Stuyvesant High School Principal Resigns Amid Cheating Scandal

The principal of New York City's elite Stuyvesant High School, Stan Teitel, has stepped down after thirteen years on the job amid a city probe into a smartphone cheating scandal involving at least 71 students. In a letter posted on the school's website Friday evening, Teitel didn't address the controversy, but said he has "decided to retire" at the end of August. "It is time to devote my energy to my family and personal endeavors," he wrote. But Daily News reporter Rachel Monahan notes that his resignation comes "as the investigation into his handling of cheating scandal continues."

The Department of Education is looking into the incident, in which one student photographed his statewide Regents exams and texted them to other students. (Everyone does it, said a Stuy kid.) The tests in question were all invalidated, while punishments are still being sorted out. At least it's summer vacation.

View the original article here

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Suri Cruise May Be Going to a Different Amazing School?

An E! report earlier this month claimed that Suri Cruise was set to attend the $38,000-a-year Convent of the Sacred Heart school this fall. But now Life & Style is reporting that Cruise will actually enroll in Avenues, a new $40,000-a-year for-profit school set to open this fall next to the High Line. Either school should prepare her just fine for a life of being really, really rich.

View the original article here

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Three High School Girls Amass Nearly 175,000 Signatures in Push for Female Presidential Debate Moderator

First and only woman to moderate a presidential debate.

It's now been 20 years since a woman, in this case ABC News' Carole Simpson, moderated a presidential debate — the 1992 three-way event pitting the incumbent, Bush Senior, against Bill "The Comeback Kid" Clinton and independent (chart-loving) candidate Ross Perot. For Montclair, New Jersey rising juniors Emma Axelrod, Sammi Siegel and Elena Tsemberis, 20 years is long enough. On Monday, the three students showed up in Washington D.C. intent on presenting the Commission on Presidential Debates with two Change.org petitions calling for a female moderator, and totaling nearly 175,000 signatures. But the commission's executive director, Janet Brown, refused to meet with the trio, Axelrod told NPR this afternoon. In fact, Axelrod said that, "we were turned away and we were not allowed to leave our packages there either, in case they contained dangerous material."

This setback came as a big disappointment to the girls, especially after they'd alerted the commission to their visit last Friday and after Brown told CBS News they were guaranteed a meeting with a staff member, at the very least. Also boding poorly for the girls' campaign are Brown's defensive comments that nine of the general election moderators-slash-panel members since 1988 have been women, to 12 men. But presidential debates expert and Northwestern professor Alan Schroeder tells McClatchy Newspapers he thinks the commission will ultimately choose a female moderator when it makes its announcement sometime in August, and in no small part thanks to Axelrod, Siegel, and Tsemberis' petitions.

So don't despair quite yet. We may still see a Rachel Maddow or Greta Van Susteren (or, more likely, PBS's Gwen Ifill) moderating the fall's Obama-versus-Romney showdown.

View the original article here

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

A platform of one’s own: Video Game High School takes control

What happens when a creator uses a highly-anticipated web series to launch a new website? The creators of Video Game High School found out when the highly-anticipated web series debuted on Rocket Jump — bringing millions of views to a platform they fully controlled.

For a few years now, creators have relied on portals like YouTube and Blip for both hosting and discovery — but third-party hosting means ceding some amount of control over your content. And as the space evolves, other strategies are beginning to emerge.

When the web series Video Game High School made headlines with the enthusiastic response to its Kickstarter campaign, there was no denying that the scripted comedy fantasy about a school for video game fanatics would find an audience online — especially given that it was co-created by Brandon Laatsch and Freddie Wong, AKA FreddieW, who has built a strong fanbase on YouTube with his blend of comedy, VFX and gaming references.

But Video Game High School wasn’t your ordinary web series release — because it drove the launch of the independent content platform Rocket Jump.

Building upon Wong’s pre-established audience online, and also drawing content from creators like Corridor Digital and Feast of Fiction, Rocket Jump uses a proprietary video player to host content for, according to the site’s About page, “people willing to stand on that razor’s edge of the envelope that gets pushed outside the box.”

Video Game High School was Rocket Jump’s first big release, with episodes released first to the Rocket Jump site, and then, a week later, uploaded to YouTube. And the strategy paid off. Numbers provided to us by the Collective (and independently verified by Visible Measures) showed that the series has so far, between YouTube and Rocket Jump, received 31.5 million views.

And while 24.4 million of those views — approximately two-thirds — came from YouTube, the remaining 6.9 million came from Rocket Jump. Most importantly, episode-to-episode, YouTube viewership remained consistent, but on Rocket Jump, viewership grew as the series progressed — increasing audience throughout the course of the campaign.

“We were able to drive real audience and grow that audience on a proprietary platform — without cannibalizing our YouTube audience. In that case it was a tremendous success,” Dan Weinstein of Collective Digital Studio, which co-produced and co-distributed the series, said via phone.

Rocket Jump, according to Weinstein, isn’t meant to replace the team’s YouTube presence — instead, “It’s about expanding their brand and providing a different level of engagement for their audience.”

But building an independent platform for their content has a number of advantages for the Rocket Jump team. First, it means that unlike YouTube, they have a greater level of control over the advertising appearing with their content: Rocket Jump videos currently include video pre-rolls as well as banner ads.

In addition, the Collective — which represents Rocket Jump in dealings with advertisers and sponsors — has a clearly defined property to offer. “Brands know who Freddie is,” Weinstein said. “Add in Rocket Jump, something [that's] owned 100 percent, and it’s another tool in the arsenal.”

But it’s not just the FreddieW show, either: Like other online video brands built around a central personality, such as Chris Hardwick’s Nerdist empire, Rocket Jump has the potential to grow into something much larger than one person. “It was meant to be bigger than the FreddieW brand,” Weinstein said. “They built it to be bigger than themselves.”

The Rocket Jump strategy wouldn’t necessarily work for anyone, especially the lesser-known independent creator. “It takes a large dedicated fanbase to migrate the experience to an owned and operated website,” Weinstein said. But for the right content, there might be life outside of YouTube.

View the original article here

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

High School Students - Why You Must Display Caution When Using YouTube

Are you a high school student who enjoys using YouTube? You might not only enjoy watching videos on YouTube, but you may also like to make and share your own videos. Even if you are in high school, you can do so with YouTube, as they allow those thirteen and older to share their videos. While this can be fun to do, you need to display some caution when making your videos.

Display caution when making your YouTube videos? If you are wondering why you need to do so, aside from the obvious safety concerns, you might be wondering why all the worry. What you may not realize is that your online content, including your YouTube videos, may be watched by those who are associated with your school. Those views may come from your friends, other classmates, or even school officials. That is why it is extremely important that you thoroughly examine your video content and make sure that no harm can come to you later on.

When it comes to YouTube video content that you should avoid, particularly if you are a high school student, the most obvious is illegal activities. You do not want to have video of yourself or your friends drinking underage, doing drugs, or committing another crime, no matter how minor it may seem. As it was previously mentioned, you never really know who will come across your videos. With the way that high schools and gossip works today, if one of your classmates found a video of yours on YouTube it is likely that they wouldn't keep that video to themselves; they will almost always share it with others that they know.

Another type of video content that you may want to avoid is content that is offensive to other students at your school. This type of content most commonly comes up in video blogs. Many internet users use video blogs to vent their frustrations or talk about their day. If you are a high school student, there is a good chance that you may want to discuss school, your friends, or your classmates. While this is more than possible to do, you will want to refrain from sounding too negative or even threatening. Although you may just be joking, "I'm so mad I could kill her," could be taken out of context by someone viewing your YouTube video, whether it is a video blog or not.

As it was previously mentioned, one of the many individuals who could end up viewing your YouTube videos are your classmates or even school officials. While we would all like to believe that our classmates are cool, not all of them are. Should one of your classmates find a video on YouTube that they found offensive or poor in taste, they may report it to your school. Speaking of your school, your school officials may even come across your YouTube videos, as many schools are now using the internet, namely social networking sites, to monitor their students and their activities. Having illegal activities documented in your YouTube videos could spell trouble for you, in more ways than one.

When it comes to YouTube videos with illegal activities or threats documented in them, the consequences that you suffer, if any, will all depend on the school district in question. It is not uncommon for school districts to suspend students that they find doing illegal activities, even if those activities were not committed on school properties. Should you participate in extra circular activities, including sports, you have find yourself suspended from all sports teams or other school sponsored organizations, temporarily or even permanently. In serious situations, like where threats against other students have been documented, it is not uncommon for the authorities to be contacted.

As you can see, there are serious consequences to not thinking before making and sharing your videos on YouTube. All high school students, including you, are urged to think about your future, before using YouTube as a source of fun entertainment.

So, if your reviewing the latest mobile internet technology or using YouTube video marketing to promote yourself, just be mindful of the impact your YouTube video can have.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.