Maintain Security While Providing Greater Access

Stoneware’s LanSchool delivers a unified workspace where teachers and students can access everything they need from wherever they are located. Users have freedom and flexibility to access resources from any device, extending education beyond classroom walls. LanSchool enables key initiatives such as personalized learning, 1:1/BYOD, and Common Core assessment delivery.

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Get Free Business-Grade Protection for PCs, Macs, and Servers

Manage and protect all your school devices, anywhere, anytime from the cloud. No restrictions. No catches. Avast for Business is the perfect solution for your network. There are no complex consoles to install or set up. The intuitive cloud-based controls let you manage the cutting-edge endpoint protection. As long as you have an Internet connection, you’re in control—and it all starts at a price your school can afford. Free. Easy. Cloud.

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Inspire a New Generation of Scientists

Presented by Breakthrough Prize and Khan Academy, the Breakthrough Junior Challenge invites students aged 13 and older to share their passion for mathematics and science with the world. To enter, students submit a 10-minute video that illustrates a challenging concept or theory of mathematics, life sciences, or physics in an engaging, illuminating, and creative way. They can explain an age-old theory or concept or a more recent breakthrough discovery, including one made by a Breakthrough Laureate or perhaps even one of their own! The winner will receive a $250,000 postsecondary scholarship. The winning student’s teacher will receive a $50,000 education grant, and the student’s school will get a $100,000 Breakthrough science lab designed in partnership with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. The winner will be announced at the live televised awards ceremony airing in the US on the National Geographic Channel at 7:00 p.m. (PT) / 10:00 p.m. (ET) on November 8, 2015, followed by a worldwide broadcast on the Fox Network and National Geographic Channels.

Deadlines: Submissions are due by 11:59 p.m. (ET) on October 7, 2015. To be eligible for the $250,000 scholarship, students must score and comment on at least five other submissions by October 10, 2015, at 11:59 p.m. (ET), during the Peer-to-Peer Review. They may also be asked to score and comment on additional submissions between October 11 and October 12, 2015.

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Fuel Young Minds

Educators can enter the CITGO Fueling Education contest offering teachers, student teachers, and PTA/PTO members the chance to win $1,000 in school supplies for their classrooms. Eligible K–12 public school educators can visit the Fueling Good Facebook page to register. Multiple winners will be randomly selected each week during the campaign, and more than $100,000 in school supplies from National School Supplies will be awarded overall. To date, this program has provided nearly $200,000 in school supplies.

Deadline: October 18, 2015, to register

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Channel Thoughts into Images

The first Editorial Cartoon contest from The New York Times’ Learning Network invites students to channel their thoughts into images, with inspiration from The Times’ cartoonists. Students’ challenge is in coming up with good ideas; artistic talent is secondary. Students should find an issue or topic that matters to them, either from current events or historical events covered in The Times, and make their own cartoon. When they’re done, they can use the online submission form to enter the contest. With its contest partner, the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, The Times will then use a rubric (available as a PDF) to select winners for publishing on The Learning Network. Students will also have a chance to enter their work in a related contest when this one is over. For step-by-step help in analyzing and creating a good editorial cartoon, teachers can use the free lesson plan, Drawing for Change: Analyzing and Making Political Cartoons.

Deadline: October 20, 2015, for submissions

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Spark Creativity with STEM

Samsung Electronics America (SEA) has announced the launch of the company’s sixth annual Samsung Solve for Tomorrow education contest for public K–12 schools. The Samsung Solve for Tomorrow contest was created in 2010 to encourage innovation while addressing the technology gap in classrooms across the country. Samsung will be providing a prize pool of more than $2 million (estimated retail value) in technology for the contest. In addition, BrainPOP has provided a collection of free, STEM-themed content that participants can use as resources for their submissions.

Deadline: October 30, 2015, for submissions

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Encourage Careers in Research

PBS LearningMedia and Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) are calling for applications for the inaugural year of the Emperor Science Award program. The initiative is designed to encourage high school students to explore careers in science, specifically cancer research and care, and empower students to become the next generation of cancer and health researchers. PBS LearningMedia and SU2C will award 100 students with an opportunity to work alongside an esteemed scientist on a rewarding multiweek cancer research project. The award program was inspired by Ken Burns’s documentary Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies and is open to students in grades 10 and 11 who are living in the United States and the District of Columbia. To be eligible for an award, students must write an essay telling why scientific research is so important to helping find a cure for cancer, and if they could be a scientific researcher, what they would study and why. They must also tell how they would use this mentorship opportunity to advance their academic career, and how they would share their mentorship experience with their student peers and teachers. The first 100 awardees will receive $1,500 for project expenses, as well as one-on-one science mentoring over the course of a year or an intensive summer schedule. Students will be connected with science mentors who are industry leaders in cancer diagnosis and treatment at high-profile medical research centers and universities. Students will also be provided with electronic tablets to enhance their studies and extend the reach of mentors of major research institutions especially to students in rural and suburban communities. The research projects will be 8 to 12 weeks in length and will be completed during the 2016 timeframes of January–March, April–June, or July–September.

Deadline: November 1, 2015, for applications and essays

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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.

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Maximize Potential of BYOD Initiatives

Educators can collaborate and deliver lesson content to their 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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Overlay Content on the Real World

BuildAR is a cloud-based platform designed for people who want to create Augmented Reality (AR) without the need for coding or development. BuildAR lets users unlock the hidden world around them using their location. With location-based AR, users create media to tell stories about a particular place or display content around people wherever they are. They use panoramic photos to wrap around people and transport them to another world. BuildAR also lets users connect the printed medium with the digital world. With image-based AR, users display videos, other images, interactive buttons, or 3D objects when people scan their AR images. They can also link to websites, launch slideshows, animate objects, play audio, and much more. The next phase of the platform will integrate the Augmented Web. Teachers and students will not only be able to create AR experiences in a standard web browser across multiple devices (including smartphones, tablets, and wearable devices, such as Google Glass and the Oculus Rift); they will also be able to consume these experiences via a web browser—no need to create a special app.

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Intervene When It Matters

Formative provides a place for teachers to create online classrooms, which students can join by entering the assigned class code after registering on the Formative website. After establishing the classroom, teachers can begin distributing assignments to students. Assignments can be as simple as one-question exit tickets (such as “What did you learn today?”) to complex quizzes that use a combination of multiple-choice, short-answer, and true/false questions. Teachers also have the option to create “show your work” questions, which enable students to draw responses or upload pictures as responses to the questions. Students can sketch on their tablets, Chromebooks, or laptops and submit those sketches to their teacher in real time. Frequent informal checks for understanding help teachers monitor student growth, know what each student needs as he or she learns, and take immediate action.

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Engage Students in a Changing World

Facing History and Ourselves, in partnership with Journeys in Film, Participant Media, and Students Stand With Malala, will host a special webinar on October 5, 2015, for educators on the Fox Searchlight documentary He Named Me Malala. The documentary is an intimate portrait of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai, who was targeted by the Taliban and severely wounded by a gunshot when returning home on her school bus in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. The then-15-year-old was singled out, along with her father, for advocating for girls’ education. Using excerpts from the film and selections from the Journeys in Film study guide, this webinar, facilitated by Facing History and Ourselves staff, will prepare educators to bring their students to one of the free educational screenings organized by the Malala Fund. The webinar will begin at 6 p.m. (ET) on October 5.

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Enhance Students’ Literacy and Technology Skills

On October 6, 2015, from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. (ET), the Shutterfly community on edWeb.net will host a free webinar titled “Creating Multimedia Stories for Learning.” In this webinar, participants will explore ways for students of all ages and content areas to easily create a storybook with text, photos, audio clips, and Doodle drawings using the free Shutterfly Photo Story app for the iPad. A technology integration coach will discuss how Photo Story was implemented across her district in a variety of grade levels and subject areas. She will also discuss the system supports that are needed to ensure the success of students and teachers. A second-grade teacher will share how Photo Story helped him create an active, participatory, authentic, standards-based learning environment addressing multiple learning styles for his second-grade students. He will also share examples demonstrating the development of literacy skills and the differentiation incorporated for special needs students. A high school math teacher will show how her algebra students wrote stories with a centralized theme, such as sports or dancing, which incorporated a variety of math problems. The presenters will field questions after their presentations, and the webinar will be recorded and archived in the Shutterfly community for members to access after the event.

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Provide Feedback on Coaching Courses

TeacherCoach is piloting a new project that combines personal growth with professional development, through online courses on issues pertaining to relationships, health/wellness, family, and work. The work-related courses address administrator leadership, school–family partnerships, new teacher orientation, policy changes, safety, students (maximizing participation, understanding learning disabilities), and teacher leaders. TeacherCoach is looking for educators to help provide feedback on the first iteration of the website, prior to the upcoming transformation in March of 2016. The company would like teachers’ input to help determine the quality of the content and the direction for future course generation. Teachers interested in helping can use the discount coupon code BDM2015 to take any course for free through December 2015. Teachers should send their feedback to coach@teachercoach.com so TeacherCoach may continue improving its offerings in ways that best meet the needs of educators.

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Put the World in Children’s Hands

One Globe Kids lets students meet new friends online or on their iPad or iPhone. The free Globe Smart Education app presents memorable daily-life stories from youth around the world to help children in kindergarten through grade 5 gain cultural understanding, learn about other countries, and make comparisons to their own lives. The stories reflect the lives of children in Israel, Palestine, The Netherlands, Norway, Haiti, Indonesia, New York City, Burundi, and more. Students can visit Valdo in Haiti right away and then travel the world via in-app purchases ranging from $1.99 to $15.99, per friend. Real stories from around the globe are told child to child, with full-color photographs and narration. Students can record themselves speaking and counting in their friend’s language. They can choose an “Adventure” story and decide how they want to interact with their new friends, and they can record a conversation with the “Tell me about yourself” feature. Students also learn interesting facts about each country they visit and enhance their knowledge of geography by putting themselves and their friends and family on the globe and seeing where they are in relation to their new friends. The Globe Smart Education app also includes in-depth teaching supports that will get students moving and thinking.

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Click Here to Meet New Online or App Friends

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Visualize the Inner Areas of the Brain

Augmented Reality (AR) and similar immersive technologies can be powerful learning tools when used to visualize complicated subject matters. The Brain AR App, for example, lets students explore the brain in a fully immersive 3D environment. The models are color-coded and provide information about the tissues, structures, and areas of the mind. The app, from Harmony Internet Limited, is free to download on iOS and Android mobile devices.

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Get the Scoop on Science

Imagine a space shuttle speeding toward Earth at 17,500 miles per hour, the friction outside heating the vessel to more than 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit as it enters the atmosphere. That kind of temperature normally melts metal. So what protects NASA’s space shuttles? That’s the kind of question award-winning scientist Ainissa Ramirez, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science at Yale University, can’t wait to answer. In fact, she’s done it in a YouTube video. Now she has a new show called Science Underground, a weekly two-minute science podcast. You can subscribe to Science Underground and listen to or download every episode via iTunes.

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Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store

Click Here for More Information About Science Underground

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Spark Student Engagement

STEMCAREER Accelerator Day (STEMCAD) is a global celebration designed to excite students about STEM learning and careers, highlighted by the Clinton Global Initiative as a multiyear Commitment to Action supporting global education goals. STEMCAD supports career readiness and student engagement as students solve authentic problems, identify career pathways, and learn how STEM careers change the world—especially important for young women and underrepresented students. As part of STEMCAD, secondary STEM teachers and students are invited to use the Spark 101 career case-study videos, available online at no cost during the week of October 19–23, 2015; they can access all of the Spark 101 online resources at any time. Teachers new to Spark 101 can also join a free one-hour professional learning webinar.

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Join a Giant Sing-Along

Performer and teaching artist Dave Ruch from Buffalo, New York, is going all out to put the fun in the fundamentals of online connection during Connected Educator Month. He is setting up a worldwide sing-along for elementary students at 1:15 p.m. (ET) on October 30. Zoom is hosting and donating bandwidth. The lighthearted event, named Largest Online Gathering of K–5 Classrooms (ever!), will last 15 to 20 minutes as Ruch performs songs and asks students from Los Angeles to Zimbabwe to move and participate with him. He will also demonstrate unusual instruments and teach students a new trick, such as playing hambone using their bodies to make the rhythm or mastering the time-honored ability to play the spoons. Participants need only Internet access and an interactive whiteboard, desktop or laptop computer, tablet, or other device to plug into a projector, but each classroom must register individually—no schoolwide enrollments. Teachers can sign up as late as one minute before the event begins.

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Get Ready for the SAT

The nonprofit Let’s Get Ready provides low-income and underserved high school students with free SAT preparation, admissions counseling, and other support services needed to gain admission to and graduate from college. Let’s Get Ready programs run in the fall, spring, and summer. Each program is approximately nine weeks and meets for three hours at least twice a week. The core program includes 30 hours of intensive instruction on the foundational math and critical reading and writing skills that the SAT covers and that are necessary for success in college. The program provides two diagnostic SAT tests, which students can take for practice and teachers can use to gauge student progress, along with 15 hours of comprehensive information and guidance regarding college selection and visits, applications, financial aid, and scholarships. The classes are small (approximately five students per coach) and are led by college student coaches who mentor and inspire the high school students. Let’s Get Ready also offers Enrichment Workshops (College Application Completion Day, Career Day, and others) and ongoing support throughout the year, as well as additional college success support into and through college.

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Bring a Scholar into the School

Scholars in the Schools brings Smithsonian experts in art, history, and science into classrooms across America. World-renowned scholars visit local communities in person to share their enthusiasm for learning with students and teachers. Experts chosen to visit communities represent the diverse areas of research at the Smithsonian Institution and have demonstrated their ability to successfully engage many different kinds of audiences. The scholars always conduct visual presentations and often incorporate hands-on activities to effectively illustrate concepts and share ideas with students and teachers. Scholars in the Schools programs range from a scholar discussing one topic in a single visit to multiple scholars covering a variety of subjects over several days. One school or an entire district may participate. Program length can be one day or multiple days over a week, semester, or academic year. Smithsonian experts work mainly with students but may also lead in-depth teacher workshops, present public lectures, and/or speak at community functions.

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Travel the World from the Classroom

With today’s connected classrooms, field trips aren’t limited to your county, your state, or even your country. Students are taking virtual field trips to some of the world’s most amazing locales with experts as their guides, thanks to Skype. The website hosts a series of tours covering a wide range of educational subjects. For example, students can interview a Yellowstone National Park ranger and speak with an underwater videographer and shark diver. The free tours last from 15 minutes to an hour.

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