Meet Salman Khan at www.khanacademy.org

alman Khan is the new math guru on the Internet. How did he decide to get started on this?

"It began with long-distance tutoring in late 2004. He agreed to help his niece Nadia, then a seventh-grader struggling with unit conversion, by providing math lessons over Yahoo's interactive notepad, Doodle, and the phone.

Nephews and family friends soon followed. But scheduling conflicts and repeated lectures prompted him to post instructional videos on YouTube that his proliferating pupils could watch when they had the time.

They did - and before long, so did thousands of others. Today, the Mountain View resident's 800-plus videos are viewed about 35,000 times a day, forming a virtual classroom that dwarfs any brick and mortar school he might have imagined. By using the reach of the Internet, he's helped bring education to the information-hungry around the world who can't afford private tutors or Kaplan prep courses.

"With so little effort on my own part, I can empower an unlimited amount of people for all time," Khan, 33, said. "I can't imagine a better use of my time."

That, along with last year's Wall Street meltdown, is why he finally gave up his hedge fund work and dedicated himself to the academy full time in the fall of 2008. The nonprofit generated thousands in advertising revenue this year through YouTube, which shares cash with popular content providers, and could become self-sustainable as a one-person operation within a year. Khan is in talks with several foundations for capital that could enable him to expand the organization's reach....."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/12/13/BUKV1B11Q1.DTL#ixzz0ZsDdQ6L8

Unigo.com Searches for Campus Interns for Top U.S. Universities

Every student who joins Unigo has a user profile, and while that profile might not feature his or her real name, the idea is that by garnering a few pieces of personal information — your major, your hometown, your race, sex and political leanings — a database is created that makes it possible for newcomers to search the site by all kinds of hyperspecific criteria. You can see how many other people from your own high school are looking at a particular college. You can contact the author of a review with follow-up questions. “You can say, ‘I only want to see reviews of Harvard by African-American students,’ and have a choice of 20,” Goldman projected, “or by English majors, and have a choice of 50. So you can not only see a more comprehensive version of the school than you can anywhere else, but you can also see the school through the eyes of someone who’s just like you.”

The idea of letting students write, or at least contribute to, college guides is not brand new; in fact, the one significant modernization in the guidebook business in the last decade or so is the vogue for books that feature students’ contributions alongside those of objective “experts.” It is a vogue for which Goldman, despite his tender years, can already claim a fair amount of credit. He is the co-editor of “The Students’ Guide to Colleges,” a project he began freshman year in his dorm room at Wesleyan using nothing more than his own ingratiating manner and boundless energy to hire unpaid interns on 100 college campuses nationwide. They helped him to attract their fellow students’ attention to the long-form, essay-based survey Goldman then posted online, offering only the promise that the three best responses to these surveys would be chosen to represent the authors’ schools in print. By the time he graduated, the Penguin edition of “The Students’ Guide” was selling solidly, but the book’s success, as well as its limitations, got Goldman thinking about what might be wrought on a grander scale.

The New York Times Presents Unigo.com as The Tell-all Campus Tour Equipped with Videos, Interactivity and More

According to the company, its 18 full-time editors, 300 on-campus interns, and more than 15,000 students have collaborated during the past year. The result is what what Unigo.com claims to be the world's largest resource on 225 of America's top colleges.

"The free site offers tens of thousands of candid and original reviews, videos, photos, documents and more -- all searchable within an interactive community built around student-generated content," the company told the media. "High school students can communicate with one another, and with current college students, to find the information they need to make better college decisions."

Jordan Goldman, Unigo.com's founder and CEO, said, "The college resource market is typified by costly print guidebooks which generally have only a few pages of information, no photos, no videos, no interactivity and little insight from the real experts -- the students who attend the schools."

With stories, reviews, videos, photos and documents totaling more than 30,000, all of which have been vetted by Unigo.com's editorial staff, Unigo.com can be a valuable research tool. The service offers original articles from students and recent grads "on every aspect of college admissions and college life; a tool that seeks to match students to the appropriate campus, and a wide variety of perspectives -- ethnic, political, gender-based, and more -- by which to navigate Unigo's content.

Even Students, Photographers, Citizen Journalists Can Make Money with allvoices.com

allvoices, Inc. ( www.allvoices.com), a new media company, today launched Excellence in Citizen Media, an online initiative to reward news and opinion contributors from all over the world with a six-month cash incentive program. Contributors of news and opinion between Aug. 19. 2008 and Feb. 19, 2009 can earn up to $10,000 depending on the quality and viewership of their reports and contributions. Details on the initiative can be found at: http://www.allvoices.com/incentive.
"The business s are broken in traditional media and are undergoing tremendous change," said Amra Tareen, CEO of allvoices. "Meanwhile, citizen reporters and freelance journalists are under a great deal of pressure to create and showcase their content and get paid. With the Excellence in Citizen Media Initiative, allvoices is experimenting with new s to support citizens, writers, journalists, bloggers, students, photographers and videographers. We give them a platform to succeed and the ability to build a global community around their reporting and contributions."
allvoices enables contributors to build a multimedia portfolio on a profile page to track viewership of every news report and contribution (video, image, blog posts) they make to the community via the Web site, SMS, MMS or email. All reports and contributions to the site are automatically aggregated to each individual's profile page where contributors develop fans, a readership base and opportunities to connect with other like-minded individuals.
In addition to the cash incentive program, contributors are recognized on the site for their journalistic efforts with "First to cover" badges for timely reporting, and ranking and display of contributed news on the home page. Home page ranking is determined by a combination of viewership, engaged discussion from the allvoices community, aggregation, rating and reputation. Contributors are also highlighted on the home page.
About the Initiative
Citizens, aspiring journalists, writers, bloggers, students, photographers and videographers from all over the world are encouraged to participate in the cash incentive program. The program starts on Aug. 19th 2008 and will close on Feb. 19th 2009. An overview of the milestones is as follows:
-- For every 100,000 (up to one million) in Total Page Views of Reports and Contributions submitted by Contributor or Participants, allvoices shall pay Contributor or Participant US $1,000.00 (subtracting transaction processing costs).
-- For the first 1,000,000 in Total Page Views of Reports and Contributions submitted by Contributor or Participants, allvoices shall pay Contributor or Participants US $10,000.00 (subtracting transaction processing costs).
Details of the incentive program milestones and terms are available at http://www.allvoices.com/incentive/terms.
The participants have six months to reach these milestones from their collective contributions in the English language within the time period. allvoices wants participants in the program to report regularly and continue to build their portfolio on the profile page.
To participate in this program, new users must sign up and agree to the Terms of the Incentive Program upon registration on allvoices.com. If already registered, contributors can join from the Incentive Program tab on their Edit Profile page.
About allvoices, Inc.
allvoices' mission is to create a global community for sharing news, videos, images and opinions from multiple points of view that invoke an emotional connection between individual perspectives from around the world. A community of diverse, engaged and globally minded citizens serves as news reporters, opinion leaders and publishers to share with the world the realities on-the-ground. allvoices brings together context, insight and diversity of opinions around a broad range of topics and issues on the global, national and local levels. allvoices is one of the largest global communities offering unedited and relevant news and perspectives in one place. Using a set of proprietary algorithms, allvoices utilizes professional and online news sources, blogs, images and videos to determine relevancy, foster credibility and maintain openness with each contribution made to the site.
For cell phone reporting and contributing:
International SMS - (Please check the coverage table at
http://www.allvoices.com/sms)
+45 609 910280
+61 427 229537
+44 780 0000352
United States SMS
864237/VOICES (US)
MMS and Email
mms@allvoices.com
report@allvoices.com


Keyword Tags:
blog, blogging, blogging sites, citizen journalism, citizen journalism typology, citizen media, how to make money blogging, journalism, journalism jobs, new media, types of citizen journalism sites, what is citizen journalism
SOURCE: allvoices, Inc.

allvoices.com offers Incentive to Citizen Journalists

Allvoices is the first open media site where anyone can report from anywhere. It is a global community that shares unedited and relevant news, images and opinions tied to current events and people. Individuals from all over the world can share what is happening where they are at a particular point in time. Allvoices brings together multiple points of view via news stories, videos, photos and blogs from the Internet in a searchable, easy to navigate format, to provide context and build momentum.

More Than 100 Students Caught in Drug Bust at San Diego State University

Parents, wake up! Students are dealing and selling drugs at the schools, posh universities your sons and daughters are attending. Before sending them off, give them advice. Make sure they stay away from this epidemic. Federal authorities conducting an investigation after two students were found dead with an overdose at San Diego State University busted more than 75 students who were openly dealing and selling drugs on campus. One of them was going to graduate with a degree in criminology and homeland security. He was busted and asked about his chance of working for the federal agency. The answer was obvious: no.

"Dozens of San Diego State University students were arrested after a sweeping drug investigation found that some fraternity members openly dealt drugs and one even sent a mass text message advertising cocaine, authorities said Tuesday.

Two kilograms of cocaine were seized, along with 350 Ecstasy pills, marijuana, psychedelic mushrooms, hash oil, methamphetamine, illicit prescription drugs, several guns and at least $60,000 in cash, authorities said.

Of the 96 people arrested, 75 were students. Eighteen of the students were arrested Tuesday when nine search warrants were executed at various locations including fraternities, said Jesse Rodriguez, San Diego County assistant district attorney.

The undercover probe, dubbed Operation Sudden Fall, was sparked by the cocaine overdose death of a student in May 2007, authorities said. As the investigation continued, another student, from Mesa College, died Feb. 26 of a cocaine overdose at an SDSU fraternity house, the DEA said.

Those arrested included a student who was about to receive a criminal justice degree and another who was to receive a master's degree in homeland security.

"A sad commentary is that when one of these individuals was arrested, they inquired as (to) whether or not his arrest and incarceration would have an effect on him becoming a federal law enforcement officer," said Ralph Partridge, special agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in San Diego."

Visit All University Links to get more updated info.

eCollege via LiveTutorUniversity: Blackboard makes Teaching Possible

More and more parents are tapping into a new kind of resources for their kids. They are turning to e-tutoring, online tutoring or Internet tutoring. They do not mind about the eye-to-eye contact that their children miss. In the comfort of their homes, they can access their highly educated teachers or tutors through the use of their computer, a headset and a microphone. They see online tutoring as a way to get high-quality instruction at a lower cost. That is exactly the types of services that Live Tutor Online University has been offering. Just like other tutoring companies such as Fremont-based Growing Stars, Chicago-based Mindspring online education firm, New York-based Brainfuse, students can come from anywhere in the United States and the world. LiveTutorOnline University has been offering its services to individuals as well as businesses in the areas of tutoring, translating, interpreting and referrals to interpreters and translators of other foreign languages.

With the No Child Left Behind law, good tutoring and good public schools should be available to every student, regardless of the family's income. This is where LiveTutorOnline University becomes handy. According to its founder, the company hires or refers clients (grade students, college and/or university students and businesses) to expert tutors and teachers with Bachelor's degrees and Master's degrees. Each one of them has an expertise in a special category and specially hard science such as Math and Science. They also help translate and interpret. For sure, lack of face-to-face instruction is not a problem any longer. Live tutors from Livetutoronline University offer an invaluable service to parents who work two jobs and have no way of helping their kids complete their homework. They also help students who want to edit their work. They are very flexible.