by Shuters House

Coping with Exam Stress

We are reaching that time again when schools go into overdrive, and learners start preparing for exams. Here are our top five handy hints and tips to make exam season just that little bit less stressful!

Don't Panic

  1. Don’t panic!! Try to keep a clear head. Getting into a panic is a sure recipe for disaster when you are preparing for an exam. Try meditating for 10 minutes every morning and evening to help you relax and think clearly.
  2. Plan your time carefully. Draw up a revision schedule so that you can have enough time to revise, but also enough time to spend with friends and family. (Spending time relaxing with your friends can help reduce stress, but you must make sure that you keep on top of your studies!
  3. Exercise helps. Getting plenty of regular exercise not only helps you to keep healthy, it also has been proven to lower stress levels and leads to better sleep. Have a look at this article from Harvard University in the USA.
  4. SnacksEat a healthy diet. It is extremely tempting to keep snacking on chips, sweets and chocolates while studying, but these snacks won’t help your body in the long term. Try to eat foods that will keep you fuller for longer. Aim for a balanced diet, with lots of fruit and vegetables.
  5. Drink plenty of water. Your brain and your body need water to function properly. Make sure that you drink plenty of water while you are studying. Research in the United Kingdom suggests that drinking water can help improve exam results and lower anxiety. (Have a look at http://www.bbc.com/news/education-17741653 for more details.) If you don’t like the taste of plain water, pop a slice of lemon or orange into the water to give it more flavour.

Remember

If you are feeling deeply depressed and anxious at this stressful time, make an effort to seek help from a parent, teacher or counsellor. There are plenty of people out there who are willing and able to help!

Keep an eye on this blog for more tips and interesting information.

by Shuters House

Lenovo Tablet Winner

Lee-Ann Marnitz receiving her prize!

Sibonelo Mkhasibe of the Shuter & Shooter e-learning team hands over the Lenovo to Lee-Ann Marnitz, winner of our first Twitter/Facebook competition.

Those of you who have been following us on Twitter and Facebook, will know that we have been running a competition over the month of October.

All our friends who liked our Facebook page and retweeted our tweets stood to win a Lenovo tablet.

The draw took place at Shuters House on Monday 03 November 2014, and a lucky winner was drawn.

An excited Lee-Ann Marnitz of Clarendon, Pietermaritzburg came in to Shuters to receive her Lenovo S6000 Android Tablet which came pre-loaded with the amazing Shuters edu-Reader app.

If you missed out on this competition, don’t despair! We will be giving away a second S6000 tablet  to the value of R3 700.00 in our next competition. Visit our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter (@shuters), for more details.

by Shuters House

Behind the scenes at Shuters e-learning

Behind the scenes at Shuters House

By now, many of you will be familiar with Shuters’ innovative e-learning material. But what exactly goes into creating an e-book? We spoke to Shuters’ interactive media expert, Francois Marais:

How does Shuters go about creating their e-books?

The process starts with our publishing department. Their knowledge of the books helps to identify content which is best suited to interactivity. Our e-learning department then carefully researches, storyboards and develops the content to create engaging media for both learner and teacher.

We also do a number of quality checks to make sure that the interactions are up to our high quality standards. When the media is approved it is placed into our e-books and made available for purchase from our online store.

Does this mean that you just change the books into a PDF or similar format?

No. We take pride in being more that just paper behind glass! All books bought from the Shuters e-store come with many additional features.

So what else do you do to make your e-books so special?

chest-illustration
Simply put, it’s our additional content. We have spent a lot of time developing the extra media. We can then enhance our books with animated media, video and audio clips and photo galleries.

This means that the learner can grasp and explore even the most difficult concepts in a new and fun way.
Our additional tools that help users include a calculator, dictionary, notes, bookmarks, drawing tools and a conversion tool.

At Shuters we realise that not everybody learns at the same speed. This is why our media can be paused, restarted and progressed at the learners’ or the teacher’s pace.

Our handy helpline offers support to all customers who are using our Shuters e-products. We think it is really important not only to provide amazing content, but to help teachers, parents and learners through the transition to this new way of teaching and learning.

We are not just selling you a book, we are selling you a service.

Where do you see e-books going in the future?

E-books are the future, and technology will only get better and better. This will help us to provide great learning experiences. We will keep innovating to bring you a cutting-edge product. Free upgrades will be available to all our customers during our development period. Remember, here at Shuter & Shooter publishers we are committed to empowering our nation through education.