Cite Social Media, See a Sea of Change, Develop Media Literacy & More
February 16, 2015
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IN THIS ISSUE
Grants, Competitions and Other "Winning" Opportunities
Resource Roundup
Professional Development Plus
Mobile Learning Journey
STEM Gems
Worth-the-Surf Websites
Sponsored By:
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Grants, Competitions and Other "Winning" Opportunities
Achieve Blended Learning Success
The Waggle Blended Learning Grant will award up to $5 million to districts and charter school organizations to recognize outstanding blended learning models with Waggle, Personalized Smart Practice. Waggle is an online, adaptive program developed by Triumph Learning for English language arts and mathematics for students in grades 2–8. Waggle champions productive struggle by creating a safe and engaging environment for students to explore, grow in confidence and accelerate learning. Grant winners will receive up to $50,000 for Waggle, professional development and implementation.
Deadline: Applications accepted through September 30, 2015
Click Here for More Information About Grant Opportunity
Click Here for More Information About Waggle
Amplify the Power of Reading
The National Book Foundation’s 2015 Innovations in Reading Prize will award $10,000 to an individual or institution—or partnership between the two—that has developed innovative means of creating and sustaining a lifelong love of reading. In addition, the foundation will select four honorable mentions. Applicants should be VITAL, demonstrating Vision, Ingenuity, Transformation, Achievement & Leadership. All US citizens and American institutions are eligible for this prize. Previous winners can apply for new initiatives. Examples include after-school and community-based programs; nonprofits, such as museums and libraries; and startups focused on reading and literature. Applicants should share the National Book Foundation’s mission to expand the audience for literature in America. The foundation is less interested in programs focused on basic literacy. All applications will be reviewed by the National Book Foundation’s staff; the foundation’s Board of Directors will make the final selection.
Deadline: Applications due by February 28, 2015; winner to be announced on May 4, 2015
Click Here for More Information
Share Students' Opinions on Issues They Care About
Does technology make us more alone? Do teachers assign too much homework? Is school designed more for girls than for boys? Every day during the school year, The New York Times Learning Network invites teenagers to share their opinions about questions like these—on topics from cheerleading to police tactics—and hundreds respond, posting arguments, reflections and anecdotes to The Learning Network’s Student Opinion feature. In its second annual Student Editorial Contest, The Learning Network is asking students to channel that enthusiasm into something a little more formal: short, evidence-based persuasive essays like the editorial The New York Times publishes every day. The challenge is straightforward: Students choose a topic they care about, gather evidence from both New York Times and non-New York Times sources and write a concise editorial to convince readers of their point of view. With contest partner, the Center for News Literacy at Stony Brook University, The New York Times will then use a rubric to select winners to publish on The Learning Network’s web page. To help inspire students, The Learning Network has culled from its Student Opinion feature 301 prompts for argumentative writing, on a wide range of topics, although students are not limited to those topics.
Deadline: Essays due by March 9, 2015
Click Here for More Information
Click Here to Access Free Writing Prompts
Encourage Creative Thinking and Storytelling
PBS KIDS has announced its annual PBS KIDS Writers Contest designed to promote the advancement of children’s literacy skills through hands-on, active learning. Open to children in kindergarten through grade 3, the contest encourages creative thinking and storytelling, while building literacy skills through the creation and illustration of original stories. To enter, children can submit stories to their local stations, and local winners will then be entered into the national contest. National winners will be announced during the summer of 2015, and the winning stories will be featured on the contest’s website. The 2015 judges include acclaimed writers, producers and children’s media creators, including Marc Brown, author and illustrator of the ARTHUR book series; and the Kratt Brothers, Martin and Chris, from the PBS KIDS show WILD KRATTS. The national winners will receive prize packages, including ARTHUR books and a personal technology device, courtesy of PBS.
Deadlines: Check with your Local PBS station
Click Here for More Information
Plus: To help young writers get started, PBS KIDS offers a set of resources for children, parents and teachers. Story ideas and activity sheets, along with the previous winning entries, are available on the contest’s website to inspire children during the brainstorming process. PBS LearningMedia is also offering a collection of online teacher resources for use in classrooms nationwide.
Click Here to Access Free Support Material
Supplement Your Stretched Budget
GetEdFunding is a free website sponsored by CDW•G to help educators and institutions find the funds they need in order to supplement their already stretched budgets. GetEdFunding hosts a collection of thousands of 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. GetEdFunding offers customized searches by six criteria, including 43 areas of focus, eight content areas and any of the 21st century themes and skills that support your curriculum. After registering on the site, you can save the grant opportunities of greatest interest and then return to them at any time. This rich resource of funding opportunities is expanded, updated and monitored daily.
Click Here to Visit Website
Resource Roundup
Walk in Their Shoes
In celebration of Black History Month (February in the United States), Facing History and Ourselves offers four resources that explore the history of civil rights and racial equality. In an inspiring video, Congressman John Lewis remembers his participation in the 1961 Freedom Rides 40 years later: “I hear some young people say today, ‘Nothing has changed.’ But I feel like saying to some, ‘Come and walk in my shoes, and I’ll show you things have changed.’ “ Watch the video on Facing History’s website, where you’ll find additional resources on the civil rights movement to use during Black History Month.
Click Here to Access Free Black History Month Resources
Know Your Presidents
Just in time for Presidents’ Day (February 16), PBS LearningMedia has collected little-known facts about the US presidents into a fun video collection: 60-Second Presidents. The videos pack a great deal of information into each minute as they share each president’s history in a quirky, engaging style. As they explore the rich history and the institution of the US Presidency—from George Washington to Barack Obama, students will come to understand the duties and powers of the President of the United States and the First Lady, gather important background information from Presidential biographies and engage with videos and primary sources that place them back in time at some of the most pivotal turning points in American history. Teacher’s Guides and other resources are available for selected presidents.
Click Here to Access Free Video Collection
Click Here to Access Free Teacher Resources
Explore Messages in Media
The 2015 Academy Awards are just around the corner (February 22), and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (AMPAS), in cooperation with Young Minds Inspired, has produced a series of Teacher’s Guides that explore the art and science of motion pictures. The free Teacher’s Guides address Animation, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costumes and Makeup, Documentaries, Film Editing, Media Literacy, Screenwriting, Sound and Music, and Visual Effects. The activities are designed to capitalize on students’ natural interest in current films and the excitement generated by the Academy Awards to teach valuable lessons in critical thinking and creative writing and to develop visual literacy skills. Each Teacher’s Guide is available in its entirety to download and print at no charge. The guides are also made available to high schools throughout the United States.
Click Here to Download Free Teacher’s Guides
Create a Bully-Free School Community
Do you know the warning signs for bullying? A new toolkit, written for teachers, parents and students, details what you need to know about bullying— from key terms, to what it looks like, to how you can tell if a student is a victim. The toolkit, titled Creating a Culture of Connectedness, is designed to provide schools and their surrounding communities with guidance that supports a bully-free environment. While bullying is not 100 percent preventable, the toolkit is a blueprint for educators, parents and students to help limit bullying in schools. It is the framework that will catapult schools into developing comprehensible, sustainable programs and initiatives to support school safety and improve learning.
Click Here to Download Free Toolkit
Cite a Tweet
The Social Media Citation Guide from TeachBytes provides tips on how to cite social media sources in MLA and APA formats. Acknowledging social media as an important source of information for scholarly work, the guide can serve as a prompt for discussion with students about when it’s appropriate to use and cite information from Twitter and other forms of social media. For example, citing a person’s opinion in a paper is important, but citing a person’s tweet as a factual basis for an argument doesn’t hold up.
Click Here to Download Social Media Citation Guide
Professional Development Plus
Encourage Digital Writing in the Classroom
On February 23, 2015, from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. (EST), the Amazing Resources for Educators community on edWeb.net will host a free webinar titled “Igniting Digital Writing in the Classroom.” In this webinar, sponsored by Shutterfly, the presenter will explore how to ignite your students’ passion for writing through digital storytelling with the help of Shutterfly’s Photo Story App. The presentation will focus on strategies for story-mapping students’ work into a photo storybook that includes text, doodles, pictures and audio. The presenter will also offer easy-to-implement ideas for using Photo Story in nearly any writing assignment to meet Common Core State Standards. The webinar will be recorded and archived in the Amazing Resources community for members to access after the event.
Click Here to Join Amazing Resources for Educators Community
Click Here to Register for Free Webinar
Help Students Evaluate Scientific Claims
The Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access invites high school science teachers to a two-session webinar, “Scientific Argumentation: Helping Students Identify, Evaluate and Support Claims,” from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. (EST) on February 17 and 23. Dr. Victor Sampson, professor at the University of Texas, Austin, and Michelle Knovic Smith, associate director for digital media at the Smithsonian, will present instructional strategies and resources that help students judge the quality and reliability of evidence, evaluate scientific claims and construct arguments. The webinar is free and open to the public on Google Hangout.
Click Here for More Information
Click Here to Register for Free Webinar
Get the Funds You Need
On February 24, 2015, from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. (EST), the GetEdFunding community on edWeb.net will host a free webinar, “Writing a Winning Grant Application,” sponsored by CDW•G. In this webinar, participants will learn what is involved in writing grant applications, who should be writing applications, where to find out about available grant opportunities and more. The presenter, a school library media specialist, will share her journey from beginning grant writer to chairperson of her school’s grant committee. The presentation will explore the following topics: easing into the world of grants; finding places for funding; making the most of special opportunities; and appreciating the importance of wish lists. Participants will be able to submit questions during this interactive session. Aside from giving suggestions on finding and winning extra funds, the presenter will give away one copy of Reviewer-Focused Grant Writing: Making the Vision Plain So the Reader Can Run. The webinar will be recorded and archived in the GetEdFunding community for members to access after the event. Those who attend the live session will automatically receive a CE certificate via email from edWeb.net.
Click Here to Register for Free Webinar
Click Here to Join GetEdFunding Community
Add a Global Perspective to Your US History Curriculum
Primary Source has partnered with America in Class from the National Humanities Center to provide K–12 educators with a unique online professional development program on the Harlem Renaissance. In this webinar, titled “the New Negro Movement in a Global Perspective,” participants will recover the broader New Negro experience as social movements and popular cultures of Black literature, sport, music, protest and public behavior stretched from New York to New Orleans, from Paris to the Philippines and beyond. It will become clear how the Harlem Renaissance was part of the New Negro Movement and also that the New Negro movement reached far beyond Harlem. The webinar will take place on March 26, 2015, from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. (ET). Register, free of charge, using the code ITEACH.
Click Here for More Information
Click Here to Register for Free Webinar
Mobile Learning Journey
Locate, Experience and Contribute to African American History
More Than a Mapp, a free app by Ember Media for the iPhone and iPod touch, lets users discover and document the African American history embedded in the places where they live. The location-enabled app highlights sites of significance to black history in your city through a map interface such as Google Maps or Google Earth. Users can explore historic locations through a rich multimedia experience that offers directions and links to audio, texts and videos of relevance to the selected location. Users can also add locations to the map that will be available to others once verified as accurate. The app also includes an educator’s guide and a link to the companion film More Than a Month, which explores one man’s goal to expand the appreciation of black history. The app is recommended for grades 4–12.
Click Here to Access Free App and Resources
Experience the Life of History
The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center’s Digital Backpack Classroom provides a learning experience designed for participants to explore and analyze the relationship between the transatlantic slave trade, the Underground Railroad and modern-day slavery. The center offers a catalog of free iTunes downloads of student-created videos; gallery talks; panels of scholars, artists and award-winning authors; and archives from the center’s Internet radio station. For additional ideas, the center offers “traveling trunks” for $50 that provide lesson plans and curricula for three themed-units: “Freedom Suitcase: Civil Rights Over Time,” “The Price of Freedom: The Civil War” and “Freedom Box: The Underground Railroad.” The app is recommended for grades 2–12.
Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store
Combine Reading and Listening for Learning
BuzzSprout has published an infographic about the growth of podcasting in education and a complete illustrated guide to help teachers get started with podcasting. Find the infographic and Podcasting 101 Guide on BuzzSprout’s web page titled “Mobile Learning: Why Tech-Savvy Educators Are Turning to Podcasts.”
Click Here to Access Free Infographic
Click Here to Access Podcasting 101 Guide
Build a Business Selling Edibles
Street Food Carts is a free app for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch in which students run their own street food cart businesses. In the game, students choose the location for their food carts and the type of foods and beverages they want to offer for sale. To run a successful business, students need to account for variables such as weather and location. After selecting a location and food cart, students need to buy ingredients and set prices for their offerings. Players who are successful in running a food cart could make enough cash to open another one and increase their profits.
Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store
STEM Gems
Experience the Sounds and Songs of Life
On Wild Music, students can listen to the sounds of nature and explore what creates those sounds. For example, in a game of animal audio memory, students hear sounds and have to match them to each other. Students will also find activities such as “The Mosquito” in which they compare their hearing to the hearing of various insects and animals. The site is accessible in English and Spanish.
Click Here to Visit Website in English
Click Here to Visit Website in Spanish
Bring Scientists into Your Classroom
Purdue zipTrips are free virtual electronic field trips that bring Purdue University scientists into your classroom. Through the wonders of technology, students interactively visit labs, greenhouses, aquaculture facilities, Discovery Park, the veterinary school and other amazing places that are off limits to them even in a real-life field trip. The centerpiece of each zipTrip is a live webcast featuring factual, unbiased scientific information presented in an entertaining way. Students will be able to email questions during the show for the scientists to answer, and each trip includes supplementary online videos that feature the work of Purdue scientists. Purdue zipTrips introduces students to cutting-edge research, scientific inquiry and science careers—and best of all, it’s free!
Click Here to Visit Website
Dream Up the Future
Created by the American Society for Engineering Education, Engineering, Go For It! (eGFI) aims to foster educational and pre-professional interest in engineering and other STEM subjects from kindergarten through high school. In addition to information on the myriad branches of the engineering field—from biomedical to computer to mechanical and beyond—the site features descriptions of professional paths for each, including profiles of real people at work in the field.
Click Here to Visit Website
Worth-the-Surf Websites
Increase Engagement Using Social Media
To expand and deepen student engagement, The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a blog for teenagers, where a recent post, “The Rebels in the Met,” offers a brief discussion of the current exhibition, Cubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection, by a member of the museum’s Teen Advisory Group (TAG). The piece, published on January 23, 2015, was written by Brooke, a TAG member who was a participant in the MET’s 2013 3D Scanning and Printing Summer Intensive for teens aged 15–18. The blog, which also has occasional guest authors, is a place for teens to talk about art at the MET as well as related topics.
Click Here to Visit Website
Get with the Trend
A feature of Merriam Webster’s website, Trend Watch highlights vocabulary that is coming into vogue in news and popular culture. The feature includes an explanation of why each word is trending, a definition for the word and a picture that is representative of either the word or the cause of the trend.
Click Here to Visit Website
Discover How Real Songs Work
Conventional tabs and sheet music are great for showing you how to play a song, but they’re not ideal for understanding how everything fits together. TheoryTabs by HookTheory show you the function of each chord and note within the song and reveal structure that isn’t readily apparent. To see this in action, listen to the introduction to “Do-Re-Mi” from The Sound of Music, in which Maria shows the Von Trapp children this basic concept. As she sings, you can watch how the colored degrees of the scale light up in time with the words she is singing. In this song, the red, orange and yellow notes correspond to the notes Do, Re and Mi. A community of expert musicians has analyzed thousands of popular songs. Search by genre, complexity and artist to see exactly how songs use different chords. You can also search by chord progression to find songs that share the same progression and see the chords that are “most likely” to follow any progression. In addition, you can copy any TheoryTab into Hookpad (HookTheory’s free online music editor) with a single click. Change the chords and melody around to get your own unique sound.
Click Here to Visit Website
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