This is great, so you should watch it.

via Wiretap.

Choosing a College, Getting Scholarships, Avoiding Scholarship Scams

It's never too early to start planning for college. There are many different types of colleges, so you need to think about what programs you are interested in, do some research and visit campuses to see which type fits best with your personality, budget and career plans. Also, make sure to speak with parents, guidance counselors, admissions counselors at various schools, to make sure that you know all your best options. The following are a few resources to help you get started.
Which type of college is right for you? http://www.mnscu.edu/students/choosing/index.html

Career Exploration Resource www.iseek.org

Recommended by over 15,500 high schools and 3,500 colleges, FastWeb.com is the nation's largest, most accurate, and most frequently updated scholarship database online and it's FREE. Free Scholarship Search. Personalized Scholarship Matching. Side-by-side College Comparison. Financial Aid and Student Loan Tips. Part-Time Jobs and Internships Search.

Make sure not to get scammed when applying for scholarships!!! Learn how to identify scholarship scams, how to distinguish between legitimate and fraudulent organizations, how to protect yourself from scholarship scams; and what to do if you are scammed. The following resources will help you learn about these scams and how not to get robbed!

http://www.purdue.edu/dfa/sandg/scams.pdf
http://www.finaid.org/scholarships/scams.phtml
http://www.ftc.gov/scholarshipscams
http://www.collegeboard.com/student/pay/scholarships-and-aid/408.html

Bars & Tones from André F. Chocron on Vimeo.

Created in Final Cut by Andre F. Chocron, music recorded by Penguin Cafe Orchestra.

(via MAKE)

The latest issue of the Youth Media Reporter has a good article about making media with younger kids. It's called "Not Too Young to Watch, Not Too Young to Make," and it advocates making media with younger youth than we usually work with in youth media:

Children under the age of eight need access to the fields’ knowledge of
meaningful media-making in order to understand how media are made so
they can generate, critique, and participate in media as young adults.
Such opportunities will not only help develop a critical eye in young
children; they will open doors for children to become familiar with
media, preparing them to become producers of their own media
at an early age. Media production in early childhood learning
environments can only prove to benefit children down the road, as they
are faced with various challenges both in school and at home, where
media play a huge roll in their upbringing.

The article goes on to talk about young children's abilty to create stories and alternate realities in their imaginative play and suggests harnassing that ability to create media. I immediately thought of a college friend's story about her parents making homemade video puppet shows for her. It would be really fun to involve kids in that type of media creation. Perhaps a baby rock band reality show?

The image above is from a photoblog I really like called My Kid Took These
The blog's author posts photos taken by his 3-year old son. They're pretty neat.