Voyage.tv’s Tweet Your Trip contest

by Brenda Yun on

Hooray for vacation giveaways! Voyage.tv is sponsoring six weekly “Tweet Your Trip” contests through the end of October, and it’s such a simple contest that, if you tweet, you really should enter! All you have to do is describe your perfect getaway in 140 characters or less.

There are two ways to enter:

  • Via Twitter: To enter via Twitter, you must be a registered user of Twitter and a follower of @voyagetv. Once you have completed registration and elected to follow voyage.tv, send a Tweet to @voyagetv describing your dream trip.
  • Via Website: To enter online, visit the web site tweetyourtrip.com, complete the entry form with the information requested, follow the instructions to enter your Submission and click “Submit Entry”.

Entries will be judged based on creativity, originality, feasibility, and adherence to the week’s theme. You need to “Tweet Your Trip” by Thursday, and winners will be notified on Friday.

So get tweeting — and good luck!

So is One Laptop Per Child working or not?

by Aaron Hotfelder on

Over at the United Nations’ blog UN Dispatch, Allana Shaikh argues that One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), the non-profit program aimed at getting low-cost laptops into the hands of children in the developing world, is largely a failure. According to Shaikh, the problems with the ambitious program are manifold:

  1. Laptop orders took much longer than expected to arrive in the developing world. Thousands of orders simply vanished.
  2. OLPC doesn’t offer training to teachers on how to incorporate the machines into their classrooms. Neither is there any technical support for the laptops.
  3. Although children report liking the laptops, the computers don’t appear to help them learn.
  4. The laptops are supposed to cost $100 each. The price has yet to drop that far.

Read Shaikh’s whole piece here. She also points to a very good article by Philanthropy Action editor-in-chief Timothy Ogden called “Computer Error?” Ogden argues that treating parasitic worm infections in children, a relatively inexpensive undertaking, would improve their classroom achievement much more than new laptops.

Meanwhile, OLPC’s founder Nicholas Negroponte unsurprisingly takes issue with the views expressed above. In the comments to Shaikh’s post, Negroponte tells her:

“I suggest you look more carefully at Uruguay, Peru and Rwanda. In the case of Uruguay, every child has one. That is pretty amazing. Peru is headed there. Rwanda too. In fact, we have moved our learning group (as of early June) to Kigali [Rwanda’s capital] perminently, to be in the field and get the kind of feedback [about whether OLPC improves achievement] you claim we ignore.”

CNN touted the program’s importance in Afghanistan earlier this year.

My take: Low-cost laptops are not a panacea for all that ails the developing world’s educational systems. In fact, without proper tech support and training for teachers, the computers are likely to do more harm than good. However, these problems will be solved sooner or later, and I predict we’ll soon see netbooks (like typical laptops but smaller) that cost less than $75 or even $50.

When the price comes down that far, and when schools have the kind of training they need to transform the laptops from glorified toys into effective learning tools, we could start to see third-world education finally turn the corner.

Plan your Great American Beer Festival experience online

by Katie Hammel on

The Great American Beer Festival, one of the largest beer fests in the US, is just six days away. The three-day event known as the Olympics of beer is sold out, but if you are one of the lucky 50,000 or so who will be in attendance when it takes place in Denver next week, now is the time to plan your perfect GABF experience.

The GABF is more than just an excuse to drink beer (lots and lots of beer – nearly 2,000 beers will be available for sampling), it’s a chance to learn more about beer than you ever thought possible, meet the brewers of your favorites, and try brews not available in your local area.

In addition to the basic beer tasting, there are several special events going on at the festival. At the Beer and Food Pavilion, local chefs will be working with brewers to pair beer with food. Attendees can learn how to pair the two at home and taste samples. At the You Be the Judge booth, drinkers can learn the secrets of judging beer and taste several brews alongside an official judge. There’s also a Great American Beer Fest bookstore, lectures from the brewers, and a Designated Driver Lounge where DDs can sample craft-brewed root beers and soda and receive a free massage.

With so much going on, coming up with a strategy to make the most of each four-hour session can be daunting. The Great American Beer Festival website is here to help though. They’ve created an interactive networking website where attendees can talk about their favorite beers, arrange for beer trades, and discuss the best ways to plan their GABF experience. Veterans of the event offer advice to newbies like: eat beforehand (the high altitude can increase the effects of the beer), make a “pretzel necklace” to munch on as you taste so you don’t have to waste time waiting in the food line, costumes are not uncommon, and whatever you do, don’t drop your tasting glass.

The website also hosts a map of each brewery’s location so you can plan your route through the convention hall. Some GABF experts recommend you not try to do too much – chose your top 10-15 breweries and plan a strategy to visit them in the order of importance. Others suggest choosing the beers you want to taste according to style, maybe concentrating on IPAs or porters, or by geographical location of the brewery. And some attendees prefer to just bounce from booth to booth, sneaking in for a sample at whichever one has the shortest line. You can pick a plan of attack based on your preferences, but if you’re serious about tasting beer, you’ll need some kind of strategy to make the most of your limited time.

If you weren’t lucky enough to snag tickets this year, mark your calendar for June 2010. That’s when tickets for next year’s GABF, to be held September 16-18, go on sale.

Twitter to win free MatadorU tuition

by Katie Hammel on

Last month, Brenda announced the Matador Network’s new travel writing curriculum, Matador U. The 12-week course is geared towards travel writers at all levels in their careers, from those who are just dreaming of a getting their first piece published to writers with years of experience.

The course covers topics like crafting the perfect pitch letter, using social media to promote your work, honing your voice, working with editors and going on press trips. Students also have access to exclusive market leads and forums where they can discuss what they are learning with other students. I’m on week two of the class and finding it to be very helpful and motivating.

The course isn’t cheap at $225 (for the first 100 students, then it goes up to $350) but if you can’t quite afford it, you may still be able to participate. Every month, Matador will award free tuition to one of its Twitter followers. The rules are simple. Just follow @MatadorNetwork and send them a tweet saying you want to win free tuition. If you are selected, they’ll contact you with details on how to register for the course free of charge. If you’ve ever considered a career as a travel writer, or if you are already getting published and want to move to the next level, here’s your chance to take the course for free.

Cast your vote in Trazzler’s big summer contest

by Katie Hammel on

Trazzler, a website that provides travel inspiration through destination descriptions submitted by users and freelance writers, runs a monthly contest that usually offers a prize of $250, and a contract to write 10 trips for the website. For their summer contest however, the team at Trazzler decided to up the ante.

They’ve teamed up with NYCgo, AKA Hotels, and jetBlue to offer one lucky winner an amazing prize – a 2-week writer-in-residence contract in New York City (including free flight and accommodations), and $10,000 to write 30 trips about his or her experiences in the city. Over 800 entries fitting the theme “oasis” were submitted. 200 moved on to the semi-final round, in which the public can vote on their favorite. The ten trips with the most votes when the voting ends (Monday at 7:59pm Eastern time), will move on to round three, where a panel of judges will choose the grand prize winner.

I entered the contest, and have made it to the semi-finals, where I’m fighting to stay in the top ten. You can vote* for my trip, check out the others in the top ten, or “trazzle” through the site to find your perfect travel inspiration.

*To vote, you need to register for the website, which is easy to do if you sign up with Facebook. Then just click “wishlist” under the trip to vote. You can only vote once per trip, but you can vote for multiple submissions.