For educators teaching current events and the developing technology of media, this special section on the New York Times website will provide fodder for hours of critically-minded discussions. Readers will find content divided into five categories: Multimedia Stories, Data Visualization, Data-Driven Stories, Explanatory Graphics, and Visual and Interactive Features. One fascinating entry from...

Readers looking to indulge in authentic and amusing love stories should check out Crushes: Stories About Scientists in Love from The Story Collider. As the introduction to the show notes, we're chemically programmed for crushes. The piece introduces two stories where science and crushes collide. First, you'll learn about Devon Kodzis, a zoologist and Master of Biological Sciences student whose...

Quirky and "laugh-out-loud funny," Everything is Alive is just what the doctor ordered. Podcast host Ian Chillag is no stranger to the radio or comedy scene (he previously worked for NPR, among other outlets). Along with Chillag, the many comedians and entertainers who guest-star deliver the "unscripted" life story of inanimate objects. For example, listeners are introduced to a lamppost named...

Brought to us by the MIT Media Lab and the MIT Center for Civic Media, FOLD is an open-source "reading, authoring, and publishing platform allowing storytellers to structure and contextualize stories." Anyone with a Twitter or email account can join the platform for free, then easily build stories using narrative cards and context cards. narrative cards are the blocks of text that tell the story;...

The Global Oneness Project "offers free multicultural stories and accompanying lesson plans for high school and college classrooms." On the site readers will find short films, photo essays, and articles that investigate the possibilities of bridging differences. For example, in Ann Shin's short film, "My Enemy, My Brother," two soldiers, who first encounter one another in combat during the...

Love can involve challenges, choices, and chance, as exemplified in the podcast Modern Love, which invites you to "fall in love at first listen." The podcast is produced by WBUR ("Boston's NPR News Station") and based on the New York Times column of the same name, which readers can find linked to on the About page. Modern Love is hosted by Meghna Chakrabarti, who introduces essays read by actors,...

Educators and readers interested in digital storytelling may want to check out this collection of resources from Storybench, a project of Northeastern University's Media Innovation program which describes itself as "[providing] an 'under the hood' look at the most invigorating and inspiring projects in digital storytelling around the world." Visitors to Storybench's For Educators page will find...

Readers who have thought about starting their own radio show or podcast may want to check out Transom. This resource offers a wealth of information to help its visitors learn audio storytelling, both in terms of content and technical production aspects. Under Shows, readers will find professionally produced audio and video pieces accompanied by essays from their creators giving insight into their...

Nonprofit outreach coordinators, social media managers, and fundraisers will find much useful information in Visual Story Lab (VSL). The project, created by Resource Media and funded by the Brainerd Foundation, the Compton Foundation, and the Seattle Foundation, was sparked after staff at the non-profit realized that policy and consumer arenas were being dominated by corporate communications. They...