Ronald Kister - Top Five Beach and Water Safety Tips

Every summer, people pack their bathing suits, flip flops, and sunscreen and head to the beach. Regardless of how often, you get to get your toes wet, Ronald Kister, a former lifeguard captain in New York, knows how important it is to take the proper safety precautions to make sure you and your family remain safe.

When heading to the beach, it is important to understand that swimming in the ocean takes a different set of skills. Before you step into the water, it is essential for you to learn how to swim in the surf. Here are five other top safety tips to remember before you dive in.

1. If you have the option, always swim at a lifeguard-protected beach. By swimming at a beach where lifeguards are present, you decrease your chances of drowning by five percent.
2. Always swim with a buddy. When you swim with someone else, if one of you has a problem, the other may be able to help. At the very least, you should always have someone on the shore watching you.
3. You always need to obey the posted signs and flags. They are there for a reason and are intended to help keep you safe.
4. Get advice from the lifeguards about where the safest place to swim is located. They are continually working to identify hazards that might affect you.
5. Learn rip current safety. If you find yourself caught in a rip current, swim parallel to the shore until you feel the current relax.

Spending the day at the beach should be a fun experience. Following the above safety tips should ensure you have fun while remaining safe, and helps lifeguards like Ronald Kister do their job.
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Ronald Kister - Strategic Planning: The Basics

Throughout his career as an IT professional, Ronald Kister has been charged with creating strategic plans for several of the school districts where he’s worked. Strategic planning is done as a way for organizations to set priorities, strengthen operations, focus energy and resources, ensure that employees and other stakeholders are working toward common goals, and assess and adjust the direction the organization is heading in response to a changing environment. Strategic planning that is effective is able to articulate where an organization is headed and those actions that are needed to make progress, as well as how it will know if it is successful. 

 There are many different frameworks and methodologies associated with strategic planning and management. There is no one rule regarding the right framework, but there are common attributes and similar patterns that must be followed. Many of the frameworks that are used in strategic planning, follow some variation of the following phases:

1. Analyze and assess. This is where an understanding of the current internal and external environments is developed. 

2. Strategy formulation. Here, a high-level strategy is developed and the plan is documented.

3. Strategy execution. This is when the plan is translated into the operational planning and action items are developed.

4. Evaluation or sustainment. Here, ongoing refinement and evaluation of performance, data reporting, communications, and other issues occur. 

Strategic planning helps to provide strategic performance feedback to the decision makers within an organization. Ronald Kister helped several school districts in New York develop strategic plans to manage and grow the IT departments and education in their schools.

Ronald Kister-Types of Instructional Technology for the Classroom

Ronald Kister

For more than thirteen years, Ronald Kister worked with New York schools teaching technology and working to improve their technology education programs. Like many teachers and districts, he found it helpful to implement instructional technology in order to keep up with their media and Internet-savvy students. Technology that is designed for education changes frequently. It is important for instructors to be aware of new products and have a basic understanding of how they work. Here are some instructional technologies that can help students remain engaged and excited about learning. 

Interactive White Boards

Many classrooms now have interactive whiteboards, like SMART boards. These types of boards allow both teachers and students to manipulate objects and text
along with allowing them to visit websites when they need to review content. These boards can also be used as a projector, displaying what is on a computer
screen. 

Websites and Blogs

In order to keep students and parents up-to-date with what is going on in the classroom, many teachers now have websites or blogs. Teachers post upcoming
assignments, important dates, and additional class content for their students. 

Document Projectors

Unlike the projectors of the past, document projectors, like the Elmo, allow any kind of document to be displayed. Before, in order to share documents with their students, teachers would have to copy their material onto overhead transparencies. 

These days, students have surpassed many teachers in their use and understanding of technology. For this reason, it is important for teachers to be properly trained on how to utilize technology in the classroom. Ronald Kister, an IT consultant, works closely with schools in New York to train their teachers on these new technologies.​