Bridge Curriculum and Technology

Nearpod is a learning platform that is helping teachers reshape live instruction with an interactive presentation tool that works on any device and a marketplace full of engaging, standards-aligned lessons. Recently, Nearpod had a huge impact on teaching and learning in the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) by collaborating with content specialists to create and share Common Core–aligned lessons while leveraging the district’s technology investments.

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Give Today, Thrive Tomorrow!

Learning Bird simplifies your school’s transition to digital learning with an approachable web application that brings 15,000 differentiated lessons to your students’ fingertips. The curated online library adapts to recommend the highest quality lessons in a variety of subjects, from mathematics and science to English and the humanities, for individual students. Students can easily search for lessons by keyword, topic or textbook. Teachers can access the library to differentiate blended or flipped instruction using formative assessment and lessons from multiple perspectives, giving students a greater chance of finding explanations that work for them. Personal dashboards contain detailed and informative reports so that teachers can review the progress and engagement of their class, school or district. Learning Bird also integrates with a school’s learning management system. For every high school or middle school that adopts Learning Bird between May 1 and June 30, 2015, an elementary school in the district will receive a free one-year subscription. Learning Bird’s education experts make implementation seamless so teachers can focus on giving the best education to their students. Book a demo and see Learning Bird’s future-ready solution in action.

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Champion Creatively Active Children

In collaboration with the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP), Crayola offers an annual grant program, Crayola/NAESP Champion Creatively Alive Children. The program provides grants for innovative, creative leadership team building within elementary schools. Up to 20 grants will be available from Crayola to help educators explore “what if ...” opportunities to develop a school creative leadership team that focuses on increasing arts-infused education school wide. Preference will be given to applications that emphasize innovation, collaboration, sustainability, and leadership. The school will receive $2,500 to implement the project and $1,000 worth of Crayola products.

Deadlines: June 22, 2015, at midnight (ET); applications received by midnight (ET) on June 8, 2015, qualify for the Early Bird Bonus (Crayola product Classpack)

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Realize Your Dream and Make a Difference

Are you a teacher with a big dream that has the potential to impact the lives of the children and families in your school and community? Is funding the only thing standing between you and the realization of that dream? Farmers Insurance Thank America’s Teachers invites K–12 teachers to step up to the $100,000 Dream Big Teacher Challenge and submit their proposal for one of six grants of up to $100,000.

Deadline: June 30, 2015

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Work Together to Increase Achievement

Sponsored by Gale/Cengage Learning and Library Media Connection, the Gale/Library Media Connection TEAMS Award is given to three schools for collaboration between teachers and library media specialists that promotes student achievement and develops twenty-first century skills. The award is presented every two years and is open to all kindergarten through grade 12 public and private schools in the United States and Canada. The winning teams will be selected based on evidence of collaboration between media specialists and teachers during the school year, support from school leadership, effective techniques that positively impact student learning and achievement, and ability of others to replicate this best practice. Each winning team will be awarded $2,500, as well as Gale products, professional publications from Linworth Publishing, and a one-year subscription to Library Media Connection.

Deadline: June 30, 2015

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Recognize Successful Educational Technology Collaboration

CDW•G, in partnership with eSchool News, is sponsoring Collaboration Nation, an awards program that will recognize the nation’s finest examples of collaboration and successful educational technology projects. CDW•G will share the winning school and district’s keys to success and will award that school or district a grand prize of $50,000 to spend with CDW•G on products and services from partners such as HP, Lenovo and Meraki. Schools and districts are invited to submit a nomination and short video on the Collaboration Nation website. The winning school or district’s nomination and video will demonstrate exemplary technology collaboration across departments and describe how the project had a measurable impact on teaching and learning.

Deadline: June 30, 2015

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Plus: Schools and districts are encouraged to be a part of the Collaboration Nation community on Facebook by sharing videos of collaboration successes. Each month (April, May and June) the school or district video that has the most shares on Facebook will win a $15,000 prize in products from Collaboration Nation partners such as HP, Lenovo or Meraki.

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Promote Inquiry, Inspiration, and Excellence

The Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) has launched the Center for Student Work, an online collection of exemplary student projects. A collaborative project between HGSE and K–12 education nonprofit Expeditionary Learning (EL), this free resource includes videos, writing samples, and other work designed to provide teachers with foundations on which to create their own projects. The searchable collection includes projects in English language arts, health and wellness, mathematics, performing arts, science and technology, social studies, visual arts, and world languages. Along with the launch of the center, HGSE and EL are bringing together leaders from schools of education, school leaders, and policymakers to address what standards look like when met with integrity, depth, and imagination; and how deeper, richer dialogues about state standards can occur, particularly what they mean and look like in actual student work.

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Celebrate Diversity Through Books

Every year since 1995, the Notable Books for a Global Society (NBGS), a subcommittee of the International Literacy Association’s Children’s Literature and Reading Special Interest Group (CL/R SIG), has selected 25 books that represent the best in diverse literature. The books are vetted for accuracy, authentic depictions, and displays of leadership and cooperation. The committee looks for richness of detail concerning the group or groups depicted; an approach that celebrates diversity and the common bonds of humanity; in-depth treatment of issues; depiction of authentic interaction among characters within and across groups; inclusion of members of minority groups for purposes other than tokenism; and thought-provoking content that invites reflection, critical analysis, and response. This year’s list includes books as diverse as the world around us, ranging in format from picture books to poetry to novels in verse. The entire 2015 list, as well as lists from 1996 to 2014, can be found on the CL/R SIG website.

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Contemplate "Message Music"

The Sounds of Change series, from Facing History and Ourselves, explores several classic soul songs—and their social and historical contexts—during their recording throughout the civil rights movement. The stories of the artists, the music, and the lyrics provide a window into the ways that music can inspire social change. The lessons, used as a whole or independently, are connected to familiar themes, such as society and the individual, membership in democracy, the legacies of the past, and the choice to participate. In Lesson 1: Music and Identity, students are introduced to the song “Soul Man.” The upbeat music and lyrics may be familiar to many students, but they may not know that the song was inspired by a tragic moment in US history, the Detroit riots of 1967. The song sought to give the term “Soul Man” a positive connotation. Lesson 2: Breaking the Racial Barriers introduces students to Booker T & the MGs. Despite performing in an era when Memphis and much of the South was segregated, Booker T & the MGs was a racially integrated band. Students learn how the group members’ passion for music overcame the societal pressures seeking to force them apart. Lesson 3: Respecting Self and Others begins a dialogue about two recordings: Otis Redding’s “Respect” and the Staple Singers’ “Respect Yourself.” One song focuses on the human need to be respected by others, while the other song emphasizes respect for oneself. In Lesson 5: Music and Social Change, the final lesson of the unit, students contemplate the role of music as a social change agent. The Staple Singers were a gospel act that crossed over into mainstream soul music; however, they always felt their purpose was to make “message music.” Their song “If You’re Ready (Come Go With Me)” gives students the opportunity to examine the vision for the society the Staples hoped to create.

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Participate in Your School’s Digital Transformation

What does digital transformation look like, and how do districts achieve it successfully? CoSN’s Leadership for Mobile Learning initiative has released new resources, including a new graphic illustrating the ongoing evolution of teaching and learning, a recipe for digital transformation success, and the lessons that pioneers and leaders have learned. The Administrators Guide to Mobile Learning includes additional best practices, outlines, and resources to help leaders plan, implement, and manage a successful mobile learning program. The guide breaks down all the common questions administrators have as they implement or manage a mobile learning program.

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Turn Theory into Action

The National Commission on Teaching & America’s Future (NCTAF) has made available its Learning Studios Toolkit, which provides district curriculum coordinators, instructional coaches, and teacher team leaders with a set of design and evaluation tools, protocols, rubrics, and case studies to guide and monitor the complex, interdisciplinary curriculum and assessment work that the new standards demand.

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Construct Arguments with Evidence

Mars Generation One: Argubot Academy EDU is an engaging futuristic adventure game for iOS tablets. Aligned to the Common Core State Standards, this free game from GlassLab brings STEM content into the English language arts classroom and helps middle school students develop persuasion and reasoning skills. In the game, players take on the persona of a new student at Argubot Academy, the city’s middle school. There, each player will have to make adult decisions about the building and governance of the city—for example, What type of food should the citizens cultivate? Players have to build sound arguments for every choice they make, but in this city, people settle their differences by equipping their robot assistants, called argubots, with claims and evidence, culminating in a robot battle of wits.

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Click Here to Download “Get Started” Guide

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Keep Parents in the Loop

Social learning network Edmodo has launched the Edmodo for Parents app, allowing parents to track their child’s work and learn how they can help meet learning goals. Available for free in the iTunes and Google Play stores, Edmodo for Parents provides a simple and intuitive way for parents to stay in the know on their child’s learning activities, better support their academic efforts, and receive important announcements and updates from teachers for optimal learning outcomes. Featuring a Student Activity feed, the app shows upcoming or overdue homework; completed and submitted assignments; and any lessons, quizzes, or events that are due or upcoming. Similarly, the Teacher Announcement feed keeps parents in the loop on important news from the classroom.

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Lead the Way to STEM Careers

This fall the College Board will offer a new credential to get more students interested in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields. Students who complete Advanced Placement and Project Lead The Way courses in engineering, biomedical science or computer science will be eligible for the credential. Each of the initiative’s three pathways—engineering, biomedical science and computer science—will consist of three parts: an introductory “on-ramp” class produced by Project Lead The Way, an Advanced Placement class the year after, and then a “specialization” class by Project Lead The Way that more deeply explores specific careers or topics, such as electronics engineering, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and aerospace engineering. Students who have completed the Project Lead The Way, Advanced Placement, and specialization classes by the end of the 2015–2016 school year will receive the program’s first credentials next summer. Those credentials will be marked on students’ transcripts for college admissions officers to see. Schools that offer the integrated College Board and Project Lead The Way classes will also be awarded their own credentials. The ultimate goal is threefold: expand the kinds of students who enter the most rigorous STEM fields, broaden the knowledge of those interested in more technical fields, and transform theoretical coursework into the types of project-based lessons that demonstrate how STEM knowledge applies in the real world.

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Put NGSS into Action

The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) has released a number of innovative new resources that will help science educators and leaders nationwide put the vision of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and the Framework for K–12 Science Education into action. The resources include Discover the NGSS: Primer and Unit Planner, the first interactive ebook on the NGSS, complete with its own unit planner; NGSS-supported instructional resources vetted by an expert team of curators; and a series of videos showcasing NGSS-based teaching in action. The Enhanced E-books guide educators through a series of activities, simulations, videos, reflection activities, and assessments that explore numerous topics, including the vision and history of the standards; the three dimensions of the NGSS (science and engineering practices, disciplinary core ideas, and crosscutting concepts); integration of the three dimensions; and translation of the NGSS into classroom instruction. Discover the NGSS provides up to 40 hours of self-paced interactive learning and can be accessed online via any browser on a PC, Mac, or Chromebook and offline via the NSTA Reader app on the 10.1-inch iPad and Android tablet. A highlight of this ebook is the Unit Planner that allows teachers, school leaders, and others to plan NGSS-supported units of study. The tool leads educators through a step-by-step process helping them organize their thinking and understanding about how a unit of study can be developed utilizing curricula they may have used in the past. The end result is a printable document of teacher-generated lesson ideas that are cohesive and meet the needs of both teachers and students.

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Find the Wonder—Big and Small

National Geographic Student Expeditions invites the next generation of explorers to get out in the field and follow in the footsteps of National Geographic’s photographers, writers, and scientists. Students might snorkel with marine biologists in Belize, go on photo shoots with a National Geographic photographer in Paris, or help out with a community project in Nepal. Students completing ninth through twelfth grades are eligible to participate in these educational excursions. They may choose from five types of programs: expeditions, conservation in action trips, photo workshops, community service programs, and the new On Campus program. The application process is now open. National Geographic’s Admissions Committee will carefully review applications, selecting students on the basis of their maturity, enthusiasm, motivation, and willingness to live and participate constructively in a supportive community environment.

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Write Right in Style

“Writing a 10-page research paper Chicago Manual style? Lord help me plz.” “Literally, learning this on my own makes me wanna die.” These real posts on Twitter show how a student might feel when encountering The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) for the first time. The latest edition of CMOS runs to 1,026 pages, but students probably need to understand only a few pages of information to do a good job on their papers. The For Students section of The Chicago Manual of Style Shop Talk blog links to a variety of tip sheets, quick guides, and explanations about how to write in Chicago style. Students will find Shop Talk posts that explain some of the basics of Chicago style and ways to apply it to their research. If they need to write a note or bibliography citation for sources other than books or articles, they’ll find examples to follow. And if they’re writing their first paper or trying to improve their skills, the one-page tip sheets are written with students in mind. Students can read the ones that interest them or download all 26 topics in one PDF. The topics include “Why Research”; “When to Quote, Paraphrase, or Summarize”; “Why Cite Sources”—and more.

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Click Here to Visit CMOS Twitter Page

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Journey Through the Seven Kingdoms

Have you pored over the map in the famous Game of Thrones opening credit sequence too many times? Then check out a new map of George R. R. Martin’s fictional world of Westeros created in the style of Google Maps. Students can follow the Kingsroad down from Winterfell to King’s Landing, like Ned Stark did in Season 1, while also checking out the less familiar traffic arteries that connect the rest of the Seven Kingdoms.

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Peruse the Landscape of Language

Langscape is an interactive online map that allows users to discover the languages spoken at any point on the globe and then uncover resources for learning about them. The goal is to increase understanding of language diversity through visualization and aggregation of knowledge, and to support the application of linguistic and geographical data in research, education, technology, government, and beyond. Langscape currently maps around 6,400 of the world’s languages. Beyond the map, students will find information about demographics, language families and (for many languages) sound systems, bibliographies, word lists, audio recordings, and text materials. Langscape has been a development project of the Maryland Language Science Center since January 2014, but it reflects contributions from many individuals and organizations. Earlier development work was done by the University of Maryland’s Center for Advanced Study of Language, which also contributed a great deal of data, especially on language diversity in Africa.

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Plus: Langscape can be the basis for many innovative classroom learning opportunities—in global studies, world languages, geography, history, and social studies. The project’s free downloadable K–12 Teachers’ Manual suggests educational applications and offers sample activities as well as connections to Common Core and state standards.

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Preserve America’s War Stories

The Veterans History Project of the Library of Congress’s American Folklife Center collects, preserves, and makes accessible the personal accounts of American war veterans so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand the realities of war. Stories can be told through personal narratives (audio- and video-taped interviews, written memoirs), correspondence (letters, postcards, v-mail, personal diaries), and visual materials (photographs, drawings, scrapbooks). The project collects firsthand accounts of US veterans from World War I (1914–1918), World War II (1939–1945), Korean War (1950–1953), Vietnam War (1961–1975), Persian Gulf War (1991), and Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts (2001–present). Students and youth groups throughout the United States have contributed significantly to the Veterans History Project. Students in grades 10 and above are encouraged to participate.

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Click Here to Access Guidelines for Student Participation

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