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May 1, 2008
Timely reminders, fabulous freebies, best sites & more "worth the surf"
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In Partnership With:
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Through
the Aspire initiative, AT&T and the AT&T
Foundation are committing $100 million (over four years,
2008–2011) toward high school success and workforce readiness. The
platform includes four key elements: (1) grants to schools and
nonprofit organizations that are focused on helping students graduate
from high school and become better prepared for college and/or the
workforce; (2) a student job-shadowing initiative,
involving 400,000 AT&T employee hours, which will give 100,000
students a firsthand look at the skills they will need in order to
succeed in the 21st century workforce; (3) the underwriting of
national research that will explore the practitioner
perspective (teachers, principals, superintendents, school counselors
and school board members) on the high school dropout issue;
(4) support for 100 state and community dropout prevention
summits.
Click Here for More Information
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Retailer
Target Corp. offers Store Grants to help fund
neighborhood efforts in education and more. Specifically, proposals
involving the arts, early reading or violence
prevention are eligible. Up to $3,000 is available per award.
Find details and an application at any store or browse Target’s
corporate Web site. Target also supports reading and cultural
literacy through book festivals, family-reading nights, book clubs,
African American and Hispanic heritage programs and other activities.
Deadline: May 31, 2008
Click Here for More Information
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The
History Channel’s Save Our History Grant Program
inspires youth to become the preservationists in their communities.
Museums, historic sites, historical societies, preservation
organizations and libraries are invited to partner with a local
school or youth group and apply for funding to help preserve the
history of their communities.
Deadline: June 6, 2008
Click Here for More Information
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Any
area can be the focus of a $5,000 Student Achievement Grant
from The NEA Foundation. Proposals must engage students in
critical thinking and problem solving to deepen their
knowledge of standards-based subject matter. The work should also
improve students’ habits of inquiry, self-directed learning and
critical reflection. Educators and support professionals at preK–12
public schools are eligible; teachers with less than seven years’
experience are especially encouraged to apply. Grants may be used for
resource materials, supplies, equipment and software. Proposals for
work resulting in low-income and minority students’ success with
honors, advanced placement or other challenging curricula are
particularly encouraged.
Deadline: June 6, 2008
Click Here for More Information
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The
Troxell Communications Education Scholarship/Grant Rebate Program
makes funding available to any qualifying educational institution
that purchases products made eligible for rebate by participating
vendor partners. An administrator, assigned by the school or
district, must register on the Troxell Communications Web site prior
to the purchase of products. Troxell administers the program by
displaying an accounting of earned funds, in real time, on each
participating customer’s password-protected Web page. There is no
limit on the number of rebates an institution can receive. Find more
details, FAQs and enrollment information on the company’s Web site.
Deadline: Ongoing
Click Here for More Information
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eBOOK
DESTINATION
NEW
Look! MORE Savings!
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 thousands of 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!
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Sign
up at The Big Deal Book Web site for hELLo!,
a free monthly ELL e-newsletter that
includes information about new grants, upcoming contests, the latest
educational research and a wealth of information on interactive print
and online resources for students, teachers, librarians, principals
and others involved in the education of English language learners.
Click Here to Sign Up for Free Newsletter
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In
today’s middle and high schools, students with intellectual
disabilities often learn in the same building and walk the same
hallways as their non-disabled peers, but they are left out of social
activities. The Best Buddies program for middle school and
high school students is designed to improve the school environment by
promoting friendships between students with developmental
disabilities (Buddies) and students without disabilities
(Peer Buddies). In addition to the
benefit of developing new friendships, Best Buddies programs also
give students unique opportunities for leadership. Visit the Best
Buddies Web site to find a program in your area.
Click Here to Visit Web Site
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Plus:
e-Buddies helps individuals with intellectual disabilities
develop reading, writing, computer and social skills by making
technology fun.
Click Here for More Information
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Earn
continuing education credits with the 2008 Summer Workshops
offered by Vernier. Starting on June 11 and running through
August 16, the workshops will focus on handheld data-collection
technology in the areas of biology, chemistry, physics, advanced
placement sciences, middle school science and elementary science
education. Each workshop lasts approximately six hours and includes
lunch and lab handouts. The cost of each workshop is $99.
Click Here for Locations and Dates
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Meet
DORA and DOMA, Curriculum Associates’ Web-based reading
and math diagnostic measures. Developed by educators
and teacher educators at the University of California Berkeley, DORA
(Diagnostic Online Reading Assessment) and DOMA (Diagnostic Online
Math Assessment) deliver solutions for students (interactive
assessment items that adapt in difficulty in real-time, based on
students’ responses), teachers (direct access to diagnosis,
accurate and immediate reports, and remediation strategies) and
administrators (live data for planning school- and
district-wide program improvements). Register for a free trial
by May 31, 2008 and be entered to win a 30-Test Pack worth
$299.
Click
Here for More Information About DORA
Click
Here for More Information About DOMA
Click to Register for Free Trial
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InterMath
is designed to help middle school teachers deepen their understanding
of math concepts. More than 200 “recommended investigations”
are offered for teachers to solve and then modify for use with
students. The investigations are presented in 13 units: Patterns,
Functions & Equations, Graphing (Algebra); Circles,
Quadrilaterals, Triangles, Polygons, 3-D Objects (Geometry);
Fractions & Decimals, Integers, Ratio, Proportion & Percent
(Number Concept); Statistics, Probability (Data Analysis). The site
also includes an interactive Dictionary and a Constructionary
(to help students construct understanding of math concepts).
Click Here to Access Free Math Investigations
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Essential
Reading Strategies for the Struggling Reader provides
activities for supplemental instruction in instructional areas
that research has identified as critical to early reading success.
These instructional elements include phonological awareness;
fluent reading in a variety of texts; comprehension
strategies and vocabulary development; decoding
strategies; and word analysis. The activities in this
manual are intended to supplement the regular classroom reading
program and to provide the additional practice struggling readers
need in order to develop basic reading strategies.
Click Here to Download Reading Strategies
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From
The Library of Congress’s Rare Book & Special
Collections Reading Room, Children’s
Literature: Digitized Print Materials
provides 50 digitized texts of rare books: The Arabian Nights, A
Child’s Garden of Verses, A Christmas Carol, Humpty Dumpty, The
Grasshopper Stories, Mother Goose Finger Plays, The Pied Piper of
Hamelin, The Secret Garden, Stories from Hans Andersen, The Three
Bears, The Three Little Pigs, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and
others.
Click Here to Access Free Children's Literature
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A
recognized leader in the mobile computer security industry, Absolute®
Software has compiled a wide array of best practices,
case studies and whitepapers, You’ll learn how to
protect expensive computers from theft and accurately inventory
computers on and off the network. Simply visit Absolute®
Software’s Web site to download the free whitepaper entitled
“Compliance, Protection, Recovery: A Layered Approach to
Laptop Security for Education.”
Click Here to Download Free Whitepaper
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From
Teaching Mathematics and Its Applications, this free
online article discusses whiteboard math movies (aka
mathcasts) and their applications to mathematics education. A
whiteboard math (wbm) movie is a screen recording of writing plus
voice and/or text explaining a mathematical concept or solving a
problem. The movie is then produced to Flash movie format and
distributed via CD or Internet. The wbm movies provide a simple and
inexpensive means of interaction at the teacher–student,
teacher–teacher, student–teacher and student–student level.
With wbm movies, both the creator and the viewer get to see and hear
the mathematical thinking, step by step; they get the process and not
just the result.
Click Here to Access Free Online Article
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THE
BIG DEAL BOOK TECH CENTER
Interactive
Experiences for the 21st Century Classroom
Check
out the new look of The Big Deal Book
Web site. And be sure to explore the Tech Center,
which offers resources and activities for integrating technology into
your classroom. In the Tech Center is a feature that
changes mid-week, every week, appropriately called Web
Wednesday! 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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Atomic Learning
has released a new version of the company’s latest product, Atomic
Training, an online training and publishing platform that schools
can use for managing and delivering training videos, procedures and
other essential information. One of the enhancements in version 2.1
is the ability to integrate an entire Atomic Learning series in just
a few quick steps. Series-level integration allows subscribers of
both Atomic Learning’s Web-based software training and Atomic
Training to create a customized training environment complete with
video tutorials that fit the unique technology needs and goals of
your school. Beyond Atomic Learning integration and assigned content,
version 2.1 also features enhanced group management and the ability
to upload Shockwave Flash files.
Click Here to Sign Up for Online Demonstration
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How
does a comic strip upgrade to Web 2.0? Scott Adams and United Media
are now inviting fans to the Dilbert site for a series
of new interactive features. The three-pronged approach, called
“mashups,” gives readers the ability to create their
own versions of Dilbert strips. The first,
known as “punch line,” allows readers to write their own ending
to an original Dilbert comic, adding new words to the drawing
for the last frame of the strip. A second feature, coming in May,
will allow readers to add their own words to an entire strip. And a
third feature, also coming in May, will allow fans to write the
dialogue for a single panel of a Dilbert strip and then share
it with others, who will then write for the remaining panels. (Adams
himself is expected to randomly write dialogue for strips.) The site
will also offer access to animated versions of existing
Dilbert strips, as well as free access to the Dilbert
archives (for now just back to 2001, and later, to the
cartoon’s entire history).
Click Here to Visit Web Site
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The
new Newseum, which opened in Washington, D.C., in April,
traces the development of news over time and shows how technological
advances—from line art in newspapers to TV helicopters to the
Internet—have changed the way news is delivered and presented.
Visitors to the Newseum’s Web site can take a cool 3-D tour
of the new museum, view more than 500 front pages of newspapers
from around the world and play the online trivia game
NewsMania.
Click Here to Visit Web Site
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Plus:
The Newseum, the Student Press Law Center and the
National Scholastic Press Association are calling for
entries for the 2008 Courage in Student Journalism Awards.
The
sponsors are looking for a deserving middle school or high school
journalist and a student media adviser or administrator who stood for
student press rights and in support of the First Amendment.
Deadline: July 1, 2008
Click Here for More Information
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Recently
the Library of Congress opened a new exhibit, called the
Library of Congress Experience, at its historic Thomas
Jefferson Building in Washington, D.C.—and online at a new Web
site, MyLOC.gov. Visitors to the exhibit are able to “flip”
through books from Thomas Jefferson’s vast library, learn about the
ornate artwork that adorns the Library’s Great Hall and view how
founding documents, such as the Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution, morphed from draft to draft.
Click Here to Visit Web Site
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