Maximize the Potential of Your BYOD Initiatives

Collaborate and deliver lesson content to your touch-enabled Windows 10 devices with all new NetSupport School 12, offering genuine multi-platform support. Instructors can visually interact with, apply e-Safety controls, and deliver assessment to any student desktop and BYOD technology across Windows, Chrome, iOS, and Android platforms.

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Respond and Win!

As a recipient of Big Deal Media’s K–12 technology enewsletter, you are invited to tell Big Deal Media how you use this publication and how you participate in the purchase of technology products and services. (The survey will take about five minutes to complete.) Surveys submitted IN FULL by September 15, 2015, will be entered in a random drawing to win a $50 American Express gift card. Big Deal Media is giving away one $50 card for every 100 completed surveys.

Deadline: September 15, 2015, for completed surveys

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Tackle Environmental Issues

The Lexus Eco Challenge is an opportunity for middle school and high school students across the United States to help clean the air, water, and land in their neighborhoods and beyond. Lexus and Scholastic have joined together to create this STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) educational program. Teams of students can enter both of the first two challenges, which are focused on Land & Water and Air & Climate. This year the Land & Water Challenge will run first, August 17–October 16, followed by the Air & Climate Challenge, October 17–December 11. Winners from each challenge are then invited to participate in the Final Challenge, January 11–February 19, 2016, with a top prize of $30,000 for both of the winning middle school and high school teams.

Deadlines: The Land & Water Challenge is now open and will close on October 16, 2015; the Air & Climate Challenge will open on October 17 and close on December 11, 2015.

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Plus: The Lexus Eco Challenge also includes supplemental educational materials created and distributed by Scholastic that support Common Core standards and encourage teachers to integrate creative lessons about the environment into their classrooms. For each challenge, Scholastic’s website has lesson plans that include questions to help guide a discussion about the current challenge topic, facts about the topic, and guidelines for a specific classroom project.

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Develop Historical Perspectives

Now is the time to begin planning for your students to participate in the National History Day (NHD) competition 2015–2016. NHD makes history come alive for students by engaging them in the discovery of the historical, cultural, and social experiences of the past. NHD’s 2016 theme is Exploration, Encounter, Exchange in History. In the fall, students choose a historical topic related to the annual theme and then conduct primary and secondary research. They look through libraries, archives, and museums; conduct oral history interviews; and visit historic sites. After they have analyzed and interpreted sources and drawn a conclusion about the significance of their topic, students present their work in one of five ways: as a paper, an exhibit, a performance, a documentary, or a website. Local and state rounds culminate in the National History Day competition. In addition to facilitating the discovery of the past, NHD also helps students develop the following attributes critical for future success: critical thinking and problem solving skills, research and reading skills, oral and written communication and presentation skills, self-esteem and confidence, and a sense of responsibility for and involvement in the democratic process. A downloadable contest Rule Book is accessible in English and Spanish.

Deadlines: Check the website for local and state information; national competition takes place in June

Click Here for More Information About Competition

Click Here to Locate State and Local Affiliate Contacts

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Solve Social Problems Using Technology

ProjectCSGIRLS provides girls with the opportunity to compete in computer science and technology challenges that require students to help solve an imminent social problem under one of three themes: global health, a safer world, and intelligent technology. Girls in grades 6–8 in the United States can request a mentor and enter the competition. All participants will receive a certificate acknowledging their participation in ProjectCSGIRLS. Semifinalists and finalists will be in the running for national awards, including a monetary stipend to attend the ProjectCSGIRLS national gala in Washington, DC, as well as electronics and gadgets.

Deadlines: Registration opens September 15, 2015, and closes February 15, 2016; see website for full competition timeline

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Encourage Technically Inclined Young Women

The National Center for Women and IT (NCWIT) provides high school girls with the opportunity to apply for honors and awards that recognize their achievements in computer-related activities. The NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing provides recipients with opportunities for scholarships, internships, research experiences, and other educational and employment opportunities provided by NCWIT member organizations, in addition to recognition. Applicants are selected based on their computing and IT aptitude, leadership ability, academic history, and plans for postsecondary education.

Deadline: Applications accepted between September 1 and October 26, 2015

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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 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 Search for Funding Opportunities

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Start a Literacy Movement

International Literacy Day (coming up September 8) is about focusing attention on worldwide literacy needs. For this International Literacy Day, the International Literacy Association (ILA), formerly the International Reading Association, has compiled a kit of creative classroom ideas and student activities centered on the collective action theme The Power of the People: Start a Literacy Movement. Several activities in the kit encourage teachers to connect their students with another classroom across the globe. ILA’s partners at ePals.com provide an easy platform that teachers can use to find one another. Teachers can share their stories and photos with ILA on social media using the hashtag #ILD15.

Click Here to Sign Up for Free ILD Kit

Plus: This year ILA is working with Little Free Library to encourage the construction of community libraries around the world. Download the special kit with instructions on how to build and maintain a Little Free Library.

Click Here to Download Little Free Library Kit

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Find High-Value Vocabulary Words

The Academic Word Finder is a tool from Student Achievement Partners that utilizes the three-tier vocabulary system described in Isabel Beck’s book Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction, by identifying Tier 2 words. These are high-frequency words that appear across several content areas. The Academic Word Finder identifies these Tier 2 words in passages to help teachers select the most useful vocabulary to teach their students. To use the tool, teachers simply copy and paste their passage into the search field and then select the grade level. The finder quickly identifies below-, on-, and above-grade-level Tier 2 vocabulary to focus on with students. It also provides the grade range, part of speech, meaning, and an example sentence for each vocabulary word.

Click Here to Access Free Tool

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Engage Students with the Art of Poetry

The Academy of American Poets hopes to give teachers in all content areas multiple opportunities to integrate poetry into their instruction with Teach This Poem, a new, free weekly email that features a poem along with instructional resources and ideas for activities related to the selection. The new initiative, which begins September 2, expands on the Academy’s existing Poem-a-Day, an online syndicated series featuring previously unpublished poems, which has been running since 2006. The Academy created the new resource to build upon the lesson plans already available on its website and to give teachers a version of Poem-a-Day for students. The new poetry series is best suited for students in grade 4–12. The activities that accompany the poems provide multiple entry points for doing close readings on poems with students. In addition to sending the weekly emails, the Academy will also post and archive the poems and activities on its website. The Academy’s website also provides a useful glossary that introduces poetic terms and devices.

Click Here to Sign Up for Free Poetry Resources

Click Here to Access Poetry Gallery

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Observe Patterns from Data

In Computational Thinking for Educators, Google’s newly launched free online course, teachers will learn what computational thinking (CT) is and how it can be integrated into a variety of subject areas. Participants will learn at their own pace by exploring examples of CT in a variety of subject areas, experimenting with examples of CT-integrated activities, and creating a plan to incorporate CT into their classroom.

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Integrate Data Collection into Instruction

This fall Vernier Software & Technology will offer 36 free, regional, hands-on workshops to help both novice and seasoned science and STEM educators learn various ways to integrate data-collection technology into their curricula. During each four-hour workshop, an experienced training specialist will work alongside educators to help them explore classroom-ready investigations using computer and handheld technology from Vernier. Educators will learn skills and strategies for integrating data-collection technology into their physics, chemistry, biology, environmental/Earth, and K–8 science instruction. In addition to the training, each participating educator will receive an electronic copy of the Vernier Workshop Training Manual, which includes ready-to-use lab handouts for all science disciplines. Participants also have the option of earning two (quarter) graduate science credit hours through Portland State University’s Center for Science Education. Interested educators can select dates from the online schedule.

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Get Started with STEM

Discovery Education is offering three new services designed to help school systems nationwide grow capacity for STEM teaching and learning. Produced and delivered by Discovery Education’s team of STEM and professional development experts, these new services support school systems in building and sustaining a culture of STEM education through a unique combination of immersive professional development initiatives, job-embedded instructional coaching, rich digital content, and extensive community engagement. The new services now available are STEM Foundations, designed to grow educators’ and administrators’ core expertise in STEM instruction and leadership; STEMformation, a comprehensive, three-year system for building a culture of STEM at individual school sites; and STEM Leader Corps, a four-year system for scaling STEM education districtwide.

Click Here for More Information About STEM Foundations

Click Here for More Information About STEMformation

Click Here for More Information About STEM Leader Corps

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Journey Through the History of Science and Technology

With the Journeys of Science app for iOS devices, students can play with some of the most extraordinary objects in the history of science and technology. This app brings to life priceless objects from the Science Museum in London and tells their stories. Students can study, rotate, and even operate some of the most revolutionary scientific inventions of all time. They can step inside the Apollo 10 Command Module, examine a flea with Robert Hooke’s 17th-century microscope, and even encode a secret message with a World War II Enigma Machine and share it with their friends to decipher. They can also learn about the darker side of science on the “Dangerous” journey, or they can choose “Horizons” for dramatic tales of exploration. And for a different take on the history of science and technology, they can try “Atoms and Rays” or “The Secret of Life.” The app features original and insightful history specially written by Science Museum curators with a rich collection of historic photographs, rarely seen contemporary artworks, archival film footage, and video. Cost: $9.99

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Share the Wisdom of Generations

Since 2003, StoryCorps has given more than 100,000 Americans a quiet booth and a facilitator to record meaningful conversations with one another about who they are, what they’ve learned in life, and how they want to be remembered. Recently, this nonprofit oral history organization announced The Great Thanksgiving Listen. StoryCorps is working with high school teachers across the country to ask students to interview a grandparent or another elder over Thanksgiving 2015, using the free StoryCorps mobile app. The app guides users through the interview experience, from recording to archiving to sharing their stories with the world. It provides easy-to-use tools for students to prepare interview questions and record high-quality conversations on their mobile devices. They can then upload their recordings to the StoryCorps archive in the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, which serves as a home for those recordings and also provides interview and editing resources.

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Plus: StoryCorps has launched a series of national initiatives, including The September 11th Initiative, helping families memorialize the stories of lives lost on September 11, 2001, in partnership with the National September 11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center; The Griot Initiative, presently the largest collection of African American voices ever gathered, in collaboration with the future Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture; The Historias Initiative, the largest collection of Latino stories ever gathered; and more.

Click Here for More Information About September 11 Initiative

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Change the Equation

Black Girls CODE aims to increase the number of women of color in the digital space by empowering girls of color aged 7 to 17 to become innovators in STEM fields, leaders in their communities, and builders of their own futures through exposure to computer science and technology. Through community outreach, such as workshops and after-school programs, Black Girls CODE introduces underprivileged girls to basic programming skills in languages such as Scratch and Ruby on Rails. The skills they acquire through the programs give these young women a chance at well-paying professions with prestigious companies, as well as the ability to enter into the field as entrepreneurs and leaders of technology. Black Boys CODE will be coming soon.

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Plus: For girls interested in technology, mobile apps, and games, Black Girls CODE hosts community-oriented “girls-only” hackathons, which allow girls of all experience levels to participate in creating solutions to social issues within their communities while they build their skills, confidence, and experience—and have lots of fun! These hackathons are open to girls aged 12–17. Girls attending a hackathon will learn how to brainstorm as a team, conduct research on their ideas, and design an app. Experienced mentors work with teams over a weekend to build their mobile apps and digital tools. At the end of the hackathon, teams demonstrate their solutions on stage, receiving feedback from judges, and become eligible for prizes!

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Host a Physics Forum

Adopt-a-Physicist connects high school physics students to people with bachelor’s degrees or higher in physics via online discussion forums. Through these interactions, students can find out about the careers, educational backgrounds, interesting projects, and lives of a variety of physicists. Teacher registration for the fall 2015 session is now open through September 7 (or until full). Teachers adopt physicists from September 24 through October 1. Discussion forums will take place between October 6 and October 23. The Adopt-a-Physicist program is led by Sigma Pi Sigma, the physics honor society, with aid from the American Physical Society and the American Association of Physics Teachers. Written by a teacher, the Adopt-a-Physicist Teacher Packet provides practical suggestions for implementing Adopt-a-Physicist in the classroom and assessing participation.

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Click Here to Download Free Teacher Packet

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Experience an Extraordinary Time in American History

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War and the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. To mark the occasion, PBS is airing a remastered edition of Ken Burns’s landmark documentary series The Civil War. The nine-part series will air on five consecutive nights, from September 7 to 11, the month that will mark the 25th anniversary of the series’ first airing on PBS. The new version has been scanned frame by frame for a new high-definition print, so viewers will see the series the way Burns originally shot it. The Civil War may be taped off-air and used for up to a year following broadcast. As they view portions of the series in the classroom, students will meet men and women, many no older than they, for whom the war was a very personal experience. They will meet individuals such as Elisha Hunt Rhodes and Sam Watkins, who were just ordinary young men thrust into extraordinary circumstances that changed their lives forever. They will also meet the heroes of the Civil War, those who are said to have “made history” and continue to capture students’ attention. The complete broadcast schedule appears on The Civil War’s website.

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Plus: The classroom section of the website was designed for educators who wish to use the film and web resources to enrich their teaching of the Civil War. In this special classroom section, educators will find episode descriptions, broken down chapter by chapter; episode-specific discussion questions; multidisciplinary lesson plans newly created by award-winning educators; and activity ideas from teachers who have been using the video series for years. The site also has a unique search interface with the Library of Congress’s Civil War photography collection and an extensive list of resources to help students delve more deeply into the rich and full history of the United States.

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Connect Around the World

Students, teachers, and organizations will get online to celebrate global collaboration on September 17, 2015, as back-to-school-season begins in the northern hemisphere. On this day (and beyond), experienced global educators and other professionals will host connective projects and events and invite public participation. The primary goals of this whole-day event are to demonstrate the power of global connectivity in classrooms, schools, institutions of informal learning, and universities around the world, and to introduce others to the tools, resources, projects, and networks that are available to educators today. Global Collaboration Day is sponsored by The Global Education Network.

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Plus: Students, educators, nonprofit organizations, and for-profit entities are encouraged to host an online event on Global Collaboration Day. Suggested activities and tools are listed on the Global Collaboration Day website. All events will be posted on an online calendar for participants to browse.

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Foster Daily News-Reading Habits

TweenTribune, a news site from the Smithsonian Institution, provides daily news articles for students. The articles are selected by professional journalists working in collaboration with teachers and students. As a Smithsonian resource, the website has a plethora of science- and history-focused articles. TweenTribune offers the same article at different Lexile levels, which gives teachers the ability to differentiate with the click of a mouse. Educators can create classes to assign students articles and quizzes that are automatically graded and delivered to the teacher’s online gradebook. The site has lesson plans for teachers that can be filtered by topic, grade level, and Common Core standards. TweenTribune provides resources in Spanish too.

Click Here to Visit Website in English

Click Here to Visit Website in Spanish

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