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November 15, 2011
Timely reminders, fabulous freebies, best sites & more “worth the surf” |
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The
Actuarial Foundation’s
Advancing Student
Achievement grant
program brings
together actuaries and educators in local classrooms with the belief
that interaction with real-world
mentors will boost
student interest and achievement in math. The Actuarial Foundation
can provide a local network of actuaries ready to participate, as
well as suggestions on how to integrate math concepts from the
workplace into the classroom. Schools applying for grants will be
given wide latitude in designing programs that enhance learning.
However, a sufficient population of volunteer actuaries must be
within easy traveling distance to make a regular program possible. Deadline: None, but applications should be received at least one or two months prior to proposed start date.
Click Here for More Information |
FundingFactory
is a program that enables schools and nonprofits to raise funds by
recycling printer cartridges and cell phones. Schools can also
recycle digital cameras, GPS units and MP3 players in exchange for
cash or points redeemable for classroom equipment. Participation in
the program is free,
and it’s an easy way to protect the environment, teach students how
to be environmentally responsible citizens and secure funds for much
needed upgrades or improvements. Click Here to Visit Website
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Hosted
by the Conrad
Foundation, the
Spirit of Innovation
Challenge
invites high school teams to use science, technology, engineering and
math (STEM) skills to develop commercially viable, technology-based
products in one of three categories: Aerospace Exploration, Clean
Energy, and Health and Nutrition. The top fifteen teams, five from
each category, will travel to the annual Innovation Summit at NASA
Ames Research Center in California from March 29 to 31, 2012. In
addition, this year’s competition offers a once-in-a-decade
opportunity for select teams to travel to Rio de Janeiro in June 2012
with the U.S. Department of State to participate with an
international audience in the United Nations Conference on
Sustainable Development. The selected teams will also attend a U.S.
workshop in May to meet their global peers in advance of the trip to
Rio. To enter the challenge, student teams simply answer four
questions about their innovative concept.
Deadline: November 29, 2011 for registration
Click Here for More Information |
The
National Science
Teachers Association
(NSTA) DCAT Making a
Difference Award
recognizes and honors excellence in a science program developed and
implemented by middle school or high school science teachers, grades
6–12. Entries must show innovative and effective teaching
strategies combined with a science program that has influenced
students to explore and investigate science and its application to
global problems. The $2,500 award is to be used to enhance or expand
the winning science program; the winning school’s lead science
teacher and principal will be awarded coach airfare and two nights’
hotel accommodation to attend NSTA’s National Conference in 2012.
Deadline: November 30, 2011
Click Here for More Information
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Created
alongside Elmer’s,
American College of
Education,
Learning.com
and Discovery Student
Adventures, New
Teacher Survival Central
is an online destination welcoming, supporting and rewarding
educators new to the teaching profession with an array of helpful and
timely classroom resources. Now open for entries, the New
Teacher Survival Central Sweepstakes
will award one grand-prize winner an all-inclusive trip to Costa Rica
and a prize pack, which includes a classroom set of NOOK color
tablets, a STEM Survival Prize Pack, an Elmer’s Classroom Prize
Pack, a tuition scholarship toward a master’s degree and a
collection of Discovery Education DVDs. Teachers are invited to
encourage their colleagues to enter the sweepstakes. Those who refer
a winning teacher will also be rewarded with an Elmer’s Classroom
Prize Pack and an all-expenses-paid trip to a professional
development conference of their choice.
Deadline: Entries due by December 17, 2011
Click Here for More Information
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This
year marks the 10th anniversary of the World
Affairs Councils of America’s
education program Academic
WorldQuest. This
year’s categories focus on the Six
Top National Security Issuesfacing the United States in the run-up to the 2012 presidential
election, as voted on by leaders of World Affairs Councils across the
country: US Education:
Competing Globally;
US
Energy Policy;
US Economic
Competitiveness; the
Middle East;
Afghanistan/Pakistan;
and China.
The 2011–2012 Study
Guides include all of
the resources for this year’s categories. All questions for both
local and national competitions are drawn from the Academic
WorldQuest Study Guide. The national
competition will take
place at the Georgetown University Hotel and Conference Center on April 21, 2012.
The competition is attended by more than 225 of the nation’s most
promising students, along with their parents, teachers and
chaperones. The three-hour competition is a unique opportunity for
many students to visit the nation’s capital for the first time. A
weekend of substantive programming enhances the experience. Find a
list of local
competitions online.
Click
Here for More Information About Academic WorldQuest
Click Here for Information About Local Competitions |
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Learning.com
provides teacher resources from industry-leading organizations (such
as LEGO Education and NASA), open education resources (such as
Curriki and PhET) and materials from teachers for teachers. Sign up
for a free
Learning.com account and you’ll gain access to the
standards-aligned, peer-reviewed content—all in one place.
Click Here to Visit Website
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When
veterans return home from war, what challenges and opportunities
await them? How are some veterans finding meaning in their
post-service lives? In this lesson
from the New York
Times Learning
Network, students
examine some of the struggles that veterans face when they return
home and then create displays that honor veterans and detail the ways
that veterans are making a difference in their communities. The
lesson is correlated to McREL’s national standards; it can also be
aligned to the new Common Core State Standards for Language Arts,
Life Skills, Historical Understanding and World History. Click Here to Access Free Lesson |
Smithsonian
Education has some
new resources ( videosand downloadable instructions)
for easy-to-do book
projects that can get
your students talking and creating together. Click on any of the
demonstration videos and the accompanying downloadable instructions
to help your students make their own “memory”
storybook. Click Here to Access Free Projects
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Sponsored
by Brown
University’s
Watson
Institute for International Studies,
the Choices
for 21st Century Education Programoffers videos
from scholars and matching lesson
plans
on current topics. The curricular lessons are designed to allow
students to act as decision makers as they examine crucial points in
history. Students can use historical and contemporary primary-source
documents, maps, editorial cartoons and more to develop their
critical
thinking,
creativity,
innovation
and collaboration
skills,
as well as their media, digital
and civic
literacies. Click Here to Access Free Lessons
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The
nonprofit Bookshare
provides free
electronic copies of
books that are
adapted into formats that meet the needs of students with visual
impairments or
certain learning
disabilities.
The text of the books can be read aloud by computers, magnified or
spaced differently, allowing the books to be read by those who
struggle with print textbooks.
Click Here to Sign Up for Free eBooks |
Plus:
The Read2Go
appfor iPad,
iPhone
and iPod Touch
allows students to read Bookshare books on a mobile device. Read2Go
is available in the iTunes App Store for $19.99. Interested
individuals can watch a short video of Read2Go in action or get more
information from the Read2Go web page. For access to Bookshare books
on these devices, qualified individuals will need a Bookshare
membership.
Click
Here to Watch App Demo
Click Here to Visit Apple App Store
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The
Cleveland
Museum of Art’s
award-winning distance-learning
program
connects students from all over the country and beyond with the
museum to enrich their studies of history, languages, science, math
and the visual arts. Through live videoconferencing,
students view art and artifacts from around the world while sharing
in two-way conversations with museum educators. Lessons are designed
for kindergarten through grade 12 and are aligned with national,
Ohio, New York and Michigan learning standards. Teacher
workshopsare also available to introduce audiences to videoconferencing.
Scholarships for the distance-learning programs are available for
low-wealth school districts. Click Here to Visit Website |
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How
can we best prepare students to develop Common
Core skills for
history
and the humanitiesin a way that incorporates global content and perspectives? Getting
There Globally, a
series of webinars
led by Primary Source
curriculum specialists, will introduce global
resources and
innovative pedagogical
models that support
Common Core standards and the mastery of vital 21st century skills
for all grade levels. Each webinar will feature grade-specific,
global primary sources and present strategies designed to help
students analyze and evaluate a variety of complex nonfiction texts.
The Getting There Globally webinars will be held on the following
dates:
December
6, 2011: The Common
Core for the ElementaryClassroom
January
31, 2012: The Common
Core for the Middle
School Classroom
February
28, 2012: The Common
Core for the High
SchoolClassroom
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With
the development of Common
Core Standards for
math and English language arts complete, and their almost-universal
passage realized (forty-eight states, two territories and the
District of Columbia are participants in the state initiative),
schools around the country are facing the daunting task of beginning
to implement the standards in their classrooms. To assist educators
in that challenge, and to assure that they are able to enact the
standards in as timely and seamless a manner as possible, School
Improvement Networkhas developed CommonCore360,
a free
website that provides a host of resources to educators in need of
Common Core Standards
training. The site
includes case
studies—detailed
descriptions of approaches that schools are taking to successfully
apply the standards—as well as a Common
Core blog,
a place where teachers read, discuss and ask questions about the
standards. In addition, to keep educators current on Common Core, the
site hosts a newsroom
with relevant articles gathered from all over the web. Click Here to Visit Website |
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With
The Elements
app,
students will discover the 118 elements of the Periodic
Table up close on the
large iPad screen.
They can click to rotate 360 degrees and inspect each element. Then
they can read the element’s story, which explains the element’s
origins, how it was discovered and its significance in the universe.
They can even see it all in 3-D using 3-D glasses (sold separately).
The Elements app can be purchased for $13.99 from the iTunes App
Store. Click Here to Visit App Store |
Plus:
From the same developer, Solar
System app for the
iPadincludes story pages illustrated with interactive scenes, videos and
3-D objects; fully rotatable and pinch-zoomable 3-D objects,
including the Sun, all its planets and their major moons; and
selected images returned by the NASA, ESA and JAXA space missions as
well as detailed captions with technical data for every image and
object. The Solar System app can be purchased for $13.99 from the
iTunes App Store. Click Here to Visit App Store
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The
Wormworld Saga is
an episodic graphic
novel that follows
the life and adventures of Jonas Berg, who at a young age enters a
parallel world through a forgotten painting in a dusty attic. From
that day on, Jonas’s fate is linked to this fantastic and
mysterious place, in which he will visit indescribable wonders,
experience true friendship, face insurmountable evil and discover his
family legacy. The Wormworld
Saga has been
available on the web for a while, but it’s now available as a free
iPad app
that offers features not available on the web version, including
exclusive news and content, and the ability to share favorite scenes
via Facebook, Twitter or email.
Click
Here to Visit Website
Click Here to Visit App Store
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Popplet
is an easy-to-use graphic
organizing tool that
lets even young children organize ideas by drawing, writing or
importing imagery. This free
appfor the iPad
can be used to create diagrams, flowcharts, mind maps, webs and
outlines. For example, students can select the most important events
from a story or historical event and then present them on a timeline
made with Popplet. They can also insert photos of the parts of a
plant, or of a simple machine, and then create a flowchart about how
the parts function together. The online feature lets students
collaborate
on the same organizer at the same time and share their work with
others.
Click
Here to Visit Website
Click Here to Visit App Store
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Blockcorner
is an online building
tool for all ages.
Students can create blocks and move them around by typing in commands
from a simple programming language. They can also mail a structure to
a friend so they can work
on it together. The Official Blockcorner
Quickstart Guide can
help them get started.
Click Here to Visit Website
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RollerCoaster
Tycoon3 is an
amusement-park
simulation that lets
students start from scratch and design their own park with unique
rides, or start with a previously owned park and try to make it big.
Rides include the classic carousel, the horrific haunted house and
the risky roller coaster. Students can add ice cream stands, burger
restaurants and paths to the restroom, and soon the park will have a
plethora of patrons. But like real-life amusements, students will
need to fix rides, balance the budget, hire employees and even keep
up with advertising and ride costs. The simulation is accessible in
English,
Spanish
and other languages.
Click
Here to Visit Website [English]
Click
Here to Visit Website [Spanish]
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At
Your Command simulates
how vehicles can be operated remotely or autonomously on Earth or the
Moon. Students navigate a robotic vehicle over rocky terrain, using
the keyboard arrow keys. Two scenarios are provided to help
illustrate the advantages (and disadvantages) of each method of
operation. Students can operate the vehicle fairly easily in the
Earth-based scenario,
but they’ll probably find the Moon-based
scenario much more
difficult due to the three-second delay, the time it takes for the
signal to reach the Moon. Click Here to Visit Website
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Want
to walk around the Sphinx? Clamber inside the Great Pyramid of Giza
and seek out the pharaoh’s burial chamber? Visit the magnificent
tombs and temples of ancient Thebes? NOVA’s Explore Ancient Egypt,
a multilayered, highly visual interactive, lets students view
360-degree panoramas, “walkaround” photos and other breathtaking
imagery shot throughout the Giza Plateau and ancient Thebes
(modern-day Luxor), often with special permission. They’ll see Old
and New Kingdom tombs and temples, pyramids and statues, and a
140-foot-long wooden boat that is 4,600 years old.
Click Here to Visit Website |
Historical
Thinking Matters is a
website focused on key topics in U.S. history that is designed to
teach students how to critically
read primary sources
and how to critique
and construct historical narratives.
The site presents four student
investigations of
central topics from post–Civil War U.S. history, with activities
that foster historical thinking and encourage students to form
reasoned conclusions about the past. Also find teacher
resourcesoffering classroom materials and strategies, examples of student and
teacher work and supplementary sources. Click Here to Visit Website
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At
the Plimoth Plantation’s
You Are the Historian
site, 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
Click Here to View Intro
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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 organizersto 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
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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. |
Sign
up at The
Big Deal Book
Web
site for hELLo!,
a free quarterly ELL e-newsletterthat
includes a wealth of information on interactive resources for
students, teachers, librarians, principals and others involved in the
education of English language learners. |
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. |
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
Wednesdayfeature 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. |
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