Q.

2 Explain the concept of organisational culture

Organizational culture.

The system of shared actions, values, and beliefs that develops

within an organization and guides the behavior of its members.

Called corporate culture in the business setting.

No two organizational cultures are identical.

External adaptation.

Involves reaching goals and dealing with outsiders regarding tasks

to be accomplished, methods used to achieve the goals, and
methods of coping with success and failure.

Important aspects of external adaptation.

Separating eternal forces based on importance.
Developing ways to measure accomplishments.

Creating explanations for not meeting goals

External adaptation involves answering important goal-related questions
regarding coping with reality.

What is the real mission?

How do we contribute?

What are our goals?

How do we reach our goals?

What external forces are important?

When do we quit?

Internal integration.

Deals with the creation of a collective identity and with finding ways
of matching methods of working and living together.

Important aspects of working together.

Deciding who is a member and who is not.

What is our unique identity?

How do we view the world?

Who is a member?

How do we allocate power, status, and authority?

How do we communicate?

Subculture.

A group of individuals with a unique pattern of values and

philosophy that are not inconsistent with the organizations
dominant values and philosophy.

Counterculture.

A group of individuals with a pattern of values and philosophy that

outwardly reject the surrounding culture.

Problems associated with subcultural divisions within the larger culture.

Subordinate groups are likely to form into a counterculture pursuing

self-interests.

The firm may encounter extreme difficulty in coping with broader

cultural changes.

Embracing natural divisions from the larger culture may lead to

difficulty in international operations.

Q.3) For significant decisions made by many of our best-known corporations,

computers will grind away on data to provide answers.. Can this situation be
addressed logically, and if so, how?
A.
Decision makers often feel that collecting all the data relevant to a decision is
a necessary initial step in making an informed decision. Data collection, which
may be expensive and require a lot of time, sometimes begins before the
decision being faced is well understood and the alternatives are identified.
Hence, the collected data are often not particularly relevant to the decision at
hand. That provides the garbage in from which the garbage out follows.
Data are useful for a decision if they might change the alternative that should
be selected and if the expected implication of that change is significant enough
to justify the expense and time required to collect the data.
Suppose a small firm produced rooftop solar heating panels and needed to
decide whether to build a major expansion in capacity. They could rush off
and collect data on how many rooftops in the business area are appropriate for
solar products and also conduct extensive consumer research about possible
purchase behaviour. It may be that the much more important information for

the decision is whether the state legislature would pass a bill subsidizing
purchases of such solar heating panels and what the price of heating oil might
be in the next few winters. Carefully assessed judgments about these two
uncertainties would be much cheaper and more relevant to the capacity
expansion decision than the extensive data collection on rooftops and possible
purchase behavior, which could be a waste of time and money.
Q.4) What are benchmark assesments ? explain Standardised Benchmark
assessments?
Ans.
Benchmark assessments are short tests administered throughout the school
year that give teachers immediate feedback on how students are meeting
academic standards. Regular use of benchmark assessments is seen by many
as a tool to measure student growth and design curriculum to meet individual
learning needs.1
Standardized benchmark assessments
Typically, on the school-wide level, benchmark testing couples student
performance with extensive reporting systems in order to break down test
results by the same student categories required under the federal No Child
Left Behind Act (i.e. race, income, disability, and English proficiency) in
addition to providing individual progress reports at the district, school,
classroom, and student levels.2
According to the California Department of Education, benchmark assessments
often include performance tasks, but more frequently use standardized
administration and scoring procedures to help maintain validity, reliability,
and fairness.3 Teachers usually administer common benchmark assessments
to all students in the same course and grade level in the district at prescribed
intervals most often at the end of a unit of study or at the end of a quarter.
Common assessment instruments measure proficiency on subsets of
standards and might include writing samples, literary responses, oral reports,
demonstrations showing understanding of how-to-manuals, dramatizations,
open-ended mathematics problems, memory maps, laboratory investigations,
keyboarding or typing tests, and projects using specialized software in the
schools computer lab.4 Characteristics of standardized benchmark
assessments
Standardized benchmark assessments typically:

are given periodically, from three times a year to as often as once a month;
focus on reading and mathematics skills, taking about an hour per subject;
reflect state or district academic-content standards; and
measure students progress through the curriculum and/or on material in
state exams.5
State-aligned benchmark assessments are generally created for and
distributed to school districts by test preparation companies like Edison
Schools, Pearson, Princeton Review and ETS.

What is a Communication Aid? Explain

A communication aid helps a person to communicate more effectively with
those around them. These aids range from simple letter boards to
sophisticated pieces of computer equipment.
If you're absolutely new to the subject of communication aids, this article
gives a brief and basic overview:
Communication charts, books etc
Effective communication for the non-speaker can often be achieved by
pointing with a finger or the eyes to words, photos and symbols contained
in communication books, charts and boards. A major plus is that they can
be used in any environment. An example of a communication book, shown
above, was created by a child's parents and carers. It consists of a number
of pages containing words and symbols that have been grouped together
in topics - toys, bathtime, meals etc.
Words and symbols
Its not essential for the user to be able to read text in order to use a
communication aid. Many aids present the user with symbols which can
relate a full range of spoken vocabulary. There are many types of symbol
'vocabularies' - some fairly pictorial (like the example here), and some
fairly abstract. It's fairly common to use show the word along with it's
related symbol in order to avoid ambiguity.

Communication aids that speak

These aids use two types of 'voice' - artificial or pre-recorded - to speak
letters, words or phrases that the user has chosen. By artificial, we mean
computer-generated speech which, thankfully, is nowhere near as robotic
as it used to be. You can listen to samples of the sort of voices that are
available at Sensory Software's website.
Nearly all speaking communication aids can play back pre-recorded
speech which, as it's name suggests, consists of single words or phrases
that have been recorded by a human speaking into a microphone (usually
on the aid itself).
Types of speaking communication aid
In theory, even a speaking birthday card is a form of communication aid,
but in practice the simplest speaking aids are sturdy battery-powered
devices whose single message lasts for a few seconds and can be rerecorded as many times as needed by speaking into a microphone built
into the unit. These straightforward aids are invaluable for passing
messages and teaching cause & effect. In the picture on the left, a child is
using a single-message device to join in the reading of a book that has a
repeated phrase in its text.
More complex speaking aids tend to have their words and phrases
stored in 'levels'. The aid on the left appears to have just four messages
that are spoken by pressing the large touchpads. In fact it has 20 stored
messages - the two small green arrow buttons at the top of the aid can
jump between five 'levels', each containing four messages. Each time a
new level is selected, a different paper overlay containing the relevant set
of four symbols has to be inserted.
When hundreds of words need to be available, paper overlays become
impractical. This is where the more expensive high-tech
communication aids step in - many display their message 'buttons' on
touchscreens, rather than paper overlays. The screen can change at the

press of a finger to reveal a new screen containing a different set of

messages.
These high-tech talking devices (an example is pictured on the left) have
much more to offer than just a 'dynamic' screen, however. Some are
modified notebook or handheld computers, and offer all the advantages
and features that you would expect from such machines (internet, email,
word processing etc).

Using a communication aid

There are a suprising number of ways to operate these aids. The most
obvious method to access the stored speech is by pressing buttons or a
touchscreen on the aid to trigger a spoken word or message, but this
might not be possible for individuals with physical disabilities. Switches
and other specialised equipment are available that allow access through
any controllable movement of the body. And thats not just limb
movement, it includes head control, sucking and blowing - even eye
movement alone.
But just how do you select a message with a switch? With single-message
aids it's straightforward - plug in a switch, and press it. For aids with, say,
four messages, there's usually a facility where the aid will automatically
'scan' the message buttons one-by-one, highlighting them in turn with a
light above or around each button. When the indicator light for the
required message is lit, the user hits the switch to select it.
Choosing a communication aid
It's asolutely vital that an assessment is carried out before a
communication aid is chosen, and we're not saying that to drum up
business for ourselves! It's essential to build up an accurate picture of a
person's abilities before trying to identify a suitable communication aid.
We believe that this is best done through a multidisciplinary assessment,

where variables such as seating, mobility, access, motivation, educational

needs and cognitive levels are all taken into account.
It also makes sense to try out a communication aid before making a
decision about purchase. Sometimes the children that we assess trial
quite a few aids from our extensive loan library of equipment before
making a final decision. Their skills change over time too - as does
technology - so the suitability of an aid needs to be regularly reviewed.
Terminology
Communication aids of any flavour come under the umbrella
term of AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication). You might
also hear of talking communication aids being referred to as Speech
Output Devices or sometimes as VOCAs (Voice Output Communication
Aids).