May 1, 2013

Timely reminders, fabulous freebies, best sites & more "worth the surf"

IN THIS ISSUE

Grants, Competitions and Other “Winning” Opportunities

Free and Inexpensive Resources

Professional Development Opportunities

On-the-Go Learning

STEM Gems

“Worth-the-Surf” Websites

BOOKMARK THESE!

In Partnership With:


Grants, Competitions and Other “Winning” Opportunities

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 1,300 grants and other funding opportunities culled from federal, state, regional and community sources and available to public and private, preK–12 educators, schools and districts, higher education institutions and nonprofit organizations that work with them. The site offers customized searches by six criteria, including 41 areas of focus, eight 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 and then return to read about them at any time.

Click Here to Visit Website

Grow Environmental Leadership

The Earth Island Institute’s Brower Youth Award recognizes youth aged 13–22 for their outstanding activism and achievements in the fields of environmental and social justice advocacy. The institute is looking for individuals with vision, motivation and leadership skills. The impact of their advocacy should be demonstrated by how their projects benefited the environment and community in terms of measurable results (e.g., acres of wildlife habitat protected or restored, number of people engaged in environmental issues because of the project, numbers of children no longer exposed to toxins). Each of the six recipients of the Brower Youth Awards will receive a $3,000 cash prize, a trip to California for the awards ceremony and a wilderness camping trip.

Deadline: May 13, 2013

Click Here for More Information

Step Up to the Starting Line

ING Run For Something Better, in partnership with the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE), has established an awards program that will provide a minimum of 50 grants of up to $2,500 to establish a school-based running program or expand an existing one. Awards are available to programs that target kindergarten through grade 8 in elementary or middle schools. Through activity plans created by NASPE and based on the National Standards for Physical Education, the awards program will offer children a healthy start to life and foster their desire to exercise before obesity ever begins. To ensure impartiality, NASPE will manage the 2013 School Awards Program for ING US.

Deadline: May 15, 2013

Click Here for More Information

Respond and Win!

As a recipient of The Big Deal Book of Technology enewsletter, you are invited to tell Big Deal Media how you use this publication and about your participation in the purchase of technology products and services. (The survey will take about five minutes to complete.) Surveys submitted IN FULL by the deadline date below will be entered in a random drawing to win $50 American Express gift cards. Big Deal Media is giving away $50 for every 100 completed surveys.

Deadline: May 20, 2013

Click Here to Access Survey

Provide a Gift That Lasts a Lifetime

Dollar General Literacy Foundation’s Youth Literacy Grants provide funding to schools, public libraries and nonprofit organizations to help students who are below grade level in reading proficiency or experiencing difficulty reading. Grant funding is provided to assist in implementing new or expanding existing literacy programs; purchasing new technology or equipment to support literacy initiatives; and/or purchasing books, materials or software for literacy programs. The maximum award is $4,000.

Deadline: May 23, 2013

Click Here for More Information

Make a Difference in the Lives of Others

During the 20th anniversary of Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning film Schindler’s List, the USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education is sponsoring the IWitness Video Challenge. Middle school and high school students from all over North America are invited to use their innovation and creativity to create positive value in their communities by doing something ordinary (or extraordinary) and then to build a video telling the story about how they contributed to making their communities a better place. The activity challenges them to increase their understanding of digital and media literacy, deepen their critical thinking and promote positive social change in their communities and in the world. The activity is suited to a wide variety of classes and addresses the Common Core and ISTE NETS standards. Teachers, together with their students, will select a winning video from each class. These winning videos will be sent to a regional judging panel. The winning video from each region will then move on to the national judging panel. One national winner will receive an all-expenses-paid trip with one parent or guardian, and his or her teacher, to screen the video as part of the USC Shoah Foundation’s 20th anniversary activities in Los Angeles, as well as attend the 2014 Annual USC Shoah Foundation Gala as invited guests.

Deadlines: Register by June 30, 2013; challenge activity can be completed anytime until October 31, 2013. Regional judging will be completed and winners announced on January 31, 2014. National judging will be completed and national winner announced on February 14, 2014.

Click Here for More Information

Plus: The challenge website provides General IWitness Resources, which include a Virtual Tour demonstrating how teachers can use IWitness in their classroom; a Classroom IWitness Activity Tool Kit, which contains a Get Inspired Worksheet; Explore the Possibilities Worksheet, Build Your Story Worksheet, Storyboard Worksheet and Judging Score Sheet; Editor Tips that will help students construct videos more easily using the built-in Video Editor; and an Educational Guide (forthcoming) that will help teachers use the IWitness Video Challenge Activity in different subject areas: Humanities, Psychology, Holocaust Studies, Media Literacy, Ethics and Government.

Click Here to Access Free Resources

Immerse Students in a “World of Ideas”

The New York Times (NYT) has announced its fourth annual Summer Reading Program. Each week from June 14 to August 16, students aged 13 to 19 are invited to choose any piece in the NYT they like and write about why it interested them. The Times will then choose a weekly favorite to feature. Students can choose from anything published in the print paper or on NYTimes.com in 2013; videos, graphics, slideshows and podcasts count. Students may participate each week, but only one submission per person per week is allowed. The NYT will post the same Student Opinion question every Friday, starting June 14. Each will ask, “What Interested You Most in The Times This Week?” That is where students should post their picks (and reasons) any time until the next Friday when The Times will close that post and open a new one with the same question. Every Monday, The Times will publish the previous week’s winner or winners in a separate post; The Times will also mention the winners on Twitter and Facebook. The NYT website has a downloadable PDF of all the rules and details.

Deadline: August 16, 2013

Click Here for More Information


Free and Inexpensive Resources

Engage in Interactive Storytelling

Zeega is a free platform that allows users to create interactive web-based stories, pulling content from online sources, including photos, music, animated GIFs and videos. Once a project is completed, viewers click their way through each story, one webpage leading to another, whether it’s a series of GIFs or captioned photos or just plain text. Zeega cofounder and CEO, Jesse Shapins, teaches at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design.

Click Here to Access Free Storytelling Tool

Get Students “Thinking Like Historians”

The National Archives’ Docs Teach offers teachers opportunities to create activities that develop historical thinking skills. The skill areas include chronological thinking, historical comprehension, historical analysis and interpretation, historical research capabilities and historical issues analysis and decision making. Teachers are also led through a wizard approach to customizing activities with appropriate primary sources as they browse the library’s thousands of possibilities.

Click Here to Access Free Activity-Creation Tools

Bring History Alive

In 2008 the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) of the United Kingdom sponsored a conference, “Picturing the Nation,” which addressed key issues of how people and societies communicate without using the written word—how we learn from watching and imitating others; how we learn from images and objects; and how and why we respond to performance, sound and place. Art (like photographs) can bring history alive and communicate to us in ways that words may find difficult. This image gallery, titled “Measuring America—People, Places and Our Economy,” brings the United States census, from 1790 to 2010, alive using photographic images. The Census Bureau’s collection of historic photographs includes images of enumerators, advertising, household scenes, buildings and technology.

Click Here to Access Free Historic Images

Plus: The section titled Through the Decades: Fast Facts provides a “popular culture context” for any decade, 1790–2010, painting a portrait of the United States both statistically and culturally. In addition to census-related statistics, this online timeline highlights the innovations, events and icons of each decade.

Click Here to Access Fast Facts

Sponsored By:

Professional Development Opportunities

Advance Digital Media Leadership

The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) has been assisting school districts in implementing policies and organizational changes to make effective use of social media, mobile technologies and other Web 2.0 applications for classroom learning. The Participatory Learning in Schools: Leadership & Policy initiative has recently released a refreshed acceptable use policy (AUP) guide titled “Rethinking Acceptable Use Policies to Enable Digital Learning: A Guide for School Districts.” Designed for all school districts in today’s digital media landscape, the updated resource tackles key questions and offers effective solutions to help districts rethink their AUPs.

Click Here to Access Free AUP Guide

Plus: Strengthen your school district’s leadership team. Become an institutional member of the Consortium for School Networking and experience all of CoSN’s tools, resources and professional development opportunities.

Click Here to Join CoSN

Think Big with Experts in Big Thinking

In the fall of 2011, The Floating University (FU), an online educational initiative seeking to democratize access to the world’s best thinkers, debuted at Harvard University, Yale University and Bard College. FU’s inaugural course, Great Big Ideas, became the most requested class at all three schools. The course provides insight and guidance to high school students and people early in their college careers who want to explore different major options or develop an interdisciplinary approach to their chosen fields. The course is also ideal for learners of any age who wish to gain access to the country’s top academics and develop their problem solving skills and innovative faculties. Those involved with continuing education can also petition their schools to accept the Great Big Ideas course for credit. Anyone who takes the course will learn how to think better, bigger and more creatively, skills that will improve everything from critical engagement with media to career, political and entrepreneurial prospects. The Floating University is completely free and requires no sign-ups or trials. Learn the basics of the Big Ideas approach to online learning or simply jump to the Lectures page to start your journey through the Great Big Ideas course. The Floating University e-learning platform is fully compatible with the iPad.

Click Here for More Information About The Floating University

Click Here for More Information About Great Big Ideas Lectures

Click Here to Access Free Great Big Ideas Lectures

Be a Catalyst for Inspired Teaching

The International Society for Teaching in Education (ISTE), the New Media Consortium (NMC) and HP have created a free, online professional development initiative designed to help educators around the world teach STEMx subjects. The HP Catalyst Academy will launch in June 2013 with 15 free online mini-courses taught by HP Catalyst Fellows. The HP Catalyst Initiative coined the term “STEMx” to expand on the traditional definition of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education. The “x” in STEMx refers to other disciplines, such as computer science, nanoscience and biotech, as well as skills such as collaboration, creativity, communication, problem solving, inquiry, computational thinking and global fluency, all of which the HP Catalyst Initiative considers important for success in the high-tech world. The first 15 online mini-courses available through the academy include Building a Framework for Digital Fabrication; ClassroomSalon.org: Social Textbooks; Computational Thinking in Secondary Schools; Connecting Students to Their World; Game Design for Learning; Geospatial Tech for STEMx Learning; Helping Students Change Their World through App Design; InkSurvey: Graphical Response Tool for Real-Time Formative Assessment; Multi/Interdisciplinary STEMx Teaching; Planning Enriching ICT-Mediated STEMx Experiences; Polar Bears in a Changing Climate; Project-Based Learning with Real-World Problems; Remote Labs; Weaving Social Media into STEM Teaching; and Strategies for Formative Assessment through e-Portfolios.

Click Here for More Information

Build a Positive Community Around Digital Citizenship

CUE, in partnership with Common Sense Media, offers Learning Tours that introduce teachers to the essential skills students need for a successful digital classroom, including tips, tricks and best practices. Participants will be trained on how to teach digital citizenship using Common Sense Media’s free K–12 Digital Literacy and Citizenship curriculum, developed in partnership with Howard Gardner and the Good Play Project at Harvard. The curriculum, which offers authentic learning experiences for students to explore digital ethics, is aligned to Common Core State Standards and ISTE’s National Education Technology Standards for Students (NETS-S). The hands-on Learning Tour includes sample lesson activities and examples of digital citizenship lessons in action from classrooms around the country. Participants also learn how to involve parents in order to build a positive school community around digital citizenship. Common Sense Media Certified trainers from CUE will cover the eight topics of the curriculum: Internet Safety; Privacy and Security; Digital Footprint and Reputation; Self-Image and Identity; Relationships and Communication; Cyberbullying; Information Literacy; and Creative Credit and Copyright. All Learning Tours will start in one local region of a state and move to one or two other regions over the course of two to three days.

Click Here for More Information


On-the-Go Learning

Make Math Learning Enjoyable

Math Champ offers a fresh approach to classroom math tests by mixing real-time content, gamification, friendly competition and a unique but collaborative learning environment. To use Math Champ, a teacher needs to “generate” a game using the SERVER or HOST app, which has an existing bank of questions aligned around the Common Core Curriculum Standards (currently for grades 4–7). Students who have the Client installed on their iPad, iPhone or iPod touch use their device like a “clicker” to answer questions on their own device. The teacher’s app tracks valuable student metrics, including data over a number of quizzes. This happens silently in the background while students are slogging it out in a battle of the brains to win the “Math Champ” belt from the class “math nerd.” Math Champ can also be used in conjunction with an interactive whiteboard or an Apple TV. The app is available for downloading free of charge in the iTunes App Store.

Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store

Enter a “Buggy” World

Meet the Insects: Forest Edition is a visually stunning app available for the iPad. Bug lovers can meet the critters up close and personal with high-definition images accompanied by facts and trivia. Students can go through a bug story, take a quiz about their favorite insect and record observations in a digital journal. They can even watch the bugs in action with video clips. The app currently costs $6.99.

Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store

Explore the “New World” As a European Power

European Exploration: The Age of Discovery is a free iPad app that puts students in charge of exploring the “new world.” In the game, students select explorers and ships to send to the new world. Students have to manage the finances of their expeditions so they don’t run out of money before they can return home safely. The app provides students with historical information about the explorers who are available to lead expeditions—for example, Giovanni da Verrazano, Christopher Columbus and Juan Ponce de Leon. The explorers are graded based on their navigation, cartography and ship-keeping skills. Each explorer has a different salary, which students must account for when managing the budgets of their expeditions.

Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store


STEM Gems

Fuel the Creative Process

STEM-Works is an online resource for teachers, mentors, parents, STEM professionals, volunteers and everyone else passionate about getting children eager to learn about science, technology, engineering and math. The site provides STEM-related reading materials; links to museums, exhibits, things to do and places to visit in your area; STEM-related subjects to explore (Crime Scene Investigations; Extreme Weather; Medical Innovations; Robotics; Space; The Animal Kingdom; Video Games; Wind Energy) as well as cool careers that use STEM on a daily basis. STEM-Works is a sister program to Kids Ahead, designed for middle school students.

Click Here to Visit STEM-Works Website

Click Here to Visit Kids Ahead Website

Reveal the Personal Side of Science

The Secret Life of Scientists & Engineers is where the lab coats come off! This Emmy-nominated web series, produced by PBS NOVA, invites students to watch videos and get to know dozens of scientists and engineers with surprising secret lives. Presently there are 32 profiles, with many more in the seasons to come. The “Secret Life” Teachers Guide offers ideas on how to use the “Secret Life” videos and blog posts to reveal a personal side of science to which many students can relate. Also find tips on how to use “Secret Life” as a launching point for discussion and further exploration.

Click Here to Visit Website

Click Here to Access Free Teachers Guide

Learn by Doing—and SMILE

How to SMILE is an online community of educators who have vetted more than 3,400 engaging hands-on, interactive STEM activities. (“SMILE” stands for Science and Math Informal Learning Educators.) SMILE has been a major project at UC Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science and its partner institutions since 2008. How to SMILE is a pathway (an audience-specific branch) of the National Science Digital Library (NSDL.org). With both desktop and mobile capabilities, How to SMILE is full of activities that are both physical and virtual. Topics include Chemistry, Mathematics, Ocean Literacy, Climate, Energy, Life Sciences, Cooking and Astronomy.

Click Here to Visit Website


“Worth-the-Surf” Websites

Unlock the Stories of the American Revolution

The American Revolution Center’s interactive timeline tells the stories of the American Revolution and its ongoing legacy. The timeline features an easy-to-navigate combination of text and images. Click on any event in the timeline to view a short paragraph about that event. Click on the image of any artifact in the timeline and you’ll see an enlargement of that artifact. The page hosting the enlarged artifact image also hosts a description of the artifact and in some cases a video podcast about the artifact.

Click Here to Visit American Revolution Center’s Website

Click Here to Access Interactive Timeline

Climb the Highest Mountains—Virtually

Now you can explore some of the most famous mountains on Earth, including Aconcagua (South America), Kilimanjaro (Africa), Mount Elbrus (Europe) and Everest Base Camp (Asia). These mountains belong to the group of peaks known as the Seven Summits—the highest mountain on each of the seven continents. With Google Maps, you can instantly transport yourself to the top of these peaks and enjoy the sights without all of the avalanches, rock slides, crevasses and dangers from altitude and weather that mountaineers face.

Click Here to Visit Website

Track Spring’s Journey North

Journey North is a free, Internet-based program that explores the interrelated aspects of seasonal change. Through interrelated investigations, students discover that sunlight drives all living systems, and they learn about the dynamic ecosystem that surrounds and connects them. Children study seasonal change in sunlight in a global game of hide and seek called Mystery Class. They also explore tulip growth in their own gardens, running an experiment that tracks the arrival of spring. And they follow animal migrations, observing, conducting research and reporting findings as they watch journeys progress on live maps. Journey North for Kids is a simple, student-directed entry point to Journey North studies. Engaging stories, photos, videos and slideshows from the natural world build observation skills, inspire scientific thinking and create fertile ground for discussions and new questions.

Click Here to Visit Website


BOOKMARK THESE!

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