Big Deal Media K-12 Technology Newsletter

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Gamify the Classroom, Discuss Ethical Dilemmas, Spark Curiosity & More

November 15, 2013

In Partnership With:

VSTE

IN THIS ISSUE

Grants, Competitions and Other “Winning” Opportunities

Resource Roundup

On-the-Go Learning

STEM Gems

"Worth-the-Surf" Websites



Grants, Competitions and Other “Winning” Opportunities


Interpret Lines from "Hamlet"

The New York Times invites student actors and actresses to submit their performances of lines from Hamlet using Instagram. The Times’s critics have been cataloging the recent bounty of professional performances of Shakespeare’s plays, and with several stagings of Hamlet opening soon, they would like to see how high school and college students interpret key lines from the play using the cameras and apps on their smartphones. After recording a short (15-second) video of their performance of lines from Hamlet, students fill out the form and submit the link to their video on the page linked below. Students can also add the hashtag #MaximumShakespeare on their Instagram post.

Deadline: December 1, 2013; best videos will be featured on The New York Times website later in December

Click Here for More Information

Click Here to Submit Video Online

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Draw Attention to the Importance of Art

Americans for the Arts is partnering with Vans in 2014 for the Vans Custom Culture competition, a national shoe customization contest in which high schools from all over the United States compete for a chance to win money for their art programs. The competition offers students a fresh perspective on art and provides an outlet for self expression through art, fashion and design. During the contest, high school students from participating schools design shoes that fit within a particular theme: Art, Music, Active Sports or Local Flavor. A $50,000 award will be granted to the winning school to support its art program.

Deadline: Registration will open on January 2, 2014; images may be submitted between February 28 and April 7, 2014

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Explore Small Details in Life

This I Believe, Inc., was founded in 2004 as an independent, not-for-profit organization that engages youth and adults from all walks of life in writing, sharing and discussing brief essays about the core values that give direction to their daily lives. The project is guided by the original This I Believe series of the 1950s, hosted by acclaimed journalist Edward R. Morrow. Each day Americans gathered by their radios to hear compelling essays from the likes of Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Robinson, Helen Keller and Harry Truman, as well as corporate leaders, cab drivers, scientists and secretaries—anyone able to distill into a few minutes the guiding principles by which they lived. These essayists’ words brought comfort and inspiration to a country worried about the Cold War, McCarthyism and racial division. NPR invites students of any age to contribute to the This I Believe project by writing and submitting their own statement of personal belief. Students’ statements should be between 350 and 500 words. All essays that fit within the This I Believe guidelines and are submitted through the online form will be posted to the online This I Believe Essay Collection.

Deadline: Ongoing

Click Here for More Information

Click Here for Guidelines

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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 1,800 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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Resource Roundup


Ponder the 273 Words That Led to a New America

In time for the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address (November 19), the Civil War Trust has provided a lesson plan on Abraham Lincoln’s greatest speech. During two 45-minute class periods, students in grades 4–12 will evaluate the role of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in the context of its place and time in history and discuss why they believe The Gettysburg Address is still relevant in today’s society. The online lesson includes a video entitled The Great Task, which gives students the opportunity to hear The Gettysburg Address read aloud, accompanied by photographs from the period.

Click Here to Access Free Lesson Plan

Plus: Students can follow a fictional Civil War news reporter, as he describes the events leading up to Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. The National Park Service sponsors the reporter’s Twitter feed so students can experience events as they happen.

Click Here to Access Fictional Reporter’s Twitter Feed

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Engage in Ethical Decision Making

Games can’t do all the teaching, but they can engage students to start thinking. At least that’s how MIT’s Education Arcade and the Learning Games Network are approaching their new free game Quandary. The two groups designed the video game to teach ethics while aligning with Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts for third through eighth graders. Quandary approaches the broad topic of ethics by helping students aged 8 to 14 understand how to take a different perspective and learn how to empathize. In the game, Earth residents have colonized the faraway planet of Braxos. The player is the captain of the mission and has to make important decisions about survival in the new world that will affect his or her crew and the residents of Braxos. The game currently has three episodes that follow a similar pattern. The player learns a little about a problem on the planet through a comic-strip narrative. He or she then interviews different characters and organizes their statements into facts, solutions and other opinions. After accurately categorizing various kinds of statements, the player presents characters with different solutions or facts to dig into the issue deeper, gathering more information. Through play, the issue becomes more complex, and the game shifts. If the captain fails to thoroughly investigate the problem, he or she will miss valuable pieces of information. After the fact-finding stage, the player makes a recommendation to a council back on Earth and justifies why he or she is urging that course of action. The player also has to predict how each character will react to the decision, further testing his or her ability to take perspectives and show empathy. Ultimately, the game will show the player the outcome his or her decision achieved and how it affected the colony.

Click Here to Access Free Game

Plus: Quandary has a new iPhone and Android app that offers almost the same experience as the web-based game, with one exception. In the app, players can create their own character, which they can enter into a contest sponsored by the Learning Games Network. The creator of the best character will win the opportunity to become a member of the design team working on the fourth episode of Quandary. Both the web-based and the app versions of the game are available for free.

Deadline: December 6, 2013, for submission of new character

Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store

Click Here to Visit Google Play App Store

Click Here for More Information About Contest

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SPICE Up Your Curriculum

Over the last several years, the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) has made a concerted effort to meet the changing needs of elementary and secondary teachers by developing multimedia resources utilizing current technology. The first project SPICE undertook was the creation of several interactive online tools to accompany its curriculum unit Along the Silk Road. The tools range from interactive maps to an online Jeopardy game. Following the Silk Road project, SPICE developed a website to accompany its curriculum unit The Road to Beijing, through which students and teachers can explore the sights and history of Beijing city. In addition to the interactive websites, SPICE hosts a collection of videos ranging from World War II veterans recounting their war experiences to a professor lecturing on the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. Most recently, SPICE completed a set of online resources to accompany Infectious Diseases and Global Health. These resources focus on teaching students about the different ways diseases are transmitted. Currently, SPICE is developing an interactive trading game that can be utilized with Along the Silk Road. All of SPICE’s multimedia resources are available for free.

Click Here to Access Free Resources

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On-the-Go Learning


Explore the Building Blocks of the Universe

The Elements: A Visual Exploration is not just a reference app; it is an engaging story of the periodic table, told in words and pictures, allowing students to experience the fascination of the building blocks of our universe. Students start off at a living periodic table where every element is shown with a smoothly rotating sample. To read about tin, students tap the tin soldier; to read about gold, they tap the gold nugget. Immediately they’ll see the sample filling nearly the entire screen and rotating around in front of their eyes. Next to the element sample is a column of facts and figures, each of which can be tapped to bring up details and current information. When they go to each element’s second page, students will find a story about the element, surrounded by photographed objects representing it. Each of these objects, well over 500 in total, is also rotatable so that students can examine it from all sides and pinch-zoom to see it in detail. Students can also pinch-zoom or tap any object to bring it up full screen, where they can split it into a pair of stereo 3-D images. Using inexpensive 3-D glasses, students can see all 500 objects pop off the screen in 3-D. They can then spin the objects, in 3-D, with the touch of a finger. The app, which is fully translated into more than a dozen languages, is available for the iPad at $13.99.

Click Here to Visit Website

Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store

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Grab a Seat at the Science Guy's Desk

Bill Nye The Science Guy, a PBS television program that taught children all about science, may be off the air, but Bill Nye’s smart and informative legacy lives on in the iTunes store. From games designed to teach users about the solar system and planet Earth’s geological history to do-it-yourself investigations, The Science Guy app brings students all of the informative lessons Nye has to teach them in an imaginative manner. Students enter the app by “scanning” their thumbprints. Then they choose from objects on the desk, such as a rocket, a robot or a sundial, and the app will bring them into different lessons. If they select the rocket, for example, they will embark on a mission to the Solar System, where Nye teaches them facts about the planets. If they tap the robot, Nye and his dog will bring them on an archeological dig wherein they earn points as they learn about Earth’s surface based on the objects they find. In addition to games, students can bring the science lab into their homes. For example, they can swipe through a book of “do-it-yourself” investigations and follow instructions to brew up homemade carbon dioxide or make an egg float in salt water. The app offers more than just facts and information. It has humor, too. For example, students can open Bill Nye’s desk drawer and learn when he started wearing bowties—and even how to tie one themself. The app is available at no charge for the iPad and iPhone.

Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store

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Enjoy the Richness of Shakespeare's Language

Shakespeare: Filling in for Will is a game filled with famous quotations from Shakespeare. In the game, students are shown a quotation that has a word or two missing. They then have to select the word or words that complete the quotation. After filling in the quotation, students are shown the play, act, scene and character connected to the quote. Students work their way through more than 170 of Shakespeare’s most poignant and popular quotations. At the end of every successful round, students will discover details of the Bard’s life and Elizabethan culture, along with humorous asides and some, “more contemporary” 20th century versions of Shakespearean works. The app is available for the iPad and iPhone at a cost of $2.99.

Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store

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Sponsored By:

STEM Gems

Learn in the Cloud

Rourke Educational Media provides many options for e-content, both in the classroom and in libraries. Rourke’s e-Learning content features standards-based educational e-Books that can be used by many students and teachers simultaneously. Rourke’s e-content is leveled to obtain the proper Guided Reading Level (GRL) and correlated to meet Common Core State Standards as well as individual state and national standards. The company’s technology programs are cloud based giving access from web-connected devices at home or school. There are no renewal or subscription fees. Teacher’s notes and teacher’s guides are also available.

Click Here to Visit Website

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Learn the Basics to Be a Maker, Creator, Innovator

This year, Code.org is launching the Hour of Code as part of the annual Computer Science Education Week (December 9–15), a celebration geared to encourage interest in the field and show that anyone can learn the basics. The Hour of Code is a self-guided activity that every student, in every classroom, can do. The organizers of Computer Science Education Week are hosting a variety of hour-long tutorials for students to do—some developed by Code.org; others developed by partner organizations. Many of the tutorials will be compatible with tablets and smartphones, and some “unplugged” lessons will require no computer at all. No prior experience is required from either teachers or students. Every educator who hosts an Hour of Code for students will receive 10GB of DropBox storage for free as a thank-you gift. Organize for an entire school and qualify to win a class set of laptops.

Click Here to Participate in Event

Click Here to Access Free Tutorials

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Share and Review STEM Resources

Sally Ride Science’s newly launched STEM Central website combines social tools with user-generated links to create a storehouse of reliable resources that are “reviewed, rated and ready-to-use.” This free web resource is designed for educators and students interested in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) topics and careers. The site offers thousands of links to articles, videos, maps, animations and other media specifically focused on the needs of educators and students. Users searching STEM Central may apply a wide variety of filters to search by topic, grade level and media type. All content in Phase 1 of STEM Central was discovered and submitted by a team of educators, researchers and STEM professionals engaged by Sally Ride Science to “seed” the site. On November 1, Phase 2 of STEM Central opened up to submissions, ratings and reviews from educators worldwide, with Sally Ride Science moderators overseeing submissions for accuracy, clarity and relevance to STEM topics and careers.

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Reduce Human Impact on the Environment

SimCityEDU: Pollution Challenge!, a video game designed by the nonprofit GlassLab, is built on the code for the popular city-building game SimCity and has the same graphics. The difference is that SimCityEDU: Pollution Challenge! asks players to accomplish environmental science missions that are based on the Common Core State Standards. GlassLab developed the game as a progression of six missions that correlate with one another, scaffolding the player’s understanding of both the game and the science topics. The first level is fairly simple, but as each level progresses, new tools are added, as well as more complicated concepts, such as where energy comes from and how it relates to pollution. The scaffolding embedded in the game is an important element of the formative assessment tool that GlassLab has been testing with SimCityEDU: Pollution Challenge! Every click and hover that a student makes in the game is a data point toward assessing how well the student is using critical thinking and problem solving skills to gather information. GlassLab made the game available to the public on November 7.

Click Here to Visit Website

Click Here to Learn More About Missions

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Become a Master Inventor

The Curiosity Machine is a web-based STEM learning portal that introduces young students to scientists and their work. The site presents videos of scientists talking about their research, along with instructions for associated investigations in which students can engage. The site also has an interactive section, where students can upload videos of their investigations for scientists to give feedback.

Click Here to Visit Website

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Experience Life in Antarctica

Can your students survive in the coldest, most remote place on Earth? The British Natural History Museum invites them to join an exciting online expedition to Antarctica and find out if they have what it takes to live and work in this frozen frontier. While they’re on their expedition, students will help the Ice Station Team with scientific research. They’ll carry out daring rescues and discover the fascinating wildlife that lives in Antarctica. Students can sign up online to join the online expedition and become an Ice Cadet. They will get a certificate to print out and their own desk and journal at the Ice Station. Sanjit, the Ice Station Commander, will update them about new challenges with sticky notes, messages and emails. After they’ve completed all the challenges, students will earn the title of Ice Officer and get a reward from the Ice Station Team.

Click Here to Visit Website

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"Worth-the-Surf" Websites


Separate Fact from Myth

At the Plimoth Plantation’s You Are the Historian website, students become history detectives as they investigate the first Thanksgiving. (Some historians think that “The First Thanksgiving” wasn’t really a thanksgiving. They call it “The 1621 Harvest Celebration” because it was more like a harvest festival.) On this website, students use clues to try to figure out what really happened at the 1621 harvest celebration. They are guided by Dancing Hawk, a Wampanoag whose ancestors were at the harvest celebration, and by Sarah, whose ancestor, Remember Allerton, was at the celebration too. If students don’t know the meaning of a word they encounter, they can use the online Glossary. Or if they want an expert opinion, they can go to Visit the Expert.

Click Here to Visit Website

Plus: A Teacher’s Guide includes corresponding online activities for Historian Skills: separating fact from myth, identifying and analyzing primary sources, making educated guesses using cultural clues and considering multiple points of view. The Teacher’s Guide also includes a Historian’s Log with free, downloadable graphic organizers to further students’ online understanding and enhance offline work. The student activities are based on the Teaching for Understanding framework developed by educators at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Click Here to Access Free Teacher’s Guide

Plus: The History Channel offers information about the history of Thanksgiving, including videos and audio clips of interviews with Plimoth Plantation living history museum characters.

Click Here to Visit Website

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Write Yourself in Figment

Figment is an online community where teens between the ages of 13 and 18 can share their writing, connect with other readers and discover new stories and authors. Whatever they’re interested in, from sonnets to mysteries, from sci-fi stories to cellphone novels, students can find it on the Figment site. The Figment Library includes the newest additions, the most “hearted” in various genres and recent updates. The Spotlight feature includes a rotating selection of literary delights from the pros. If students like what they read in this section, they can click around the site for more goodies from these books and authors. Students can also win prizes while demonstrating their creativity in frequently posted Figment Contests. The Daily Blog includes posts that are All About Figment—from Books and Authors to The Writing Life and Diversions. Groups are students’ place to meet up with other Figs and talk about the things they love. If they want to “workshop” a piece before sharing it with the public, students can form a writing and reviewing group. Or they can join the Figment Forum to discuss anything related to reading and writing with other Figs.

Click Here to Visit Website

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Read All About It—At Different Levels

Just in time for the Common Core emphasis on nonfiction reading, NEWSELA provides daily current events articles written specifically for K–12 students. Each day the site adds three new articles to the collection. Categories include War & Peace, Science, Kids, Money, Law, Health and Arts. For every article, there are versions written at different Lexile levels. With just a few clicks, a teacher can provide the same story leveled for students of differing reading ability.

Click Here to Visit Website

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Become Part of America's Journey

From May through September 1787, the men of the Constitutional Convention labored inside Independence Hall, creating an enduring framework of government. The National Historical Park in Pennsylvania has created the Independence website to help students learn about the proposals, conflicts and compromises that resulted in the creation of the United States Constitution. The entries begin on May 13, 1787, with the arrival of George Washington in Philadelphia, and conclude on September 17, 1787, with the signing of the United States Constitution. The synopsis of each day’s debates, coupled with the words of James Madison, George Mason, Benjamin Franklin and others, provide an understanding of the sense of urgency and necessity motivating these men through a long summer of often-tedious work.

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