The American Society for Engineering Education has launched a free, online, interactive version of "eGFI-Engineering: Go For It," its magazine intended to inspire middle and high school students to consider engineering careers. The new digital magazine features examples of engineering innovations that are transforming society, profiles of dynamic undergraduates who want to make a difference, and descriptions of the most popular engineering career paths and disciplines.

The federal What Works Clearinghouse has released a new online practice guide, "Helping Students Navigate the Path to College: What High Schools Can Do." The guide recommends five steps that educators, administrators, and policy makers can take, beginning in ninth grade, to increase students' access to higher education.

The International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) has launched a new web site to help schools deliver continuity of learning in the event of a swine flu outbreak or other pandemic. iNACOL's Continuity of Learning web site provides free resources to help schools, districts, and states prepare for the H1N1 flu pandemic or other natural disasters.

Wolfram Alpha, a free research web site powered by a computational knowledge engine that generates answers to questions in real time by doing computations on its own vast internal knowledge base, has announced a new live event on Oct. 21 to promote its use for education, PRWeb reports.

When the Technology, Education, and Copyright Harmonization (TEACH) Act was enacted in 2002, librarians hoped it would clear up copyright exceptions for the digital delivery of content for distance education. In reality, understanding what is permitted under the TEACH Act in combination with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and existing fair-use exceptions has become even more confusing.

"Picturing the 1930s," a new educational web site created by the Smithsonian American Art Museum in collaboration with the University of Virginia, allows teachers and students to explore the 1930s through paintings, artist memorabilia, historical documents, newsreels, period photographs, music, and video. Using PrimaryAccess, a web-based teaching tool developed at the university's Curry Center for Technology and Teacher Education, visitors can select images, write text, and record narration in the style of a documentary filmmaker.

To help educators pique their students' interest in Hispanic-American history and celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs from Sept. 15 through Oct. 15, Verizon Thinkfinity.org is offering free lesson plans, activities, and educational resources on a special section of its home page.

Carnegie Mellon University has released an updated version of its popular animation-based software program "Alice," developed by the late "last lecture" professor Randy Pausch to teach computer programming. Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon computer science professor and pioneer of virtual reality research, died at age 47 of pancreatic cancer last year, 10 months after giving his "last lecture" about facing death that became an internet sensation and spawned a best-selling book.

A free computer game for teenagers created with the help of former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has made its online debut. "Supreme Decision," the first of several planned web-based games, went online in August as part of a project called Our Courts. In it, students can play a Supreme Court law clerk helping a justice with a tie-breaking vote over a First Amendment case.