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 600 grants and opportunities culled from federal, state, regional and community sources and available to public and private, prekindergarten through grade 12 educators, schools and districts, higher education institutions, and nonprofit organizations that work with them. The site offers customized searches by six criteria, including 45 areas of focus, nine content areas and any of the 21st century themes and skills that support your curriculum. Once you are registered on the site, you can save the grants of greatest interest; then return to read about them at any time.
Click Here to Visit Website

Provide “Shadowing” Opportunities
As a call to action for teachers and administrators to invite aspiring educators, community leaders, parents and friends into their classrooms as “shadow teachers” during American Education Week (November 11–17), the Richard W. Riley College of Education and Leadership at Walden University will award $25,000 in grants to preK–12 schools that host Educator for a Day events on November 15. Five schools will be selected from those nominated to each receive a $5,000 grant to enhance their classroom education, provide educational technology or supplies, or sponsor educational activities. Grants will be awarded based on answers to essay questions about what noneducators should know about the school, what makes the school unique and what the school would do with the grant. Schools that receive a grant will be required to arrange shadowing opportunities during their Educator for a Day events.
Deadline: October 15, 2012 for nominations
Click Here for More Information

Plant the Seeds of Learning
The Lorrie Otto Seeds for Education Grant Program gives small monetary grants to schools, nature centers or other nonprofit educational organizations for the purpose of establishing outdoor learning centers. Project goals should focus on enhancement and development of an appreciation for nature using native plants. Projects should involve students and volunteers in all phases of development and increase the educational value of the site. Examples of appropriate projects are wildflower gardens with habitat for butterflies or other pollinators; rainwater gardens that capture run-off and feature native plant communities; and groves of trees or native shrubs that support birds and other wildlife. Larger-scale projects that may receive funding include design, establishment and maintenance of a native-plant community (prairie, wetland, woodland, etc.) in an educational setting, such as an outdoor classroom; development and maintenance of an interpretive trail landscaped with native plant communities; and development of a wetland area to study the effect of native vegetation on water-quality improvement. Cash awards range from $100 to $500. Funds will be provided only for the purchase of native plants and seeds.
Deadline: October 15, 2012
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Brighten Students’ Futures
The Clorox Company is seeking nominations for its Power A Bright Future grants to help provide resources to school programs that give students the opportunity to grow and develop. The three categories—Play, Create and Explore—all focus on different aspects of educational experiences. Nominate your school for the chance to win one of seven grants—four based on votes, and three based on merit. The nomination with the most votes overall will receive a $50,000 grant. The nominations with the most votes in each category will each receive a $25,000 grant. Clorox will then review all nominations and pick one from each category based on merit to award a $25,000 grant in each category. Visit the website to download the merit-based grant criteria.
Deadline: October 17, 2012 for nominations
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Participate in a Creative Writing Experience
National Novel Writing Month—or NaNoWriMo—is a fun, “seat-of-the-pants” approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing on November 1. The goal is to write a 50,000-word (approximately 175-page) novel by 11:59:59, November 30. The National Novel Writing Month’s Young Writers Program (YWP) provides youth with a month-long creative experience that teaches perseverance and alters their relationship with writing and literature. The program includes a youth-oriented website where students can mingle, get advice from beloved writers and find inspiration as they tackle the novel-writing challenge. The site also provides free resources for educators: Common Core–aligned curriculum and workbooks, and a classroom kit featuring a full-color progress chart, stickers, buttons and certificates. There are no “Best Novel” or “Quickest-Written Novel” awards given out. All winners get an official “Winner” web badge and certificate, and bragging rights for the rest of their lives!
Deadline: November 30, 2012
Click Here for More Information and Free Resources

Plus: Each year, Renaissance Learning provides 100 NEOs to the Young Writers Program (YWP). During NaNoWriMo, YWP loans four class sets of 25 NEOs to deserving schools around the United States. The computers are shipped and returned free of charge.
Deadline: All requests must be received by October 5, 2012. NEOs will be sent by October 12, 2012.
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Celebrate Freedom on Constitution Day
Constitution Day is September 17, 2012, and the National Endowment for the Humanities’ EDSITEment website offers links to free resources on the topic of the United States Constitution. EDSITEment’s worksheet “Understanding the U.S. Constitution” will help students read and interpret the original document by working their way through the text and answering questions about each section. After they examine the Constitution, section by section, students can further engage with the text with an essay outline worksheet in which they define and defend their own understanding of the significance of the document. The site suggests four thoughtful essay topics and provides another essay outline worksheet to help students organize their ideas, evidence and analysis. The site also links to a transcription of the Constitution (in English and Spanish) and an image of the original document, provided by the National Archives and Records Administration.
Click Here to Access Free Constitution Resources

Plus: Challenge your students with some fun games from the Bill of Rights Institute. The newest game, Constitutional Duel, asks students to answer 15 multiple-choice questions to defend their constitutional honor. Questions are based on the text of the Constitution, primary source documents, landmark Supreme Court cases and historic people. Entertain younger students by asking them to imagine Life Without the Bill of Rights and older ones with an interactive module on the writing of the Constitution, featuring Madison’s Notes Are Missing and much more.
Click Here to Access Free Games

Measure Historical Understandings
The Stanford History Education Group has developed 55 formative assessments tied to social studies topics. Called History Assessments of Thinking (HATs), these assessments use the Library of Congress’s collection of documents, photographs, paintings, radio broadcasts and film clips to measure students’ historical understandings and critical thinking skills. For example, one featured task, “Civil Rights Movement in Context,” measures students’ ability to contextualize two historical documents and place them in the correct chronological order. The assessment draws on students’ knowledge of the civil rights movement but in a way that taps more than just the recall of facts and dates. Students must show that they have a broad understanding of how the civil rights movement unfolded and that they can actively use historical information to place the two documents in context. Other tasks require students to use evidence from artifacts to mount a historical argument or to corroborate a historical document. Interactive scoring rubrics link to sample student responses, showing what performance at each level looks like. Many assessments include a “Going Deeper” video that extends teachers’ understanding of the task and the historical skills it measures.
Click Here to Access Free Digital Assessments
Click Here to View a Video Explaining How the Assessment Works

Plus: The National History Education Clearinghouse offers guidelines for reading primary sources. The Clearinghouse’s website, TeachingHistory.org, presents a guided four-step reading process that teaches students how to read a primary document like a historian.
Click Here to Access Four-Step Reading Process

Explore the Core
LearnZillion is a learning platform that combines video lessons, assessments and progress reporting. Each lesson highlights a Common Core standard, starting with mathematics and language arts, in grades 3–9. The free resources include lesson videos for teachers and students to view online and on mobile devices; lesson slides that teachers can download for projectors or interactive whiteboards; lesson commentary that provides insights for teachers about each lesson; and a teacher calendar to schedule lessons. Sign up online for a free account.
Click Here to Sign Up for Free Common Core Resources

Scholastic Teacher Express offers access to 10,000+ teaching resources—all just a click away. The teaching resources include books, eBooks, ePages, Class D??cor, Games and Manipulatives—and more! Hundreds of titles are aligned to the new Common Core State Standards. Shop now and save 30 percent, using promo code BigDealCCSS.
Deadline: Offer valid through September 30, 2012
Click Here for Instant Access to Teaching Resources

Integrate Math and Movement
For young math students, the free app Fetch! Lunch Rush is an augmented reality, multiplayer game for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. The app was developed by PBS Kids to get children moving about a room in search of numbers that are the correct answer to the questions posed to them on the app. Students read the arithmetic problem on the app and then search out the correct answer. When they think they have found the correct answer, they scan it with their mobile device to find out if they are correct.
Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store

Incorporate Twitter into the Educational Process
The mobile learning company Slate and Tablets has announced two new apps that mobilize learning by incorporating Twitter and action gaming directly into the educational process. The apps were released at the beginning of the 2012–2013 school year in September and are available for free along with free downloadable lesson plans. One app, available in both iPad HD and iPhone versions, is a tool for students studying Hamlet. The tool consists of five mini games corresponding to each act of the play that require students to draw on information they’ve learned while reading. Students are rewarded with a character guide that builds automatically as each act is completed. Teachers can collect feedback on student completion through an email function. Students are encouraged to join the discussion of the play on Twitter, through specially crafted Twitter discussion questions and interface. The app is the company’s first to feature student artwork. The other app, available primarily for the iPhone, is an engaging, educational atom builder game. Students must race the clock to build as many Bohr atomic models as they can. They earn points and more time as they correctly construct atoms. Students can post their high scores and merits to Twitter. Teachers can collect student feedback through an email function as well as a student practice mode.
Click Here to Download Hamlet Mini Games
Click Here to Download Atom Builder Game
Click Here to Access Free Lesson Plans

Open Interesting Lines of Inquiry
The Center on Disability Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa provides math and science WebQuests aligned to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for mathematics. Each of the 75 WebQuests is infused with cultural awareness and integrated through the food, music, dance, place and traditions of Hawaii. There are 34 math-focused WebQuests and 40 focusing on science. The science-focused WebQuests are categorized into themes that cover topics in general science: School Garden, addressing topics within the areas of botany and health; Marine Science, dealing with topics in marine ecosystems, organisms and mariculture; and Renewable Energy, covering topics within seven of the renewable energies and leading to an understanding of conversion and conservation of energy.
Click Here to Access WebQuests

Plus: To aid students in carrying out the WebQuests, the Center on Disability Studies has created Wili the Word Wizard’s Math Dictionary, an online glossary of important terms that elementary and middle school students need to know in order to be successful in their mathematics and science classes. The dictionary includes diagrams when appropriate.
Click Here to Access Math Dictionary

Sprout Future Workers from the STEM of Math and Science
A Georgia teacher has started a free magazine for educators and administrators in the science, technology, engineering and math fields. S.T.E.M. Magazine, produced by STEM teacher Wayne Carley, focuses on elementary and middle school education. Titles of articles in the August 2012 issue include “What is S.T.E.M. & why do I need to know?” “The Importance of S.T.E.M ... now and beyond,” “Technology in the Classroom,” “Game-Based Learning and S.T.E.M. Education,” “Growing Our Future Workforce” and more. Carley teaches in the Museum of Aviation’s STEM education program at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia. Plans are for the magazine to come out each August and January. View the August 2012 inaugural issue online.
Click Here to Visit Website

Make Math Learning Engaging and Personal
Mangahigh.com provides math-based games that will hook students in grades 2–12. Each game covers core math learning topics and is designed to dynamically adapt in difficulty to the ability of students in order to aid students to stay in their individual “zone of proximal development” (level of difficulty that is neither too hard nor too easy, and is the level at which optimal learning takes place). Try the short versions of Mangahigh’s math games. Students can play full-length versions for free when you create a school account and issue logins. Schools can also compete against each other in weekly competitions known as Fai-to. Mangahigh.com also offers a pay service known as A++, which provides a sensei that will individualize instruction and walk a student through every concept.
Click Here to Visit Website

Plus: Educator/teacher resources, including teacher-created lesson plans and how-to guides, are available to registered users for guidance in using the games.
Click Here to Visit Website

Explore Artistic Responses to 9/11
In the weeks and months following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, a Statue of Liberty replica stood honor guard outside a firehouse on Eighth Avenue and West 48th Street in Manhattan. The firehouse was Engine 54/Ladder 4/Battalion 9, which lost 15 of their men at the World Trade Center on 9/11. How Lady Liberty appeared outside the firehouse is unknown, but its presence encouraged the public to leave messages and tributes. On the 9/11 Memorial website, students can explore the interactive Lady Liberty statue and learn more about the ornaments that adorn it and the stories of tribute behind them. The site also provides a free downloadable teaching guide that focuses on the artistic response to 9/11 and features Lady Liberty.
Click Here to Visit Website

Advance a Conversation About Teaching
The third annual NBC News Teacher Town Hall will air live on MSNBC on Sunday, September 23, as part of the 2012 Education Nation Week, which runs from September 21–28 and includes the National Summit hosted at The New York Public Library (NYPL) and on-air and online education coverage across NBC News shows and platforms. To inform and guide this discussion, NBC News will collect questions and ideas in the lead-up to the town hall on Facebook.com/EducationNation and on Twitter @EducationNation. The program will focus on the most important challenges and opportunities facing America’s teachers and feature examples of great teaching from various schools and classrooms across the country. The Teacher Town Hall will offer America’s educators on the frontlines an opportunity to voice their priorities, brainstorm new ideas, discuss key policy issues and ask questions of each other to advance the conversation about teaching in the United States. In addition to the broadcast on MSNBC, the Teacher Town Hall will stream live online at EducationNation.com, NBCNews.com, other NBCUniversal platforms and Scholastic.com.
Click Here to the Join Education Nation Community

Evaluate Progress Toward Digital Education
The US Department of Education, the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at North Carolina State University and the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) have partnered to create epic-ed, a new online community of practice that aims to help schools and districts as they move toward digital education and implement corresponding policy changes. Epic-ed will focus on all stakeholders involved in ed-tech programs: school administrators, teachers, chief technology officers, instructional coaches, parents, students and others. The community’s website displays the digital transition cycle, a framework that epic-ed uses to help stakeholders begin or evaluate their progress toward digital education. That cycle consists of four phases: Vision, Plan, Implement, Assess.
Click Here to Visit Website

Illuminate a Better Path Forward for Students
The “Education Drives America” Back-to-School Bus Tour takes Secretary Arne Duncan and senior US Department of Education (ED) staff coast to coast, highlighting education successes and engaging communities in conversations about school reform, college affordability and completion, and the link between education and jobs. The “Education Drives America” tour began in Silicon Valley on September 12 and will end with a rally at the Department of Education headquarters in Washington, D.C., on September 21. The tour’s website includes an interactive map of all the stops. With more than 100 events planned in 48 communities in 12 states, there will be many ways to stay connected to ED during the tour, including Twitter (follow hashtag #edtour12 for the latest updates); email updates; the tour’s “Storify” page, a collection of stories and photos from the road; live streaming video of several of the tour’s stops; and the “Homeroom Blog.”
Click Here to Visit Website

Bring History Alive with Eyewitness Accounts
HistoryBuff.com is a nonprofit organization devoted to providing free primary source materials for students, teachers and history buffs. The site focuses primarily on how news of major, and not so major, events in American history was reported in newspapers of the time. The online newspaper archive is organized by year and event. The earliest newspapers in the archive were published in 1707. The newspapers can be viewed in detail through the zoom tool accompanying each newspaper. In addition, there is information about the technology used to produce newspapers over the past 400 years. The latest addition to the site is a set of 15 panoramas of historic sites in America. Some of the panoramas you will find in the collection include Davy Crockett’s childhood home, Appomattox Courthouse, Thomas Edison’s birthplace and Valley Forge.
Click Here to Visit Website

Become a Teacher-Tweeter
Paula Naugle, a fourth-grade teacher in Louisiana, and three other teacher-tweeters are leaders of a weekly twitter chat, #4thchat. Every Monday, from 7 to 8 p.m. (CST), these teachers begin a chat on Twitter over a topic the chat group has recently selected through an online poll. Topics may vary from ideas for a classroom library to suggestions for literacy centers, or whatever classroom-related topic the group chooses. Any Twitter member can join the discussion by typing the hashtag #4thchat into the Twitter search box. Chat group participants can contribute tweets or just read the chat. At the conclusion of the hour-long chat, one of the group leaders posts an archive of the chat on the 4th chat wiki, which provides a record of all previous chats.
Click Here to Visit Website

Browse K12TeacherStore.com for a wide variety of products published by leading K–12 education companies, all of them delivered digitally. Many of the ebooks can be used on interactive whiteboards and various mobile reading devices. All of the books whose covers you see displayed are on sale at a 15% discount. To stay informed about what’s going on with ebooks in K–12 schools, sign up for the free enewsletter, K12 TeacherFile.

Download a free eBook of the popular print edition of The Big Deal Book of Technology for K–12 Educators. Explore the many opportunities to fund your special programs, access timely reports and articles, locate free and inexpensive resources and identify engaging interactive Web sites.

Get a free copy of The Big Deal eBook of Resources for 21st Century Teaching and Learning: From the 3Rs to the 4Cs. Explore this collection of resources to help students move beyond the 3Rs and embrace the 4Cs—Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking and Creativity—the 21st century skills cited by industry as keys to innovation and invention in an increasingly challenging global economy.

Sign up at The Big Deal Book Web site for hELLo!, a free quarterly ELL e-newsletter that includes a wealth of information on interactive resources for students, teachers, librarians, principals and others involved in the education of English language learners.

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

Browse the new Big Deal eBookstore, in partnership with K12TeacherStore.com! Find thousands of titles from your favorite educational publishers.

Explore the Web Wednesday feature on www.bigdealbook.com. Here you’ll find new interactive experiences and resources that incorporate 21st century themes and skills into the study of core subjects.