Did you celebrate National CTE Month or National Pancake Month?

We here at Realityworks celebrated our hip and happenin’ teacher-friends. It was much more fun than Lincoln’s birthday (really ugly party hats). Check out the reveling in our hallway.

The Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) honored us by featuring our technology and an interview with our president, Timm Boettcher, in “Tech Talk” at www.acteonline.org. You can catch the podcast here or view a PDF transcript here.

Our non-school customers may be interested to know that Family and Consumer Sciences and Health Occupations teachers are working with our products in Parenting Education, Early Childhood Services, Life Skills, and other career prep courses. Future parents, daycare workers, teachers, nurses and pediatricians are experiencing RealCare Baby and other Realityworks products even as we speak.

Check this out, Oprah! We have a pregnant man, too!

The all-knowing and omnipresent Oprah was the first to interview the world’s first (and please oh please, let it be the last) pregnant man. Since we’re the maker of the Pregnancy Profile Vest, used in the Realityworks Pregnancy Simulation, we were a bit nonplussed. We’ve seen this happen before.

In November, Steve DeWitt, senior director of public policy for ACTE, paid us a visit and donned the vest. When we all got through chuckling we had a serious talk about the future of CTE, educational policy-making in Washington, Perkins funding, and workforce development. It was a pleasure to connect more directly with an organization that shares our interest and talk about ways we can partner to bring about change.

Companies like ours, teachers like you, and organizations like CTE need to understand each other better so our voices can be heard loud and clear at the federal level. Advocacy begins with taking an interest in what’s happening around us. We’re interested!

Apologies to Oprah . . .

Tips, tricks and helpful hints from customers

Kick off your Child Development course with Shaken Baby Syndrome Simulator

Pam Wakefield took a new approach to the start of her Child Development class last year when she received a grant to purchase the Realityworks Shaken Baby Syndrome Simulator. In addition to her work with RealCare Baby, she incorporated a lifesaving lesson about coping with an inconsolable infant.

“I know that there’s a real problem with Shaken Baby Syndrome out there,” says Pam.

Her theory is that infancy is the first stage of development, and if you shake an infant, you’ve affected development, and not in a positive way. She decided to immerse her students in a disturbing situation, the reenactment of a shaken baby incident.

The class begins with Pam and the simulator in an adjoining room, out of sight. She starts the simulator and lets it cry for 10 long minutes. Pam can observe the class, seeing their faces and demeanor changing as the crying continues.

She emerges from the room wearing a pregnancy vest and holding the simulator covered in a blanket, so as not to expose the clear head of the Shaken Baby Syndrome Simulator. A phone is crooked between her ear and shoulder. She’s trying to comfort the crying “baby” while getting advice from someone on the other end of the phone.

“I’m exhausted and I just can’t get Abby to stop crying!”

She pauses, presumably waiting for a response, then nods, saying things like, “Okay, I’ll try that.”

At this point Pam purposely drops the blanket, revealing the head of the simulator, as she struggles to comfort the baby. Her voice gets louder and more tense, until she finally grabs the “baby” under the arms, extends it in front of her, vigorously shakes the simulator and screams, “Stop crying!”

Pam’s students aren’t accustomed to her raising her voice. Nor are they prepared for the violent demonstration. The simulator abruptly stops crying, the result of damage to the brain.

“The students simply stare in shock,” says Pam. “Some of them ask why the baby stopped crying.”

Then Pam goes into the lesson about the effects of shaking on the infant brain, using the LED lights in the Shaken Baby Syndrome Simulator as a guide. She follows this breathtaking lesson with the video “Elijah’s Story,” a true account of a father who killed his young son by shaking. Pam believes the heartbreak and lifelong impact of this one rash moment is painful and yet important to watch, and brings up many points of discussion.

To further reinforce the lesson, Pam’s students participated in a health fair, working a booth dedicated to the awareness of Shaken Baby Syndrome. Students communicated what they had learned to others, and conducted demonstrations using the simulator. In this way, the important message about coping with an inconsolable infant was extended far beyond one classroom.

A new storage and charging solution for you!

Have you heard about our new 5-Baby Case? We sent messages by carrier pigeon, we wrote it in the sky and you may even see an advertisement on a bus near you. If you managed to avoid our excitement over this one, we’ll shout this time!

The 5-Baby Mobile Storage/Charging Case puts your program on wheels! Keep it all neat and tidy-like in the closet until you need it! A place for everything and everything in its place! Keep the Babies in the case, pop it open, charge them, program them!

It stores. It charges. It moves. It grooves. And it’s really groovy that you can save $100 on it now through March 31.

Was that loud enough for you??

Oh, and we probably won’t put anything about Babies in a suitcase on a bus in your community, so you can relax.

Did you miss the skywriting on this one, too?

If the atmospheric conditions hampered your view, last month we also debuted our new Basic Infant Care Curriculum. This standards-based program is chock-full of important information about caring for infants. It incorporates the interactivity of RealCare Baby for many of the hands-on skill-building activities, including the take-home simulation for extended practice and assessment of skills.

It’s ideal for Early Childhood Services, babysitter training, prenatal instruction and other programs focusing on infant health and safety. Talk to your Product Consultant about choosing the best curriculum resource for your instructional requirements or program goals.

Special needs nurse recognized for work, including Baby

Thanks to those who pass news to us that we might not otherwise see. In Chicago, a wonderful human being by the name of Ronna Ellwing was bestowed with $25,000 in recognition for her work as a special needs nurse in Lake County, Illinois. She was named winner of the Visiting Nurses Super Star In Community Nursing Award and talked about her work with youth and our Baby Think It Over Program (known today as the RealCare Program).

Congratulations, Ms. Ellwing, and thanks for using Baby in your important work. Read more here.

Product Support Tip: Where is the handbook?
The Control Center software handbook is just a click away

So, you finally get a moment to install the Control Center software to your computer. You plug in the Communication Pod and start everything up. All of a sudden you realize, "Where is the user handbook?"

First of all, congratulations on actually wanting to read the manual first. That’s huge!

You look through your program materials and cannot find one anywhere. Hopefully you do not curse our name or anyone’s name who might be standing nearby. You may be asking yourself, "Did I misplace it?” or "Did it even come with one?"

The answer is NO, you did not misplace the Control Center user handbook, and YES, your order did come with instructions. You just can’t hold the handbook in your hand. It is actually located in Control Center software! No need for a map; just follow these simple instructions:

1. Open your Control Center software.

2. Click on "Help" in the top left corner.

3. Drag down and click "Help."

Once you click "Help" the Help Guide will open up in a PDF document. You can view it from your computer or print any section you need. Now isn’t that handy?

If you have any further questions, please be sure to contact Product Support.

Product Support hours: Monday through Friday 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central Time. Call 800.830.1416 or email productsupport@realityworks.com or refer to the list of Frequently Asked Questions.

On the road again...

Here’s a partial list of where we are headed next. Please come and visit us at these conferences, or call ahead to reserve some time with a Realityworks representative while we’re in your area.