Big Deal Media K-12 Technology Newsletter

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

Celebrate Constitution Day, Teach Students About 9/11, and More

September 3, 2013

IN THIS ISSUE

Grants, Competitions and Other "Winning" Opportunities

Resource Roundup

On-the-Go Learning

STEM Gems

"Worth-the-Surf" Websites

In Partnership With:
VSTE




Grants, Competitions and Other "Winning" Opportunities



Honor a Librarian's Distinguished Service

The Carnegie Corporation of New York/New York Times I Love My Librarian Award encourages library users in the United States to recognize the accomplishments of exceptional public, school and college librarians. The winners will each receive $5,000 in cash, a plaque and a $500 travel stipend to attend the awards reception hosted by The New York Times in New York City. To be eligible for the award, each nominee must be a librarian with a master’s degree from a program accredited by the American Library Association in library and information studies or a master’s degree with a specialty in school library media from an educational unit accredited by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education. In addition, the nominee must be currently working in a public library in the United States, a library at an accredited two- or four-year college or university or a library at an accredited K–12 school. The award is a collaborative program of Carnegie Corporation of New York, The New York Times and the American Library Association.

Deadline: September 6, 2013

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Pollinate Peace in the World

The Pollination Project, in partnership with the Institute for Humane Education, is offering up to 20 grants in fall 2013 for educators to create projects that support their students in making a positive difference in the world. The institute is seeking educators who are committed to bringing forward a just, peaceful and healthy world through projects that directly promote environmental stewardship, social justice, human rights or animal protection. Applications will be accepted from any educator, at any level (preschool through postgraduate), anywhere in the world, with priority given to educators working in traditionally underserved communities. The award includes $1,000 from the Pollination Project to launch or expand a social change project in your school; paid tuition in the Institute for Humane Education’s six-week online course “Teaching for a Positive Future” (CEUs available in most states); and peer support from likeminded educators.

Deadline: Rolling, through September 22, 2013

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Fostering Interest in Scientific Study

The Siemens Foundation, in partnership with the College Board, has established the Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology. The competition seeks to promote excellence by encouraging students to undertake individual or team research projects. It fosters intensive research that improves students’ understanding of the value of scientific study and informs their consideration of future careers in these disciplines. Students enrolled in high school (grades 9–12) during the 2013–2014 school year are eligible to apply. Students can compete as individuals or as members of a team. Individual projects promote independent research; team projects foster collaborative research efforts as well as individual contributions to the cooperative endeavor. Students should be prepared to participate in all aspects of the competition, including attendance at the regional and national levels of the competition if selected as a finalist. Scholarships for winning projects range from $1,000 to $100,000.

Deadlines: September 30, 2013: receipt of competition materials; October 12, 2013: announcement of semifinalists and finalists; November 1–16, 2013: three consecutive regional competitions; December 6–10, 2013: national competition

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Bring Innovative Ideas to Life

Kids in Need Foundation Teacher Grants provide funds for classroom teachers with innovative, worthy ideas. Projects may qualify for funding if they make creative use of common teaching aids, approach curricula from an imaginative angle or tie nontraditional concepts together for the purpose of illustrating commonalities. The program is designed to be the sole funding agent for a project, and a budget must be included with the application. The grants range from $100 to $500 each. The number of grants awarded varies from year to year, depending on the amount of the funds being requested. Typically, 300 to 600 grants are awarded each year. All certified K–12 teachers in the United States are eligible to apply.

Deadline: September 30, 2013

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Use the Arts to Support Special Needs Children

The P. Buckley Moss Foundation Education Grants aid and support K–12 teachers who wish to establish an effective learning tool using the arts in teaching children with learning disabilities and other special needs. Up to $1,000 will be awarded to support a new or evolving program that integrates the arts into educational programming, with the grant money to be used in 2014.

Deadline: September 30, 2013

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Think Outside the Classroom

The Target Field Trip Grants program is an innovative initiative that funds field trips for students nationwide. More than 3,600 grants of up to $700 each will be awarded in January 2014. Grants are provided to applicants throughout the United States. The grant funds are best used for visits to art, science and cultural museums, community service or civic projects, career enrichment opportunities and other events or activities away from the school facility. Funds may be used to cover field trip–related costs such as transportation, ticket fees, food, resource materials and supplies.

Deadline: October 1, 2013

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Plus: $5 million for education is up for grabs through Target’s Facebook app. Guests can visit Target’s Facebook page to access the app and vote for a school of their choice, once per week, to help the school get things it needs, such as electronics, school and office supplies, and storage and organization products. When a school has received 25 votes, Target will donate $1 per vote, with a maximum donation of $10,000 per school.

Deadline: September 21, 2013, or until the full $5 million has been allocated

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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 1,700 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.

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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

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Resource Roundup



Step Back in Time

First published in 1958, Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story was created by the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), a nonprofit organization that has been carrying out education projects concerned with peace, justice and nonviolent alternatives to conflict since 1915. The comic book, which helped to inspire the American civil rights movement in the 1960s, features full-color panels depicting the Montgomery Bus Boycott (a campaign to end segregation on buses in the capital of Alabama) and ends with a section on “how the Montgomery Method works,” outlining essential techniques of nonviolence. The original comic book may be downloaded, free of charge, from Stanford University’s website.

Click Here to Download Free Comic Book

Plus: An accompanying Teachers/Parents Guide is available for free downloading from the Smithsonian National Museum of American History’s website.

Click Here to Download Free Guide

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Encourage Students to Dream Big

On September 9, 2013, schools all across the nation will participate in the global effort to celebrate literacy. The International Reading Association (IRA) has adopted the theme Invent Your Future for the 2013 celebration of International Literacy Day (ILD) in conjunction with Sony Pictures Animation’s upcoming film Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, which will be released in 3-D and Real 3-D on September 27. The goal of ILD is to inspire students to dream big about their future—just like inventor Flint Lockwood, the main character of the film—and illustrate the role literacy skills play in achieving those dreams. You can join the celebration in a number of ways: download the classroom activity kit for students aged 5 to 15; share your ILD plans and photos on Twitter and Instagram; and participate in the Invent Your Future–themed Twitter chat, featuring special guest Bill Hader (the Saturday Night Live alum and comedian who voices Cloudy 2’s Flint Lockwood. You can also enter a contest to win a Sony Xperia tablet (retail value: $499. And you can register for a free copy of the original Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs book by Judi Barrett and Ron Barrett, courtesy of Simon & Schuster; and request free Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 movie posters and activity books.

Click Here for More Information and Free Educational Resources

Click Here to Register for Contest

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Use Social Media As a Teaching Tool

A new Guide for Educators has been released by Facebook and The Education Foundation—an education think tank in the United Kingdom—that includes resources and information designed to help teachers use the social media site as a teaching tool. Developed after research at elite Wellington College and the London Nautical School, the Guide for Educators offers insight and practical advice into how social media can support traditional classroom learning, enable “out of hours” social group learning, facilitate communication between educators, students and parents, and enhance digital skills and citizenship. The guide suggests teachers run projects using Facebook’s Timeline feature, which organizes events in chronological order, and also suggests they set up Groups to share resources, create Events for exams and deadlines, and enable language students to speak to peers overseas.

Click Here to Download Free Guide

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Join the 9/11 Day Observance

The 9/11 Tribute Center has created an educational toolkit, September 11th: Personal Stories of Transformation, which provides an introduction to understanding the impact of 9/11 for middle school and high school students. The toolkit, available for free online, features eight interactive video stories of people who were deeply affected by the attacks of 9/11 and who responded with humanitarian initiatives that strengthen their local and global communities. In addition to the multimedia stories, the toolkit includes thought-provoking questions for classroom discussion, vocabulary definitions, bibliographies and suggestions for community service projects. The toolkit lessons give students an opportunity to utilize primary source materials in print and in media and to learn how to conduct oral histories. The toolkit materials address national standards for historical thinking, US and world history, civics and government, and English/language arts.

Click Here to Access Free 9/11 Toolkit

Click Here to Access Additional Free 9/11 Resources

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On-the-Go Learning



Report Sightings from the Field

Journey North engages students in a global study of wildlife migration and seasonal change. K–12 students share their own field observations with classmates across North America. The free Journey North app for iOS and Android devices allows teachers and students to record and submit their observations while they are in the field. The app also connects to the website where you’ll find migration maps, pictures, standards-based lesson plans, activities and information to help students make local observations and fit them into a global context. Widely considered a best-practices model for education, Journey North is the nation’s premiere “citizen science” project for youth.

Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store

Click Here to Visit Google Play App Store

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Manipulate Molecules

Molecules, a free app for the iPad and iPhone, lets students view three-dimensional renderings of molecules and manipulate them using their fingers. Students can rotate the molecules by moving their finger across the display, zoom in or out by using two-finger pinch gestures or pan the molecule by moving two fingers across the screen at once. Students can view the structures in both ball-and-stick and space-filling visualization modes. They can also download new molecules from either the Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics’ (RCSB) Protein Data Bank, an international repository of biological molecules and their 3-D structures, or the National Center for Biotechnology Information’s (NCBI) PubChem, a public database of compounds. Students can download the molecules directly to their handheld device and store them for later viewing. They can also download custom molecular structures to the application via iTunes file sharing or through the use of custom URL formats.

Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store

Click Here to Access RCSB Data Bank

Click Here to Access NCBI Database

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Read All About It

The News-O-Matic, Daily Reading for Kids iPad app provides images, videos and maps to accompany five daily news stories. An interactive map with quirky facts, puzzles, games and the NewsRoom are all features that engage students in current events. The articles are reviewed by child psychologists before publication to ensure content is age appropriate. This free news app exposes students to current events; helps them develop critical thinking skills and understand point of view, and provides opportunities to read a variety of informational texts—all features of the Common Core State Standards.

Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store

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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.

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Get Minds Inquiring

Doing Science: The Process of Scientific Inquiry helps students in grades 6–8 understand the basics of scientific inquiry. Lessons progress from what students already know about scientific inquiry, or think they know, toward a more complete and accurate perspective. Activities include distinguishing questions that can be tested by a scientific investigation from those that cannot and participating in a computer-based scientific investigation as members of a fictitious community health department.

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Click Here to Access Free Activities

Click Here to Access Free Guide

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See the World Through a Scientist's Eyes

What’s under foot? What are things made of? Science projects that emphasize inquiry help students make sense of their world and build a solid foundation for future understanding. The Inquiry Project supports teachers in third to fifth grades as they guide students in hands-on investigations about matter. Students develop the habits of scientists as they make observations, offer predictions and gather evidence. Companion videos show how scientists use the same methods to explore the world. Teachers can connect the inquiry activities to longer-term projects, such as creating a classroom museum that showcases students’ investigations.

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Solve Environmental and Societal Problems

A group of researchers in MIT’s Education Arcade are trying to harness the power of Massive Open Online Games (MOOGs) to teach high school students to think like scientists and mathematicians. Their education game The Radix Endeavor capitalizes on the interactions students can have as a way to build their knowledge and skills. Radix, as it’s known, is aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards for biology, focusing on topics such as genetics, evolution, ecology and human body systems. In math, the game is aligned to the Common Core and focuses in particular on algebra, probability and statistics, as well as geometry. Radix can be used as assessments or tools for teachers to monitor progress over time. The game captures every detail of how a student plays—for example, how long the student takes to complete a challenge, what order the student chooses to do things and what tools he or she uses. All of these data points can provide valuable insight to a teacher assessing whether a student understands a concept.

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Transform Learning Through Discovery

Philippe Cousteau’s nonprofit organization, EarthEcho International, recently launched EarthEcho Expeditions, an initiative that leverages the rich Cousteau legacy of exploration and discovery to bring science education alive for today’s 21st century learners. EarthEcho Expeditions will be an annual program that will travel the world to engage young people in a voyage of discovery. The first journey begins September 3, 2013, in one of the world’s largest aquatic dead zones located in the center of the Chesapeake Bay. This expedition will transform learning for middle and high school students through three phases that span a year of youth engagement and community action. In the EXPLORE phase (September 3–13), Philippe Cousteau will lead a team of students, scientists and community leaders on an adventure from the Atlantic Ocean to the source of this vital watershed through the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and New York. Along the way, they will profile young people who are tackling the causes of dead zones and creating solutions in communities throughout the watershed. Real-time updates on social media and EarthEcho digital platforms will provide a front-row seat to the Expedition as it happens. In the ENGAGE AND EMPOWER phase (beginning in October 2013), the Expedition’s Water Planet Challenge–inspired classroom programs and materials will provide unique tools to educators as they equip young people to explore and protect their local natural resources. From lesson plans and action guides to webinars and an original documentary-style video series, the Expedition materials are developed to help educators teach critical elements of Next Generation Science Standards and Common Core State Standards. (All Expedition resources are provided free of charge for registered participants.) In the ACT phase, the Expedition platform will provide educators with the materials and resources to support students in applying classroom knowledge in their daily lives. Young people will proactively examine local environmental issues, prepare to solve a problem, take action and apply their knowledge to drive positive change in their community. To learn more about EarthEcho Expeditions or to find out how to incorporate EarthEcho Expeditions resources into your classroom, visit the EarthEcho website.

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Plus: At the Learning Technologies Media Lab at the University of Minnesota campus in St. Paul, researchers who have been at the forefront of the “adventure learning” movement for a decade are now revamping their approach. Instead of connecting classrooms with scientists on expeditions around the world, the lab has developed WeExplore, a new virtual environment that lets students and teachers conduct and share their own learning expeditions.

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"Worth-the-Surf" Websites



Commemorate the US Constitution

Constitution Day and Citizenship Day is a combined event that is annually observed in the United States on September 17. This event commemorates the formation and signing of the Constitution of the United States on September 17, 1787. It also recognizes all who, by coming of age or by naturalization, have become US citizens. The Interactive Constitution on the National Constitution Center’s website lets students search the United States Constitution and find relevant passages and explanations. Students will discover how the Constitution relates to more than 300 topics, from civil rights to school prayer, including Supreme Court decisions.

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Bring America's Stories to the Classroom

Created by teacher-scholars Amy Kass and Leon Kass, the “What So Proudly We Hail literature-based e-curriculum is a rich source of materials compiled to aid in the classroom instruction of American history, civics, social studies and language arts. This collection of classic American stories, speeches and songs seeks to educate both hearts and minds about American ideals, American identity and national character, and the virtues and aspirations of our civic life.

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Hold a Museum Curiosity in Your Hand

The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles offers an innovative way to view art through augmented reality. As employed by The Getty, augmented reality creates 3-D displays of art from printed PDF codes held in front of a computer webcam. As an example, The Getty provides an online video that displays in 3-D one of the cabinets of curiosities created by Albert Janszoon Vinckenbrinck. Try it yourself after watching the video.

Click Here to Visit Website

Plus: The Getty is making available, without charge, all digital images to which it holds the rights or that are in the public domain to be used for any purpose. As a result, about 4,600 images from the museum are available in high resolution on The Getty’s website for use without restrictions. The images include paintings, drawings, manuscripts, photographs, antiquities and sculpture, and decorative arts. The Getty Search Gateway enables users to search by Type, Topic, Artist’s Name, Place, Source or Highlight (for example, recent acquisitions).

Click Here to Access Getty Search Gateway

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BOOKMARK THESE!

Big Deal Media provides timely, relevant resources in a rapidly changing educational environment, created with insight and attention to detail by seasoned educational publishing professionals and practicing K–12 educators. “Like” Big Deal Media on Facebook to learn how other educators are using Big Deal Media resources and to share your own ideas and experiences.

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

Explore the Web Wednesday feature on Big Deal Media, where you’ll find new interactive experiences and resources that incorporate 21st century themes and skills into the study of core subjects.

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