Well Designed Sites that Advocate Education

Wishbone.org

Wishbone is a non-profit that asks you to help ambitious students looking to attend educational programs outside of school. The homepage features information presented as interactive infographics. (Did you know 7,000 students will drop out of high school today?)

You can view students in need of donations based on their location and interests. More importantly, you are able to hear about their goals and how much each programs will help them succeed. The standout feature of this site is the success stories page, where you can read how these educational programs have helped students go to college and achieve their goals.

 

Literacy2030.org

Literacy 2030 hopes to achieve the lofty goal of eradicating illiteracy in South Carolina by 2030. This site contains lists of of organizations in the area that provide support to children and adults. I do think the hierarchy and typography could use some finessing on this site especially since many users with dyslexia and other learning disabilities may be visiting the site. But overall, this site is an excellent hub for organizations to receive grants, gain exposure and for citizens in South Carolina to receive support.

 

CMTEmpoweringEducation.com

CMT Empowering Education encourages users to continue their education by attending college. It features a 3 step solution that contains inspirational stories, solutions to common roadblocks that prevent many from attending college and a comprehensive “Take Action” step that allows you to take a quiz and recommends action steps based on your situation.

The site uses CMT’s connections to the music industry to features videos from celebrities along with stories from everyday people who have overcome adversity and advanced their life and career by completing college. The customized features on this site along with success stories really make an impact and offer solutions for those struggling to continue their education.


Take a look at my Website Pinterest board for more inspiring sites!

“Some things will never change…” –Tupac

This year, the election has brought out some of the deep seated ugliness present in our society. It had me thinking about the socially conscious art and music in the past and present. Just think about what Tupac Shakur was saying in the 90’s. It is sad to see how little has changed. Here are a few standouts:

They got money for wars, but can’t feed the poor

–Keep Ya Head Up

There’s war on the streets & the war in the Middle East.
Instead of war on poverty, they got a war on drugs so the police can bother me.

–Changes

Millions of Americans still live in poverty and yet billions of dollars are still spent on wars overseas. Lupe Fiasco summed up the “liberation” of foreign countries perfectly in 2006 with the line, “They ain’t living properly | Break ’em off a little democracy”.
Street violence is still an issue and instead of looking for a solution, politicians are blaming single mothers.

And since we all came from a woman
Got our name from a woman and our game from a woman
I wonder why we take from our women
Why we rape our women, do we hate our women?
I think it’s time to kill for our women
Time to heal our women, be real to our women
And if we don’t we’ll have a race of babies
That will hate the ladies, that make the babies
And since a man can’t make one
He has no right to tell a woman when and where to create one
So will the real men get up
I know you’re fed up ladies, but keep your head up

–Keep Ya Head Up

This has become one of the most frightening issues that has come to the forefront in 2012. I often find myself wondering if I have entered a time warp. We think we have moved so far as a society yet the reality is that bigotry is alive and well in our society. We have seen an influx of male politicians masquerading as amateur physicians and declaring pregancy from rape as “God’s will”. But their opinions on rape are only the starting point on what certain politicians really think of women. Voting against equal pay for women, taking away preventative health care measures and voting against the Violence Against Women act further prove how we much we still need real men to get up and take a stand against discrimination.

Must See Documentaries

Turtle: The Incredible Journey

A documentary that follows a female loggerhead sea turtle from a tiny turtle hatchling to a grown turtle mama. The baby turtle faces every obstacle imaginable, from hungry crabs to environmental dangers. Of the hundreds of eggs that each turtle lays, only few survive into adulthood. Equally amazing is their internal GPS. These turtles are able to swim from the Caribbean to Canada to Europe and then back to the Caribbean to lay eggs on the same beach where they were born.
Watch: Netflix (Instant)

Babies

I was under the impression this film’s main focus was babies getting into things and it lacked a strong narrative. I was wrong. This documentary focuses on cultural differences and similarities between four cultures. One infant may spend its time alone in a hut while another spends its day supervised behind a baby gate. Yet they both experience the same emotions, get into mischief and make small discoveries everyday. The message in this documentary is similar to the feeling you get when you visit new cultures. There are differences that may shock us but the structure of our cultures is remarkably similar than what we see at first glance.
Watch: Netflix (DVD) | iTunes

The Vice Guide to Travel: Liberia

The Vice Guide crew navigates through this dangerous, war-torn country where Liberian leaders defecate on the same beach where citizens fetch their water. The most fascinating part of this series includes an interesting man by the name of General Butt Naked. He got his name from the belief that as long as him and his soldier fought naked they would be invincible. When they catch up with him they find that he has become a preacher, preaching to the families of the victims that he killed.
Watch: Free Online

The Vice Guide to Travel: North Korea

An interesting contrast to Liberia. In Liberia, we saw corruption + chaos. In North Korea we see how corruption + control has destroyed their nation. The Vice Guide crew has to bribe their way into North Korea via China. Once they arrive they are assigned handlers which control their every movement and set up elaborate dinners, performances and lies in order to prove how great their country is. If you’re still interested in the inner workings of North Korea after seeing this documentary, be sure to read Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea.
Watch: Free Online

Web Design Tool: Maki App

Maki App
Maki App Bookmarklet
Maki App… My long lost web design helper. I lost the link for this but recently rediscovered it. If you are coding a website based on a design that was originally built in Photoshop, Maki App is a must-have tool. The old school way of marking up code to match a JPG would be to temporarily add the mockup JPG as a background image and adjust items on top of the background.

But there is a better way! Maki App allows you to overlay the background on top of your site and adjust the opacity. A heaven sent tool for front-end developers.

Maki App Screenshot

Additionally, if you’re a web designer that prefers or has the flexibilty to design within the browser, Make Your Mockup in Markup is a great article to check out.