Develop Financial Literacy
The Planet Orange Financial Literacy Awards Program challenges educators to advance children’s knowledge of personal finance and money management. Educators may request grants ranging from $200 to $1,000 for school financial literacy projects and programs. The awards program is open to K–8 teachers in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Deadline: April 20, 2007
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Improve Technology Resources
The 2007 AT&T Excelerator grant program will provide $9 million in competitive technology grants to help local nonprofit organizations integrate technology into their operations and community outreach. Excelerator grants to individual organizations range from $2,500 to $25,000 and are one year in length. Collaborations by two or more organizations will be considered for grants up to $50,000 for one year. The 2007 program is open to nonprofit organizations located in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin.
Deadline: May 4, 2007
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Serve Special Needs Students
Premier Assistive Technology has established a grant program to help bridge the gap between education budgets and the economic demands of serving the needs and requirements of special education programs. This grant program will help to act as a catalyst to solidify special education/assistive technology programs. Qualifying applicants will receive products and support at no cost during the grant period (all or part of a school year).
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Join the growing list of teachers enjoying the eBookDestination Rewards Program. On the first day of each month, a digital coupon (representing 5 percent of your total purchases in the previous month) will be added to your shopping cart. You’ll then be notified via email of the presence (and amount) of this coupon.

There’s no application to complete, no points to collect, no cards to carry, no codes to enter and (most important) no fees to pay. Quite simply, you are repaid for your loyalty with a 5 percent credit toward future purchases. It’s as easy as that!

Browse the eBookstore now! You’ll receive an automatic discount on some 3,000 ebook titles, many of which are bundled with downloadable audio MP3 files, from major educational publishers. Plus, there’s always a selection of the most popular titles on sale!

Nominate an Outstanding Special Education Teacher
Sponsored by the National Association of Special Education Teachers, the Outstanding Special Education Teacher Award recognizes and rewards the special skills and excellence of special education teachers throughout the United States. Candidates will be judged based on their teaching, their service outside the classroom and their professional activities.
Deadline: May 1, 2007
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Learn About the Upper Ozone Layer
The CAPCO Science Class Challenge encourages students in grades 4–9 and their teachers to learn about Earth’s protective upper ozone layer, CFCs and the environment by using the provided activities or their own creative methods. Participants have the opportunity to win $250 to $5,000 for their school as well as a pizza party for their class.
Deadline: May 14, 2007
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Predict an Engineering Breakthrough
Invite students to think about what life will be like on Earth in the next 100 years. What do they believe are the most critical human needs? How might engineers contribute to meeting these needs? These are Engineering’s Grand Challenge. To participate in this essay contest, sponsored by Engineer Girl, individual girls and boys in two age categories (grades 6–8 and grades 9–12) write about the Grand Challenge they believe will lead to the most important breakthrough of the 21st century. In their essays, students should describe the role that engineers will play in meeting that challenge and building our future.
Deadline: May 15, 2007
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Find Endless Learning Resources
Verizon’s Thinkfinity Web site offers more than 50,000 standards-based, K–12 lesson plans and other educational resources, provided by 11 of the nation’s leading educational organizations, to teachers, students and community organizations. The $31 million investment will allow leading educational organizations to continue to produce and expand the number of interactive and other educational resources available on the site.
Click Here to Access Free Resources

Implement Meaningful School Reform
Demonstrating its commitment to provide education leaders with access to proven-effective tools to improve school management, IBM is offering its Reinventing Education Change Toolkit, free of charge, to all interested educators and school leaders. The toolkit serves as a one-stop portal to help implement measurable school reform. It provides online diagnostic tools that are easy to follow, contains the interactive support to help move change projects forward and offers vignettes and real stories that illustrate how the tools were used in real-life situations to accomplish specific objectives. The toolkit was customized and developed in partnership with the Council of Chief State School Officers, the National Association of Secondary School Principals and the National Association of Elementary School Principals.
Click Here to Access Free Toolkit

Connect with Spanish-speaking Parents
Software that helps multinational companies communicate is allowing English-speaking teachers to better engage Spanish-speaking parents. Traducelo Ahora! (or “translate now”), offered free to schools and nonprofit organizations, allows people to compose an email message in one language and have it translated for the recipient into another.
Click Here to Access Free Software

Get Definitions of Educational Terminology
Ever wondered what educators mean when they refer to “authentic assessment” or “Bloom’s Taxonomy”? Education, like all professions, has a specialized vocabulary that parents and others may have a difficult time understanding. This online dictionary, A Lexicon of Learning, provides clear definitions of educational terms in everyday language.
Click Here to View Free Online Dictionary

Get free unlimited online access to all the print content in The Big Deal Book for Educators of Struggling Students, Middle School Through High School, The Big Deal Book for Teachers of English Language Learners and 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.

Come Together at Your Library
April 15–21 is National Library Week, a time to celebrate the contributions of libraries, librarians and library workers in schools, campuses and communities nationwide, and the perfect time for the community to “come together @ your library.” Started in 1958, National Library Week is a national observance sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) and libraries across the country each April. The tips and tools on the ALA site will help you to support your school and community in celebrating this weeklong event, which includes National Library Workers Day (April 17) and Teen Literature Day (April 19).
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Turn Off Your Television!
Turn off your television and live a little, read a little—and have lots of fun. That’s the message of this year’s TV-Turnoff Week (April 23–29) sponsored by the TV-Turnoff Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the idea that each of us has the power to determine what role television plays in our lives. Supported by more than 70 national organizations, including the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, National Education Association and President’s Council on Physical Fitness, the event is seen as both a first and an essential step in the fight against obesity as well as a chance to increase standardized test scores, lower bullying and violence, and encourage children and their families to get involved in their communities.
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Plus: Starting in September, The Center for Screen-Time Awareness (the international nonprofit organization that produces Turnoff Week) will introduce “Universal Screen-Time Reduction.” This new effort is intended to empower people by providing them with healthier lifestyles, in functional families and in vibrant communities.
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Speaking Up About Educational Technology
Results of the fourth annual Speak Up survey reveal attitudes of students, teachers and parents about educational technology. Among the survey’s many findings: Students want to see more integration of technology into subjects such as science and math—and two-thirds of parents believe technology is underused in schools.
Click Here to Access Survey Data

Using Strategies Effective in Educating Hispanic Students
From the National Education Association (NEA), A Report on the Status of Education of Hispanics suggests that five teaching strategies have been effective in educating Hispanic students: Culturally Responsive Teaching; Cooperative Learning; Instructional Conversations; Cognitively Guided Instruction (teaching the skills of summarizing, self-questioning, clarifying and predicting); and Technology-Enriched Instruction. Chapter 4 of the report outlines a series of specific recommendations for school personnel, classroom teachers, parents, policymakers, Hispanic organizations, community members and researchers.
Click Here to Download Report

Reporting on Interventions That Work
The What Works Clearinghouse recently issued six new intervention reports—Beginning Reading, Dropout Prevention, Early Childhood Education, English Language Learning and Middle School Math Topics—to increase the availability of scientifically based research in education.
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Examining the Impact of the Internet on Education
Now in its tenth year, Education Week’s Technology Counts 2007 looks back at the last decade and forward into the 21st century of technology in education. The report examines the impact of the World Wide Web and high-speed Internet access; computerized testing; digital cameras and video recorders, coupled with photo-sharing and moviemaking software; interactive software applications, such as blogs and social-networking sites; and many more technological advances. Online state-by-state technology reports are included.
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Explore the Effects of New Technology on Teaching and Learning
PBS’s Weblog Learning.now explores how new technology and Internet culture affect the ways educators teach and children learn. It offers a continuing look at how new technology such as wikis, blogs, vlogs, RSS, podcasts, social networking sites and the always-on culture of the Internet are impacting teachers’ and students’ lives both inside and outside the classroom.
Click Here to Visit Weblog

Share Views on Technology in Education
The NetDay Student Voices Resource Center is a place for students to share their views and opinions about technology in education. The Web site is intended for students who have unique ideas about how technology can make a difference in their school and education. On the site, students will find How-To Guides to help them turn their ideas into action; Success Stories, where they can share their goals and successes; Focus Chats in which they can discuss their views and opinions; and Resources relevant to their ideas.
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Encourage Girls to Pursue Engineering
A 24-hour Webcast brought female engineers and teachers into classrooms around the world, challenging girls’ perceptions of engineering and themselves. Only 17.5 percent of U.S. undergraduate engineering students are women, perhaps because they do not view the field as a way to help others, according to a University of Michigan Institute for Research on Women and Gender study. Check out the Global Marathon for, by and about Women in Engineering by clicking below.
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Become a History Detective
Combining the latest forensic technology with old-fashioned, pavement-pounding detective work, History Detectives lifts the lid on intriguing artifacts and objects, family legends and local folklore in cities and small towns across America. The Web site includes a new kids’ area with interactive history games as well as teacher resources.
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Meet the Grammar Girl
A 39-year-old technical writer now makes her living as Grammar Girl, a character created for a grammar-infused podcast that’s growing in popularity. Grammar Girl is actually Mignon Fogarty, who has combined her love of language with an online expertise to develop the Grammar Girl character. Her shows, each less than five minutes long, have been downloaded more than 3 million times since July 2006. Topics have ranged from who versus whom to subjunctive verbs to the always difficult lay versus lie. Fogarty walks her listeners through the sometimes-tricky subjects with a voice that is authoritative but warm.
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