Inspire Students to Make a Collective Impact
WaysToHelp.org invites teens in the United States to apply for grants to fund their community service ideas across any one of these four issue areas: The Environment; Democracy & Equality; Health; Community. Applicants should summarize, in 5,000 words or less, how the project will involve others, who it will help, what effect it is expected to have, when it will start and how the funds will be used.
Deadline: Grant requests are reviewed and responded to on a monthly basis.
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Educate Youth for Future Success
Lockheed Martin provides grants for K–16 Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education. The grants program includes Lockheed Martin’s K–12 STEM Education Initiative, Engineers in the Classroom as well as STEM-focused curricular and extracurricular programs that provide employee engagement opportunities in a community in which Lockheed Martin has employees or business interests. All 501(c)(3) organizations that deliver standards-based STEM education to students in K–16 are eligible for an award. The amount of the award varies.
Deadline: Applications are accepted year-round. Evaluations are typically performed quarterly. Some grant applications may not be able to be considered until the next year's budget cycle, particularly those received in the second half of the year.
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Enhance Students’ Writing Skills
Each year the College Board recognizes exceptional K–12 teachers for the innovative methods they use to develop their students’ writing skills. Grants of $3,000 each will be awarded to teachers who are doing an inspiring job of teaching their students to write and who will benefit most from a grant to enhance a successful project. The Bob Costas Grants for the Teaching of Writing was named for Bob Costas, the Emmy Award–winning broadcaster and author, for his dedication to the craft of writing and his generous public service work on behalf of the National Commission on Writing.
Deadline: Applications are due by November 21, 2012 for 2013 grants.
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Create a College-Going Culture
The College Board’s Inspiration Awards celebrate America’s most improved high schools, those that have improved their academic environment and helped their students achieve the promise of a higher education by initiating unique programs and creating partnerships among teachers, parents, community organizations and local businesses. Winning schools, selected by a panel of independent experts, are announced each spring. Three winning schools will each receive $25,000, and up to five schools will each receive $1,000 honorable mention awards. Applicant schools must be secondary schools in the 50 United States or the District of Columbia. A minimum of 40 percent of the school’s student population must qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.
Deadline: Applications must be received by 5 p.m. (EST) on November 30, 2012.
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Hack Your School Green
Sponsored by Youth Rock the Rebuild and Architecture for Humanity, the Guerrilla Green Sustainable Showdown invites teams of middle school and high school students across the United States to submit their ideas for making their school more eco-friendly. Ideas may range from a small change in a school garden to a new, crazy window system. However, this is not just an ideas competition; it is also an implementation initiative. Winning teams will be given cash to build or organize their ideas. The competition has three rounds. In round 1, The Elite Eight (best plan) will receive $1,000; in round 2, The Final Four (best implemented project) will receive $2,000; and in round 3, Overall Winner (best scaled project) will receive $10,000.
Deadlines: December 3, 2012 is the last day to submit ideas; the winners of round 1 will be announced on December 10, 2012. Round 2 closes on February 1, 2013; round 2 winners will be announced on February 8, 2013. Round 3 closes on March 6, 2013; round 3 winners will be announced on March 18, 2013.
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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 700 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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Connect Students to Public Policy Dilemmas
Understanding Fiscal Responsibility (UFR): A Curriculum for Teaching About the Federal Budget, National Debt and Budget Deficit is a nonpartisan, research-based inquiry-driven curriculum developed by faculty, students, staff and alumni of Teachers College, Columbia University. The curriculum connects students to the complex public policy choices that confront the United States and its citizens. Students engage in dilemmas that are central to grappling with these public policy choices and come to understand what more they need to know. While the dilemmas drive the curriculum, skills and concepts deepen students’ understanding of the challenges. The curriculum, designed for grades 7–12, is organized around these questions: What do the decisions we make about the federal budget, national debt and budget deficit reveal about us as a people? How should we address our nation’s fiscal challenges today and in the future in a manner consistent with our values and traditions? The curriculum, which aligns with state and national standards, incorporates books, primary sources, simulations, films and other visual and digital media. Teachers College, Columbia University, is distributing 100,000 copies of the UFR curriculum free of charge to interested teachers in every United States high school. The curriculum will also be made available to college and university faculty.
Click Here to Request Free UFR Curriculum
Click Here to Join UFR Teacher Network

Plan the Way You Teach
Common Curriculum is a new online lesson planning resource that aims to help educators align their lessons to Common Core standards. In Common Curriculum, teachers can enter their courses and write their lesson plans. After entering a lesson plan into their Common Curriculum planner, they click “search for standard” to find Common Core standards that may match their lesson plan. If their lessons tend to follow a particular pattern, teachers can create a lesson plan template that they reuse across their schedule. Each lesson plan that is written in Common Curriculum can be published to a blog with just one click.
Click Here to Access Online Lesson Planning Resource

Turn Outlines into Mind Maps
Text 2 Mind Map offers a way for users to turn typed outlines into mind maps. To create a mind map, users type an outline in the textbox and then click “Draw Mind Map” to create their map. If, after creating the mind map, they need to add more elements, users just add the information in their outline and click “Draw Mind Map” again. The mind map can be downloaded as a PDF or PNG file. The map can also be shared via email, Facebook or Twitter.
Click Here to Access Free Online Mapping Tool

Create, Publish and Share Digital Stories
Creaza Education offers four useful tools for creating digital stories. The video editor provides teachers and students with stock media clips and transition effects for getting started. Users can upload their own audio recordings, videos and pictures and store them for use in all of their video projects. To create a movie, users just drag media elements from their library into the track for that media type. Rearranging the sequence of elements in their video is just a drag-and-drop process. The audio editor lets users record and mix audio tracks. Users can record directly into the audio editor or upload files saved on their computer. In addition, the audio editor has a library of sounds and music that users can mix into their productions. The cartoon creation tool provides templates for getting started. To create a cartoon, users simply drag items into each cartoon frame from the menus of settings, characters and props. They can also upload their own props from their computer. The mind-mapping tool for visual learning, creativity and problem solving allows users to include videos, pictures and audio files in all cells in a mind map.
Click Here to Access Free Demo

Track a Typhoon—in Real Time
The Living Earth – Clock & Weather app for the iPad and iPhone includes a live 3-D simulation of our planet at our current moment in time, with global weather forecasts and world clock for millions of cities around the world. Students can observe the changing seasons throughout the year and view snow and ice coverage as well as other seasonal changes on our globe. They can view live global cloud patterns and explore and experience amazing weather dynamics with real-time 3-D weather maps of temperature, humidity and wind velocity, along with typhoon and hurricane tracking. The app is available in the iTunes App Store at a cost of $0.99.
Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store

Encourage Critical Thinking and Questioning
Through engaging interactions and gameplay geared toward learning, Ansel & Clair’s Adventures in Africa (for children aged 4 to 10) is designed to leverage the multisensory experience of the iPad. The original characters—Ansel, a friendly intergalactic travel photographer from the planet Virtoos, and Clair, a brilliant Virtoosian robot—explore three interactive locales: Nile Valley, Sahara Desert and Serengeti Plains. The app encourages children to think and inquire through Ansel’s critical questioning. It is available for $4.99 in the iTunes App Store.
Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store

Explore the World While Spreading Friendship
Intended for children aged 4 and up, Kiwi and Pear’s World Adventure is an interactive storybook that follows two adventurous monkeys who travel and explore the world while spreading love, friendship and smiles to everyone and everything they meet. No adventure is too great for these intrepid little monkeys. They have climbed the Great Wall, hiked the Andes, sailed the Nile ... they have even been to outer space! Kiwi is curious, fun loving and silly, while Pear is good-natured, sensible and mellow—and both are happiest when they’re together. Accompanying the interactive storybook are three minigames to help children learn basic geography. The app is available for the iPhone at $0.99 in the iTunes App Store.
Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store

Take a Seat in the Oval Office
Do your students know which president the Teddy Bear is named after? Or which president got stuck in a White House bathtub? Students can learn everything they ever wanted to know about the American presidency with Disney Publishing’s new iPad app—Disney American Presidents: Unofficial Oval Office Scrapbook. Developed by the Disney Learning team together with a producer from The Daily Show and Colbert Report, the app features more than two hours of hilarious—and historically accurate—presidential profiles for each of the 44 US presidents—from George Washington to Barack Obama. Each president receives his own spread, with interactive elements linked to key decisions, notable characteristics and historical legacy. Era-specific descriptions, music, art styles and references help bring each historical time period to life. Aligned with national social studies curriculum standards for grades 3–8, the app offers a historical journey—from homesteading to civil rights to trust busting—exploring many of the themes of the 2012 election. The app is available for $3.99 in the iTunes App Store.
Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store

Use Primary Sources in Addressing CCSS
The National Humanities Center’s America in Class online seminars focus on teaching with primary sources—historical documents, literary texts, visual images and audio material. Emphasizing critical analysis and close reading, the seminars address the skills of the Common Core State Standards while giving teachers the opportunity to deepen their content knowledge. The center draws texts from a variety of sources and attempts to select fresh material that will invigorate classroom instruction. The National Humanities Center’s programs are eligible for recertification credit. Each seminar includes 90 minutes of instruction plus approximately three hours of preparation. Because the seminars are conducted online, they may qualify for technology credit in districts that award it. View the Fall 2012 schedule online. The cost is $35.00 per online seminar, with special pricing available. The seminar texts are provided free online.
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Provide Growth Opportunities for STEM Educators
Math for America (MfA) is a nonprofit organization with a mission to improve mathematics and science education in US public secondary schools by building a corps of outstanding STEM teachers and leaders. With nearly 600 corps members across its programs, MfA operates in Berkeley, Boston, Los Angeles, New York City, San Diego, Utah and Washington, D.C. MfA rewards and supports new and experienced teachers and school leaders through fellowship programs, including the MfA Fellowship, which aims to increase the number of mathematically talented individuals entering the teaching profession; the MfA Early Career Fellowship, which provides growth opportunities to new mathematics teachers; the MfA Master Teacher Fellowship, which rewards outstanding experienced mathematics and science teachers; and the MfA School Leader Fellowship, which supports administrators with a mathematics background.
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Translate a Vision of 21st Century Education into Practice
ASCD, in partnership with the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), offers a PD Online course titled From Vision to Action: The 21st Century Teaching and Learning Plan. The course provides educators with the tools and concepts needed to develop a vision of 21st century education in their school or district and translate it into actionable practice. Each module of the course contains readings, videos or presentations conveying the course’s objectives. The modules also contain “Check for Understanding” questions, which provide immediate feedback on learning, and an application exercise that offers opportunities to work with and practice the concepts and skills taught in the course. In addition, each module contains customizable tools that may be downloaded. The cost of the course is $99 for both ASCD members and nonmembers.
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Share Your Expertise with Other Educators
Most web-savvy individuals have heard of Reddit, but many may not be familiar with the University of Reddit, which offers educators the chance to share their expertise through class lectures and videos with others on the web. Currently, the site is home to educational materials in art, computer science, general studies, language, mathematics and statistics, music, philosophy, science, social sciences and technology. If a topic isn’t covered, learners are welcome to add their own educational content.
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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.
Click Here to Join edWeb Communities

Keep Track of Policies Affecting Education Technology
Launched in October 2012, the State Education Policy Center (SEPC) is a database of state policies related to education and technology curated by the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) and its membership. SEPC is intended to help policymakers, researchers, corporate and philanthropic investors and educators keep track of developments in state-level policy directly affecting the realm of educational technology. As policies and practices evolve over time, these changes will be reflected in SEPC. In all cases, content will be verified and maintained by SETDA and its members. In addition to background information on each state, at launch SEPC focused on three topics: K–12 broadband policy and practice, online student assessment (formative and summative) policy and practice, and instructional materials policy and practice (with an emphasis on digital and open content). There are two primary ways to navigate around SEPC: by state and by topic. Within a topic, you can select subtopics for further information on the selected state, download the information for that state and/or flag an entry for further investigation by SETDA if you believe any posted information is incorrect or not up to date.
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Let Your Students Do the Teaching
Students can get firsthand knowledge of what it takes to be a teacher through a project in which they create video tutorials and teach concepts to their peers. The web platform, called the Upside Down Academy, was part of a pilot program in which the Khan Academy model was used as the inspiration for a project-based curriculum. By turning the school paradigm upside, students have opportunities to explore teaching and learning in a new and remixed way. Central to the vision is for students to publicly share their own understanding, thus fostering authentic dialogue about what they learned. The process that students go through begins and ends with reflection.
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Connect Your Classroom to the World
Skype in the classroom is a free service that provides resources and tools for teachers to use in their classrooms. The service includes more than 2,000 projects from Skype in the classroom partners and other teachers. The projects are categorized by subject and student age group. Projects recently added to the service include NASA’s Digital Learning Center, which provides opportunities for students to learn how to prepare a space vehicle for liftoff, help scientists and engineers explore the basic principles of matter, design their own spacesuit mission patch, discover what it’s like to live and work in space and learn the basics of robotics. The National Museum of the Royal Navy provides minitours of the ship HMS Victory, from Admiral Nelson’s cabin to the quarterdeck, and lets students see and discuss artifacts related to the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The British Council has created opportunities for students in developing countries to interact with students in the rest of the world. And Choose2Matter asks schools and teachers to share examples of creative ways of learning with one another. New projects add to existing Skype in the classroom projects from Penguin Books, Science Museum London, Microsoft, New York Philharmonic, Peace One Day Education, VerbalizeIt and more. Teachers can find additional information and sign up for Skype in the classroom for free on Skype’s education website.
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Critique and Construct Historical Narratives
Historical Thinking Matters features four historical thinking investigations through which students learn about the Spanish-American War, the Scopes Trial, Rosa Parks and Social Security. Each of the investigations provides students with background information in the forms of video, images, audio and text (both primary and secondary sources). As they progress through the investigations, students use the Historical Thinking Matters student notebook to answer guiding questions and take notes. At the end of an investigation, students write a short essay forming reasonable conclusions about the past and email their work, including the notes from their notebooks, directly to their teachers. Resources for instructors, preservice teachers and teacher-educators include classroom materials and strategies, examples of student and teacher work, and supplementary sources.
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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.