Take It With You - Sponsoring the Big Deal Book - 6/2/2013

Dive into Documents, Create a Maker Space, See Inside a Cell and More

August 15, 2013

IN THIS ISSUE

Grants, Competitions and Other “Winning” Opportunities

Resource Roundup

Professional Development Plus

On-the-Go Learning

STEM Gems

“Worth-the-Surf” Websites

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 1,600 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

Give Your Teachers' Lounge a Makeover

To give teachers a chance to revamp their shared workspace, TeacherLists.com—the free online service for posting and sharing school supply lists and teacher wish lists with parents—has launched a nationwide Teachers’ Lounge Makeover Contest. The contest will reward the winning school with $5,000 in cash to completely redecorate and reorganize the teachers’ lounge for utility and comfort. To enter the contest, schools (teachers, office staff or parent volunteers) just need to post 20 of their 2013 school supply lists or teacher wish lists to the site. Every qualifying school will also be eligible for a free “School Supply Stash” containing $125 worth of school supplies (while supplies last) from TeacherLists.com sponsors.

Deadline: August 31, 2013

Click Here for More Information

Inspire Students to Love Reading

Funded by the Random House Foundation, the Random House Teacher Awards for Literacy recognize the nation’s most dynamic and resourceful K–12 public school teachers who use their creativity to inspire and successfully instill a love of reading in their students. Open to full-time and part-time teachers in public schools across the United States, the awards consist of a $10,000 first-place grant, a $5,000 second-place grant and a $2,500 third-place grant payable to each teacher’s respective school. In addition, book donations will be made to the winners and runners-up.

Deadline: September 1, 2013

Click Here for More Information

Enter The Big Deal Book of Technology Take-It-With-You Contest!

The Big Deal Book of Technology is a small book with BIG staying power! Our readers say that they keep their books close by as the go-to resource for the best curated mix of grant opportunities, newest apps, interactive web destinations and more. Now here’s another way to put this go-everywhere book to good use:

“Like” Big Deal Media on Facebook and then enter the Take-It-With-You Contest by posting a photo of you, with a copy of The Big Deal Book of Technology in hand, on our timeline. (Provide a brief description of the locale and, of course, your name!) If you don’t have a hard copy of the publication, you can download a copy (or just the cover) from http://www.bigdealbook.com.

Each month through October 31, 2013, we’ll give away one $50 gift card to Starbucks, Amazon or Barnes & Noble, to the photo capturing the most “likes” during the month posted. (Feel free to send a different photo each month.) We’ll announce each month’s winner on our Facebook page.

Click Here to Enter Take-It-With-You Contest

Support the Next Generation of Artists

The National YoungArts Foundation provides emerging artists (aged 15–18, or grades 10–12) with life-changing experiences with renowned mentors, access to significant scholarships, national recognition and other opportunities throughout their careers to help ensure that the nation’s most outstanding young artists are encouraged to pursue careers in the arts. Support is offered in 10 artistic disciplines: cinematic arts, dance, design, jazz, music, photography, theater, visual arts, voice and writing. (Students may apply to more than one discipline/category.) By applying to the YoungArts program, students are eligible for a monetary award of up to $10,000 (total awarded each year is more than $500,000); exclusive eligibility for recognition as a United States Presidential Scholar in the Arts; master classes with world-renowned artists; and access to scholarships, career opportunities and professional contacts. To apply to YoungArts, students must meet the requirements, complete an online application, pay a $35 (nonrefundable) application fee (per category; fee waivers are available) and submit an online audition portfolio.

Deadline: October 18, 2013 at 11:59 p.m. (ET)

Click Here for More Information

Chart a Journey to Mars

NASA and Lockheed Martin are developing the Orion spacecraft that will carry astronauts beyond low Earth orbit and on to an asteroid or Mars. Protecting astronauts from radiation on these distant travels is an important—and very real—problem that needs solving. NASA would like your students to help. Through NASA’s Exploration Design Challenge, students are invited to conduct research and design ways to protect astronauts from space radiation. Students will study the effects of radiation on human space travelers and analyze different materials that simulate space-radiation shielding for Orion. After participating in activities guided by their teachers, students will recommend materials that best block harmful radiation. All students that participate in this challenge can join other participants from around the world to celebrate the Exploration Flight Test-1 of Orion by having their names flown onboard as honorary crewmembers. Follow the steps in the guides for K–4, 5–8 or 9–12 to walk students through activities to complete the challenge.

Deadlines: The challenge has two phases and three registrations periods: (1) register your school at any time before you begin the challenge—Phase 1; (2) register your students after completing the activities and download certificates—Phase 1; (3) register your student team and submit students’ solutions—Phase 2. Final registration must occur by March 14, 2014, for students to join the virtual crew.

Click Here for More Information

Click Here to Access K–4 Guide

Click Here to Access 5–8 Guide

Click Here to Access 9–12 Guide

Incorporate Financial Education into the Curriculum

Discover is investing up to $10 million in financial education, and any high school can apply for a grant toward a financial education curriculum. To be eligible for a Pathway to Financial Success grant, schools must have implemented or be looking to implement a financial education curriculum; have a measurement tool planned or in place to assess participation in and comprehension of the financial education curriculum; and agree to share overall results of the measurement tool’s pre- and post-curriculum testing with Discover upon completion of the program to assess what worked and what didn’t. The amount of the grant varies.

Deadline: Ongoing

Click Here for More Information


Resource Roundup

Inspire Every Child to Be a “Maker”

The Maker Education Initiative creates opportunities for young people to make and, by making, build confidence, foster creativity and spark interest in science, technology, engineering, math, the arts—and learning as a whole. The initiative’s founding sponsors—Cognizant, Intel, Maker Media and Pixar—want young people to join—and eventually lead—the growing Maker Movement. Part of the Maker Education Initiative’s mission is to help spread the best practices, lessons learned and research from maker programs around the world. The movement’s leaders are building a database of Maker Education resources and research. If you’re interested in starting a Maker program in your community, the free downloadable resource guide A Blueprint: Maker Programs for Youth, published in 2013 by the New York Hall of Science, puts you on a path that can turn that idea into reality.

Click Here for More Information About Maker Movement

Click Here to Access Free Maker Education Resources

Return to the Dawn of the Civil Rights Movement

Hallmark Channel and Walden Media have partnered with Cable in the Classroom to create a customized school curriculum revolving around the civil rights movement, featuring Hallmark Channel’s original movie The Watsons Go to Birmingham. Set for a September 20 premiere, the film chronicles the experiences of an African American family traveling from Flint, Michigan, to racially charged Birmingham, Alabama, in the summer of 1963. An accompanying Teacher Guide, set to launch this fall, will offer parents and educators a turnkey lesson plan, streaming video resources and archival photographs designed for students in grades 4–12 that give fresh context to the dawn of the civil rights movement. The Teacher Guide will be offered free of charge on a dedicated Hallmark Channel microsite and the Walden Media website.

Click Here to Visit Website

Click Here to Meet the Watsons

Remember, Understand, Apply in the Digital Age

Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy is an update to Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy, which attempts to account for the new behaviors and actions emerging as technology advances and becomes more ubiquitous. Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy describes many traditional classroom practices, behaviors and actions, but it does not account for the new processes and actions associated with Web 2.0 technologies, “infowhelm” (the exponential growth in information), increasing ubiquitous personal technologies or cloud computing. Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy isn’t about the tools or technologies; rather it is about using technology to facilitate learning. For example, bookmarking a resource is of no value if the resource is inappropriate, invalid, out of date or inaccurate. Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy lends itself to problem- and project-based learning where the student must work through the entire process of development and evaluation.

Click Here to Access Digital Taxonomy

Plus: Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy has been translated into Spanish by Claudia Uribe de Piedrahita, Director of Eduteka.

Click Here to Access Digital Taxonomy in Spanish

Challenge Students to Become Digital Activists

The Digital Writing and Research Lab (DWRL) at the University of Texas shares its library of innovative technology-based lesson plans and classroom assignments created by DWRL Instructors. DWRL’s online database features a wide assortment of lesson plans and assignments employing a number of technologies. You’ll find everything from activities using cutting-edge new software to engaging, innovative and novel pedagogical uses of familiar technologies, such as Google Maps and Microsoft Word. The lesson plans address a broad spectrum of pedagogical activities—from initial brainstorming to electronic peer review, from interactive visual rhetoric lessons to collaborative multimedia online publications. The site also features lesson plans suitable for timespans as short as a single class and as lengthy as a semester-long project.

Click Here to Access Free Lesson Plans

Plus: Visit DWRL’s Blogging Pedagogy site, which features an ongoing series of posts from individual instructors reflecting on their technology-based assignments and classroom experiences.

Click Here to Visit Blog


Professional Development Plus

Transform Teaching Practices

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and the New Media Consortium (NMC) have announced the second cohort of HP Catalyst Academy Fellows. With this new group of innovative education leaders from around the globe, the HP Catalyst Academy will greatly expand its offerings of free, online professional development to accelerate STEMx education and continue to close the global skills gap. The mini-courses, led by world-class institutions, are designed for busy STEMx education professionals seeking continued learning. The mini-courses require approximately six to 12 hours of participants’ time over a four-week period and are targeted to science, technology, engineering, mathematics and other 21st century disciplines taught by educators in grades 6–16. For example, in August, the mini-course Applications of Social Media for STEMx Teaching took place on Facebook, demonstrating to educators how they can leverage social media in innovative ways. The new HP Catalyst Academy Fellows will expand the current mini-course catalog with topics such as cultivating creativity, science inquiry, mathematical curiosity, augmented reality apps, digital literacy in the science classroom, learning games and more. Teachers participating in the Academy’s professional development offerings receive recognition for their accomplishments through digital badges and downloadable certificates.

Click Here to Visit Website

Click Here for More Information on Social Media Mini-Course

Produce and Share Educational Videos

TED-Ed‘s videos aim to capture and amplify the voices of the world’s greatest educators. To achieve this, TED-Ed pairs educators with talented animators to produce a library of educational videos. This website, similar to TED.com, is ever evolving and depends on educators and the TED community. Videos include curriculum ideas, lessons and theories on education.

Click Here to Visit Website


On-the-Go Learning

Make the World Safe for Math

In Operation Math, an app for the iPad and Android devices, students must stop Dr. Odd from his quest to eliminate the world’s even numbers by finding his secret bases and destroying his computer mainframes. To complete a mission and unlock rewards, students must answer a certain number of math questions in 60 seconds. Training rooms help students prepare for their timed mission. The app is available for $2.99 in the iTunes and Google Play App Stores.

Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store

Click Here to Visit Google Play App Store

Dream It, Design It, Build It, Share It

TinkerBox, a free educational app for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, presents interesting science facts and teaches basic physics and engineering concepts. In the devious Puzzle mode, students are immersed in physics-based puzzles and mechanical concepts, where their only hope for success is their creative problem solving. In the Invent mode, students take the tools in their hands, using trial and error to arrange and rearrange elements until they design a successful solution. Students are encouraged to explore their creativity and imagination to build outrageous machines (think Rube Goldberg) and share them with friends. Students can also email their inventions to the developer for possible inclusion on the TinkerBox website.

Click Here to Visit Website

Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store

Experience a Magical Adventure Through Africa

Ansel & Clair’s Adventures in Africa is a game-based app for the iPad and iPhone that takes students on an African adventure. Led by intergalactic explorers Ansel and Clair, students explore the Sahara, Serengeti and Nile Valley regions. While on a mission to take pictures and locate pieces of their broken spaceship Marley, the team learns about the geography, ecosystems, history, science and animals of Africa. When they explore the ecosystems in daytime and nighttime, students will encounter different animals. Find the app for the iPad at $4.99 and for the iPhone at $1.99 in the iTunes App Store.

Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store

Visualize Cell Structures in 3-D

iCell is a free interactive app created by the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology to help students visualize the inside of a typical cell. The app provides students with information about cell structures in an interactive, 3-D environment. Included are examples of three types of cells: animal, plant and bacteria. iCell is available for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch as well as Android devices. On HudsonAlpha iCell Online, students can click on an image and interact with the cell.

Click Here to Visit Website

Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store

Click Here to Visit Google Play App Store

Sponsored By:

STEM Gems

Put the Pedal to the Metal

One of the biggest questions math educators face when teaching higher-level high school content is, “How do I make this relevant? How do I make this matter to students?” Race 2 Achieve is a project-based math curriculum that is not only aligned to Common Core standards, but also focused on the interests of students. The curriculum prepares students for assessment while giving their learning both context and meaning. Through NASCAR engineering and Hendrick Motorsports, students not only learn key concepts; they also learn how to apply those concepts in a real-world scenario through the development of their own model racecars.

Click Here to Visit Website

Join the Search for Other Worlds

The “Other Worlds” project lets high school students explore one of the great frontiers of science: the search for other worlds and other life. Using a telescope that they control online, students will take their own images of distant solar systems, interpret the data they gather and become one of the few humans to detect a planet orbiting a star beyond our Sun. Students will gain firsthand experience with the nature of scientific inquiry: They’ll learn how to gather, assess and interpret their own data. They’ll use interactive models to help make predictions and interpret findings. And they’ll communicate their results to a nationwide community of student observers and professional scientists. The project also provides many opportunities for students to apply the basic concepts of earth science, astronomy and physics. In addition, teachers will be able to assess students’ understanding of core concepts as they progress through the project. At the end of the project, students will create their own 3-D portrait of their mystery planet. They will need to draw on their imagination as well as the evidence they have considered. The Other Worlds program was produced by the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Click Here to Visit Website

Plus: The website for the Harvard–Smithsonian MicroObservatory provides teachers with curriculum and teaching activities on how to use the Other Worlds program in the classroom. The website also includes several tutorials on how to use the free software to enhance single images, how to combine multiple pictures into one picture and how to animate images.

Click Here to Access Free Curriculum Activities

Click Here to Access Free Video Tutorials

Compose, Mix, Dance, Drum—Experiment

The Exploratorium in San Francisco invites children of all ages to explore the Science of Music through movies, questions and online exhibits. On the Exploratorium’s website, students can compose, mix and play with music in a variety of ways. They’ll find out what makes sad music sad, why some songs get stuck in their head, how opera singers are able to sing notes that seem to last forever—and more.

Click Here to Visit Website

Explore Math in Different Contexts

Math Across the Curriculum features an Electronic Bookshelf of materials for teaching math in art, history, literature and music, as well as science, engineering and other disciplines traditionally associated with math. Topics include geometry in art and architecture, misleading averages, bar codes, crime statistics, DNA, data analysis, gasoline, information theory, medical testing, music and computers, nutrition, polls, population growth, probability, remote sensing and more. The site is sponsored by The Center for Mathematics and Quantitative Education at Dartmouth College.

Click Here to Visit Website

Plus: The Little Bookshelf in the Big Woods is a collection of free resources for K–12 teachers, organized by grade range: K–2, 3–5, 6–9, 10–12.

Click Here to Access Free Resources

Investigate Science in Daily Life

Presented as challenges, the Online Science-athon helps students discover the science in their daily lives by asking them to investigate four engaging topics: How Tall Am I?, for children in kindergarten through grade 3, and The Marble Roll, Catching Sunshine and The Chocolate Melt, for students in grades 4–8. Two of the challenges have a hands-on and a virtual version. Yet all of them are delivered from the Science-athon website, result in class data submitted to a central database and involve displays of data in the database. Teachers can incorporate the events into instruction, align learning with academic standards and get students investigating their world in ways that are fun and instructive. The Online Science-athon is sponsored by TERC’s Center for Education Partnerships.

Click Here to Visit Website


“Worth-the-Surf” Websites

Dive into Documents That Changed History

A new Smithsonian.com feature, Document Deep Dives, presents primary source documents, annotated with close analysis by experts. Students can take a look at the very first SAT exam, administered to 8,000 college-bound students on June 23, 1926. They’ll also find the menu from Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Ball, the musical history of the “Star Spangled Banner”—and more.

Click Here to Visit Website

Explore the Language of Sounds and Images

The Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling serves as a useful resource for educators and students interested in how digital storytelling can be integrated into a variety of educational activities. The site was originally created in 2004, and faculty members and graduate students in the Instructional Technology Program at the University of Houston’s College of Education continue to maintain the site and add new content. The goal is to make the Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling website a comprehensive clearinghouse of information for those just starting to use digital storytelling as well as for educators, graduate students and researchers who want to deeply explore the many facets of this educational technology tool.

Click Here to Visit Website

Bring the World into the Classroom

A little over a year ago, Skype launched the Skype in the Classroom platform, which connects teachers and classrooms with guest speakers, online lessons and other classrooms. Today Skype in the Classroom has 107 guest speakers and 33 partner organizations, including NASA and Penguin Books. A look at the platform reveals an array of guest-speaker options for teachers. For example, there’s The Digits rock band, which will play math games and sing songs for classrooms around the world during its back-to-school hotline tour. There’s Annie Fox, who’s been talking with teens since 1997 about peer conflicts and friendship challenges. There’s the Squid Acres Sled Dog Kennel, which is offering lessons on the science of building dogsleds. And there’s Kelly Witherspoon, Digital Learning Network Education Specialist at NASA’s Stennis Space Center, offering to teach students about food in space.

Click Here to Visit Website

BOOKMARK THESE!

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