of measuring morale, an employee survey will measure passion. Every business wants a passionate workforce which cares about its goals and objectives – whether it’s a private company out to make money or a local government organisation providing housing. If you don’t have a workforce committed to your goals you don’t have much to go on.

3. You Measure Sentiment. Employee surveys, if conducted anonymously can reveal a great deal about how your workforce feels about your business itself. Do they think you’re heading in the right direction? Do they feel your goals are realistic? Do they think they are working for a business which cares for them? By asking questions like this you could unearth some hard truths which may be hard to take at first but will be beneficial for you in the long-run

4. You Can Make More Money. This might be fourth on this list, but it’s certainly no less important. Employee surveys can actually help you to make you more money. Why? Because if your employees feel that they are listened to, that their opinions are respected, that you are a manager who cares about them and that they are working for a caring company they will be more motivated to turn up to work and perform. If you’re all about the bottom line it’s proven that more passion = more sales = more turnover.

5. You Can Save Money. Even if you’re not in the business to make money, all employee surveys can help you to save money. How? Well if your employees are asked about their welfare, their aims and their goals and monitored on their performance, they will be more likely to stay at your organisation. If someone feels like they have room to progress through promotion and identified development opportunities they won’t be hunting job websites to look for the first chance to escape. This will save you on recruiting costs and the costs through time of reading CVs and conducting interviews. When it’s put like that you can save quite a bit of money!

6. You Measure Performance. After all the interpersonal and business benefits of employee surveys, another key reason is that you can measure an employee’s performance. Anonymous employee surveys, such as 360 feedback, are a way for organisations to find out how colleagues perceive their workmates without fear of being identified. This gives an accurate reflection of your workforce’s performance, and lets you set individual goals to work on. This will not only help you track their progress it can help identify certain weak areas or parts of their jobs they need to work on

7. You Find Out About Your Management Quality! A final benefit of employee surveys is that, as a manager, you can find out about you. Think about it, if you were to ask your team for what they honestly thought about your management style do you think they’d give you an honest answer to your face? By using 360 feedback you can find out precisely what your team thinks about your leadership and management style. You may not like the results, but if it identifies some areas for you to improve on you’ll benefit your business no end.

Author Bio: ETS plc provides 360 degree feedback surveys for businesses. For more information about how 360 feedback can help your business, please see the website.

May 6, 2012
Guest Post: 7 Reasons For Schools To Get Involved In Our Anti-Bullying Project

A few weeks ago you may remember that I auctioned off a 7 Reasons package for Comic Relief. Part of the package included the opportunity to write a guest post for us. That is why today Dr Andy Hickson sits on the 7 Reasons sofa.

7 Reasons is of course a humour site and as such doesn’t feature serious posts very often. Today though, we look at a very serious topic. Andy is the Director of Actionwork, a Theatre and Film in Education company that seeks to promote empowerment and reduce bullying and violence in schools. I am sure this is something we can all relate to. If we weren’t bullied then we almost know someone who was. I was bullied for many years. To this day I am not entirely sure why, but what I do know is that the only deterrents available were telling the teachers – something that didn’t work – and punching the twat – something that did. Hardly suitable options for such a prevalent issue. As a result I think we should encourage organisations, such as Actionwork, who try and prevent bullying by other means.

Andy’s 7 Reasons takes a slightly different form to regular posts in that his seven reasons are featured in a letter. One of the projects that Andy is currently working on is the Anti-Bullying Village. To find out more about the project and read his seven reasons please take a look at the Actionwork Anti-Bullying Village Schools Letter. And do check out the Actionwork website.

Finally, we’d just like to say thank you to Andy for bidding on our auction (and anyone else who challenged him). It seems fitting that an irreverent idea results in the promotion of something so worthwhile. Not to mention a bit of money for Comic Relief.

April 2, 2011
Guest Post: 7 Reasons ‘Red Light Spells Danger’ By Billy Ocean Should Be Used As An Educational Tool

Today sees the sofa experiencing something it would rather not. A Babylon5 marathon. But that is the price we pay for guest posts and at least we know it will come back in a good condition. Last week I had to scrub it clean with my Aston Villa shammy leather cloth after it had been infected by a Birmingham City supporter. Anyway, viewing Babylon5 – until the rugby starts – is Rob Lee. Or, if you prefer, Wobbly. I, incidentally, am Jelly. I often feel our double act days could have been so much more. Right, enough reminiscing, here’s my brother who ain’t heavy.

Billy Ocean

1. ‘Red light spells danger’. This says it all really. The red light that says don’t drive when stopped at traffic lights, the red light that tells you not to cross the road at inappropriate moments, the red light that warns you not to press the large, round flashing button attached to all that sophisticated computing equipment and large missile. It teaches children to fear red lights, and this is good, because red lights spell danger.

2. ‘Red light means warning’. Teaching young children is quite often based on repetition – clearly Mr Ocean was in touch with such modern teaching methods when he wrote this in the 1970s, as not only does he teach that a red light spells danger, but also that it means warning. This is very effective teaching – the children believe that they have been taught two different pieces of information, thereby preventing them from becoming bored, whilst they have in fact had the same important message twice drilled into them. Red lights mean danger. And Warning. Which are sort of the same thing. Sometimes.

3. ‘You got me on a ball and chain, doin’ things I don’t wanta’. Despite his lack of grasp of the correct grammatical use of the English language, which is not setting a good example I’ll admit, our education-minded singer is in this instance warning of the uncomfortable experience going to prison would result in. Not only being tied to a ball and chain, but also having to do things you don’t want to; traditionally this might be breaking large rocks into smaller rocks – this is of course bad for your teeth, so the lyric contains a valuable lesson about not eating too many sweets as well.

4. ‘Hold on, heaven guide me’. This is clearly a teaching about the importance of having faith. If you believe in that sort of thing, if you don’t, well, holding onto things is usually a useful practice too. Especially eggs, not holding on to eggs means you drop them, causing a mess, and then you’ll have to clean them up. Cleaning up a mess is probably something you don’t want to do, and as the previous point, erm, pointed out, doing things you don’t want to do isn’t much fun, and can be bad for your teeth. Anyway, if you do believe in heaven, then letting it guide you is a good thing to do, and if you don’t, holding onto things will suffice.

5. ‘I always used to kiss and run’. Having given it much thought, Billy also decided to include the rules to a common playground game in his song. Although, on reflection, the objective of kiss-chase was always to run after someone and then kiss them, not kiss them and then run away. Mind you, that might depend on whom you kissed. After all, running up to Big Ron, the class bully, and giving him a quick peck on the cheek might not be a clever idea, so, in fact, Mr Ocean is providing useful instruction on what to do should you run after the wrong person and kiss them. (N.B. this also applies in adult life, not just the school playground. Besides, kissing probably isn’t allowed in the school playground any more, for health and safety reasons.)

6. ‘I can feel the heat is on’. here we move to the significant element of home economics (that’s cooking lessons to the uninitiated). Checking that the heat is on in your oven is sound advice, since otherwise that cake you’ve just made won’t cook. It will sit in the oven, but without heat it will remain a mass of uncooked cake mixture. If you check first whether the heat is on, you’ll know when to put your mixture in the oven, and, therefore, end up with a delicious treat rather than a sickly pile of goo. However, as with all electrical or gas based equipment, you must naturally check that the red light is not on. Because red light spells danger. And warning. Just in case you weren’t sure the first time.

7. ‘Can’t hold out, I’m burning’. Many people believe that they should suffer in silence and not inflict their problems on other people, especially in these trying times. This is why they don’t walk around with a red light displayed on their head. In certain areas of the city there is another reason why they don’t wear a red light but we won’t go into that. Anyway, the point is, Mr Ocean is telling pupils not to remain silent if they are, in fact, burning, but that they should tell someone. Preferably a teacher. Lesson 7 – If you find yourself on fire, always tell the teacher. If you can’t find a teacher, display a red light. Because red light spells danger, and fire is quite dangerous.

March 12, 2011
7 Reasons That English Pronunciation is Difficult.

So, you want to learn English as a second language? Good idea. We’re here to help, so welcome to the 7 Reasons Language School. We’ll start things off simply, with a bit of pronunciation.

Lesson One: Pronouncing words that end with “ough”.

1. Through (throo). Okay, this is the first word you’ve seen that ends o-u-g-h. Now you know that “ough” can be pronounced “oo”. Simple.

2. Rough (ruff). You may imagine, based on the prior example that “rough” is pronounced “roo”. It isn’t, it’s pronounced “ruff”. This means that o-u-g-h is more complicated than you initially supposed. You’re probably thinking that “ough” must be pronounced “oo” if preceded by th, and “uff” if not preceded with th. That’s wrong, but we like your reasoning. Don’t worry, you’ll soon get the hang of it.

3. Dough (doe). Nope, it’s not pronounced “duff”, or even “doo”; it’s pronounced “doe”. That’s a third pronunciation of “ough” to remember. We realise that there’s no apparent pattern and that this English lark may be harder than you supposed, but do carry on. If small children can manage this, then so can you.

4. Plough (plow). Did we mention there’s a fourth pronunciation? I know it may seem a trifle excessive, but the English are aware that their language is sometimes illogical and impenetrable, and are tolerant of people’s attempts to learn it. We’re not the sort of people who will spit out warm beer and roll around the floors of our country pubs guffawing if you order a ploomans lunch. Oh no.

5. Lough (lock). Why is this word pronounced “lock”, but spelled l-o-u-g-h? Why isn’t it spelled l-o-c-k? Er…good questions. We’re not sure. Perhaps the Scots hate you too.

6. Cough (coff). Yes, that is a sixth way to pronounce the same thing. You may be thinking that learning Klingon would make more sense than this. It probably would, but then you’d have to converse about dilithium crystals and the climate of the planet Qo’noS with a man named Terry.

7. Hiccough (hiccup). What happened to “oo”, “uff”, “o”, “ow”, “ock” and “off”? Well, it’s now pronounced “up”. What do you mean you give ough? Come back!

February 26, 2010