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Who Is Involved in BJU Press Distance Learning?

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Every one of our Distance Learning courses is tailor-made with your student in mind. As we create these courses, each step is planned out, prayed over, and pieced together by a skilled team of people who are committed to the task of providing a quality Christian education to the next generation. Over the next few weeks, we would like to share with you how we develop our Distance Learning courses. We will focus this “virtual tour” on answering three specific questions—who is involved, what roles are assigned, and where does everything come together?

Who is involved?

  • Scene Shop Team—develops the sets for the courses and segments
  • Writer Associates—write scripts for special segments
  • Drama Associates—produce special segments needed to communicate certain concepts
  • Teachers—design the daily lessons and present them
  • Assistants—create PowerPoint® visuals, procure media, and design handouts
  • Make-Up Associates—prepare actors and teachers for filming
  • Video Specialists—record and edit segments and lessons
  • Quality Control Team—checks each video file for various issues ranging from spelling mistakes to technical errors
  • Product Support Team—creates master DVDs and master Hard Drives for distribution
  • Support Material Team—compiles Video Lesson Guides and Student Handouts materials
  • Online Team—uploads lessons, materials, and instructions to BJU Press Online

image of behind the scenes at the BJU Press Distance Learning set design studio.

What roles are assigned?

To best answer this question, we asked several people to talk about their roles.

Phil—Scene Shop Team Member

How would you describe your role?

My main job is to find or make whatever props are needed for any given lesson. I do primarily 3-D construction of props, so on any given day I might be carving or sculpting something from foam and then painting it. I also help with the design and construction of the teaching/special segment sets.

What do you think is the best part of Distance Learning, and why?

The variety that we are able to offer these students—not just quality, individualized teaching, but the educational and yet entertaining special segments that are produced. That’s something that no classroom teacher and certainly no homeschool parent using just textbooks can offer.

image of BJU Press Distance Learning math prop.

Melissa—Head Drama Associate

How would you describe your role?

I’m responsible for coordinating all the individuals and departments involved in creating the special video clips that go into our lessons—as well as training other drama associates to do the same.

What excites you about including biblical worldview, sound education, and joy of learning into your projects?

What other distance learning product [that has this level of] academic excellence [presented from] a biblical worldview also provides such incredible resources to the student? We bring in guest experts; we dramatize complex concepts to maximize understanding for all types of learners. There are no other teachers that I’m aware of that could possibly put as many hours into teaching one lesson, as many resources into teaching one concept, as our teachers do.

 

Collage of BJU Press Distance Learning warehouse storage and clothing

Check back next week and meet a Distance Learning teacher, a video specialist, and a production manager!

Who Was Saint Patrick?

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Patrick, son of Calpornius, lived in the village of Bannavem Taburniae in Britain. While the year of his birth is not known, he probably lived from around 390 to 460. Patrick was probably raised in a wealthy home, as demonstrated by his knowledge of Latin. Virtually all that we know about Patrick is found in two surviving letters that he wrote: “Confession” and “Letter to Coroticus,” with most of the information coming from the first letter. He begins “Confession” with the words, “I am Patrick, a sinner, most unlearned, the least of all the faithful, and utterly despised by many.” This work was penned near the end of his ministry and provides many interesting details about his life.

statue of St. Patrick The Pilgrim in Lough Derg, County Donegal, Ireland
Lough Derg St. Patrick The Pilgrim by Andreas F. Borchert/Wikimedia Commons/CC-By-SA 4.0

Patrick was about sixteen years old when he was carried into captivity during an assault on his village by Irish raiders. He and thousands of other Britons were sold into slavery, with Patrick being taken to Ireland. He was bought by an Irish farmer and sent out to tend the livestock. At the time Patrick was captured, he was not a Christian. In his own words, “I did not know the true God.” However, while serving for about six years as a slave, he turned to God in prayer and received Christ. Following a time of fasting and praying, he dreamed about a man who told him that his captivity would soon end and that a ship was ready for him. Patrick ran away from his master and walked “perhaps two hundred miles” to get to a port, where a ship was preparing to depart for Britain. Through many challenging and dangerous episodes, Patrick managed to make his way back to his family.

He continued to study the Bible and soon had his own “Macedonian call” in the form of a vision that prompted him to return to Ireland as a missionary. Over the next several decades, he tirelessly witnessed—suffering opposition, physical attacks, and imprisonment—to win thousands of Irish people to Christ. Many of these Irish believers demonstrated the reality of their faith by participating in believer’s baptism and thus became targets of persecution, alongside Patrick. While most of the Irish remained pagan and opposed to Christianity, Patrick established many churches and laid the foundation for a strong Christian presence in Ireland.

A number of legends are also connected to Patrick.

  • Patrick used the shamrock to explain the Trinity.
  • Patrick banished all snakes from Ireland after being attacked by snakes during a time of fasting.
  • Patrick’s walking stick once grew into a living tree. (The story goes that Patrick carried a walking stick made from an ash tree. When he would come into a village and begin to present the gospel, he would thrust the walking stick into the ground until he was ready to depart. On one occasion, Patrick labored for a long time to overcome the resistance of the people in the village to the gospel. By the time he was ready to leave, his walking stick had taken root and was growing.)

This brief recounting of his life should answer the question, “Who was Saint Patrick?” If you’re wondering why Christians should remember and honor him, it’s because he was a humble believer who bravely endured decades of harsh resistance in order to bring the gospel to many people in Ireland. He loved the Scripture and quoted from it nearly a hundred times in his two surviving letters. Patrick loved God and gave Him credit for everything he accomplished in his life.

Works Cited

Holmes, J. M. The Real Saint Patrick. Greenville, SC: Ambassador, 1997.

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Dennis is the lead writer for BJU Press secondary-level heritage studies materials and holds a PhD in church history. He is the author of First-Generation Anabaptist Ecclesiology, 1525–1561 and occasionally speaks at Christian school conventions and to other groups on various topics, including Islam, Israel, and key events in church history.

Organize Your Files in Two Steps

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How much time do you spend looking for information that you know you have somewhere? What if you could get to any piece of information quickly? If you organize your electronic files, you can quickly and easily find what you’re looking for later.

1. Use a sorting system.

Since this is a series focused on technology, I will explain how to use the filing system on your computer. One key idea in organizing files is to avoid as many “trips” as possible. When organizing things on the computer, keep everything in two main folders (subfolders are allowed).

Put unsorted items in one temporary folder. This is for things like an article you download or a file you’re using temporarily. You could also use it for anything you don’t know where to file right when you receive it.  Then, regularly go through and move each file to its proper location or delete it, as appropriate. If you already know how you want to file something, don’t put it in the inbox folder, save it directly to the correct folder in your sorted location (see step 2). To move a file, you can click on it and drag it over to another folder.

Whether you have a PC or a Mac computer, you can use the Downloads folder that’s already on your computer as your inbox. Whenever you download a file from the Internet, it will typically go into that folder anyway, so it works well as a place to keep your unsorted files.

  • You can find the folder on a PC by clicking on the Start button and then on Computer, or click the file folder icon at the bottom of your screen on the taskbar (which opens Windows® Explorer to show you your files). You should then see Downloads at the top left of the window that opened under Favorites.
  •  On a Mac computer, opening Finder (the blue-face icon on the toolbar at the bottom of your screen) will allow you to see the Downloads folder on the left toolbar.

2. Know where to store files.

Files on the computer are stored in what is called a folder tree. It works a little differently from physical folders because it allows you to easily place folders inside other folders. To organize your files, use the Documents folder that comes preinstalled on your computer. You might be tempted to use your Desktop, but that is not really a good place to organize files. You have a limited amount of space on the screen, and just like with your physical desk, if you have a lot of things on it, you may have a hard time finding something you use regularly. It also adds another place to look for files you need to back up. Instead, use shortcuts on your desktop for files or even folders you use daily or very frequently. It’s easy to make a shortcut:

  • On a PC, right-click on the file or folder you want to have on your desktop, and choose Send to and then Desktop (create shortcut). You should now have a shortcut on your desktop.
  •  On a Mac computer, click on the file or folder while holding down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and choose Make Alias. This will create a file just below the item with “.alias” at the end of the name. Click on that new alias file and drag it over to your desktop.

3. Organize files in the right place.

For organizing files in your Documents folder, you can create folders that match the way you think about your files. For example, if your files change every school year, then you could create a folder called 2015 School Year and then create subfolders in that folder for different subjects.

  • On a PC, once you are looking at your files in Windows® Explorer, you can right-click on a blank space around your files and select New and then Folder. You will then have an opportunity to name the folder. You can move files into the folder by clicking and dragging them over to that folder.
  •  On a Mac computer, once you are looking at your files in Finder, you can click on the gear icon at the top and select New Folder. You can name the folder and put files in it by dragging them over to that folder. By keeping all of your important files in your Documents folder, you have only one place to look when you need to find something.

Now that you know how to organize your files, check back on the last Friday of next month to find out how to use some of the electronic resources available to you as part of the BJU Press curriculum!

Microsoft, Encarta, MSN, and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.
Mac is a trademark of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.

If you have questions, feel free to leave them in the comments below.

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Andrew enjoys helping others use technology in a way that glorifies God. He and his wife help with the children’s ministries at their church. Along with their three sons, they like to read together about other people’s adventures and then go out and have their own.

Create—Communicate—Illustrate

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We’re celebrating forty years of BJU Press art! An integral part of our products is the art our employees create to further communicate the meaning of the text that our authors write. Create, Communicate, Illuminate: The Art of BJU Press presents more than sixty pieces that show how the work of our employees in the department of art and design furthers our educational mission. Art media represented include colored pencil, watercolor, oil, acrylic, gouache, fiber, collage, digital, and polymer clay. If you’re in the Greenville area, come see the show in the exhibition corridor of the Sargent Art Building at Bob Jones University. It is on display until January 29. You can find directions here.

For those of you who are unable to attend, here are some photos of several pieces included in the show.

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Main entrance to the Sargent Art Building
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Entrance to the show Create, Communicate, Illuminate: The Art of BJU Press

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“Booker T. Washington” by Paula Cheadle from Book 4 of Take-Along Stories Set 2 from JourneyForth (watercolor)
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“Toucan” by Lynda Slattery from Science 5 (watercolor)

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“Drip Drop” by Cynthia Long from Reading 2 (fiber)

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From left to right “Heritage Studies 6 Cover,” “Heritage Studies 2 Cover,” and “Heritage Studies 3 Cover” by Ben Schipper (paper)

 

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“God’s Big Picture: Timelines” by Michael Asire and Del Thompson from Bible Truths B (digital)

 

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“Baseball” by Sandy Mehus from Math 3 (watercolor)

 

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“Old Ironsides” by Preston Gravely from American Republic (acrylic)

Images by David

What’s your favorite image from a BJU Press textbook or JourneyForth book?

A Special Dinner Guest

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What changes do you see outside in the winter? Cooler temperatures, snow and ice covering the ground, fewer hours of daylight, and plants and trees losing their leaves are all familiar aspects of winter for those of us in the northern hemisphere.

But how do animals handle the wintery changes? Some migrate, others hibernate, but many stay active where they have been all summer. Food sources are more limited in the winter than in the summer, however, and that’s why bird feeders can be so important in the winter.

Black-capped Chickadee at a Salem, Oregon birdfeeder.
Black-capped Chickadee by Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife/Wikimedia Commons/CC-By-SA 2.0

People of all ages can enjoy watching birds at their feeder. In fact, a feeder can also be the stage for a variety of science experiments, so it’s a great option for an indoor science experiment for your class.

First, identify and make a list of the birds you commonly see around. Your students can share the birds they see at home or elsewhere. Definitely take note of the birds around your school though, so that you know what to expect when your students put up their bird feeders.

Second, put your students in groups. You won’t want to have one bird feeder per student hanging around your school building. So choose the most manageable number and put students in that number of groups.

Then guide the groups in choosing the foods they want to test. Hardware stores usually have some seed varieties individually packaged. You may want to limit the experiment to seeds or include other foods such as suet and fruits. Each group should choose one type of food to test.

You will also need to make or purchase identical feeders. You can make a simple feeder with a plastic container and string. Punch holes in the bottom of the container for drainage. Then punch three evenly-spaced holes around the rim. Cut three pieces of string about eighteen inches long and tie each at one of the holes. Tie the loose ends of the string together. Use this loop to hang the feeder.

Next, help your students choose locations to hang the feeders. (Make sure that all the feeders are hung at the same height.) If possible, set up one or more webcams to observe the birds. You and your students should plan a schedule for measuring and adding food to the feeders and making observations. Use a spreadsheet or some other worksheet or tool for your students to record their observations. They should include photos and sketches with their observations if possible. At the end of the experiment, guide a discussion drawing conclusions from the results.

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Peggy has worked for BJU Press since 1999. Debra has worked for BJU Press since 1986. Both are currently elementary science writers.

Have you done an experiment like this with your class already? What other experiments do you like to do in the winter?