As a recipient of The Big Deal Book of Technology e-newsletter, you are invited to offer your valuable opinions in an important survey about traditional and innovative approaches to teaching and learning.  (This typically takes 10-15 minutes to complete.)

As a thank you, we will give you a FREE 12-month online subscription to all editions of The Big Deal Book.

Surveys submitted IN FULL by 5/21/07 will be entered in random drawings to win $100 American Express gift cards.  We're giving away $100 for every 100 completed surveys! In addition, all surveys will be entered in a drawing to win an 80GB Apple iPod.

Thank you for your participation (much needed for understanding today's practice AND directions of change) at this busy time of the year. See a full summary of results online in August.

*research by EdTech Design Associates

Click Here to Activate Survey

Get the Grant You Want
Wondering why you just can’t attract those grant dollars for your tech initiatives? All you have to do is write the grant flawlessly, writes fundraising guru, Stan Levenson, in Campus Technology. According to Levenson, no application should be without (1) an assessment of how your efforts will meet an important unmet need; (2) well-articulated goals and benchmarks for success; (3) clear program and process objectives; (4) detailed methods and activities to be funded by the grant; (5) specific evaluation framework; and (6) detailed and credible budget.
Click Here for More Information

Use Technology to Improve Instruction
Qwest for Education focuses on enriching the lives of children by supporting solid preK–12 educational programs that use technology effectively to improve public school instruction; promote innovative models to strengthen public school education; improve the skills and leadership of educators and parents; and promote innovative early childhood education programs. Grants are generally $500 and up. The primary geographic area of interest is Qwest’s 14-state region, including Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.
Deadline: Ongoing
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Encourage Science Education
In 2007 the Motorola Foundation is providing $3.5 million in Innovation Generation grants to U.S. initiatives that inspire young people, particularly girls and underserved minorities, to embrace science, technology, engineering and math. Priority will be given to initiatives that create or expand programs to inspire children and youth in creative, hands-on ways. Grant requests may range between $5,000 and $250,000. Schools and school districts are eligible for the grants if their programs can be replicated easily in other locations and have measurable impact. Priority funding will be given to programs that incorporate Motorola employees as volunteers, especially in Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas.
Deadline: June 15, 2007
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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!

Become a Winner with Children’s Literature
Think you’ve read a lot of children’s books? Take the daily quiz on Reading Rockets’ Web site to see how much you know. Each month, a random winner will receive a $20 gift certificate to Amazon.com.
Click Here to Take Quiz

Learn Ways to Address Community Issues
Asia Society and The Goldman Sachs Foundation Prizes for Excellence in International Education 2007 asks high school students to select a problem or challenge that affects their local community and a community outside the United States and to create an in-depth written, audio, video or animated feature that compares and contrasts how the two communities have addressed the issue. Students must also explain why the approaches reflect the different cultural backgrounds of those involved and what lessons the different communities could learn from each other. Up to five winners will receive a scholarship prize of up to $10,000 each and an all-expenses-paid trip to New York City to receive the award as part of Asia Society’s Gala in November.
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Document “Smart” Teaching and Learning
SMART Technologies has launched its second annual World Teachers’ Day video contest. Teachers across the globe are invited to submit videos that demonstrate how SMART Board interactive whiteboards are improving student learning outcomes. Seventy-five winners, selected from five global regions, will win iPod shuffles. The top regional winners will each receive a SMART Board interactive whiteboard, and the overall winner will receive the grand prize, an all-inclusive trip to London, England, for BETT 2008, a leading education technology tradeshow.
Deadline: June 21, 2007
Click Here for More Information

Help Students Prepare for Spring AP Exams
With exam times looming, Course-Notes.org offers students a free and comprehensive collection of AP course outlines, study guides and more to help them prepare for exams. The site also offers a popular AP student community, where students can get help with homework or discuss various course concepts with other students and site administrators. Registration (free) is required for some sections of the site.
Click Here for Free Online AP Courses

End the School Year with a Dream
The free online activities and lesson ideas from the Legacy Project are ideal for marking the end of the school year and helping students celebrate their achievements while looking toward their future—whether it’s their summer vacation, the next school year or what they might like to do with their life.
Click Here for Free Activities

Teach Children About Books
e-Learning for Kids and ProtonMedia have made available a new free online Language Arts course for children entitled “About Printed Books.” The course, which features colorful illustrations, novel animations and interactive activities, teaches four- to five-year-olds what a printed book is, how to use one and how it’s constructed.
Click Here for Free Language Arts Course

Plus: Check out e-Learning’s other free online courses in Language Arts, Math, Science, English Language, Computer Skills, and Health and Life Skills.
Click Here for Other Free Courses

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.

Engage in a Dialogue on Safe Schools
In the wake of the tragic events at Virginia Tech, President Bush called on U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt to lead a national dialogue on ways to prevent tragedies in America’s schools and on college campuses. As part of this effort, Secretary Spellings announced that she is seeking public comment online in an effort to expand this important discussion and gather thoughts and suggestions from across the country. Secretary Spellings will consider these suggestions as she develops recommendations for a report to President Bush in June.
Click Here to Contribute to the Dialogue

Saving Money Through Preschool Education
A preschool program for three- and four-year-olds in low-income families could pay for itself in 16 years, according to Enriching Children, Enriching the Nation: Public Investment in High-Quality Prekindergarten, a new report from the Economics Policy Institute. The state would save in reduced special education costs and also through greater tax revenue, as preschool alums go on to earn higher salaries, according to the report’s author, economist Robert Lynch.
Click Here to Read Executive Summary

Comparing U.S. and International Math and Science Proficiency
The report Linking NAEP Achievement Levels to TIMSS, released by the American Institutes for Research (AIR), links the eighth-grade scores on the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) with the eighth-grade NAEP scores in math and science, enabling comparisons of U.S. student performance with international student performance.
Click Here to Download Free Report

Examining U.S Teachers’ Expectations
Conducted each year since 1984, the MetLife Survey of the American Teacher explores teachers’ opinions and brings them to the attention of the American public and policymakers. The most recent survey examines what teachers, principals and deans of schools of education each consider most critical to prepare teachers to meet classroom demands, as well as the expectations and experiences of prospective and former teachers. Read the report’s nine major findings.
Click Here to Download Free Report

Implementing SES Under NCLB
State Implementation of Supplemental Educational Services under the No Child Left Behind Act is the first in a series of reports the Center on Educational Policy (CEP) is preparing on year five of NCLB implementation. The series is based on “the results of 2006 surveys of officials from 50 state educational agencies and a national sample of school districts, as well as case study research.” The work is likely to inform legislators who are preparing to make changes to NCLB.
Click Here to Download Free Report

Experience the Life of a Jamestown Settler
In 1606, some 105 adventurers set off from England to try and establish the first permanent English colony in the “new world.” They settled in what is now the state of Virginia and called their colony first James Fort, and then James Towne, in honor of James I, the King of England. The early years of the colony were nearly a total disaster. Almost half of the settlers died due to poor choices in settlement location, management of resources and quarrels with the indigenous Powhatan Indians. Can your students do any better than the real colonists? In the Jamestown Online Adventure, students imagine that they are Captain of the Jamestown Colony. They have a copy of the London Company’s Instructions to help guide them. Also, they can ask their fellow colonists and the Native Americans for advice. They will need to be careful, though, because some advice is better than others.
Click Here to Visit Web Site

Discover Traditional Children’s Games from Around the World
Children have one thing in common: they love to play games. Discover how children from Venezuela, Mexico, Korea, China, Germany and many other countries play different versions of the same traditional games, such as jump rope, marbles, tag, top spinning, hopscotch, jacks and card games.
Click Here to Visit Web Site

Take an Electronic Field Trip
For a small fee per school, Ball State University’s digital magic carpet lets students track migrating sea turtles, go into and around Africa, study the inner workings of Houston’s Johnson Space Center or speed to the shores of Chesapeake Bay to drop in on the Smithsonian Research Center. A group of professional teachers work on each field trip to develop extensive standards-based, grade-appropriate lessons.
Click Here to Visit Web Site

Promote Tolerance Through the Perspectives of Immigrants
Visit New York’s Lower East Side Tenement Museum without sweating over the rusty nails, the lead paint, the asbestos, the crumbling walls and the tight quarters. On this site, you can explore a digital re-creation of the tenement at 97 Orchard Street, follow the restoration of an Irish immigrant apartment and more.
Click Here to Visit Web Site

Plus: Check out the Web comic about New York’s immigrant teens.
Click Here for Web Comic

Explore the Mysteries of Creativity
QuickMuse.com captures the creative process online and adds an element of improvisation to the procedure. The site pits prominent poets against one another and the clock in a “contest” or “challenge.” In an exercise of literary improvisation, two poets are given a topic, a quote, a picture or some other prompt, and they then have 15 minutes to compose a poem. The process is recorded and posted online using a “poematic system,” a keystroke-logging program similar to those that more nefarious characters have used to steal credit card numbers off the Internet. The resulting “main event” is archived on the site and can be played back, giving students the rare chance to look over the poet’s shoulder as the work takes shape. Typos, deletions, meanders and musings made during the 15-minute period are all tracked for the onlooker. (The time span can be sped up for those fidgety kids to whom a quarter of an hour is an eternity.) Presently more than 20 examples of this poetry match are archived.
Click Here to Visit Web Site

Share Ideas with Other Educators
Curriki is an online community where teachers can share materials and ideas worldwide. The site is the result of work done for the Global Education and Learning Community (GELC), an online project started by Sun Microsystems to develop works for education in a collaborative effort. The leadership team consists of people with a long-time commitment to exploring the use of technology to improve education.
Click Here to Visit Web Site