Free journalism resources from www.hsj.org

“Reaching Generation Next: A News Media Guide to Creating Successful High School Partnerships” from ASNE by Lisa Frazier Page (PDF book how-to for editors, newspaper advisers and principals to come together to create good scholastic journalists; complete book 41mb; also available 200+ lesson plan archive for journalism teachers)

Chapter 1 Hooking Them Early: The Rewards of Investing in Scholastic Journalism (5.4 mb)

Chapter 2 Getting Started: Creating a Successful Print or Broadcast Partnership (9.2 mb)

Chapter 3 Resurrecting Scholastic Journalism: A Look Inside Some Model Newspaper-High School Training Programs (8.3 mb)

Chapter 4 Turning Students On To Television And Radio: Broadcast Partnerships That Work (5.6 mb)

Chapter 5 Teaching The Teachers: Print and Broadcast Training Programs for High School Teachers (5.8 mb)

Chapter 6 Resources (553kb)

Online youth sections of US newspapers

Alabama: The Tuscaloosa News, Pulse; California: The Modesto Bee, Buzzz; The Press Enterprise, Riverside, Teen Page; San Jose Mercury News, Read This; The Daily Press, Victorville, Fresh!nk; Colorado: Post-News Education, Colorado Kids; Florida: Florida Today, Melbourne, The Verge; The Palm Beach Post, West Palm Beach; Today's Teen; South Florida Sun Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, Teen Link;

Georgia; The Augusta Chronicle, Xtreme; Illinois: The Herald News, Joliet (and other area sister newspapers in the Suburban Chicago Newspaper group), Web Street Cafe; State Journal-Register, Springfield, Voice; Maine: Bangor Daily News, Youth; Blethen Maine Newspapers, 20 Below; Maryland: Carroll County Times, Westminster, Synergy; Massachusetts: The Sun Chronicle, Attleboro, The Page; The Republican, Springfield, UNlisted; Michigan: Detroit Free Press, Yak’s Corner; Missouri: The Kansas City Star, Teen Star;

New Jersey: The Record, Hackensack, Listen Up; The Jersey Journal, Jersey City, Teen Scene; Asbury Park Press, Neptune, Whatever; New Mexico: The Santa Fe New Mexican, Generation Next; New York: The Buffalo News, NeXt; North Carolina: The Daily News, Jacksonville, CyHigh; The Dispatch, Lexington, FYI; The News & Observer, Raleigh, NandoNext; Ohio: The Columbus Dispatch, Now!; Tribune Chronicle, Warren, Page One;

Oklahoma: Tulsa World, Tulsa, Satellite: Pennsylvania: Erie Times-News, Fresh Ink; Bucks County Courier Times, Levittown, Reality; Reading Eagle, Voices; York Blog, Teen Takeover; Tennessee: The Jackson Sun, CyHigh; Texas: San Antonio Express-News, Teen Team; Temple Daily Telegram, Underage Page; Waco Tribune-Herald, High School Hub; Virginia: The Free Lance-Star, Fredericksburg, it!; The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, 757; The Roanoke Times, The Edge; Washington: The Spokesman Review, Spokane, The Vox Box; Yakima Herald-Republic, Unleashed

Free online books library for students, teachers, and the classic enthusiast

Read Print offers over 8,000 absolutely free online books by 3,500 authors at your fingertips. Warning: The surgeon general reports that having these many free books at your disposal can be highly addictive. 
 

Top Authors: Agatha Christie, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, George Orwell, Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, O Henry, Oscar Wilde, Robert Frost, William Shakespeare

Top Books: 1984, Animal Farm, Hamlet, Jane Eyre, Paradise Lost, Peter Pan, Pride and Prejudice, The Canterbury Tales, The Great Gatsby, The Invisible Man

Categories: Essays, Fiction, Non-Fiction, Plays, Poetry, Short Stories

Browse by author’s last name: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Daily writing tips for students, teachers and others

Whether you are a student, teacher, an attorney, manager, or blogger, writing skills are essential for your success. Considering the rise of the information age, they are even more important, as people are surrounded by e-mails, wikis, social networks and so on. It can be difficult to hone one’s writing skills within this fast paced environment. Daily Writing Tips is a blog where you will find simple yet effective tips to improve your writing.

Categories include Book Reviews, Business Writing, Competitions, Expressions, Fiction Writing, Freelance Writing, General, Grammar, Grammar 101, Misused Words, Punctuation, Spelling, Vocabulary, Word of the Day, and Writing Basics.

Most popular articles are: 40 Yiddish Words You Should Know; The Impotence of Proofreading; 6 Foreign Expressions You Should Know; Let the Word Do the Work; 10 Rules for Writing Numbers and Numerals; 50 Incorrect Pronunciations That You Should Avoid; 12 Greek Words You Should Know; 34 Writing Tips That Will Make You a Better Writer; Gross Writing Errors on the Web; Creative Writing 101; Latin Words and Expressions; Usage That Provokes “Blackboard Moments”; and 44 Resume Writing Tips.

You can also measure your writing skills with DWT’s monthly updated tests. Current tests include Vocabulary Test 1, Spelling Test 1, Grammar Test 1, and Vocabulary Test 2.

You can get DWT via RSS Feed, or by email, and stay tuned for your writing tips!

The global village (Did you know 4.0)

Six in ten people around the world now have cell phone subscriptions, for an estimated 4.1 billion subscriptions globally, compared with about 1 billion in 2002.80% of the world's population live in an area where they can use mobile phones. One billion new camera phones were shipped in 2008.

Thirty nine percent of Chinese Internet users adopt cell phones to surf the Web. Students are the main strength of mobile Internet users: 43.5 percent of them use their cell phones to read online news, download music, check email and perform a variety of other tasks.

In Japan and several other countries, more people access the Web through mobile devices than fixed personal computers, whose usage and sales are declining. In recent years the cellphone industry has seen surging growth in outskirts of China and India, helped by constantly falling phone and call prices, with cellphone vendors already eyeing inroads into Africa's countryside to keep up the growth. (From Web Evangelism Bulletin quoting from Reuters / Helsinki)

There are many innovative ways to use mobiles, as a Nonprofit Technology Network article explains.

How mobile phones are changing Somalia

A November 4, 2009 Reuters news story “Cheap mobile calls help more young couples elope” by Abdi Sheikh relates how mobile phones are changing Somali society.

Somali courtship was different in Hassan Aden’s day. When he was a teenager, you gave the girl’s parents 11 camels and an AK-47 assault rifle as bride price and then waited respectfully.

Now, the 55-year-old said, a mobile phone service that seems to be the only thing working in the failed Horn of Africa state is helping drive a rise in elopements, pregnancies out of marriage and a steady erosion of Somalia’s conservative values.

“The youth of today enjoy modern technology, fast transportation and free-of-charge marriages,” Aden, a store owner, told Reuters at a coffee shop in the capital Mogadishu.

“Today, even reasonable boys pay just $50 bride price and a copy of the holy Koran after making the girl pregnant or seeing her secretly for months.”

In a drought-ravaged land where rebels are trying to topple a fragile government, gun battles break out almost daily and nearly 20,000 civilians have been killed since the start of 2007, cheap mobile communications are one happy diversion.

The entrepreneurial spirit of Somalis, born out of two decades of anarchy, as well as an absence of taxes, have helped domestic mobile companies thrive despite the chaos.

Many older residents say the prevalence of handsets and such cheap tariffs -- among the lowest in the world -- is making the lives of youngsters unrecognizable. A month of local calls costs about $10. International calls can go for $0.30 a minute.

The cheap calls and extended mobile network in the Horn of Africa nation make it easier for Somalis to get in touch with willing partners and arrange quick assignations. (Read the complete article)

Remember a missionary this Christmas

Missionary Christmas

Christmas was special when he was a child,
food and presents and carols and smiles.

Tree decorating was great family fun,
and cold nights by the fire watching old reruns.

But then one day God spoke to his heart,
and he gave up his culture to make a new start.

Now taking the Gospel to far off lands,
his Christmas is different than what he had planned.

The weather is sticky, with stench in the air,
the needs that surround him are terrible to bear.

Instead of carols and Christmas bells,
he hears chanting and the casting of spells.

The childhood dream of Christmas in the snow,
was left at the altar when he decided to go.

If only the ones who he left behind,
would remember his face during this special time.

And send him a note, or a word of thanks
or maybe even something he could put in the bank.

Then Christmas would not be so tough this year
and even for the missionary it would “good cheer.”

©Wayne Dillard 2004
www.prayercentral.net

“Is the Lord going to use in a great way? Quite probably. Is He going to prepare you as you expect? Probably not. And if you’re not careful, you will look at the trials, the tests, the sudden interruptions, the disappointments, the sadness, the lost jobs, the failed opportunities, the broken moments, and you will think, He’s through with me, He’s finished with me, when in fact, He is equipping you.”

(The Mystery of God’s Will, by Chuck Swindoll)

Silver Jubilee Homecoming of the Quezon City Science High School

Batch ‘84 of the Quezon City Science High School will be celebrating its Silver Jubilee Homecoming on September 12, 2009, 6 pm at the school grounds.

QCSHS is the Science High School for Quezon City, and the Regional Science High School for the National Capital Region (RSHS-NCR). QCSHS is located at Golden Acres Rd., cor. Misamis St., Bago Bantay, Quezon City, Philippines. Founded in 1967, it was appointed as the Regional Science High School for the National Capital Region in 1998.

QCSHS has two school publications: The Electron, and Banyuhay. It holds the District Press Conference championship title for the 14th consecutive year; the school also joins in the Division and Regional Press Conferences, the Teodoro Valencia Awards, and the YMCA Search for the Young Campus Journalists(2007-2008). Also, the school sends delegates to the National Schools Press Conference.

I had the privilege of being the Electron and Banyuhay adviser in 1983-84.

Video: How to create a blog for your school organization or for yourself

A blog is a free, easy to use form of a website, capable of posting pictures, videos and text. As of May 2008, according to Technorati (a popular blog search engine) there were more than 112.8 million blogs. You can use a blog for posting pictures and articles of your school organization events, announcements, etc.

To learn more about how to create a blog for your school organization or for yourself, please view the YouTube video below.
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Free photos for Christian publications

ChristianPhotos.net is a leap of faith. Everything is free - you can download high resolution stock photography for Christian purposes without having to pay anything - expenses are covered by donations and ads. The photos can be used freely in Christian advertisements, program booklets, bulletins, invitations, newsletters, religious education materials, flyers, posters and any other project for which photos are needed. The vision of ChristianPhotos.net is simple: it wants to help churches to publish better material for spreading the word of Gospel. You can also submit your own photos.

Photo categories include Religious, People, Animals, Scenery, Plants, Macro, Artistic, Objects, and Uncategorized.

Apply now for a free account.

Creative writing: Picture no. 18 series Clouds and nostalgia

These two pictures show the athletic oval and the Main Building of Rizal High School, Pasig City, Metro Manila.

In the 1990’s the Guinness Book of World Records credited the school as the largest high school in the world, with its enrollment reaching a high of 26,000 students at one point in time.

I took the sepia-toned picture in 1995 and the colored picture in 1996. If you are a beginning photographer wondering how you can get great cloud shots, you can simply fit a filter (polarizing or graduated) on the lens of your single lens reflex camera.

Way back in 1969, I was a first year student in Rizal High School. Back then it was better known as the Rizal Provincial High School. Anyway, what I remember most about those youthful days was the Field Demonstration held annually in the oval. The most popular song in the Philippines at that time was Joni Mitchell’s song “Both Sides Now.” Some of you may be familiar with the famous lines from that song:

Bows and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere, I’ve looked at clouds that way.
But now they only block the sun, they rain and snow on everyone.
So many things I would have done but clouds got in my way.

I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now,
From up and down, and still somehow
It’s cloud illusions I recall.
I really don’t know clouds at all.

I don't know about you but for me, sepia-toned or black and white pictures can evoke nostalgia better than colored pictures. Posted below are some quotations about nostalgia:

Owens Lee Pomeroy: “Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson: you find the present tense, but the past perfect!”

Author Unknown: “People seem to get nostalgic about a lot of things they weren't so crazy about the first time around.”

Bill Vaughn: It’s never safe to be nostalgic about something until you're absolutely certain there's no chance of its coming back.

Florence King: “True nostalgia is an ephemeral composition of disjointed memories.”

Lou Reed: “I don't like nostalgia unless it's mine.”

Ted Koppel: “It becomes increasingly easy, as you get older, to drown in nostalgia.”

Doug Larson: “Nostalgia is a file that removes the rough edges from the good old days.”

Will Rogers: “Things ain't what they used to be and probably never was.”