Friday, January 7, 2011

100+ Online Resources That Are Transforming Education

Social Media News and Web Tips – Mashable – The Social Media Guide

Yury Lifshits is working on algorithms and prototypes of new services at Yahoo! Research. Before that he was teaching university courses in the U.S., Germany, Russia and Estonia. He blogs at yurylifshits.com and publishes his teaching materials at yury.name/teaching.

Education technology has become a busy space in recent years. Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates continue to push the envelope with enormous philanthropic gifts toward education reform; Blackboard.com was traded at a $1 billion plus valuation; and Google is putting millions into education tech sites like KhanAcademy. At Mashable, you’ve read about social campaigns for education, gaming in education and free educational resources.

With so many startups on the scene, it is easy to get lost. Fortunately, most innovation is centered around a short list of fundamental ideas. In this post, we’ll walk through nine clusters of education tech companies.

1. New Institutions

The education system of the 20th century is built around institutions: schools, colleges, academies and universities. Naturally, many companies are aiming to recreate a degree-issuing institution. In this scenario, a startup has the highest level of control and the highest earnings per student. Online-based institutions have started from several niches (education for children with disabilities, advanced placement programs, test preparation) and are approaching mainstream education.

We’ve now seen the first online high schools (Keystone School), colleges (University of Phoenix, Kaplan University, The Open University, University of the People), certification programs (Alison.com), enterprise training programs (GlobalEnglish.com), art schools (AudioVisualAcademy.com) and test preparation programs (Top Test Prep, GrockIt, Knewton, RevolutionPrep, TutorJam, BrightStorm).

At the same time, brick-and-mortar institutions launch experimental online programs. iQAcademy helps high-schools to offer online classes, and 2tor and Altius Education do that for universities. Finally, there are innovative offline programs like YCombinator, Singularity University and Tetuan Valley.

2. Learning Management

To build a new educational institution, one needs to assemble a lot of pieces. Institutions are also hard to scale. That’s why many companies are opting for a different path: They focus on a single problem, create a software solution and sell it to schools.

Web-based tools are now used to manage applications, grades (Schoolbinder, LearnBoost), class ratings and reviews (Courserank, acquired by Chegg), schedules, tests, textbooks and student-teacher messaging. There is also a market for content management (Sakai Project, Moodle).

Another important area is analytics and reporting systems (SchoolNet.com). Learning management systems are present in every market: schools, universities, corporate education and training centers. Notable examples include Blackboard, Koofers, ePals, MyEdu.com, edu20.org and GlobalScholar. Solutions for corporate learning include LearningZen, Learn.com, Taleo.com, eLearning Brothers and Mindflash.

3. Online Content

For a long time, the market of educational content was controlled by book publishers. Technology is ready to disrupt that picture in several ways. Online video is set to take a share from text-based learning. Recommendation and search systems are offering new ways for content discovery. As in other forms of content, sales and subscriptions are moving to the web. TED.com, Big Think, 99 Percent, Pop!Tech, GEL Conference and the Charlie Rose show are notable for video recordings of technology and business leaders. Academic Earth, Videolectures.net, and ResearchChannel.org do the same for the science community. Salman Khan of KhanAcademy.org recorded more than 1,000 instructional videos covering almost all of the secondary school curriculum.

MIT OpenCourseWare and Stanford eCorner are leading examples of free online content from top universities. Tools for publishing (and charging for) online educational content include Faculte.com, uDemy.com, Videolla.com, LearnOutLoud and LeapingBrain.com. Youtube.EDU and iTunes U are general purpose content distribution hubs. OERCommons.org is a search engine for open-licensed content. Sites like About.com, HubPages, Instructibles, AssociatedContent and eHow collect practical advice on everyday topics.

Using the principles that power Wikipedia, everyone can now create their own wiki with platforms like PBWorks or Wikia.com. Wikified educational content can be found at Curriki.org, Wikiversity.org and Wikibooks. Content libraries are created for career inspiration (dailyendeavor.com, TryEngineering.org), high schools (neok12.com, aventalearning.com), case studies (StudyNet), and lecture notes (GradeGuru). Flat World Knowledge publishes free digital textbooks, while Chegg is a textbook rental service. InkLing is following the “iTunes for iPad-optimized digital book” model and adds social features to it. Rosetta Stone publishes interactive language courses on DVD.

4. Networks and Marketplaces

The web is an ideal tool to connect sellers and buyers in any market. Once you get a critical mass of initial users and investment in a brand, the network effect will keep you growing. The first marketplaces are already here, but the bigger fight lies ahead.

A number of sites (TeachStreet, BetterFly, School Of Everything, GuruVantage) offer tutor and training listings. TheoryAndPractice.ru is a very popular Russian language site for “edutainment” event announcements. CraftEdu.com is marketplace for paid/free online video and live training. Student Of Fortune is a marketplace for homework help. GulliverGo is a listing hub for educational travel. Noodle.org is your guide for choosing college. General purpose employment websites have sections for jobs for students and internship search. JobSpice.com helps students to create their online resume.

5. Live Training and Tutoring

As bandwidth improves, a number of startups are offering web-based live training. General purpose tools like Justin.tv, Ustream, and LiveStream can be used for streaming lectures and conferences. Supercoolschool and EduFire.com provide specialized live teaching tools. Myngle.com (languages) and TutorVista (high-school help) are tutor-student networks for live education. Sugata Mitra introduced the concept of “Granny in the Cloud” — senior volunteers who encourage kids to study using Skype video calls.

6. Learner Tools

For centuries, learning was based on classroom lectures and books. Can computers and mobile devices offer more engaging alternatives? Having a conversation with your teacher is much different when your classroom backchannel is powered by Twijector. Need to memorize something? QuizLet.com provides tools for fun flashcard-based learning. Commuting? There is a growing number of mobile learning apps including notes (StudyBlue, Widescript), law bar exam preparation (BarMax, costs $999), and driving test preparation (uHavePassed). Other tools include career orientation tests and educational games.

7. Collaborative Learning

In traditional education, being a part of a campus community can offer as much value as the lessons themselves. It is no surprise that the community aspect is moving online too. Services like UnClasses.org and OpenStudy.com allow learners to form groups and study together. Quora.com and StackExchange are modern question and answering platforms for professional topics. There isa large number of education forums such as LiveMocha (language learning) and Edublogs.org (teacher community).

8. Funding and Payments

When it comes to financial resources, there are often a lot of questions and almost no answers. How do you keep college prices under control? How do you make education affordable? How do you increase salaries for the best teachers? How do you create more competition and less governmental control in education? Sites like Enzi.org and GradeFund help students get crowdfunded loans and sell shares of their future salaries. It is a good start, but much more innovation is needed.

9. Hardware for Education

Specialized educational hardware for education can be a controversial topic. While some argue that education tech should rely on standard hardware, others see opportunity. One Laptop Per Child has produced and distributed almost 1.5 million inexpensive laptops optimized for students in developing countries. Kno is a new tablet computer hoping to be the “Kindle of textbooks.” Other notable computerized classroom solutions include TimeToKnow and SOLE project.

More Education Resources from Mashable:

- 8 Ways Technology Is Improving Education
- The Case For Social Media in Schools
- How Social Gaming is Improving Education
- Why Online Education Needs to Get Social
- Social Media Parenting: Raising the Digital Generation

More About: education, learning, List, Lists, resources, school, tech, textbooks, tools, video

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Angry Birds Rules!!!

Apple Mac App Store Sees One Million Downloads in 24 Hours [Apple]

Gizmodo

Not exactly surprising, but there you have it—the 1,000 apps on the Mac App Store were downloaded one million times in the first day. The most popular? Another non-surprise: Angry Birds. More »

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Awesome video! Brilliant CGI!

Here Is Your Daily Dose of Delicious Eye Candy [Video]

Gizmodo

Click here to read Here Is Your Daily Dose of Delicious Eye Candy

This short CGI film created by design studio Charlex is a work of beauty on its own. But when you add Gabriel Byrne's narration of the poem Dreams—by Fitzgerald Scott—to Peter Lauridsen's score, it becomes Watch-It-Thrice material. [Thanks Laura!] More »

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Thursday, January 6, 2011

The Art of Leveraging your Blog

Daily Blog Tips

Believe it or not, even if your blog isn’t considered A-List, you just might be surprised at how powerful it can be. A blog can help open some doors for you. So, if your subscriber count is not super high and you’re not in the elite list of your niche, fear not! Your blog may be just powerful enough to lead to opportunities in other areas of your life.

Freelance Writing

In this internet age, freelance writing is huge. With all of the venues for content out there in the online world, it only makes sense that the demand for people to write that content is extremely high. And for us blog owners, we do have the experience and talent to do freelance writing and get paid for it. So where does your blog come in? Well, your blog is basically an online portfolio of your work. If you are applying for a job you are required to submit a resume. Well, there is no better resume or portfolio than your historical blog posts. If you’ve been tracking your statistics then you know which of your posts are the most popular. And chances are, you have placed those popular posts in your sidebar. If you are applying to do some freelance writing, just point your potential employer to your blog. This is the proof you need to show them you can write and are worthy of their payment.

Advertise your online venture

So you’ve been blogging for a while and you really got into it because you love to write. And, during the months or years that you’ve been writing your blog, you’ve been hearing about people making money online. It’s true. People actually are making a living online. Is it easy? Heck no. But it is possible. Maybe you’re looking to supplement your full-time job salary and aren’t looking to exclusively work online. That’s what I’m doing. I’m trying to make a go of it with an online venture. Heck, I want a piece of the pie. Why not? So what I’m doing is leveraging my existing blog to write posts about and to advertise my online venture website. I’m also planning on placing banner images linked to my online business site on my blog site. I already have an audience so why not leverage that audience and advertise my new venture. Makes sense to me.

Advertise your offline business

There are many examples out there where a blog is used to enhance a professional business. I am acquaintances with at least two popular bloggers who are also life coaches. Their blogs are in the niche Personal Development (no big surprise here). What is great about their niche is that it dovetails nicely into their profession. They are able to use what they know about life coaching to add content to their blogs. And, at the same time, they are able to advertise their life coaching services on their blog site. What could be sweeter? You could also do the same thing with a WordPress consulting business. Your blog may simply include tips about using WordPress and, at the same time, you could advertise your consulting services.

Product Reviews

If you have become a respected blogger on any topic, then you could leverage this to do product reviews related to the specific topic on which you have become an authority. Maybe you are a DIY blogger. If people respect what you have to say then you could do product reviews of various DIY products on your site. And if you are an affiliate you could make a commission if the users click through from your product review via your affiliate link. Maybe you are a personal development blogger and wrote a post on products dealing with stress. In that post you have a number of affiliate links of products that deal with stress reduction. If you have built up a following and people believe in what you say, these affiliate links could become lucrative.

Never underestimate the potential power of a blog. Not only can a blog be a place where you are allowed to express your views and interact with your audience. Your blog can be much more than that. Leveraging your blog can help you out in many other areas of your life. Just think of the possibilities…

About the Author: Bob Bessette writes a blog called TotallyUniqueLife which is geared toward practical solutions, tips, and advice for your life.

Original Post: The Art of Leveraging your Blog

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Too Many Blogs?

Webdesigner Depot

A few years ago, blogging was the be-all and end-all of online content creation.

Individuals and companies alike all wanted to get in on blogging, and they saw it as the best way to reach people.

Blogs about blogging sprouted up everywhere, telling people how to create better blogs, how to make money from their blogs, and how to get more traffic.

But has the blogosphere grown so large that there are, simply put, too many blogs out there?

Is blogging going to fall by the wayside in favor of other forms of user-generated content and social media? Where do blogs fit in the age of Twitter and Facebook?

How Big Is the Blogosphere, Anyway?

Getting a clear picture of the size of the blogosphere is difficult. WordPress has statistics for both WordPress.com (15.1 million blogs and counting) and self-hosted WordPress installations (17.4 million active installations), which gives part of the picture.

There are more than 10 million tumblogs on Tumblr. Blogger doesn’t offer any public statistics on how many blogs they host. Technorati is currently tracking more than 1.2 million blogs. And there are likely millions of other blogs out there hosted on other services like Movable Type, TypePad, Expression Engine, and other CMSs.

Conservatively, it would probably be safe to assume that there are over a hundred million active blogs out there. And more blogs are being created every day. A lot of people have multiple blogs, and plan to create more. And there are hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of blogs out there that have been abandoned by their creators due to a lack of interest (or a lack of traffic).

Who’s Blogging?

There are three basic types of blogs out there, though there is often some overlap between the types on a lot of blogs.

The first type is the personal blog. These are blogs run by on person, and usually reflect their own views, activities, and unique outlook on life. In most cases, personal blogs aren’t written with the idea of making money directly, and most of these blogs fall into the category of only having a few hundred or maybe a thousand visitors each month. And usually, their authors aren’t too worried about their readership, as it’s more of a hobby than any kind of business activity (they blog because they want to).

Next are topic blogs. Virtually all of the most popular blogs online are topic blogs. These blogs are often run by more than one person, and focus on a particular subject or niche. A topic blog with good, unique content and active marketing can usually easily surpass the thousand-visitor-a-month benchmark, though many topic bloggers don’t bother putting the time and effort into their blogs that they need to get beyond that point.

Corporate blogs are the third type of blog. These blogs are run by a company as a secondary activity to their primary business. Some of these blogs are excellent, and come across more like topic or personal blogs than corporate ones. Others are nothing more than corporate spam, akin to a series of press releases that only talk about the company’s new offerings.

Hybrid blogs combine two or more of the other types of blogs. For example, if the CEO of a company has an official blog, that’s a hybrid of the corporate and personal blog models. A corporate blog that focuses on providing content on a specific topic is a hybrid of those two models. And a personal blog that focuses on a specific niche is a hybrid of the personal and topic blog models.

Content Overload

The problem with so many blogs is that readers are suffering from content overload. We only have so much time in a day to read blogs, and even if we limit our reading to a particular niche or topic, there are still way more blogs out there than we could ever hope to read.

This is one reason so many blogs are abandoned after a little while. It’s probably safe to say that most blogs never surpass roughly a thousand unique visitors each month, and many don’t even reach that level. It can be very discouraging to a blogger to plateau at a few hundred visitors each month. But each of these blogs is contributing to the feeling many users have of there simply being too many blogs out there.

Think about it: how many blogs do you currently subscribe to or read on a regular basis? Even avid blog readers out there probably don’t read more than a couple hundred blogs on a regular basis. And most of you likely don’t read more than a couple dozen with any kind of consistency. So why do you care if more blogs are created?

The Blogosphere as an Echo Chamber

Another common criticism of the blogosphere is that it’s little more than an echo chamber. And it’s an honest assessment when applied to the majority of blogs out there. A lot of blogs out there keep rehashing the same topics and the same arguments. A lot of them don’t create original content. Instead, they simply reblog what others have said, sometimes adding a line or two of commentary (and other times not even bothering to do that).

That portion of the blogosphere that is little more than an echo chamber provides little value to blog readers. And those are the blogs that rarely climb the ranks to become popular.

Not every blog is like that, though. It’s quite the contrary when you look at the most popular blogs out there in any given niche. Most of these blogs are providing useful commentary, new insight, and even breaking news ahead of mainstream media. The idea that the entire blogosphere is nothing but an echo chamber is not only false, but it’s the kind of argument old-media adherents cling to to try to discredit blogs and their authors.

Is There Room for New Blogs?

With a hundred million or more blogs out there already publishing regular updates, what more is there to be said? If the blogosphere is really this overcrowded, one can’t help wondering if there’s any room for new blogs?

The good news is that there’s always going to be plenty of room out there for new high-quality blogs. The bad news is that there are a lot more challenges facing bloggers now than there were a few years ago.

It takes a huge investment in terms of both time and energy to create useful, original content, and then to get out there and promote that content to prospective readers. Because there are so many more things competing for reader attention than ever before, you really have to stand out to get noticed.
Building a loyal readership and engaged fanbase is a slow process. When you’re starting out, you may have days when only a handful of people visit your blog, if anyone at all. Can you handle these kinds of ups and downs?
Unless you become a very, very popular blog, and one with a tight focus and engaged readership, there’s very little money to be made blogging.
Competition fierce, and with more blogs now resembling major media corporations, there isn’t as much of a “buddy-buddy” feeling in the blogosphere as there once was. Don’t expect a helping hand (though that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t reach out to others in your niche anyway, as some bloggers out there are still happy to help out noobs).

Should You Start a New Blog?

With all that said, just because you want a blog doesn’t mean you should have one. There are plenty of other avenues for building an online following that don’t include traditional blogging.

For example, if your primary reason for starting a blog is to share cool information you find online related to a topic, you might be better off just setting up a Twitter account or a tumblog to share links. Blogs are better suited to original, long-form content.

Likewise, if you want to build a community, then why not just start with a community? Set up a social networking site or a group on an existing site. There are plenty of open-source, free, and low-cost tools out there to help you do those things.

If you’re still sure you want a blog, then make sure you have clear goals in mind when you get started. Know whether you’re blogging just as a hobby or for some other purpose. Produce high-quality content and then network like crazy to get that content in front of people.

Written exclusively for WDD by Cameron Chapman.

What are your thoughts on the state of the blogosphere? Is there still room for more blogs, or is it better to invest in other means of reaching people and sharing content? Share your thoughts in the comments!

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Mobile Development: 5 Tips for Small Businesses

Social Media News and Web Tips – Mashable – The Social Media Guide

Giles Goodwin is the co-founder and president of Product and Technology at Widgetbox, a leading platform for mobile and web technologies. Giles has more than 15 years experience in building innovative software products and managing computer technologies.

Savvy entrepreneurs, businesses and marketers know that they need a mobile presence –- either via a mobile site, mobile advertisement or mobile app –- in order to capture the ever expanding and on-the-go mobile audience.

But with so many different smartphone operating systems, it can be difficult to know where to begin with the app development process. The good news is that there are now tools that can take the burden of development off your team and make app development easy, affordable and multi-platform — enabling you to build a single app across multiple devices to reach as many consumers as possible.

If you don’t have a mobile presence yet, you need to get one quickly. If you aren’t tech-savvy and don’t have deep pockets to hire a mobile developer, start here with these five basic rules for business mobile app development.

1. Tap in to the New Tools

Take advantage of new tools that eliminate the pain and expense typically associated with app development. App development has, until recently, required custom development knowledge for each platform. It is time consuming to learn the coding for each platform and expensive to execute. Unfortunately, these are the main barriers keeping small businesses away from custom apps because they simply do not have the resources for such an endeavor.

However, new tools have emerged to simplify the process of building an app and to cut the associated costs of doing so. There’s no need to code, you can simply use templates to create an app that is useful to your audience. It’s similar to what blogging platforms like WordPress and Tumblr did for creating your own blog or general web presence.

Some affordable options include iSites, and EventMobi.

2. Stick to the Essentials

Many small businesses don’t need a robust app; they just need something that will help bring their content to their customers on mobile devices in a useful and interactive way. Companies can make app development easier and cheaper by sticking to the essentials. For example, a local realtor might not need an app capable of playing dynamic videos of each home she lists — which would be expensive and time consuming to develop — but the app does need to have quality photos and descriptions of home listings and contact information for the realtor.

3. Leverage What You Already Have

Creating an app using text, content, visuals, video and resources you already use in other channels allows you to create an app that mirrors your brand with the same rich look and feel of native iPhone and Android apps.

For example, if you are a restaurant owner, you should include your operating hours, menu and wine list. You could then entice the customer to return to the app by including an RSS feed of the daily specials. You could also leverage existing APIs by embedding mapping and public transportation tools to help diners find your business.

4. Minimize the Development Cycle

By moving outside the app store, you don’t need to wait for unpredictable app approval hierarchy and processes. For those who have developed an app specifically for the iPhone App Store, you know that the approval process can be lengthy and opaque, giving you no insight into when your app will be approved or denied. And then one day, surprise! It’s published.

If you just plan to bring mobile to your existing customers, it may be a better option to distribute a mobile web app directly to them with a custom hyperlink or QR code. This eliminates the need to participate in the iPhone app store, thus bypassing the headache of approvals. You can build the app you want and quickly get it into your customers’ hands.

If you put a QR code on your menu, your restaurant diners could easily scan the code and access the mobile web app while they are waiting for their meal to come. Business owners can distribute their app to customers by including a link to in their newsletters. Customers can easily view the app and save its location to their phone’s home screen, instead of having to go directly to the app store and searching for it.

5. Design an App for Multiple Platforms

Since you’re not going through a specific app store, you don’t need to meet specific standards. This means you can simultaneously develop an app for several platforms rather than spending all your time and money with a single platform before moving to the next. This will broaden your reach to help get your small business in front of more customers via your mobile app.

Instead of simply turning your existing web presence into a mobile site, new advances in HTML5 allow business owners to create a native app-like experience right in the mobile browser.

New frameworks like Sencha Touch and SproutCore allow developers to easily take advantage
of HTML5 and CSS3 web standards, enabling web apps to look and feel like native ones. Web apps respond to touch and interact with native functions on the phone, such as maps, calling and e-mail. Additionally, since they are web applications, they can be easily distributed via text messages, QR codes, or social media channels such like Twitter and Facebook.

By following these five cardinal rules for app development, small businesses can quickly and affordably increase their customer engagement via mobile channels that will keep their business top-of-mind.

What tips did you find most useful? Have your own advice for developing great apps on a budget? Let us know in the comments below.

More Business Resources from Mashable:

- 5 Predictions for Small Business in 2011
- 5 Essential Web Apps for the Lean Small Business
- 5 New Online Services Perfect for Small Businesses
- What Does Web Design Say About Your Small Business?
- 10 Customizable Holiday Gifts for Your Tech-Savvy Office

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, pavlen

Reviews: Android, App Store, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, WordPress, iStockphoto

More About: android, apps, blackberry, business, development, iOS, iphone, mobile apps

For more Mobile coverage: