Build More Literate Communities
The Verizon Foundation’s Literacy grants are available to organizations committed to basic literacy skills in the United States. Verizon has invested in a network of collaborative literacy partners, offering a wide variety of programs with a focus on elearning. Verizon’s leadership in technology and communications provides the distribution network.
Deadline: November 30, 2007
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Support Job Skills and Education
The Staples Foundation for Learning provides funding for programs that support or provide job skills and/or education for all people, with an emphasis on disadvantaged youth. The requested amount of each grant can be up to $25,000. Most grants awarded by the foundation are in the range of $5,000 to $25,000. Only 501(c)(3) organizations are eligible for the grants.
Deadline: December 7, 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!

Find Solutions for Helping English Language Learners
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

Get a Professional Degree
Nova Southeastern University (NSU) awards associate’s, bachelor’s, master’s, educational specialist, doctoral and first-professional degrees in a wide range of fields. The institution enjoys an excellent reputation for its programs offered through the Mailman Segal Institute for Early Childhood Studies and University School, including innovative parenting, preschool, primary and secondary education programs. NSU offers several of its degree programs through distance education delivery systems.
Click Here to Learn More About NSU

Interview a Celebrity
Students who enter TeenInk’s Interview Contest may win a chance to interview a celebrity. Contest winners are selected throughout the year. Previous celebrity interviews include Pedro Martinez, Colin Powell, Maya Angelou, R. L. Stine, George Lucas, Whoopi Goldberg, John Glenn, Andrew Shue, Hillary Clinton and Jesse Jackson. Upcoming celebrity interviews include Alicia Keys, Martin Sheen and others. Interviews are featured monthly in Teen Ink magazine and online, where you can also see previous celebrity interviews.
Deadline: Ongoing
Click Here for More Information

Keep Up with the News
The Newspaper Association of America (NAA) Foundation wants to know what newspapers mean to your students. To enter the contest, students should create a YouTube video, explaining how they incorporate reading the newspaper into their daily lives—anything from preparing to get a good grade on an economics test to keeping up with their favorite sports team or staying abreast of what’s happening in their community and the world around them. The foundation will feature links to the most creative videos on its Web site, and the person who submits the best entry will receive a new iPhone and a trip for two to attend NAA’s Annual Convention in Washington, D.C.
Deadline: December 10, 2007
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Write to a Favorite Author
The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, in partnership with Target Stores and in cooperation with affiliate state centers for the book, invites readers in grades 4–12 to enter Letters About Literature, a national reading–writing contest. To enter, readers write a personal letter to an author—living or dead, from any genre (fiction or nonfiction, contemporary or classic)—explaining how that author’s work changed the student’s way of thinking about the world or themselves. There are three competition levels: Level I for students in grades 4–6; Level II for grades 7 and 8; and Level III for grades 9–12. Winners, announced in the spring of each year, receive cash awards at the national and state levels.
Deadline: December 14, 2007
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Continue Your Professional Development
PBS TeacherLine provides professional development through facilitated, online courses, collaborative learning communities and Internet-based resources. Currently more than 100 courses across multiple subject areas are offered to help teachers acquire the skills they need in order to prepare students for a successful future. In 2007, PBS TeacherLine and the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) launched the Certificate of Proficiency Capstone Program. In three courses, educators deepen and demonstrate their mastery of ISTE’s National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETST) to earn a certificate.
Click Here to Learn More About PBS TeacherLine

Integrate Technology into Your Classroom
Atomic Learning recently released a new workshop on Web 2.0. The workshop includes video tutorials on a variety of online resources and is available free of charge until November 30, 2007. The Web 2.0 Workshop covers such topics as viewing and commenting in blogposts, downloading podcasts, participating in social networks, setting up an RSS Reader and sharing bookmarks and links.
Click Here to Access Free Workshop

Test Students’ Literacy
A free, new tool aims to help educators assess students’ reading skills. Available from Verizon Foundation’s Thinkfinity.org, the tool also recommends resources—including model programs, free online courses, best practices, K–12 lesson plans and program assessment tools—to help improve skills.
Click Here to Access Free Tool

Support Early Literacy
Free-Reading.net, an open resource center and community for early literacy teachers, offers a complete intervention program in phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary and comprehension for kindergarten and grade 1. Teachers can follow the full 40-week scope and sequence of lessons or tailor materials to individual students’ learning needs. An advisory board of leading reading researchers will guide the expansion and evolution of the site.
Click Here to Access Free Program

Learn About Manga
Take a look at Wired magazine’s 10-page manga on manga! This history of manga was written by Jason Thompson, a former manga editor, and is presented in Japanese page and panel order. Read it online or download a pdf and learn about how and why manga is so popular around the world.
Click Here to Access Free Manga

Understand Energy Challenges
General Motors has teamed up with Weekly Reader to bring middle school classes a free curriculum titled “Live Green, Go Yellow: The Power of Corn.” The curriculum, which provides lessons and instruction for in-class activities (in both English and Spanish), allows students to learn about E85 ethanol and the world’s increasing demands for energy.
Click Here to Access Free Curriculum

Plus: “The Energy Highway—Solutions Ahead” helps students understand the energy challenges facing society today, as well as some of the existing and future alternatives that may help alleviate these issues.
Click Here to Access Free Curriculum

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.

Share Your Viewpoint on Educational Issues
Speak Up, a national online research project facilitated by Project Tomorrow^SM, gives individuals the opportunity to share their viewpoints about key educational issues. Each year, findings are summarized and shared with national and state policymakers. Participating schools and districts can access their data online, free of charge. This year, for the first time ever, Speak Up 2007 is calling on school leaders—principals, district administrators and school board members—to share their opinions about how technology and science education can be leveraged to provide students with the skills and knowledge they need to thrive in the “digital economy.”
Deadline: December 15, 2007
Click Here to Take the Speak Up Survey

Preventing the Spread of Staph Infections
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has provided schools and parents with a concise summary of guidelines on how to prevent the spread of drug-resistant staph infections that have caused concern nationwide. In the guidelines, federal health officials recommend frequent handwashing to prevent the spread of the bacterium called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. Students should not share personal items that come into contact with bare skin, such as towels or razors, and should disinfect open wounds immediately and cover them with clean, dry bandages, the Atlanta-based CDC recommends. The guidelines, released October 19, also say that schools need not be closed for disinfection because of a local MRSA case, as long as other recommended precautions are taken.
Click Here to Access Guidelines

Designating Advanced Placement Classes
The College Board has listed on its Web site those Advanced Placement classes considered rigorous enough to be designated as AP courses. Nationwide, two-thirds of the 130,000 courses that were audited were immediately approved, and most others made sufficient changes to make the list, said Thomas Matts, who directed the College Board’s audit. A few thousand courses remain under review.
Click Here to Find Authorized AP Courses

Maximizing the Impact of Technology in Education
In a new report, Maximizing the Impact: The Pivotal Role of Technology in a 21st Century Education System, the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA), the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills urge renewed emphasis on technology in education. The report supports the Partnership for 21st Century Skills’ framework for 21st century learning, which calls for mastery of core subjects and 21st century skills. The report also highlights effective practices in states, districts and schools that are using technology to achieve results. And it provides guiding questions and action principles for policymakers and other stakeholders who are committed to maximizing the impact of technology in education.
Click Here to Access Full Report

Develop Proficient Adolescent Readers
AdLit.org, a Web site that targets educators and parents of adolescent readers, launched this month from WETA Learning Media. Building on the success of sister sites ReadingRockets.org, ColorinColorado.org and LDOnLine.org, the new service focuses on helping students from grades 4–12 to become better readers and writers.
Click Here to Visit Web Site

Associate Words—Visually
The Visuwords^TM online graphical dictionary uses Princeton University’s WordNet, an open source database created by university students and language researchers. You have to play around on this site to learn how to maximize what it offers. It is color-coded; floating your cursor over any word delivers a definition. How about asking students to put their vocabulary words in and see what comes up?
Click Here to Visit Web Site

Integrate Current Events into Your Curriculum
Student Educational Exchange, Inc. (SEE) has a new Web site that aims to make it easy for teachers to increase current events discussion in their curriculum. Students read articles on the site and respond to discussion prompts on the forum, along with all other SEE student users. Teachers sign up for an instructor’s account and then receive a teacher code for their students when they register, making it easy to track students’ posts. Teachers follow the prompts to create an assignment that students will see when they login to the site. After that, SEE administrators choose the articles from diverse, worldwide news sources and post them to the site. They also provide background links and discussion prompts for each article and categorize the articles by subject area to help teachers align current events with their specific curriculum.
Click Here to Visit Web Site

Become Part of the Digital Dialogue
Classroom 2.0 is a free online community of educators implementing innovative Web tools into their learning spaces. Even if you’re a “newbie” who’s afraid of being embedded in a wiki or sunk in a blog, Classroom 2.0 is the right place to be: The site is notable for its fast support and widespread collaboration among members. Classroom 2.0 is powered by the Ning platform, the self-described “software equivalent of Home Depot,” making it a snap to create your own social network.
Click Here to Visit Web Site

Create Anagrams
Did you know that parliament is an anagram of partial men? Or, Clint Eastwood an anagram of Old West Action? An anagram is a word or phrase made by scrambling the letters in another word or phrase, and here is a cool place that does it for you automatically.
Click Here to Visit Web Site