March 15, 2013

Timely reminders, fabulous freebies, best sites & more "worth the surf"

IN THIS ISSUE

Grants, Competitions and Other “Winning” Opportunities

Free and Inexpensive Resources

On-the-Go Learning

STEM Gems

“Worth-the-Surf” Websites

BOOKMARK THESE!

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Grants, Competitions and Other “Winning” Opportunities

Design a 21st Century Library

Sponsored by the Chicago Architecture Foundation (CAF), the 2013 DiscoverDesign.org National High School Architecture Competition aims to promote architectural awareness and design problem-solving skills in high schools across the United States. The challenge is for students to redesign their high school library and rethink how their school’s library should, or could, function as technology advances and the notions of study and work change accordingly. The competition is open to any student at least 13 years old and currently enrolled in a US high school (grades 9–12). To be eligible for judging, a design project must include content (text and/or images) in each of the five steps of the design process. The five steps—Overview, Collect Info, Brainstorm Ideas, Develop Solutions, Final Design—are described in detail on the competition’s website. CAF’s partner, BlackSpectacles.com, is offering all students registered in the competition access to free online design software tutorials until the competition ends on May 14, 2013. The first-prize winner and one parent/guardian will receive a trip to Chicago, Illinois, in August 2013, and two tickets to a CAF river cruise and walking tour. The prize also includes a yearlong membership for design software tutorials from Black Spectacles ($280 value) and a copy of CAF’s The Architecture Handbook: A Student Guide to Understanding Buildings.

Deadlines: April 5, 2013, for registration; May 14, 2013, for submission of projects

Click Here for More Information About Competition

Click Here for More Information About Tutorials

Solve Everyday Problems

This year’s Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge encourages young people in grades 5–8 to solve everyday problems using science and innovation. To enter the 2013 competition, students must create a one- to two-minute video describing a new innovation or solution that could solve or impact an everyday problem related to how we live, how we work or how we play. The top 10 students will receive a trip to the 3M Innovation Center in St. Paul, Minnesota, to compete for the chance to win $25,000 and the coveted title of “America’s Top Young Scientist.”

Deadline: April 23, 2013, for video entries

Click Here for More Information

Keep Your Eyes on the Prize

How can educators transform their school’s technology offerings overnight? Easy—they can enter the eleventh annual Win a Wireless Lab Sweepstakes from CDW-G and Discovery Education. School employees can register once per day from now until May 3, 2013, to win one of two grand prizes, as well as 16 weekly prizes. Each grand-prize classroom is valued at $40,000 and includes 20 notebook or tablet computers, an interactive whiteboard, student response devices, a projector, a document camera, staff and student training and more. New this year, the Win a Wireless Lab Sweepstakes capitalizes on Pinterest, in addition to Twitter and Facebook, to display prizes, winners and innovative ways to use the technology. Follow Win a Wireless Lab on Pinterest, @WinWirelessLab on Twitter and “like” Win a Wireless Lab on Facebook for all the latest news. Also, download the Win a Wireless Lab infographic to post in your school and share with colleagues.

Deadline: Register once per day through May 3, 2013.

Click Here to Enter Sweepstakes

Click Here to Download Infographic

Lend a Helping Paw

The Build-A-Bear Workshop Foundation is committed to improving communities and impacting lives through a grant program that focuses on children’s health and wellness, literacy and education, and animals and the environment. Examples of direct support include opportunities for fun and friendship for children with special needs, including camp scholarships, therapeutic horsemanship programs, wish granting and other unique opportunities for children. Other examples of support include materials for humane education programs for children; materials for environmental education programs; school readiness programs, including school supplies, clothing and other essential items; and care and training for assistance animals, including pet therapy programs, literacy programs and service animals. Grants range from $1,000 to $5,000; the average grant is $1,500.

Deadline: Applications reviewed on a rolling basis through October 31, 2013

Click Here for More Information

Supplement Your Stretched Budget

GetEdFunding is CDW-G’s new website to help educators and institutions find the funds they need to supplement already stretched budgets. GetEdFunding is a free and fresh resource, which hosts a collection of more than 1,100 grants and other funding opportunities culled from federal, state, regional and community sources and available to public and private, preK–12 educators, schools and districts, higher education institutions and nonprofit organizations that work with them. The site offers customized searches by six criteria, including 41 areas of focus, eight content areas and any of the 21st century themes and skills that support your curriculum. Once you are registered on the site, you can save the grants of greatest interest and then return to read about them at any time.

Click Here to Visit Website


Free and Inexpensive Resources

Join an Educational Gaming Community

A free online community based on the newly rebooted world-building game SimCity debuted on March 5, 2013, along with free lesson plans and an online teachers’ network. The SimCity-based learning tools address a range of subjects, including science, math, civics and economics. In the game, players act as the builder and mayor of a fictional town, essentially creating the place from the ground up: they build infrastructure, industry and housing and try to attract residents. Once townspeople arrive, the mayor must scramble to keep them happy, productive and safe. In one sample SimCityEDU lesson, students must prioritize public works projects and explain their reasoning, with writing assignments that culminate in several drafts of an essay. Game-play, both at home and in school, tests students’ hypotheses. In another sample lesson, a pre-built city runs out of electricity, and students must figure out what happened and how to turn the lights back on.

Click Here to Sign Up for Free Learning Tools

See GIS in Action

National Geographic Education’s Maps: Tools for Adventure interactive introduces students to using GIS to interpret information on maps. The interactive invites students to interpret the data on five maps to solve problems and help animals. On the first page of the activity, students select an animal that they want to help: African elephant, bald eagle, humpback whale, koala or giant panda. After making their selection, students see a map with three layers of information: where the animal lives, where people live and how people threaten the animal population. After examining the data, students decide what can be done to help the animals.

Click Here to Access Free Map Interactive

Exchange Text Messages Between Characters

The Classtools SMS Generator is a free tool that allows students to exchange text messages between fictional or historical characters. To use the SMS Generator, students click the left speech bubble icon and enter a message; no login is required. To reply, students click the right speech bubble icon and enter a new message; they can make the exchange as long as they like. To share the conversation, students click the sprocket icon and grab the embed code, direct link or QR code for the exchange.

Click Here to Access Free SMS Tool

Meet a Super-Smart Superhero

There’s a new hero in Gloria City, the Gotham-esque setting of the new, innovative online comic book My So-Called Secret Identity. Bursting to the seams with a cadre of grandstanding superheroes, Gloria City is also home to PhD student Cat Daniels, a police officer’s daughter with a strong will, a love of the city’s streets and secrets—and a superpower: she is exceedingly smart. The first issue of My So-Called Secret Identity has prose-like narration that immerses readers in the setting of Gloria City. Even with its simple art style, readers get a strong sense of Cat’s personality and the struggles she has faced because of her intelligence. In the first issue, readers also get a hint or two of how Cat’s mind works with a splash page of her “mind map” process. The first issue of My So-Called Secret Identity was published on February 17; the first pages of issue 2 will be released on March 31.

Click Here to Access Free Online Comic Book

Plus: Take a look at the “Lookbook,” in which the comics’ creators describe how Cat and the other characters in the story evolved into the way they look, act and feel.

Click Here to Learn About the Characters


On-the-Go Learning

Generate Multimedia-Rich Inquiries

Developed at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education, SMILE (Stanford Mobile Inquiry Learning Environment) turns a traditional classroom into a highly interactive learning environment by engaging students in critical reasoning and problem solving while enabling them to generate, share and evaluate multimedia-rich inquiries—all through the use of cell phones. Students use mobile devices—typically Android phones that are connected to the same network—to create their own multiple-choice questions about a given topic. Their classmates answer those questions and evaluate them based on their difficulty. While the devices need to be connected to one another, they don’t necessarily need to be connected to the outside web. The drive to make questions that score higher on their peers’ difficulty index ultimately spurs students to think about the subject material in a deeper way. The system’s simplicity allows it to be used in a variety of educational environments, ranging from a rural village in southern Africa to a medical school classroom at Stanford itself.

Click Here for More Information

Take the Classroom Out of Physics

Created by Sideric, a Helsinki, Finland–based company, Sensor Tools is an app that uses iPhone and iPad sensors and Internet connectivity to turn the iPhone or iPad into a personal instrument for physics experiments and learning. With Sensor Tools, students can conduct experiments almost anywhere they like. They can also do some basic analyses of the data and share their results via Dropbox. All the data and materials (such as video footage) created with Sensor Tools are open and can be exported for use with other software. The current version of Sensor Tools has two modules: Motion Tracking for capturing, analyzing and plotting the motion of, for example, a falling ball or a glider on an air-cushion track; and Light Refraction for analyzing the refraction of light from one medium to another and determining the index of refraction. Sideric is working on new modules to further the scope of the app, which presently costs $2.99.

Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store

Bring Together Realism and Vision

The Photography Assignment Generator is a free iPad and iPhone app for photography teachers and students or anyone else interested in taking interesting pictures. The app, from Learnphoto.ca, provides users with assignments designed to help them learn about various elements of photography—everything from camera settings, rules of composition and creative shooting techniques for photographing people, landscapes and nature. The assignments range from use of different camera settings, shutter speed and white balance to creative composition prompts. Each assignment includes a description, basic directions and sample images to model the assignment.

Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store


STEM Gems

Celebrate Women in STEM Fields

Science NetLinks and AAAS have developed a variety of resources that will help students honor the achievements and scientific work of women during Women’s History Month (March) and all year long. The Women’s History collection features science lesson plans and learning resources for students of all ages. Teachers can filter the search results by grade level (K–12), theme (earth science, physics, astronomy, biology, health/medicine, engineering, social sciences, technology, mathematics/statistics, nature of science, careers) and content (lessons, tools, collections, afterschool resources, science updates).

Click Here to Visit Website

Get Out of the Woods

Have your students ever stopped to think about what keeps them breathing, how information instantly travels from their senses to their brain or any of the other amazing things that constantly happen to keep them alive? Now they can jump inside the human body and participate in these physiological processes to help “Fred” outrun danger in the woods. In Code Fred: Survival Mode, from Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, students play mini-games to send adrenaline to help Fred run faster, build a blood clot to help heal a wolf bite, prioritize energy intake to the most critical organs and even fight bacteria invaders after Fred gets sneezed on in the woods. Each mini-game helps Fred run a little farther toward safety, but if students lose one of these challenges, Fred won’t be leaving the woods!

Click Here to Visit Website

Plant the Seeds of Learning

The Science of Gardening is a collection of interactive graphics and videos produced by the San Francisco Exploratorium. The Science of Gardening has three basic categories: Feed, Control and Bloom. In the Feed category, students learn about dirt, compost and seeds. The “garden variety” interactive reveals the origins of some common plants, such as corn, squash, onions and carrots. Students also take a video tour of a garden and learn what is needed to create good soil. In the Control category, students learn about grafting and hybridizing plants, practicing biodiversity and growing plants in a greenhouse. They also take a look at a giant pumpkin competition. And in the Bloom category, students explore pollination and the attraction of flowers, and they see that a garden can grow just about anywhere when it receives proper care.

Click Here to Visit Website


“Worth-the-Surf” Websites

View the Faces of America

Americans Now, an online exhibit drawn from the National Portrait Gallery’s permanent collection, presents today’s faces in a variety of forms and media, from painting, prints, drawing and photography to digital and generative video projections. Many of the subjects are famous—including LeBron James, LL Cool J, Toni Morrison, Willie Nelson, Conan O’Brien, Martha Stewart—while others are not. Instead, they are outstanding individuals in the realms of science, business, government and the arts. The artists who made these portraits are among the most talented of their generation, including Chuck Close, Shepard Fairey, Red Grooms, Elizabeth Peyton, Martin Schoeller, Alec Soth, Mickalene Thomas and Kehinde Wiley. Accompanying the online exhibit are three lesson plans—“Sitters at Work,” “Self-Portrait Remix” and “You Be the Critic”—aligned to national standards in visual arts and English language arts. In addition to background information and a detailed teaching procedure, each lesson plan includes a listing of key terms and definitions.

Click Here to Visit Website

Discover the Secret Behind the Smile

The Louvre Museum’s “Closer Look” studies are interactive multimedia modules that allow students to see the details of an artwork through a magnifying glass, while commentaries and animations give students historical and artistic background. On the Louvre museum’s website, students can take “A Closer Look” at the Mona Lisa and discover the secret behind the smile!

Click Here to Visit Website

Click Here to Take “A Closer Look” at the Mona Lisa

Plus: Students can take “A Closer Look” at the Winged Victory of Samothrace, the Seated Scribe, the Code of Hammurabi, Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss and more.

Travel Down the Yellow Brick Road

Every month NPR’s Backseat Book Club selects a book in the hope that students will read the selection and send in their questions or comments for discussion. The March book takes students on a journey familiar to people across generations: they’ll be traveling down the yellow brick road with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. First published in 1900, it is one of the most beloved stories in popular American culture, but over the decades, the book has taken a back seat to the wildly successful Wizard of Oz film. In March a new film rolled into theaters called Oz: The Great and Powerful. It’s produced by Disney and is meant to be a prequel to The Wizard of Oz film, with a storyline that explains how the Wizard found his way to the magical land of Oz in the first place. NPR’s Backseat Book Club goes back to where the yellow brick road began, with the original fairy tale authored by L. Frank Baum, in the hope that the book will reach readers across the age spectrum.

Click Here to Visit Website

Plus: NPR would like to hear from people of all ages who have special memories attached to the Land of Oz. Young readers—dress up as your favorite Oz characters and ask an adult to help you send a photo to NPR’s Backseat Book Club. Grown-up readers—send a photo of your children, or if you dressed up as an Oz character when you were younger, send that photo, too. In a caption, tell why you liked the book.

Click Here to Submit a Photo

“Hang Out” with Museum Curators

Earlier in March, Google announced another offering through the Google Art Project website: Art Talks on Google+. The talks will be held as Google+ Hangouts On Air. Each month curators, historians, educators and museum directors from around the world will “hang out” on Google’s G+ page and discuss a variety of “artful” topics. They will reveal hidden stories of particular works or events, examine the curation process and expose a new view of the world of art. A talk from The National Gallery in London will take place on March 20 at 12:30 p.m. (GMT). If you have a question that you would like to ask in advance of an art talk, you can submit it online. All talks will be available on Google Art Project’s YouTube channel after the Hangout takes place. Future art talks will include an in-depth look at one of Google’s Gigapixel works, Bruegel’s masterpiece The Tower of Babel and more from the Museo Nacional de Arte in Mexico City and The Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Click Here to Visit Website

Plus: Hangout Quest is a Google+ game that allows participants to go on a virtual scavenger hunt inside the Palace of Versailles. The object of the scavenger hunt is to find artwork and other objects in the palace. If players invite others to their Hangout, they can compete in a race to find the objects. Hangout Quest uses the Street View imagery of Google Maps to bring players inside the Palace of Versailles. Hangout Quest also includes Google’s facial tracking technology, which allows players to move around in the Palace of Versailles by moving their head instead of clicking around with their mouse.

Click Here to Access Virtual Scavenger Hunt


BOOKMARK THESE!

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