Find Support for Your Special Projects
DonorsChoose.org is an online-based philanthropy that helps teachers purchase supplies they can’t afford. Public school teachers post classroom project requests on the site. Potential donors can browse the requests and give any amount to the one that inspires them. Once a project reaches its funding goal, DonorsChoose delivers the materials to the school.
Deadline: Ongoing
Click Here for More Information

Plus: A new donor community is coming to life on DonorsChoose.org. Community members are working together to fund classroom projects to support students with autism.
Click Here to Visit Community

Reduce Out-of-Pocket Spending for Needed Supplies
Teachers who do not have a budget to purchase needed supplies may check Adopt-A-Classroom. A donor selects a classroom and makes a contribution for the teacher to purchase needed resources. Donors may search for classrooms by geographical area, school name, teacher name or other search criteria. If a donor has no preference, Adopt-A-Classroom partners the donor with an underserved classroom in the community.
Deadline: Ongoing
Click Here for More Information

Build a Wishlist for Products and Services
The nonprofit iloveschools donation center connects new, used and in-kind resources with schools. Donors select the classrooms that will receive their donation and say how much the center can use to cover its administrative costs.
Deadline: Ongoing
Click Here for More Information

Make a Positive Impact on the Planet
Disney’s Planet Challenge (DPC) is a project-based environmental competition for classrooms across the United States. DPC teaches students about science and conservation while empowering them to make a positive impact on their communities and the planet. Any third-, fourth-, fifth-, sixth-, seventh- or eighth-grade classroom in a public or private school in the United States may participate in the challenge; second-grade classes can participate if in combination with a third-grade classroom. The grand-prize-winning teacher will receive $6,000; the winning classroom/school will receive a $10,000 grant.
Deadlines: December 23, 2011 for registration; February 16, 2012 for project submissions
Click Here for More Information

Plus: Find resources for starting and completing your DPC project. Among the resources on this site are a complete step-by-step guide to the DPC project, from enrollment through completing your portfolio; a growing list of useful websites to help with planning or researching your classroom’s project; access to videos, images, blogs and other helpful resources provided by the California Academy of Sciences; and sample lesson plans that address your state’s specific educational standards.
Click Here to Access Free Project Resources

Celebrate the Holidays with Pop-Up Books
The Robert Sabuda Contest is a monthly opportunity to win a new pop-up prize. K–12 teachers can enter the contest by filling out the form and submitting it online. Past prizes have included a pop-up gingerbread house ornament, a box of pop-up cards and a pop-up bell.
Deadline: Rolling, monthly
Click Here for More Information

Plus: The website offers dozens of ideas for making pop-up books. For example, your students can use the Make Your Own Pop-Up Reindeer or Poinsettia template as a basis for customized holiday cards. The ideas are coded simple (green), intermediate (blue), advanced (red).
Click Here to Access Pop-Up Book Ideas

Fuel Imagination with Technology
ExploraVision is a science competition, sponsored by Toshiba and the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), which encourages K–12 students of all interest, skill and ability levels to create and explore a vision of future technology by combining their imaginations with the tools of science. It’s a hands-on, minds-on project that inspires students and fuels imagination. All entrants have the opportunity to be recognized for their creative ideas and to win prizes. Educators can learn more about ExploraVision and its value through a series of Web Seminars at The NSTA Learning Center. Join the next webinar, ”How to Avoid Disqualification in ExploraVision,” on January 18, 2012, from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. ET.
Deadline: Entries must be received at NSTA headquarters by February 1, 2012
Click Here for More Information
Click Here to Register for Web Seminars

Expand Horizons with Educational Technology
Each year the ISTE awards program recognizes the best of the best in educational technology. The program honors exceptional educators who advance the field, demonstrate vision and innovation, and expand student horizons. Nominate yourself or a colleague and showcase the work of your district, classroom or work team. Award winners will receive complimentary ISTE standard membership, registration for ISTE 2012 in San Diego and various forms of recognition, which may include travel stipends, other prizes and cash awards. Visit the ISTE website for a listing of award categories; all categories are open to ISTE members and nonmembers.
Deadline: March 1, 2012 for nominations
Click Here for More Information

Meet Budget Challenges
A new online game by the Massachusetts-based company Education Resource Strategies aims to help officials in large urban school districts strategize how best to allocate resources and balance their budgets. The game, School Budget Hold ‘Em, allows officials to consider budget tradeoffs and weigh priorities alongside academic goals. View the online video to get a quick introduction to how the tool works.
Click Here for More Information

Host Collaborative Sessions with Students
Sticky-note walls can be useful for hosting collaborative brainstorming sessions, asking questions and sorting ideas. Primary Wall is a free sticky-note tool designed with elementary school students in mind. To use it, students simply go to the URL for the wall you’ve created and click “add a note” or double-click on the wall to start writing notes. Students can title their notes and attach their names (first name only) to a note. Primary Wall also suggests ideas for classroom use in the Teachers section.
Click Here to Access Free Tool

Bring the Bard to Life
Shakespeare In Bits, from MindConnex, brings the bard’s most popular plays to life through animation and audio soundtrack, presented side by side with complete, unabridged play text in a single, integrated package. In-line translations are accompanied by full study notes for every section (analyses, plot summaries, cast biographies and relationships) to help students understand and appreciate Shakespeare’s works. Presently three titles are available for downloading to an iPhone, iPad, Mac or PC: Romeo & Juliet, Macbeth and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with Hamlet coming soon. Each of the Shakespeare In Bits plays has a Lite or trial version, which contains a few scenes from the play of your choice and delivers all the rich functionality you can expect from the full play. Shakespeare In Bits Lite can be freely downloaded, with no purchase necessary.
Click Here for Free Trials

Find Library Materials About Worldwide Locations
With mapFAST, you can use Google Maps to find texts about places all over the world. Visit mapFAST, type in a location and get a list of texts about that location. By setting a radius parameter, you can specify how close to the actual location you want your texts to be. The booklists generated by mapFAST come from Google Books and WorldCat. Through Google Books you may be able to read and print some titles for free.
Click Here to Access Free Tool

Incorporate International New Year’s Traditions into the Curriculum
Based in Australia, Father Time’s Net provides links to information about New Year’s traditions, recipes, songs, poetry, games and more in many different countries around the world.
Click Here to Access Free Resources

Present the Human Past As a Connected Story
World History for Us All is an innovative model curriculum for teaching world history in middle and high schools. World History for Us All offers a treasury of teaching units, lesson plans and resources that present the human past as a single story rather than unconnected stories of many civilizations. The curriculum enables teachers to survey world history without excluding major peoples, regions or time periods. It helps students understand the past by connecting specific subject matter to larger historical patterns. Drawing on up-to-date historical research and readily adaptable to a variety of world history programs, World History for Us All is a national collaboration of K–12 teachers, collegiate instructors and educational technology specialists. It is a project of San Diego State University in cooperation with the National Center for History in the Schools at University of California Los Angeles.
Click Here to Access Free Teaching Resources

Take a Look at What War Has Meant for Afghans
Modern Afghanistan: Making Meaning in the Aftermath of Conflict, a new resource guide from Primary Source, presents activities that provide students with a deeper look at what war has meant for Afghans—how they have lived, represented events and attempted to rebuild their country. The monument of a tank in Herat with triumphant local soldiers offers a glimpse of both anti-Soviet and anti-Taliban feeling in one region of Afghanistan and calls upon us to consider what messages monuments send. The excerpts from the film Afghan Stories illustrate the political and physical challenges of building a road to ease drought and hunger in another province. The inclusion of weaponry and war motifs in women’s traditional Afghan carpets shows how violence has permeated the society and even gained its own market niche. These sources bring us closer to Afghan perspectives on events than textbooks and news stories tend to do.
Click Here to Access Free Resource Guide

Make It Mental
PBS Kids’ first augmented-reality mobile app for iPhone and iPod Touch is a game called FETCH! Launch Rush that aims to take the sting out of learning to do addition and subtraction mentally. In the game, the pooch Ruff Ruffman, the game-show host in the animated PBS program FETCH!, is a legendary movie director trying to make sure there’s enough sushi for his movie crew. The challenge is keeping track of how many pieces of sushi everyone wants, using augmented reality “markers” (printable handouts) that prompt activity within the app. Using 3-D imagery, the app reinforces early algebraic concepts, helping youngsters to make the connection between real objects and corresponding numeric symbols.
Click Here to Visit App Store

Bring History into the 21st Century
Pearson’s Games Apps for American and World History make learning history fun, quick and easy. The American History Games App includes more than 100 different games on dozens of topics, such as Roots of the American People, The American Revolution, The Civil War, Industry and Urban Growth, World War II, The Civil Rights Era and Challenges for a New Century. The World History Games App also offers students more than 100 different games covering a wide range of global history topics, including Ancient Rome and the Rise of Christianity, The Muslim World, Spread of Civilizations in East Asia, Kingdoms and Trading States of Africa, The Industrial Revolution, and World War II and Its Aftermath. With Pearson’s Test Prep Apps for both American and World History, students have access to hundreds of flashcards and quizzes designed to help them review and understand essential questions and knowledge of a lesson or chapter. Personalized feedback and remediation prepare students to succeed on their chapter, unit or end-of-course tests. For a limited time (through January 5, 2012), Pearson is offering educators promotional gift codes to preview up to four of the social studies apps. For details, visit the Pearson website and click on “Free Apps!”
Click Here to Visit Website

Plus: Pearson’s myFlashcard Maker App, for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, lets students create their own flashcards or access hundreds of ready-made cards. With text and audio in both English and Spanish, students learn in their own way at their own pace. Activity modes include Study, Review and Quiz with immediate, personalized feedback. myFlashcard Maker Apps are available for high school (U.S. History, World History, American Government, Economics), middle school (American History, Civics, World Geography, World History) and elementary school (American History, Regions of America, Florida Social Studies). Visit the website for more information.

Observe the Night Skies
Curious what’s in your night sky? Check the resources from the Chicago Adler Planetarium for some tips for sky watching. You can also share your night sky photos with Adler’s Night Sky Observation Flickr group.
Click Here to Visit Website
Click Here to Visit Photo Gallery

Use Water Wisely
The Project WET Foundation’s new DiscoverWater website is a free online resource for students and teachers about water and water-related topics, including water on Earth, the water cycle, oceans, fresh water, watersheds, water conservation and protection, direct and indirect water use, and water and health.
Click Here to Visit Website

Discover Who’s Doing What in STEM
The new STEMconnector website serves as a one-stop national gateway for “who’s doing what” in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. The site features detailed profiles and uses the latest technology to connect massive amounts of data found within the STEM Pipeline for users. STEMconnector profile categories include National STEM Organizations; Corporations, Professional Organizations, Associations and Professional Societies; Diversity Groups; Women & Girls; Think Tanks; Foundations; Federal Government; National Laboratories; Education; International Organizations and more. Numerous categories and subcategories are included, and extensive information about STEM programs, missions and linkages are cross-indexed. In 2012 the site will be adding more content, including research reports, information on internships and scholarships. Users will also have the ability to update profiles.
Click Here to Visit Website

Question the Author
NPR’s Backseat Book Club is a monthly feature inviting children to read a book with NPR and send in questions. At month’s end, some of the questions will be put to the book’s author during NPR’s afternoon radio program, All Things Considered. This month the website presents the Top 5 Books For Backseat Readers (aged 9 and up) recommended in 2011.
Click Here to Visit Website

Share Stories Honoring Military Families
Inspired by the film The Way We Get By, the Returning Home website allows families and friends to become troop greeters by sending encouraging messages to American soldiers through user-generated content and virtual care packages.
Click Here to Visit Website

Discover Innovative Ways to Use Technology in Education
Blackboard and NBC Learn have launched Solutions in Action, an online video series focusing on innovative and successful examples of technology in education. Hosted by NBC News’ Chief Education Correspondent Rehema Ellis, the videos explore topics that range from new systems to better measure student progress, to virtual platforms that expand access to new and unique subjects in the classroom and project-based design technologies. The series highlights some of education’s top influencers and their contributions inside and outside the classroom. The first three episodes feature the following innovators: Dr. Freeman Hrabowski, President of University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Julie Young, President and CEO of Florida Virtual Schools; and Marc Ecko, Fashion Designer and Founder, Sweat Equity Education.
Click Here to View Video Episodes

Project Yourself into the Future
Imagining tomorrow’s America today, FutureStates is a series of independent mini-features—short narrative films created by established filmmakers and emerging talents transforming today’s complex social issues into visions about what life in America will be like in decades to come. Forecast future events and explore the predictions left by others in the Predict-o-Meter, an immersive timeline.
Click Here to Visit Website

Explore Ancient and Modern Calendars
Calendars Through the Ages is a website sponsored by the Institute for Dynamic Educational Advancement (IDEA), a nonprofit organization committed to enhancing the public’s knowledge of science and culture. The site begins with an in-depth look at the astronomical basis of calendars. Significant historical calendars (such as the Roman and Mayan) and currently used international calendars (Jewish, Chinese and Islamic) are covered in Various Calendars. In the Do It Yourself section, students can make a calendar page by watching the moon everyday for a month and learning about the phases of the moon. To find out how their observations of the real sky match up with predictions, students can see a simulation of the whole month or a single day at a time.
Click Here to Visit Website
Click Here to Visit Do It Yourself Page

Browse K12TeacherStore.com for a wide variety of products published by leading K–12 education companies, all of them delivered digitally. Many of the ebooks can be used on interactive whiteboards and various mobile reading devices. All of the books whose covers you see displayed are on sale at a 15% discount. To stay informed about what’s going on with ebooks in K–12 schools, sign up for the free enewsletter, K12 TeacherFile.

Get a free copy of The Big Deal eBook of Resources for 21st Century Teaching and Learning: From the 3Rs to the 4Cs. Explore this collection of resources to help students move beyond the 3Rs and embrace the 4Cs—Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking and Creativity—the 21st century skills cited by industry as keys to innovation and invention in an increasingly challenging global economy.

Sign up at The Big Deal Book Web site for hELLo!, a free quarterly ELL e-newsletter that includes a wealth of information on interactive resources for students, teachers, librarians, principals and others involved in the education of English language learners.

Download a free eBook of the popular print edition of The Big Deal Book of Technology for K–12 Educators. Explore the many opportunities to fund your special programs, access timely reports and articles, locate free and inexpensive resources and identify engaging interactive Web sites.

Join The Big Deal Book of Technology’s “Amazing Resources for Educators” community on the edWeb to get more frequent updates on grant deadlines, free resources and hot new sites for 21st century learning. And, of course, you can share any great new resources that you’ve unearthed!

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Explore the Web Wednesday feature on www.bigdealbook.com. Here you’ll find new interactive experiences and resources that incorporate 21st century themes and skills into the study of core subjects.