Supplement Your Stretched Budget
GetEdFunding is CDW-G’s new website to help educators and institutions find the funds they need to supplement already stretched budgets. GetEdFunding is a free and fresh resource, which hosts a collection of more than 600 grants and opportunities culled from federal, state, regional and community sources and available to public and private, prekindergarten through grade 12 educators, schools and districts, higher education institutions, and nonprofit organizations that work with them. The site offers customized searches by six criteria, including 45 areas of focus, nine content areas and any of the 21st century themes and skills that support your curriculum. Once you are registered on the site, you can save the grants of greatest interest; then return to read about them at any time.
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Win Funds to Get the Resources You Need
Bing is sponsoring the Bing Rewards $250,000 sweepstakes to help public school students and their teachers win a $5,000 gift card from DonorsChoose.org, an online charity that lets public school teachers request specific resources that will engage their students. Requests range from pencils for a poetry-writing unit, to violins for a school recital, to microscope slides for a biology class. Donors can choose which projects to support, and $5,000 will make many teachers’ wishes come true! Ten winners will be chosen each week through October 15. Enter as often as you like, and if you don’t win this week, your entries will automatically be added to the next drawing. Each winner will be notified directly, and all weekly winners will be announced on the Bing blog.
Deadline: The sweepstakes will end on October 15, 2012 at 11:59 a.m. (ET).
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Step into the President’s Shoes
As schoolchildren watch the 2012 Presidential Election process unfold day by day, how many will be inspired to think that they too could be president one day? By participating in the “If We Were President” contest, sponsored by Pearson and WeAreTeachers, students can explore what they would do if elected to the nation’s highest office. The contest is supported by free election resources, activity packs and interactive programs on Pearson’s K–12 Teach the Election 2012 website and on the Online Learning Exchange (OLE) Election Series site. Teachers can use these resources to inspire their junior world leaders as they dream of changing the world—and potentially win prizes for their classrooms. Guided by such questions as, “What policies would you change?” and “How would you leave your mark?” students will collaborate to submit a creative contest entry through their choice of media, including videos, podcasts, posters and songs. The winning class will receive a grand-prize package that includes a Classroom Inauguration Day Party; the winning teacher will receive a $500 gift certificate from Pearson as well as an iPad 2. Five finalist entries will be posted on the WeAreTeachers website. Teachers and students from around the country will then vote for and elect the class that they want to see “inaugurated” in 2013.
Deadlines: Entries may be submitted through October 18, 2012. Online voting will conclude on November 9, 2012. Winners will be announced on November 16, 2012, at the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) Conference in Seattle.
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Plus: Students will have additional opportunities to have their voices heard in the weeks leading up to the election through Classroom Voices from Pearson’s Online Learning Exchange Election Series.
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Nurture Emerging Young Artists
YoungArts identifies and nurtures emerging artists in the visual, literary and performing arts, including dance, cinematic arts, jazz, music, photography, theater, visual arts, voice and writing. By providing once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, significant access to scholarships and national recognition, YoungArts ensures the nation’s most outstanding high school students are encouraged—at critical junctures in their lives—to pursue careers in the arts. Every year up to 150 of the nation’s most talented 15- to 18-year-old artists, spanning the nine disciplines, converge in Miami for YoungArts Week. This week-long gathering provides gifted young artists with life-changing artistic enrichment experiences, including master classes with internationally renowned artists, workshops, interdisciplinary activities, performances and exhibitions. The students continue to be adjudicated during their performance at YoungArts Week by a national panel. These panelists then select the award level each student receives. There is $500,000 in total monetary awards and up to $10,000 monetary awards for individual winners: Gold / $10,000; Silver / $5,000; Level I / $3,000; Level II / $1,500; Level III / $1,000. YoungArts also recognizes winners at the Honorable Mention and Merit levels. Honorable Mention winners receive a $250 award. Honorable Mention and Merit Award winners also join the ranks of the 16,000 YoungArts alumni who go on to the top universities and conservatories across the country and become leading professionals in their fields. YoungArts is sponsored by the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts.
Deadline: October 19, 2012, for applications
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Inspire a Sense of Civic Responsibility
The Engage in Democracy 2012 Student Journalism Challenge is a nonprofit project for K–12 students from across the United States and its territories. The project is run by staff, student leaders and educators from the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication, the Media Arts Institute, Baruch College of the City University of New York and the Alliance for Excellent Education. Their goal is to empower youth to participate in the democratic process through journalism education, classroom leadership development and community reporting, and to inspire a sense of civic responsibility in K–12 students. To participate, students should shoot a video, under two minutes in length, using stories from around their community, with a focus on one of these six big election topics: Voter Turnout, Jobs and the Economy, Education Reform, Health Care, Energy and the Environment, and Immigration. Individual students or a team of three students can submit up to three entries for a chance to win an award worth up to $1,000.
Deadline: Entries will be accepted through November 5, 2012.
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Plus: Students who don’t know where to start can explore the resources on the site for inspiration, tutorials and storytelling tips. Teachers will find helpful resources they can use to incorporate Engage 2012 into their classrooms, communities and beyond.
Click Here for Free Student Resources
Click Here for Free Teacher Resources

Generate Student Enthusiasm About Engineering
Raytheon Company has opened the 2012 application process for the Raytheon-Engineering is Elementary (EiE) Teacher Scholarship Program. During the 2012–2013 school year, Raytheon will grant 20 awards of $3,000 each for selected elementary school teachers nationwide whose applications best demonstrate innovative methods of generating student enthusiasm about engineering concepts. A program offered through the Museum of Science, Boston, EiE helps elementary school educators and their students enhance their understanding of engineering concepts through professional development workshops and curriculum resources. To date, more than 39,000 teachers and 2.7 million students have experienced EiE. For more information about the Raytheon-EiE Teacher Scholarship Program, including eligibility and submission requirements, visit www.mathmovesu.com or www.facebook.com/MathMovesU.
Deadline: Applications will be accepted through November 16, 2012. Awards will be announced in February 2013.
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Design, Assess and Manage Meaningful Projects
In Project Based Learning (PBL), students go through an extended process of inquiry in response to a complex question, problem or challenge. While allowing for some degree of student “voice and choice,” rigorous projects are carefully planned, managed and assessed to help students learn key academic content, practice 21st century skills (such as collaboration, communication and critical thinking) and create high-quality, authentic products and presentations. The Buck Institute for Education’s PBL website enables educators to conduct a Do-It-Yourself search of projects from 17 sources, addressing 449 subjects, in the following categories: After School, Arts, Career Technical Education, English Language Arts, Global, Health, Math, Science, Social Studies and World Languages. The site also provides free planning forms, student handouts, rubrics and articles for educators to download and use to design, assess and manage projects.
Click Here to Access Free Resources

Align Civic Education to the Common Core
The Civic Education Alignment Guide to the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts is an innovative resource published by the Los Angeles County Office of Education in collaboration with the Trinity County Office of Education and California Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools. The guide provides English language arts teachers with a civic education context for improving literacy skills and offers social studies teachers a pedagogical framework for building literacy competencies needed for civic life. By integrating the goals of the Common Core State Standards initiative and the goals of civic education, educators can provide all students with the knowledge, skills and dispositions needed for success as effective, responsible and engaged citizens in the 21st century. The guide is available as a free downloadable PDF file on the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) CONNECTED website.
Click Here to Download Free Guide

Get to Know Each Other
Icebreakers.ws is an online catalog of dozens of fun icebreaker and team-builder activities categorized by group size and activity type. To find an activity appropriate for your group, just select your group’s size (small, medium, large, extra large) and then use the activity-category links to find “get-to-know-you” games, “team building” games or “active” (break a sweat) games.
Click Here to Access Free Icebreaker Activities

Open Up a World of Learning Opportunities
PowerMyLearning.com is a free online platform for K–12 students, teachers and parents, developed by the national nonprofit organization CFY. CFY has selected effective digital learning activities available on the web and has made them easily accessible and usable in one place. A free account grants access to 1,000+ thoroughly vetted academic games, interactive simulations and videos; easy-to-find activities tagged by subject, grade and Common Core Standards; a “Playlist” feature to sequence activities and individualize learning by student or class; lesson plans to incorporate activities into instruction; detailed reports for teachers, parents and students; badges and “Playpoints” to reward student usage; and a flexible platform that can be used in school, after school, at home or anywhere in between. The site is accessible in English and Spanish.
Click Here to Access Free Digital Activities

Create Beautifully Designed Slideshows
Haiku Deck, an iPad app from Giant Thinkwell, enables users to create beautiful slide presentations. Like other slide presentation apps, Haiku Deck provides free templates for creating presentations, but some significant features of Haiku Deck stand out. First, the app intentionally limits how much text a user can put on each slide. Second, Haiku Deck helps users find Creative Commons–licensed images for their presentations. When a user types a word or words on a slide, Haiku Deck will search for images. The images that Haiku Deck serves up are large enough to completely fill the slide. For a personalized touch, users can also upload their own images from their iPad or import images from Flickr, Picasa, Instagram or Facebook.
Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store

Stimulate the Imagination
EverAge’s Story Wheel app for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch is designed to promote audio storytelling. Students spin the Story Wheel on their mobile device, and when it lands on an image, they dictate a short story based on that image. When they are finished recording, students can play back their story accompanied by animations generated by Story Wheel. The basic Story Wheel app is free. More thematic sets of images can be added to the app with a $0.99 in-app purchase.
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Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store

Make Spelling Interactive
Simplex Spelling Lite, from Pyxwise Software, is a free app for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch designed to improve spelling and reading skills in a fun and interactive way by using the “reverse phonics” approach in combination with contextually relevant spelling generalizations. Simplex Spelling Lite contains more than 50 high-frequency English words. The activities enable students to build on each word, gaining skills beyond sheer memorization of words. The informative spelling-generalization hint explains why words are spelled in a particular way. Simplex Spelling Lite enhances understanding in a variety of students—from children just learning to spell to those learning English as a second language—as it appeals to audio, visual and tactile learners. The Lite version is available in English only; the full high-definition version ($4.99) comes with its own lists of Dolch high-frequency spelling words and is available in 15 languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish.
Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store

Turn Math into an Adventure
Designed for students aged 5 to 12, Operation Math, for the iPad, teaches basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division through interactive game play that turns boring tables into a global adventure. In Operation Math, Dr. Odd is on a global quest to eliminate the world’s even numbers, and students’ job is to stop him by seeking out his secret bases, destroying his menacing mainframes and making the world a safer place for math. The app includes 105 missions based on three different skill levels. Students complete each mission by solving the equations that lock the doors along their escape route in 60 seconds or less. If they are successful, they will earn all the uniforms and watches of a seasoned Base10 spy. The app, from Spinlight Studio, is available for $2.99 in the iTunes App Store.
Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store

Create a 21st Century Technology Learning Environment
This website, sponsored by the Iowa Area Education Agencies, provides some guiding questions, examples, timelines and shared experiences of districts that have found success in implementing a 1:1 learning environment. Successful implementation relies on planning, preparation, implementation, professional development and ongoing evaluation and adjustments. The site’s content is adapted from the ISTE Essential Conditions, 21 Steps to 21st Century 1-to-1 Success, and the Anytime Anywhere Learning Foundation.
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Import Computing into Students’ Studies
Rather than seeking to draw students into computing courses in school, the University of Colorado’s eCSite (Engaging Computer Science in Traditional Education) program brings computing into the courses that K–12 students are already taking. Because computing has become so important in so many fields, importing a meaningful exposure to computing into students’ studies in other fields can be done without compromising existing learning goals. For example, biology students can learn about the role of computing in sequencing genetic materials in a way that enhances their grasp of the biology. One of the program’s main goals is to show that Computer Science is applicable to a wide range of subject areas. Toward that goal, eCSite fellows are working with K–12 teachers to bring eCSite materials to students in the following areas: Art, Biology, Free Sciences, Health, Human Centered Computing, Math and Music. The Units and Lessons section of the program’s website provides free downloadable educational resources that eCSite has developed. The materials are also listed by Subject Areas: Biology Units, Civics and Social Sciences Units, and Human Centered Computing Units.
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Make Technology on Your Time
Sylvia’s Super Awesome Maker Show is a do-it-yourself web show on “everything cool and worth making.” The show features a young girl named Sylvia making paper rockets, crazy putty, squishy circuits and more. In each episode, Sylvia provides directions for a science project and explanations of the science behind it. A section with free downloadable printables provides other ideas of things to make at school or at home.
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Plus: If your students have a cool idea for Super-Awesome Sylvia to make on her web show, let her know using the online form under the ideas/contact button. The best submissions will be included in a Show and Tell section for all to see in the coming weeks.
Click Here to Submit Ideas

Simulate a Micro Economy in Your Classroom
A financial education program that Vanguard is offering free of charge to US classrooms uses experiential learning to teach students from kindergarten through high school about money: how to earn it, how to save it and how to spend it. The program, My Classroom Economy, establishes a simulated economy in a classroom where students earn credits, or “dollars,” by completing classroom jobs, taking on extra-credit assignments, achieving exceptional grades and participating in extracurricular activities. They can use their credits to pay for rent on their desks or at a class store or auction where they can purchase grade-appropriate items, such as markers and small gadgets. They can even save enough to buy their desk or other students’ desks as a source of income. Students can also be fined for misbehavior. The program’s website features resources to help teachers guide their students through various activities, as well as a suggested schedule for introducing topics.
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Inspire Young Readers and Writers
NBC Learn, the education arm of NBC News, has launched an original video series called “Writers Speak to Kids.” Through interviews with popular and award-winning children’s book authors, the series reaches out to young readers and writers to inspire and teach. With questions narrated by NBC News correspondent Jenna Bush Hager, the authors featured share their writing process and experiences, helping students to learn more about the craft and techniques of creative writing. The free 17-part video series kicked off on September 17 with six author interviews. Throughout the fall, the “Writers Speak to Kids” series will feature a wide variety of authors, including those who have written New York Times bestselling titles and Newbery award-winning books.
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Discover the Magic of Autumn
To help students understand why leaves change colors, Maine’s Forest Service website displays an animated video, titled “Maine’s Autumn Magic,” which explains how leaves reveal their fall colors. The site also has a glossary of tree terms to help students understand some of the terms in the video.
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Click Here to Access Glossary

Plus: USA Today has a simple interactive illustration that students can click through to see how the weather affects the color of leaves. Students can select individual tree leaves to see what different leaves look like throughout the seasons.
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Make a Personal Connection to History
Produced by the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City, Coming of Age Now is a free, interactive online curriculum that teaches middle school and high school students about the Holocaust through the powerful stories of young people who survived. Students will learn to connect this history to the world today, exploring themes of identify and personal responsibility. The website integrates first-person videos and narratives of Holocaust survivors, artifact explorations, student projects and online discussions.
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Join a Professional Learning Community with Webinars
Over the past year, edWeb has hosted more than 100 webinars on topics for professional development, including game-based learning, mobile learning, Common Core Standards, autism, technology, e-books, new teacher help, blended learning, and more. All edWeb webinars are archived in edWeb’s professional learning communities. Join a community, watch the webinar recordings, take the CE quiz, and you’ll receive a certificate for participation. As a member of an edWeb community, you’ll be invited to future, free webinars and will have the opportunity to connect with peers for a highly engaging and interactive webinar with edWeb’s expert presenters.
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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.

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.

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.

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!

Browse the new Big Deal eBookstore, in partnership with K12TeacherStore.com! Find thousands of titles from your favorite educational publishers.

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.