Alexander Hotz is a freelance multimedia journalist and public radio junkie based in New York City. Currently he teaches digital media at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Follow Alex on Twitter at @hotzington.

With another long hot American summer coming to a close, many students are scrambling to get back into “learning mode” before school starts. One of the simplest ways to ease that transition is with podcasts. Whether your passion is American History or Algebra, there’s probably an educational podcast out there for you.

While these programs probably won’t mirror your lesson plan, they will explore topics covered in class. Below is a sampling of some of the exceptional podcasts that both teach and entertain. Best of all – they’re free. Read on for your “2010 Downloading Curriculum.”

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Science

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Radiolab investigates some of world’s most intriguing scientific questions in a unique conversational format. Recent episodes have examined the importance of words in human development and time. First time listeners will probably notice that the show also just sounds different.

Before becoming a radio producer, Jab Abumrad, one of Radiolab’s creators, was as an experimental musician. Abumrad’s passion for ProTools is apparent in the show’s textured soundscape, which is layered with a variety of sound effects and quick edits. Perhaps the show’s only downside is its frequency. There are only a handful of episodes every season because one Radiolab episode requires months to produce.

Outlet: WNYC, New York City’s Public Radio Station
Time: An Hour
Frequency: 5-6 every season

Additional Listening: The Naked Scientists Podcast

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History

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In Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History, Carlin, a veteran journalist turned podcaster, dissects the textbook version of events. In shows that often run over an hour, the host passionately retells some of history’s best stories.

Hardcore History has become one of the most downloaded podcasts on iTunes, and Carlin’s widespread appeal can also be attributed to his insight. One podcast asked, “Could widespread child abuse in earlier eras explain some of history’s brutality?” Another show was based off the question, “Does the toughness of peoples play any role in history?” Don’t let the name fool you; all material is appropriate for younger listeners.

Outlet: Dan Carlin
Time: 1 – 1 1/2 hours
Frequency: 5-6 every year

Additional Listening: Stuff You Missed in History Class

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Economics

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Planet Money is NPR’s podcast on global economics and business. Initially created by veteran public radio reporters Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson to explain the recent financial crisis, the show quickly became one of the most popular and praised podcasts available.

Planet Money’s success lies in how it tackles complex subjects with great storytelling. A financial instrument like a Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO) may sound impossibly boring, but Planet Money routinely makes these types of things the heart of a thrilling narrative. The team continues to explore the financial collapse, but they’ve expanded their scope to include all aspects of the global economy.

Outlet: NPR
Time: 15-30 minutes
Frequency: Twice a week

Additional Listening: Freakanomics Radio

Disclosure: The author interned at NPR.

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English

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For those of us who couldn’t make it through Wuthering Heights, Cliff Notes Cramcast would have been a lifesaver. This free podcast reviews some of the stuff you need to know for the big test and does it in three to four minutes. Of course, these podcasts can’t cover every detail. To do that, you would — you know — need to read the book.

Outlet: Cliff Notes
Time: 15-30 minutes
Frequency: Twice a week

Additional Listening: Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips

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Foreign Language

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The Internet is full of podcasts that cater to students learning foreign languages. For those interested in the major European languages, Radio Lingua is a good bet. Another reliable hub is Open University, which in addition to the European languages also has a set of Mandarin podcasts. These outlets are mainly for beginners or students who need a quick review. Both are rated highly on iTunes by users.

Outlets: Radio Lingua and Open University
Time: 15-30 minutes
Frequency: Lesson plan

Additional Listening: Other reliable podcasts include Discover Spanish and Learn French.

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Math

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For those of us who struggle to calculate a 15% tip, The Math Dude’s podcast is a must-listen. Every week, affable nerd Jason Marshall explains basic concepts like how to calculate the area of an object or how to add faster. When Marshall isn’t podcasting, he researches “infrared light emitted by starburst galaxies and quasars” at Caltech, which just means his left-brain knows what’s up.

Outlet: Quick and Dirty Tips
Time: About 7 minutes
Frequency: Weekly

Additional Listening: Mathgrad.

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Current Events

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Every Sunday, comedians Andy Zaltzman and John Oliver recap the week’s events in The Bugle, a satirical podcast that is easily one of the funniest listens on the Internet. Think an audio version of The Daily Show, where Oliver is also a regular. The Bugle’s focus tends to be on the biggest international news, but the duo’s separate locations – Zaltzman in London and Oliver in New York City – ensure a focus on the English-speaking world’s antics. Although the pair has a leftward slant, there are no sacred cows. The Bugle even takes aim at itself in its tagline: “An audio newspaper for a visual world.”

Outlet: The Times (UK)
Time: 30 minutes
Frequency: Weekly

Additional Listening: NPR News, BBC World Service

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More Educational Resources from Mashable:

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- 10 iPhone Apps to Get You Back to School
- Why Online Education Needs to Get Social
- 5 Innovative Tech Camps for Kids and Teens
- 5 Organizations Helping Women Get Ahead in Tech
- 5 Fun Ways to Help Your Kids Learn Math Online

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, mattjeacock

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Reviews: Internet, iStockphoto, iTunes

More About: back to school, cliff notes cramcast, current events, dan carlin, economics, education, english, foreign language, history, itunes, math, planet money, podcast, podcasts, radio lingua, radiolab, Science, the bugle, the math dude

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(This was originally posted on my blog on August 24th.  Whether you agree with awards or not, this is definitely something we have to open the conversation on.  As administrators, we must continuously revisit what our schools do and accept that ‘tradition’ is not a good enough reason to continue on with practice.)

I had the fantastic opportunity to talk with a parent today on why we did not give students an award certificate at the end of the year.  Every time I have one of these opportunities to chat with a member of our school community, it really gives me a chance to reflect on the practice of our school.

As my first year in the school, we did not do a big awards ceremony or give it out individual academic awards.  If you would have asked me this question five years ago, I would have thought that any school that did not give “awards” was all about the fluff.  After some more experience, there are several reasons why I don’t believe in rewards or awards in the classroom.

The Basics

To start with, here is a quote from Alfie Kohn:

In short, good values have to be grown from the inside out. Attempts to short-circuit this process by dangling rewards in front of children are at best ineffective, and at worst counterproductive. Children are likely to become enthusiastic, lifelong learners as a result of being provided with an engaging curriculum; a safe, caring community in which to discover and create; and a significant degree of choice about what (and how and why) they are learning. Rewards–like punishments–are unnecessary when these things are present, and are ultimately destructive in any case. (Alfie Kohn, The Risk of Rewards)

Now I have heard the argument about how students love getting rewards in the classroom and they work towards this.  This is definitely easier in elementary grades.  It is important though as educators that although it may work in the earlier grades, our vision as teachers in the classroom should be long past the year students are with us. What do we want from our students?  To be good grade 2 or 3 students, or to become lifelong learners?  I know what I want to provide in the long term for our students.  If you take opportunities to learn about your students, find their passion, and make connections to their world, you will not need rewards or awards to motivate them.

Awards eventually lose their luster to students that get them, while often hurting the self-esteem and pride of those who don’t.

Creating an awards system in school; there is no right way.

Have you ever been in a meeting with your colleagues discussing how awards should be given out?  Should the average be 85% or 80%.  What subjects should it include?  Should it only be the “core” subjects?  There are so many things that are not right with this process.

First of all, there is no perfect grading system or mark structure (I will talk about grades in another post).  It doesn’t exist.  So if the students gets a grade of 79% on a subject that knocks them out of the “award” process, what are you going to do?  Will you bump them up to an 80% or leave them at a 79%, or even worse (to some) move them for a 75%?  We all know that educators are not perfect and your system of grading is not perfect.  There is no right answer with this because to me, it doesn’t make sense.  Students should know where there strengths are and what they need to work on, not how they fit in our magical grading system.

Secondly, if you believe that we need to find students passions, leaving subjects out like the Fine Arts  (Ken Robinson might have something to say about this) does nothing but tell everyone that those subjects are not important.  Imagine how this feels to the student who wants to become a dancer?  “Hey kid, that is nice you can dance, but since you can’t list our last 5 Prime Ministers, you don’t get an award today because your Social Studies mark got bumped to a 78%.” This does not show my belief that we need to build upon students’ passions.

School as family.

I have shown my belief that we want to create a family environment in our school. I do not have my own kids, but I do not remember my mom and dad annually or semi-annually recognizing our achievements as their children (it would be so easy to make a brother joke here but I am going to refrain).  As parents, it is important to let your kids know when you are seeing good things from your kids, WHEN you are seeing them.  I also do not remember my mom and dad sorting us by who did what better in our family.  We each had our own unique gifts as kids in my family, and we were recognized for that.  Should it not be the same in a school?  Does the term “caring and safe” match with “ranking and sorting”?  Awards definitely lend to the latter and do nothing to create that caring and safe environment.

When I discussed at parent council this year about us removing awards, one of the parents shared how she was so glad that her child would not go through what she did as a child. She talked about how every year her sister (who was the more academic) always got an award while she sat in the audience and watched others get called up.  Do you think that this may have lead to some resentment in their own family? You may not believe that schools should be “like a family”, but I can guarantee that you do not want to cause rifts in one either.

The team environment

An essential 21st century skill is being able to collaborate.  No matter what awards system you use, you are promoting individuals as opposed to the efforts of working together.  Now at this point, you still may be convinced as an educator that awards are still good for kids so I will ask you this.  As a school, how would the environment feel if we had awards for the “best” teachers on staff?  Every member of my staff makes a contribution to our school environment, just like every child does.  I try my best to ensure that I let every staff member know how I have seen their contributions throughout the year, just as I try to let our kids know how important they are to our environment.  If I continue to say our schools works together, why would their be individual awards?  It seems to separate the team.

One of the things that I took from my days of coaching basketball and following the work of Lakers’ coach Phil Jackson (love or hate him, he has the most championships of any coach), is that every person on a team has a role they play.  As a leader (coach) you need to find them their role that will contribute to the success of the team.  I want to recognize everyone in our school as a contributor to our success.

Effort vs. Academic Intelligence

Take two students.  One from a home that is well off with both parents supportive and able to help their child.  The other from a single parent family where the parent has to work considerably to make ends meet.  Although both families love their children with all of their heart, one has more advantages in their life.  The “privileged” child is not really engaged in academics, does not work hard, but is able to easily meet all the “rubric” requirements for the year.  The other child works their butt off their entire year, has little support at home, does whatever they can, but pulls off a 70% average.  Who would you give the award too?

My own award story

I loved basketball with all my heart.  I also really liked football.  I played both and did very well in the sports during high school.  In grade 12, the most coveted “award” for many was the “Male Athlete of the Year” award.  There was no criteria set out, but the general belief amongst students was it would go to the student that played the most sports.  In my grade 12 year, I played football, volleyball, basketball, badminton, and track.  I only liked two of those sports but played the others to get the award.

At the end of the year, I ended up tearing my ACL in both my knees and my doctor told me because it was because I put too much constant stress on my body.  I also did not get the award and was crushed.  Within one year, with aspirations of playing university sports in either basketball or football, I went from not being able to play anymore while also feeling crushed that I was not given the award.  Before my grade 12 year, I did not play those other sports and did not care about awards because they were not given to athletes other than grade 12.  In grade 12, I became more focused on the award than I did on my passion.  How many times has this happened in our schools and we have not known about the impact it has had on our students later on in their lives?

The alternative

So what about putting an “academic certificate” in the report card at the end of the year instead of having an awards ceremony?  If you have ever been around students in a school when they get their report card, they often compare with their friends, and although something that was meant to be private turns public really quick.  Here is something that was so effective and meant so much to me when I was a child.

One teacher that made a HUGE difference in my life was Miss Butler when I was in grade 4.  She was a fantastic and loving teacher and I really enjoyed being in her class.  She did something that year that I still remember to this day and still affects what I do as an educator.  In our report card, Miss Butler took a cut out of a smurf (one of my favourite things when I was a child – cue embarrassing moment here) and wrote to me on it how I impacted her that year, and what some of her favourite memories were of me.  She wrote how much she loved how positive I was and my sense of humour with others.

The thing was, she did this with everyone.  I did get an award that year for academics, but what I remember most is that card and how it made me feel. I remember the classroom BUZZING at the end of the year and everyone went home feeling like THEY were an amazing person that impacted that classroom.  It was not that I was the “smartest” or the “best recycler” (you know, the award for the kid that doesn’t fit into any of the “categories”), but I was a person that was special.

Schools are not about ranking and sorting. They are about learning and creativity in a safe and caring environment.  They are about empowering all students, not just the ones that are strong at the core subjects. If I continuously tell our students that EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM is important to our school, I do not see how awards align with this belief.  Do you?

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Samsung has finally spilled the details about its long-awaited tablet computer, the Galaxy Tab, during a press conference at the IFA consumer electronics fair in Berlin.

Samsung calls its tablet a “smart media device,” and Galaxy Tab definitely has the specifications to back it up: Android 2.2 support, a Cortex A8 1 GHz processor, 512 MB of RAM and 16/32 GB of internal memory with the possibility of upgrading through microSD memory cards.

Furthermore, there’s a 7 inch TFT-LCD display with 1024×600 pixel resolution, a 3 megapixel camera with autofocus and LED Flash plus an additional fron 1.3 megapixel camera for video chats (that’s got to hurt iPad owners at least a little bit) as well as WiFi and 3G connectivity. The dimensions of the device are 190.09 x 120.45 x 11.98mm, with 380 grams of weight, and the battery should last through 7 hours of movie playback.

In other words, the iPad got a worthy competitor, not only because of the capable hardware the Tab is sporting, but also because it has the latest and greatest version of Android. Although it’s smaller than the iPad, whose screen measures 9.7 inches, Galaxy Tab does a lot of things the iPad cannot do: it has two cameras, it supports Flash and a wide variety of multimedia formats, including DivX, XviD, MPEG4, H.263, and H.264.

Samsung has partnered with Vodafone for the launch, and the Galaxy Tab will start selling in October in the majority of Vodafone’s European markets and later this year in the U.S and other markets.

More About: android, samsung, Samsung Galaxy Tab, Tablet

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[Updated at 1:05 p.m.] Mariner Energy, owner of the production platform, said in a press release that no hydrocarbon spill has been reported after an initial flyover of the incident.

"Mariner has notified and is working with regulatory authorities in response to this incident," the statement said. "The cause is not known, and an investigation will be undertaken. During the last week of August 2010, production from this facility averaged approximately 9.2 million cubic feet of natural gas per day and 1,400 barrels of oil and condensate."

The company also said no injuries have been reported.

[Updated at 12:48 p.m.] David Reed, a paramedic on board the Rowan Gorilla II oil rig located 14 miles from the platform that exploded told submitted an iReport saying he saw all thirteen workers rescued from the water.

“We were up here in the radio room and all of sudden we saw a whole bunch of smoke coming from the platform," Reed said. "Shortly after all the radios started lighting up like a Christmas tree. They called any helicopters in the area, any boats in the area to respond, they were saying there were people in the water. There were multiple people in the water.”

See Reed's iReport of what he witnessed

WWL: Coast Guard reporting production platform incident

WDSU: Production platform explodes in Gulf

iReport: Did you see the explosion? Share images

[Updated at 12:32 p.m.] White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Thursday that the federal government has "assets ready" to respond to any environmental problems resulting from the explosion of an oil platform off the coast of Louisiana.

[Updated at 12:31 p.m.] All thirteen people aboard a production platform that exploded in the Gulf are accounted for and safely on a commercial vessel according to initial information, the U.S. Coast Guard said in a statement.

"We continue to gather information as we respond with full force, and have oil spill response assets ready for immediate deployment should we receive any reports of pollution," the statement said.

[Updated at 11:53 a.m.] U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Bill Colclough tells CNN that 12 people from the production platform are in water immersion suits as they await rescue.

Colclough told CNN there are reports the production platform, which is for both oil and natural gas, is still on fire.

"We don't know what caused the rig to catch on fire," he told CNN, noting the incident is under investigation.

Asked about concerns regarding oil leaks or pollution, Colclough said "there are reports the rig was not actively producing any product, so we don't know if there's any risk of pollution."

Mariner Energy is a leading independent oil and gas exploration and production company in the Gulf of Mexico. About 85 percent of the company's production comes from offshore assets, with a growing share of that coming from deepwater developments.

The explosion comes nearly five months after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded April 20, killing 11 people and causing oil to gush into
the Gulf of Mexico, leading to one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history.

[Updated at 11:43 a.m.] U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Bill Colclough tells CNN that all 13 workers involved in the production platform explosion are accounted for, but one person is injured.

Coast Guard Choppers are on the way to the site 80 miles south of Vermilion Bay.

[Posted at 11:33 a.m.] An oil production platform has exploded 80 miles off the coast of Louisiana, with 12 people overboard and one missing, the Coast Guard said Thursday morning.

Rescue attempts are under way for at least 12 people, Coast Guard spokesman John Edwards told CNN. 13 people were on board the production platform total, Edwards said, noting 12 have been accounted for, but one person was missing.

The accident took place 80 miles off the coast of Louisiana on the Vermilion Oil production platform 380, which is owned by Houston-based Mariner Energy.

The Coast Guard has multiple helicopters, an airplane and several Coast Guard cutters en route. It's unknown if there are any injuries.

A picture is worth a thousand words. But if you include an entire database, make it interactive, and add filtering options, the word-to-picture exchange rate is even better.

Infographics at their best are more than just pictures — they can provide new understandings, succinct summaries, or just plain old fun.

In that respect, reading newspaper archives isn’t the only way to get a deeper understanding of current events. Infographics can help us get a better grasp on what’s going on.

Check out these 10 visualizations to learn more about the news with a quick look.

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1. Google’s Appetite for Acquisition

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Last month alone, Google acquired social-search service Angstro, visual shopping search engine like.com, and social currency company Jambool. Google has been on an acquisition binge for some time, and it’s getting tricky to keep track of its appetite.

This graphic shows a timeline of Google’s activity in three categories: “Building Revenue Streams,” “Cutting Competition,” or “A Little of Both.”

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2. Gay Marriage Chronology

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The campaign for gay marriage has passed a multitude of milestones over the last decade. Unfortunately for those trying to keep track of them, the victories and setbacks vary drastically by state. Decisions are reversed and in some cases overturned by higher courts, which makes progress hard to track.

This map from the LA Times shows the status of gay marriage in each state by month. Click on a state for its most recent ruling or watch the country change from being legally similar in its treatment of same-sex couples in 2000 to sharply divided in 2010.

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3. IED Attacks from Wikileaks’ Afghanistan War Logs

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The frequency and fatality of IEDs (homemade bombs) in Afghanistan was highlighted when WikiLeaks published more than 90,000 secret documents about the Afghan war. Anti-war activists published this illustrative video that includes all of the incidents reported in these leaked documents.

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4. Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

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On April 20, an explosion on a BP drilling rig started what has become the largest accidental oil spill in history. Despite numerous strategies that were deployed to plug the leak, it wasn’t capped until July 15.

This video graphic by New Orleans online newspaper NOLA wraps timeline, graphic, and cumulative damage data into one easy-to-digest piece of media.

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5. CIA World Factbook Dashboard

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The CIA World Factbook has always been a great resource for putting news stories into the context of their geographic location. But now it’s also easy to get the information at a glance.

The World Factbook Dashboard allows you to color code the countries of the world by population, population growth, infant mortality, agricultural GDP, industry GDP, services GDP, total GDP, GDP/inhabitant, or inflation. Clicking on a country zooms in for more information.

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6. Geography of a Recession

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This map from The New York Times illustrates not only which areas suffered the highest unemployment rate after the recession, but also offers the option to filter data by metropolitan areas, areas with housing bubbles, rural areas, and manufacturing centers.

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7. Afghanistan and Pakistan Regional Violence Map

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The Wall Street Journal updates this map constantly with violent conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan. If you want to learn about the day-to-day details of the war or understand its scope, there’s no better visual resource.

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8. What Does the Health Care Bill Mean to Me?

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Even if you read through every health care bill article, it could be hard to exactly pick out what the law would change about your insurance coverage and taxes. The Washington Post made it easy by providing this nifty tool. Input whether you have insurance coverage, your family size, your income, and your marital status, and it will tell you how health care reform will impact your life.

For the broader picture on healthcare reform, see this subway-style map from GOOD Magazine.

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9. Obama’s $787 Billion Economic Stimulus Plan

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The government is still busy spending much of the $787 billion it allotted for the economic stimulus in February of last year. This infographic effectively illustrates how that huge chunk of change is being distributed.

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10. American Casualties in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Beyond

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This chilling interactive graphic from USA Today simply illustrates the deaths in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Information seekers can search deaths by personal factors like name, age, gender, race, or home town as well as by military service details, date, cause, or place.

CNN has a more elaborate version here.

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More Graphics Resources from Mashable:

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- 5 Fab Twitter Follower Visualization Tools
- 10 Beautiful Social Media Infographics
- 5 Amazing Infographics for the Health Conscious
- 10 Essential Free E-Books for Web Designers
- 12 Beginner Tutorials for Getting Started With Photoshop

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Reviews: Google

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Some excellent educational content can be found on YouTube. However, many teachers cannot access YouTube in their classrooms. That is why I originally wrote what became one of the most popular posts to ever appear on Free Technology for Teachers, 30+ Alternatives to YouTube. That post is now fourteen months old and I've come across more alternatives in that time. Also in that time span some of the resources on the list have shut down. So it's time to update the list.

1. School Tube is a website dedicated to the sharing of videos created by students and teachers. School Tube allows teachers and schools to create their own channels for sharing their students' works. School Tube also provides excellent how-to resources, copyright-friendly media, and lesson plans for using video in the classroom.

2. Teacher Tube has been around for a while now, but I still run into teachers who have not heard of it. Teacher Tube provides user generated videos for teachers by teachers. Many of the videos on Teacher Tube have teachers sharing lesson plans in action. Some videos on Teacher Tube are simply inspirational. And other videos don't have teachers or students in them, but contain educational lessons none the less.

3. Teachers.tv is a UK- based website of videos for teachers and about teaching. Teachers.tv provides hundreds of videos available for free download. On Teachers.tv there are videos for all grade levels and content areas. Teachers.tv also has videos about teaching methods and practices.

4. Next Vista is a nonprofit, advertising-free video sharing site run by Google Certified Teacher Rushton Hurley. Next Vista has three video categories. The Light Bulbs category is for videos that teach you how to do something and or provides an explanation of a topic. The Global Views video category contains videos created to promote understanding of cultures around the world. The Seeing Service video category highlights the work of people who are working to make a difference in the lives of others. Watch this interview I did with Rushton to learn more about Next Vista.

5. Academic Earth is a video depot for individual lectures and entire courses from some of the top universities in the United States. Visitors to Academic Earth will find lectures and courses from Yale, MIT, Berkeley, Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford.

6. Snag Films and its companion site Snag Learning are great places to watch full length documentaries from producers like National Geographic for free. Snag Learning provides a catalog of educational films that are accompanied by classroom discussion questions.

7. How Stuff Works is a video site that I have spent hours exploring at times because I was sucked in by the quality of the educational content.

8. Viddler is a service that I enjoy using because of its integrated in-video commenting system. Viddler also allows you to record videos directly to the site through your webcam. I use Viddler to post messages to my students on my classroom blow when I know that I'm going to be out of the classroom.

9. One of the first things you'll notice about Vimeo is the image quality of the videos. The image and sound quality of the videos on Vimeo is far superior to many of those found on YouTube. Vimeo has all of the sharing options found on YouTube, but in a much cleaner and easier to use interface.

10. Blip.tv aims to provide video creators with a high-quality service for sharing their web shows. The content on Blip.tv tends not to include "cat" videos and "hey, Mom, watch this!" content.

11. Dot Sub is full of user generated content that is subtitled into many different languages. I had a hearing impaired student a couple of years ago and Dot Sub was very useful for both of us.

12. CNN Student News is a daily web show highlighting a handful of stories. The stories covered by CNN Student News range from traditional serious news topics to how-to stories appealing mostly to students to light and fun stories. As a social studies teacher every week I find at least a couple of stories from CNN Student News that I can work into my curriculum. CNN Student News provides printable maps and a daily news quiz to go along with each episode.

13. If you're interested in showing your students the inner workings of Congressional proceedings, visit the C-Span video library.

14. To give my students a little more global perspective on the news than CNN Student News provides, I will use Reuters Video Index.

15. Hulu, a joint venture of NBC and News Corps, offers high quality video of television shows, movies, and old news broadcasts. In the past I've featured Hulu collections of NOVA programming and NBC News Time Capsules.

16. TED Talks are a great source of inspirational, thought-provoking, educational, and entertaining presentations given by some of the world's leading experts on a wide variety of topics. Check out this list of 15 TED Talks for Teachers.

17. Big Think is a video website containing expert commentary on a wide range of issues and ideas. The experts featured on Big Think really are experts in their fields. Harvard Professors, editors of major news publications, politicians, and other recognized authorities offer their commentary on various issues and ideas. Registered users of Big Think can comment on and discuss the videos or post an idea to have others discuss.

18. Untamed Science offers a collection of videos and podcasts about biology and Earth science topics.

19. FORA.tv is similar to Big Think in that it presents videos relevant to topics in the news and in the public conscious today. The videos feature well known personalities and experts talking about the important issues of the day. You will also videos of debates, press conferences, and public meetings.

20. PopTech is a conference similar to TED that features leading experts from a variety of fields sharing their knowledge and passions. Videos of the presentations can be found on the PopTech website.

21. iCue, presented by NBC News, features videos about history and current events. There is a capability to connect with other students to discuss topics and learn together. There are also quizzes and learning activities associated with many of the videos.

22. Current TV, the cable network started in part by Al Gore, features user generated content about a diverse array of cultural and current news topics.

23. PBS Video offers videos from the most popular shows including Frontline, NOVA, Nature, and American Experience. For the younger crowd, PBS Kids offers videos as well. If you're not sure what you're looking for, but you think PBS has an appropriate video you can search the PBS Video center by topic.

24 & 25. The History Channel and the Discovery Channel both offer a lot of content similar to and, in some cases, identical to that which is found on their respective television networks.

26. In addition to resources for learning languages, LangMedia offers a section called Culture Talk. LangMedia Culture Talk is a collection of video clips of interviews and discussions with people from many different countries, of different ages and from different walks of life. The videos are intended to give viewers insight into the cultures of peoples around the globe. Some of the videos feature English speakers while other videos do not. Those videos that are not in English are accompanied by a written English transcript.

27. The USGS Multimedia Gallery contains large collections of educational videos, animations, podcasts, and image galleries. You can search each collection by topic and or keyword tags. RSS feeds are available for each gallery.

28. PupilTube is a source of user-generated how-to videos. PupilTube hosts videos in thirteen categories. Some of the videos visitors to PupilTube can find include how to calculate compound interest, how to learn common Spanish phrases, and how to protect yourself from credit card fraud.

29. MonkeeSee.com is a collection of videos featuring experts sharing knowledge and how-to tips about the topic of their fields of expertise. MonkeySee.com, like many other video websites, has channels or categories. The channel most useful to teachers and students is the Careers & Education channel.

30. Europa Film Treasures is an online archive of classic European films. The films in the archive can be viewed for free on Europa Film Treasures. You can search the archives by dates, genre, country of origin, production method, and director. Along with each film in the collection Europa Film Treasures provides some background information such as production method, storyline, director's bio, and information about the the people appearing on camera.

31. Clip Syndicate is a provider of professionally produced news videos from television stations and other media outlets around the United States. Clip Syndicate also provides videos from the Associated Press. All of the videos on Clip Syndicate are categorized into 86 different channels. Users of Clip Syndicate can embed into their blogs one video or an entire channel of videos.

32. Explore.org produces and hosts high-quality documentary films and photographs. The films and images focus on exploring the world and the work of non-profit organizations around the world. The films and images are organized by location and by charitable and or environmental cause. Explore.org is funded in part by the Annenburg Foundation.

33. 22 Frames is a service that provides a central location for locating captioned videos for learning English and for Internet users who have hearing impairments. 22 Frames provides more than just captioned videos. For each video 22 Frames provides a list of idioms, slang words, and commonly mispronounced words in each video. 22 Frames tells viewers where each use of idioms, slang, and commonly mispronounced words appears in each video. Viewers can click on any of the words in the lists provided by 22 Frames to find a definition for each word and to find pronunciation tips.

34. I like websites whose names say exactly what they offers. Free Video Lectures is one of those sites. Free Video Lectures is a library of more than 18,000 video lectures from more than 700 courses offered by some of the world's top colleges and universities. The library of videos can be searched by subject and or university. The video sources are a mix of YouTube and other providers. Many of the videos are available for free download.

35. Kids Tube is a video sharing hosting and sharing site designed for hosting content produced by kids and content about kids. Kids Tube monitors all submissions and monitors comments left on videos. To encourage students to develop their videography skills, Kids Tube holds weekly videos submission contests. The contests are arranged around a theme and one winner is selected by the Kids Tube team.

36. ESL Basics is a site that provides short video vocabulary lessons for beginning and advanced ESL students. For teachers, ESL Basics has a small collection of suggestions and ideas for teaching ESL. ESL Basics is adding new content on a regular basis.

37. FedFlix, hosted by the Internet Archive, is a collection of nearly 2000 films produced by the US government during the 20th Century. The topics of these films range from presidential speeches to agricultural practices to public health and safety. Some films are instructional in nature, for example there is a film for police officers on how to arrest someone. Other films are more informative in nature and some films are flat-out propaganda films. All of the FedFlix films are in the public domain so feel free to reuse and remix them as you and your students desire. The films can be downloaded or viewed online. Films can also be embedded into your blog or website.

38. Art Babble is a video website designed and maintained by the Indianapolis Museum of Art. The purpose of Art Babble is to provide a place for people to learn about the creation of art, artists, and collections through quality video productions. Visitors to Art Babble will find videos related to many forms of and formats for art. Browse the video channels and you'll find videos covering a wide array of topics including abstract art, European Art and Design, African Art, graphic design, glass, sculpture, surrealism, and much more.

39. Math A Tube is a compilation of videos from a variety of users and other websites. Videos are categorized by mathematics topics and sub-topics. The videos demonstrate everything from basic addition through Geometry. The videos on Math A Tube are user-generated so some videos are better than others.

40. The Kids Know It Network is full of educational interactive games and movies intended for elementary school students. The Kids Know It Network hosts a number of animated videos explaining and demonstrating concepts from math, science, geography, and English. Each video starts with an introduction to a topic and is followed by a quiz. If a student gets less than 80% of the items correct they are prompted to start the video again.

41. The Futures Channel has come to the rescue of Math teachers who are constantly asked the question, "when are we ever going to use this?" On the Futures Channel there are many lesson plans and lesson ideas relating math (and other subjects) to current "real life" situations. And by "real life" the Futures Channel doesn't mean just converting recipes like my high school Algebra book did. Check out the Futures Channel today and stop answering the question, "when are we ever going to use this?" The Futures Channel isn't limited to just mathematics videos, you will also find videos for science, music, art, business, sports, and more.

42. The Biology Department at Davidson College has a large collection of videos and animations of cell biology processes. Most of the videos are in QuickTime format while most of the animations are GIF animations. The collection is divided into five categories; Movies of Cells, Movies of Cellular Calcium, Movies of Molecular Methods, Molecular Movies, and a miscellaneous category.

43. Wired Science has hundreds of videos addressing a variety of science and technology topics. In addition to the library of videos, Wired Science, has great articles and lists of science resources.

44. Test Toob is a free website where science teachers and science students can share videos of the experiments they conduct. The service is designed for use by middle schools and high schools. In addition to providing video sharing services, Test Toob offers suggestions for experiments that students can conduct.

45. Math TV offers an extensive collection of high quality mathematics tutorials. Math TV's video lessons cover basic mathematics and Algebra. Math TV videos are not easily embedded in other websites, but they are free and you can create your own individualized playlists.

46. Brightstorm is a provider of online study materials for mathematics as well as ACT and SAT preparation. The ACT and SAT preparation materials are not free, but the mathematics tutorials are free. The mathematics tutorials are videos featuring mathematics teachers explaining and demonstrating how to solve mathematics problems. There are tutorial videos covering Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, and Calculus.

47. The Week in Rap is produced by the same people that produce Flocabulary. Each Friday The Week In Rap posts a weekly news summary in the form of a rap music video. The videos cover stories from national and international politics as well as sports and entertainment news.

48. Please add your suggestions in the comments.

And if you are fortunate enough to work in a school that allows you to use YouTube, you still might want to use View Pure or Safe Share to prevent the accidental display of inappropriate "related" videos or advertisements.

Since 2006, the K-12 Online Conference has provided outstanding opportunities for free, collaborative, accessible professional learning for educators around the globe. The 2010 conference promises to again provide more exemplary learning opportunities in the same spirit of collaboration and sharing, as together we “Cultivate the Future!” The learning will begin with a pre-conference keynote during the week of October 11, 2010, and this year feature a closing keynote for the first time. We again invite presenters to submit “teaser trailers” for their presentations in advance of the conference.

This year’s fantastic line up of keynote presenters will create an inviting and welcoming introduction in which the sharing of ideas among diverse learners working in diverse contexts continues. Our distinguished keynote speakers will not only extend the conversations, but also invite each of us to stretch and grow as they share their expertise and wisdom in their respective strands. See our post from August 22nd for more information about keynote speakers in each of our 2010 strands.

The selection process for our 2010 conference was challenging as the quality of proposals was outstanding. We thank everyone who submitted a proposal. We are elated to announce the K12 Online 2010 presenters whose creativity, depth of thought, and innovation promise to make K12 Online 2010 exemplary.

The presenters by strand are:

Pre-Conference Week: October 11-15, 2010

Pre-Conference Keynote: Dean Shareski
ideasandthoughts.org
Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan Canada

WEEK 1: October 18-22, 2010

Leading the Change

Keynote: Dolors Reig
www.dreig.eu/caparazon
Barcelona, España (Spain)

Andy Crozier
www.andycrozier.com
Cedar Rapids, IA USA
Don’t Fear the Cloud, Embrace and Leverage It!

David Wells
principalwells.wordpress.com
Montpelier, VT United States
Less Planning and More Doing

Deyanira Castilleja de León
www.maestrossinfronteras.org
Saltillo, Coahuila, México
Maestros Sin Fronteras: Desarrollo Profesional Docente y Tecnología

Julie Lindsay and Kim Cofino
123elearning.blogspot.com, kimcofino.com
Beijing, China and Yokohama, Japan
Create the Future: Think, Learn, Create!

Rodd Lucier
thecleversheep.com
Komoka, Ontario, Canada
Creative Commons: What Every Educator Needs to Know

Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach
21stcenturycollaborative.com
Virginia Beach, VA USA
Connected Learning and Leading in a Digital Age

Sybil Caballero
grou.ps/redtebas/home
La Victoria, Venezuela
Docentes Ingeniosos 2.0

Tim Tyson
drtimtyson.com/blog
Manhattan Beach, CA USA
The Classroom Teacher As a 21st Century Instructional Leader

Student Voices

Keynote: Colby Ratzlaff
Emporia, KS USA

Ben McNaboe & Ben Nickerson
http://tinyurl.com/bennben
Yarmouth, ME USA
The Ben N Ben Show: Promoting Student Voice through a Student Hosted Webcast

Carol Broos
www.carolbroos.com
Northfield, IL USA
Let me tell MY story

Dolores Gende
journeyintech.blogspot.com
Irving, TX USA
C4: leveraging the power of blogs and wikis in student learning

Julie Lindsay
123elearning.blogspot.com
Beijing, China
Inside ITGS: Cyber-Students Share their Connected Learning

Kathy Cassidy
classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=1337
Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan Canada
Primary Digital Portfolios

Mª Magdalena Galiana
www.radiosolidariamiga.es
Villajoyosa, Alicante, España
Radio Solidaria Amiga la voz de los niños que son solidarios con otros niños

Monika Hardy
redefineschool.wordpress.com
Loveland, CO USA
Students Redefine School

Nicolas Gutkowski
nicolascres.wikispaces.com
Crozet, VA USA
Learning On My Own

Sarah Beeghley
www.civilwarsallie.com
Mechanicsburg, PA US
Creating an Educational Follow Me Project

WEEK 2: October 25-29, 2010

Week in the Classroom

Keynote: Allanah King
allanahk.edublogs.org
Nelson, New Zealand

Britt Gow
brittgow.globalteacher.org.au
Hawkesdale, Victoria, Australia
Teaching Science in the 21st Century

Kelly Hines
keepingkidsfirst.wordpress.com
Sylva, NC USA
Step by Step: Planning & Implementing a STEM mini-unit

Kim Caise
kcaise.wordpress.com
San Antonio, TX USA
Web Conferencing – Can We Chat?

Paula Naugle and Jan Wells
pnaugle.blogspot.com and jeffwest4thgrade.blogspot.com
Metairie, LA, USA  -  Meriden, KS USA
Seeds to Success with Skype

Rebecca Pilver
mrspilver.wikispaces.com, top10.sblc.wikispaces.net, getinthefold.blogspot.com
Willington, CT, USA
The Top Ten Project

Roland Gesthuizen
plakboek.livejournal.com
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Information Technology and Drama

Shelly Terrell
technology4kids.pbworks.com
Stuttgart, Germany
Integrating Online Language Tasks for Young Learners

Tony Vincent
learninginhand.com
Phoenix, AZ, USA
Project Based Learning in Hand

William Vegazo
www.sitehoover.com/aprendamoslasticseneducacion
Lima, Perú
Aplicaciones Di´dacTICas de la web 2.0 Buenas prácTICAs

Kicking it Up A Notch

Keynote: Darren Kuropatwa
adifference.blogspot.com
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Adrianne Stone
web20edu.wordpress.com
Houston, TX, USA
The Classroom Social Network – It’s More than Fun, It’s Fundamental to Modern Learning!

Chris Betcher
www.chrisbetcher.com
Sydney, NSW, Australia
Teaching kids to think using Scratch

Chrissy Hellyer
teachingsagittarian.com
Bangkok, Thailand
Record, Reflect & Share – VoiceThread as a digital Portfolio

Clif Mims
clifmims.com
Memphis, TN USA
Shhh!!! The Students Are Learning: Being an Effective Classroom Facilitator

Jen Deyenberg
trailsoptional.com
East Lothian, Scotland
GPS and Geocaching in the Classroom

Joe Bires
www.edtechleadership.com
Haddonfield, NJ USA
Robo Fusion

Karen Blumberg
karenblumberg.com
Yorkville, NY USA
License to Cull with Creative Commons and yolink

Miguel Mendoza
the-ve-blog.blogspot.com/p/about.html
Caracas, Venezuela
Planning & Designing Online Using Blogs

Richard Beach
digitalwriting.pbworks.com
Minneapolis, MN US
Using Diigo, VoiceThread, and YouTube Annotations to Collaboratively Construct Digital Commonplace Texts

Closing Conference Keynote: David Warlick
davidwarlick.com/2cents
Raleigh, NC USA

It’s the Holy Grail of interactive marketing: getting “social media influencers”—the ones with the voice and the reach, the ones to whom everyone else listens—to endorse and promote what you’re doing.

Recently, my company managed to inspire 60 such influencers to participate in our event, called The Influencer Project, and they even took it upon themselves to help spread the word.

People like Social Media Examiner’s own Michael Stelzner, Guy Kawasaki, Robert Scoble, Gary Vaynerchuk, David Meerman Scott, and others all signed on. We were grateful beyond belief.

Why’d they come on board? And how’d we do it?

First Things First: No-one Cares About Your Brand

Many of us who are new to the social media space want influencers to “get behind” our brands, products and special events.

We think we can just reach out to them, and if we have a great thing going on, they’ll naturally want to endorse what we’re doing.

It’s an honest mistake, usually, but it does backfire—or at least, it won’t get you the results you’re looking for.

Of course, if you have deep reserves of cash, you may be able to afford paying handsomely for a big name to review your product—although, to be sure, that can get into very tricky ethical territory and is a delicate issue.

But for the rest of us—for those who don’t have tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on “influencer outreach”—we have to be a little more creative.

In fact, we have to get rid of the very idea of “trying” to “get” a social media influencer to “back” our brand.

Instead, we need to create innovative ways to inspire not only well-known influencers, but also large numbers of participants, to join a project, a cause, an initiative. And that takes a different kind of thinking—one that I’ll explain below.

How to Inspire a Social Media Influencer

The thing is, no-one wants to be your salesperson—unless they are, of course, being paid to sell your products. But everyone—social media influencers included—wants to be part of something that’s bigger than them, that’s creative and that brings new ideas into the world.

So, without any further ado, here are my 5 creative ways for inspiring web celebrities to come on board with what you’re doing:

#1: Don’t Ask for an Endorsement

Don’t ask them to endorse a product or site. Instead, create a project—related to, but independent of, your brand—that they can get behind. Think about the “Yes We Can” video that will.i.am created for Barack Obama’s campaign.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsV2O4fCgjk

Regardless of your political leaning, there’s a lesson here. Yes, will.i.am’s a celebrity. And yes, Hollywood is known for bringing other celebrities on board political campaigns. But that’s not the fundamental point. The point is that there was a cause, an initiative, a project that people wanted to get behind, that inspired them to act—and they did.

This is what you need. You want to create something that many people will join. A cause, a vision.

#2: Make it “Memetic”

Memetic means that it has a meme-like quality. Well, what’s a meme, you ask? In its simplest definition, a meme is an idea that spreads from person to person, one that’s so “catchy” that people almost can’t help but to spread it.

“Yes We Can” was a meme.

A meme is bigger than a brand. Just Do It is a meme. No Fear is a meme. The Red Bull Flugtag is a meme. It’s something that people can identify with, make their own and share with others. If you’re simply trying to strong-arm a social media influencer into singing your brand’s praises, good luck. But if you have a project that has memetic quality, then you’re on the right track.

#3: But Make it Values-Driven, too

A meme unto itself isn’t enough. Sure, you could get lots of YouTube video views by trying to replicate something like a funny hamster, but you won’t be enrolling people in a vision.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8Kyi0WNg40

In other words, you won’t be providing extraordinary value—to the end user or to the influencer.

On the other hand, if your project provides overwhelming value and is memetic, then you’re not only sure to inspire people, you’ll also be making the world a better place.

It makes business sense, too. Simply trying to make a campaign “go viral” for the sake of going viral is far riskier than creating a project that offers tremendous benefit. In our case, we provided users with more than 60 helpful tips that they could use to increase their digital influence in 60 minutes. They heard from luminaries they respected.

Everyone won. There was no attempt to manipulate people to act on our behalf for a hollow goal. It was values-driven all the way around.

#4: Reduce the Barriers to Entry

There are two things all of us have an increasingly short supply of: time and attention. Unless you’re Apple or Microsoft and you’re offering a blogger a sneak peek at your new product, asking someone to write a whole blog post about you—or, for example, do an hour-long webinar to your not-quite-robust-enough-yet list of subscribers—is going to make getting a “yes” a lot harder.

In our case, we only asked for 60 seconds of the speaker’s time. The proposition was often met with enthusiasm. “Sure, I’d love to do a 60-second interview!” It was fun, short and interesting. There’s no way we would have gotten 60 busy people to do full-hour interviews each right off the bat. So we made it radically easy for them to say “yes.”

But that’s only part of the picture: we also made it incredibly easy for the audience to say “yes.” For only an hour of their time, we were going to give them 60 tips from 60 experts. Not a bad deal. And that’s exactly what we heard from participants: it was completely manageable and reasonable to take one hour to learn from so many people.

So don’t just reduce the barriers for those you want to headline your campaign, also make it easy for your intended audience to participate.

#5: Be Creative, but Err on the Side of Accessibility

When describing his company’s financial practices, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff said that while his software-as-a-service platform may have been revolutionary, his bookkeeping methods were as traditional as they get.

Similarly, I believe that it’s important to let your creativity and imagination run wild, and to create something new—for example, to take a conventional idea (say, marketing conference) and challenge it (the shortest marketing conference ever). But I see far too many campaigns that feature weird, wild and avant-garde stuff without making it accessible to the end users.

The “60-in-60″ idea was new. But it wasn’t “43-in-68.” We didn’t ask them to speak for 10 seconds. We didn’t request that they sing, dance or rap. In other words, it all made sense—both to them and to the audience. “60 tips” is still an attractive value proposition, and participants felt that they truly benefited from the advice.

But the other side of completely inaccessible and avant-garde is utter banality. Think of the typical webinar, conference or jargon-ridden special report. Sure, those can be great as ongoing lead-generation sources, but not as a way to get noticed and build digital influence rapidly.

So even though I’d recommend erring on the side of accessibility, I still want to challenge and encourage you to come up with something innovative.

Now the Ball’s in Your Court

Hopefully, these tips have given your creative faculties some juice to explore what you can do to inspire social media influencers—and your target audience—to join your cause.

What do you think? Have you had success recruiting influencers? Put your comments in the box below.

Do you ken these mint regional phrases? Or do whack slang words put you in a boo?

At the beginning of the September month, we have just got an idea to make a wonderful list of year 2010′s best websites accompanying games and education.

Ever year, the web world introduces an array of fresh and better technology for public. And online games are incomparable option for those who have fallen on hard times.

Now what you think about online education? All right, it’s just a simple belief where web is occupy with bunch of plenty educational resources and the useful information available online, are waiting for our single click to be get accessed on computer.

But usually its some kind of little tricky for kids,students and parents to find online information which must be safe for work, to the purpose and age-appropriate. No one wants to allow their kids to jump knee-deep into DNA sequences if they haven’t even reached their third grade Mesozoic-era workshop.

So we are equally concern about the NSFW information on web and complied the most belonging composition of best websites 2010. Check out some of the latest Technology To Software discoveries in 2010, just for you

We believe that all listed “10 Best Websites 2010 For Games And Education” are enough to transfer more helpful material for all online game geeks and education aspiring minds.

You may be interested in the following related articles as well

• Top 10 Valuable Resources To Discover A-1 Internet Tips and Tricks
• Pokerlistings – A Ultimate Guide On Online Poker Games
• Coolest List of Best Free Online Games
• 50 Unique Dark Blog Designs For Inspiration
• 30 Useful Photoshop Text Effect Tutorials Every Designer Should Know

Don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS-feed and follow us on Twitter for recent updates.

Games 1. Kongregate

2. Cactus Squid

3. Pogo

4. Newgrounds

5. Games.com

Education 6. Livemocha

7. Chegg

8. MIT OpenCourseWare

9. Read Print

10. TED

You may be interested in the following related articles as well

• Top 10 Valuable Resources To Discover A-1 Internet Tips and Tricks
• Pokerlistings – A Ultimate Guide On Online Poker Games
• Coolest List of Best Free Online Games
• 50 Unique Dark Blog Designs For Inspiration
• 30 Useful Photoshop Text Effect Tutorials Every Designer Should Know

Part of the new iTunes 10 software, announced and launched yesterday, is a significant new social networking feature for iTunes called Ping. It allows you to comment on music, 'like' it a la Facebook, or rate it. Ping is also very similar to Twitter, in that you can 'follow' people and music stars. All of this happens inside of the iTunes application, either on your computer, iPhone or iPod Touch.

We took the new feature for a spin and came away intrigued, despite some initial flaws. We do however wonder at the overly commercial focus of Ping. Is this really about social networking, or mostly for Apple and artists to sell more music?

Sponsor

How to Get Ping

To access Ping, you first need to download iTunes 10 onto your computer. You'll need to also download 300+ MB worth of iPhone Software Update, to get it on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

On the computer, once you've downloaded iTunes 10 click the iTunes Store link in the sidebar. You'll see a "Get Started" link in the top right of that page (also 'Ping' appears as a menu option in the sidebar). You'll need to turn on the Ping feature and agree to Apple's privacy policy. After that, create a profile.

Note that you may encounter issues with uploading a profile photo and connecting to Facebook. If you wait for about 10 minutes, eventually your photo will upload. However Facebook Connect appears to be broken at this stage. We assume these are technical teething issues.

Once you have your profile set up, you're invited to follow other people and also stars like Lady Gaga and U2. This is very similar to how Twitter works, except that it's all happening inside of iTunes (on your computer or on your iPhone or iPod Touch).

Social Networking, or Prodding You to The Cash Register?

Ping isn't entirely intuitive. It took some head scratching to figure out that to actually post content, you need to be in the iTunes Store. You can't create new content from within Ping itself, although you can comment on what others have added.

To add new content to your Ping stream, go to the iTunes Store and either comment on an album, 'like' it or give it a star rating.

The fact that you need to be inside the iTunes Store to create new content or like something, seems a rather cynical move to encourage people to buy more music. Why not let users search inside Ping for a song or album? Or, even better, let them right-click and comment, like or rate music from within the iTunes player?

Follow The Stars

To track - and optionally comment on - what others are doing, click on the Recent Activity feed in Ping.

Ping places more focus on feature accounts than Twitter, inviting you to "set your inner groupie free by following your favorite artists on Ping." The service comes pre-loaded with accounts for some leading pop, rock and other music acts.

These accounts don't offer much more than what the stars can already do on Facebook and Twitter. The main difference is that it's within an application where people can buy the music.

I'll Follow You (If You Share My Music Tastes)

Overall, I can see Ping being useful for following friends who have similar tastes in music to me. In those cases, if they 'like' a new album then it's a great recommendation - and yes, I'm more likely to buy it. Also the ability to see which concerts they plan to go to is a useful feature.

However, Ping is probably not going to be very useful for following friends who don't share my music tastes. That could be most of them. You may be a mate of mine on Facebook, but if you listen to electronica then sorry I'm not very interested in the content you're liking (you probably feel the same way about the alternative music I tend to favor).

Have you tested out Ping yet? Let us know your verdict in the comments!

Discuss

A new study by email software purveyor Xobni confirms what we bloggers know to be true, there’s actually no such thing as a day off in the Internet age (Want more visceral proof than an email study? Check out the timestamp of this post).

Information anxiety has pretty much put the kibosh on “time off” as two out of three Americans and Brits check their email outside of regular business hours (ha) and half of Americans email while on vacation (double ha).

The Xobni study, an online survey of 2,200 British and American adults conducted in August, holds that the traditional 9-5 work day has gone the way of the Dodo, due to the fact that Americans and Brits can’t stop checking their email. Apparently we sneak a peak at out inboxes while on vacation, weekends, sick days and even when we are (gasp!) in bed.

The press release blames this behavior on the down economy and the iPhone, but I blame it on the fact that we now live most of our lives online, and we feel compelled to check our email/Facebook/Twitter because that’s where most of the exciting stuff is happening anyways.

More highlights from the study/the life we have chosen:

* The 9-5 work day has gone the way of the Dodo. 72% of Americans and 68% of Brits say they regularly check their email on vacations, sick days, and at home in bed.

* Yes, IN BED. Conveniently for Xobni, work email in bed is apparently, you know, like a thing, with 1 in 5 Americans checking email as the first thing they do in the morning or the last thing they do at night before falling asleep (Again I can personally vouch for this).

According to Xobni, email has become an addiction, and like most addictions it is fueled by peer pressure:

* 27% check email outside of regular working hours because they feel it is expected.

* 26% of Americans feel they can’t handle/overwhelmed by the number of emails they receive during vacation.

Everyone in the world agrees that managing email has become a challenge to our sanity. And various companies are scrambling towards solutions including Google with its recent Gmail Priority Inbox launch and Xobni, obviously. My favorite low-fi way to deal with the bottleneck is a service called Sentenc.es which makes it clear to your email reader that you are limited to short responses.

Even though I’m not sure how well that will work, in bed.

Video, vaguely related.

Email overload image above: Ario_

The teacher’s role in an inquiry-centered classroom is absolutely critical.  It takes practice.  It takes patience.  It requires a willingness to try new things, fail, reflect, revise, redeem and repeat.  In roughly chronological order (within an investigation), here are 10 things that will allow constructive inquiry to flourish.

A teacher in an inquiry-centered classroom must:

1. Introduce challenging, engaging ideas that inspire student questions. Honor those student questions and allow them to guide the path of the class.  Help them to identify the questions most worth pursuing and to hone them into strong investigative questions.
2. Find a happy medium between giving your students too much direction and too little. This is a fine line.  If the students have freedom and choice and choose to do nothing, you need to diagnose that problem and work with them to fix it.
3. Establish routines and structures in your classroom that support inquiry. Kids need to know when and how to have whole class discussions, small group discussions, team meetings, workshops, etc.  They need to know when, where and how to obtain materials.  They need to have a method for planning, monitoring and assessing the progress of their investigations.
4. Engage in frequent conversations with your students to keep them moving forward with inquiry while assessing their current understanding.  Use open-ended, high-level questioning strategies that help students to come to conclusions on their own.  Challenge student misconceptions in a caring, respectful way.  Mentor them in a productive direction when they get stuck and can’t move forward on their own.
5. Focus students on generating arguments based on evidence.  Don’t let them simply regurgitate information – challenge them to provide explanations.  On the flip side of that coin, don’t let them pose arguments based strictly upon opinion or unsupported inference.  Teach them to respectfully challenge each other’s assertions – and yours.
6. Provide opportunities for students to choose how they will demonstrate their learning.  Inquiry doesn’t work when you put it in a box and tell students you are going to assess their knowledge with a teacher (or test generator) designed test at the end.  At least not one that is graded.
7. Connect students with experts in fields relevant to their inquiry and facilitate their conversations.  Seek out local university resources – both professors and graduate students.  Seek out local experts working in fields relevant to the students’ investigations.  Find resources among local community members.  Connect the students to these people, in person or virtually (email, Skype, etc.).
8. Teach skills and processes that students need to know in order to engage in effective inquiry.  Don’t put their inquiry in a box with a rigid set of steps or “scientific method.”  However, give them structures and tools to help them move forward.  More scaffolding will obviously be needed early on.  You may provide planning forms for students to complete prior to investigations, monitoring forms for them to use to track their progress, and peer/self assessment guides, among others.
9. Provide time for reflection and metacognition within the structure of learning cycles.  Reflection is when students really make meaning of new information, assimilate it, and make it their own.  It’s when they learn from successes and failures and consider how to improve for future investigations.
10. Have fun with your students! Demonstrate genuine love of inquiry, of learning, and of your content area (if applicable).  Inquiry should be fun – if it’s not, you’re doing it wrong.