Get Involved with Junior Achievement
Junior Achievement (JA) programs help students explore how money works, how to plan for a career, and how to start a business. JA now offers blended programs with the support of in-classroom volunteers to help engage students. Best of all, in most cases JA programs are free to schools. Find a JA officer near you to learn more.
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Personalize Student Learning, Stimulate Computational Thinking & More
September 1, 2016
In Partnership With: 
IN THIS ISSUE
Funding & Recognition
Digital Learning • Learning Support
Professional Growth
STEM • STEAM • STREAM
Mobile Learning
Social Media
Sponsored by:
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Funding & Recognition
Happy Back-to-School Season from GoFundMe
$50 for You. $10k for Your School.
As children head back into classrooms, another back-to-school tradition begins again: Teachers reaching into their own wallets to pay for basic educational supplies. This year, though, GoFundMe is doing something to help resource-strapped educators who want the best for their students. Until September 16, any GoFundMe campaign started for or by a K–12 teacher or educator that raises $250 or more will receive a $50 donation from GoFundMe. In addition, the campaign that raises the most money during that time will receive a $10,000 donation to the teacher’s school. Campaigns must include the #GFMtoSchool hashtag to qualify.
Deadline: September 16, 2016
Start a campaign now!
Award for an Inspirational Teacher
The Global Teacher Prize is an annual $1 million award from the Varkey Foundation given to an innovative and caring teacher who has made an inspirational impact on his or her students and community. Judges will look for evidence of employing innovation and effective instructional practices that are replicable and scalable to influence the quality of education globally, accomplishments beyond the classroom that provide models of excellence for the teaching profession, encouragement of teachers to remain in the teaching profession and others to join the teaching profession, preparation of children to be global citizens, third-party recognition of their achievements in the classroom and beyond, and demonstration of student learning outcomes in the classroom. Anyone can nominate a teacher who is at least 18 years old at the time of entry and teaches or provides educational support to students between the ages of five and 18 in a compulsory setting. Nominated teachers must then submit an application. Interested applicants will find this grant opportunity on GetEdFunding, a free database sponsored by CDW•G of thousands of funding opportunities for educators.
Deadline: October 14, 2016, for applications
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Cross-Curricular Engineering Competition
DiscoverE’s Future City Competition is a cross-curricular engineering program that encourages students in grades 6–8 to imagine, research, design, and build cities of the future. Students work in teams to identify problems, brainstorm ideas, develop solutions, and share their results. Competing teams are led by educators or professional engineering and technical mentors. First prize includes a trip to a space camp and $7,500; second prize, $5,000; third prize, $2,000; fourth and fifth prizes, $750.
Deadlines: October 21, 2016, for registration; January 2017 for regional competitions; February 18–21, 2017, for finals
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Tell Us About You!
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, 2016, will be entered into 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, 2016, for completed surveys
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Digital Learning • Learning Support
Webcasts Exploring Impact of 9/11
Produced for the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, the Exploring 9/11 webcast series considers the continuing impact of the events of 9/11 on the United States and the global community. Through interviews, scholars and experts articulate a wide range of views on 9/11, including its origins and ramifications. They also discuss how meaning is made of the past and how this process evolves over time. Although the speakers do not always agree with one another, teachers can use these diverse perspectives to reflect on 9/11 and its continued—and sometimes contested—relevance. A study guide for the classroom accompanies each interview. Topics include Memory and Memorialization, Building the Memorial & Museum, 9/11 and Its Aftermath, and Middle East History and Security.
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Student-Directed Personalized Learning System
This fall about 120 schools are expected to introduce a free, student-directed learning system developed by Facebook and a nonprofit charter-school group based in California’s Silicon Valley. The Summit Personalized Learning Platform puts students in charge of choosing and managing their projects. The software gives students a full view of their academic responsibilities for the year in each class and breaks down each responsibility into customizable lesson modules they can tackle at their own pace. A student working on a science assignment, for example, may choose to create a project using video, text, or audio files. Students may also work asynchronously, tackling different sections of the year’s work at the same time. The system inverts the traditional teacher-led classroom hierarchy, requiring schools to provide intensive one-on-one mentoring and coaching to help each student adapt. The platform features a guide to implementing personalized learning and provides access to virtual communities where educators can connect. Schools can also apply to Summit Basecamp, a free program that provides additional professional development and support.
Click Here to Visit Website
Toolkit for Becoming Thoughtful Citizens
PBS Education has partnered with EXPLO and the Commission on Presidential Debates to create a debate toolkit for classroom use. The toolkit includes resources to engage students through a process of student-led discussions designed to foster meaningful and civil conversations with people who think differently. By listening, sharing, questioning, and reflecting, students develop skills critical to becoming thoughtful, responsible citizens. The debate guide may be freely downloaded from the PBS Election Central website, along with a corresponding “Join the Debates” poster and a “Presidents” poster for display in the classroom.
Click Here to Visit Website
Severe Weather Preparedness Program
PLAN!T NOW’s Young Meteorologist Program takes students on a severe weather preparedness adventure where they’ll encounter lightning, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and winter storms—all while learning about severe weather science and safety. Developed in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/National Weather Service and the National Education Association, the Young Meteorologist Program offers a safe, nonthreatening learning environment that shows children what they need to do to prepare now to protect themselves and help their families when a real storm comes. The centerpiece of the program is an interactive online game featuring Owlie, a junior data collector for the Weather Center, who helps students learn about and get prepared for dealing with real-life severe weather and natural hazards. Players who complete the game earn a Young Meteorologist Certificate. On the program’s website, Young Meteorologists are presented with opportunities to put their new knowledge to work through hands-on activities and community service projects. Visitors to the Young Meteorologist Program’s Educator Exchange will find science lesson plans and hands-on classroom activities related to severe weather, as well as disaster preparedness lesson plans and learning opportunities for educators.
Click Here to Access Free Game
Click Here to Access Student Web Page
Click Here to Access Educator Web Page
Tool for Creating 3D Virtual Reality Paintings
Google’s Tilt Brush lets students paint in 3D space with virtual reality. The room is their canvas, and their palette is their imagination. The possibilities are endless. Students can paint life-sized three-dimensional brushstrokes, stars, light, and even fire. They simply select their colors and brushes and get going with a wave of their hand. They can step around, in, and through their drawings as they go. Because they are creating in a virtual reality environment, students can choose to use otherwise-impossible materials, such as ink, smoke, or snowflakes. Tilt Brush uses STEAM and requires a virtual reality headset.
Click Here to Visit Website
Professional Growth
Webinar Untangling Election 2016
What has stumped you and your students this election season? Are you adrift in the social media swirl, or aghast at the ugly ads? Still baffled by how the primaries played out, or concerned your vote may not count come November? On September 20, 2016, from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. (ET), NewseumED will host “Election 2016: From Stumped to Savvy,” a complimentary webinar sponsored by the National Council for the Social Studies to help educators start untangling the stickiest issues of an unprecedented presidential election. Participants will learn how they can use NewseumED’s free election resources—including primary sources and tools for organizing evidence and developing arguments—to facilitate classroom investigation and debate of election mechanics, the candidates’ messages, and the varying forms of public participation in the digital age.
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Stories of the Complexities of Teaching
The STORRI website was designed by students and faculty members of Teachers College, Columbia University, to attract, share, unpack, engage, and reflect on stories that teachers tell about the complexity of contemporary classrooms. Through STORRI, teachers and teacher educators have opportunities to write about moments in their practices when their belief systems “wobbled”—that is, when something happened in the classroom that compelled the teacher to pay attention, to stop and think, to raise a question, to open himself or herself to other perspectives. By collecting these stories, the educators in Teachers College hope to provide other angles on classrooms, ones that illustrate the range of transactions that occur between teachers and students and the context in which they engage. Stories on the site might be used for serving the professional needs of preservice and inservice teachers. They may also be used to create learning communities, present advocacy research, or inform the general public.
Click Here to Visit Website
Guides Demystifying Computational Thinking
BCS, the Chartered Institute of IT, in collaboration with the Royal Academy of Engineering in the United Kingdom (UK), have developed freely downloadable guides to the UK’s new computational thinking curriculum. The guides were written especially for primary (elementary) and secondary teachers to demystify the study of computational thinking in primary and secondary schools. The guides enable teachers to quickly come to grips with the new computing curriculum and to build on current practice. They also offer help for schools with planning and give guidance on how best to develop teachers’ skills.
Click Here to Download Free Primary Guide
Click Here to Download Free Secondary Guide
STEM • STEAM • STREAM
Pathways to Success in Technology
CODE2040 is a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco that creates pathways to educational, professional, and entrepreneurial success in technology for underrepresented minorities, with a specific focus on blacks and Latino/as. The organization’s goal is to ensure that by the year 2040—when the US will be majority-minority—blacks and Latino/as are proportionally represented in America’s innovation economy as technologists, investors, thought leaders, and entrepreneurs. CODE2040 works with students, professionals, and companies around the country.
Click Here to Visit Website
Projects and Tools for Making
The nonprofit Maker Education Initiative in Oakland, California, supports educators and communities—particularly those in underserved areas—to facilitate meaningful making and learning experiences with youth. The “Getting Started” section of the Maker Ed website provides a set of curated, introductory resources for those new to making or interested in learning more about making and its potential impact in education. It also provides practical, concrete ways for integrating making into educational settings. The “Tools & Materials” section contains lists and examples of useful tools and materials for making activities and makerspaces, including suggestions for consumables, hardware, machines, open source software, and other technologies. This section also offers guidance or tutorials on specific tools or skills. The “Projects & Learning Approaches” section includes a wide variety of information to provide educators and facilitators with ideas for short-term activities, as well as open-ended, long-term projects, curriculum samples, examples of facilitation methods and practices, and the pedagogies and values aligned with making.
Click Here to Visit Website
Programmable, Customizable Walking Robot
From playing football to dancing at the disco, 3D-printable Marty the Robot has the moves. Marty is a fully programmable, WiFi-enabled walking robot for children, makers, educators, or anybody else. Marty makes learning about programming, electronics, and mechanical engineering a fun and engaging process. He is designed to be customizable with 3D-printed parts and is completely upgradeable. He’s even compatible with single-board computers, such as the Raspberry Pi. Marty can be controlled remotely over WiFi, but users can also program him in a variety of programming languages. Children and beginners can learn with Scratch, which makes coding as simple as clicking and dragging blocks. Experienced programmers can control him using more powerful programming languages such as Python and C++, or state-of-the-art robotics tools such as ROS. Once the kit is completed, Marty is capable of a range of movements, from walking to kicking a ball, which can be controlled from a smartphone. The creator of Marty received his PhD in robotics from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He expects to ship Marty in early 2017.
Click Here to Visit Website
Mobile Learning
Interactive Virtual Reality Journeys
The developers of the interactive media platform ThingLink have launched a virtual reality content app called VR Lessons. The app is designed for elementary school students and their teachers and parents. VR Lessons is a collection of high-quality, interactive, 360-degree image and video journeys on a variety of topics, including science, language, and the arts. The stories take students to places with different ecosystems, from the French Alps to a jungle in the archipelago of northern Australia. As they turn their heads to look around, students can spot details and unlock additional information of each habitat in a narrated virtual reality environment. The app uses three key features: audio annotations, background audio for 360-degree images, and integration of several 360-degree images or videos into one immersive story. VR Lessons can be viewed with an iPhone and a virtual reality headset, or on an iPad. In the future, educators from around the world will be able to publish their virtual reality lessons in ThingLink’s VR Lessons app. Cost: $4.99
Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store
Collaborative Conservation Game
Save the Park is a unique collaborative game in which students take on the role of a park volunteer and experience the conservation activities that support America’s national parks. Developed in partnership with American Express, Games for Change, and Schell Games, Save the Park seeks to inspire and encourage a new generation of park lovers to take an active role in helping preserve these natural and historic resources for future generations. The game features four characters that accomplish volunteer tasks, allowing players to virtually experience the activities that support parks and the critical caretaking role that volunteers play. The American Express Foundation will make a $1 donation to the National Park Foundation for each download of Save the Park occurring on or before December 31, 2016, up to $50,000. The donation will support the National Park Foundation’s park conservation and stewardship work. The app is designed for the iPad and iPhone. Cost: Free
Click Here to Visit Website
Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store
Visual Dictionary App
Oxford University Press’s WordFlex Touch Dictionary is a dictionary—three, actually, including the largest, most exhaustive compilation of words in print—that students can explore and interact with visually. Nodes branching out from a word—creating a tree-like structure—show students multiple definitions of the word, while breaking down each aspect of the word into small, easily understood chunks. Students learn the definitions, spelling, pronunciation, word origin, synonyms, antonyms, other tenses, and related words. They can search for a word, even without precise spelling. For example, typing the word excess also offers the word excel as an option floating onto the screen. When students tap the intended word, the dictionary entry expands like a tree, showing dozens of similar words, grouped in branches demonstrating the subtleties of meaning for each. See, for example, the video demonstrating the branching for the word twitter. This single app covers multiple Oxford University Press dictionary and thesaurus titles. Costs: Basic Lite, free; full version, $4.99
Click Here to Visit Website
Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store
Collaborative Music Making Studio
Students can jam with friends and band members using Soundtrap—a free online collaborative music and audio recording studio. To make music online, students have the options of plugging in their own instrument, using the software instruments available in Soundtrap, or recording a song directly with their computer’s microphone. As they make their music online, students can share the experience and fun of their creative moments with new and old friends in real time. They can easily share their music on Facebook, Twitter, and SoundCloud. The American Association of School Librarians selected Soundtrap as the Best Website for Teaching and Learning in 2015.
Click Here to Visit Website
Mind-Mapping Tool for Collaborative Engagement
With MindMeister, students can brainstorm ideas, work together to develop them, and then share and present their thinking in visual form. This collaborative mind-mapping tool from MeisterLabs helps students make visual connections to the information they’re learning. It also helps students develop and defend arguments and ideas and share them with others. Among MindMeister’s features is the capability to gather notes and links and access relevant mind maps of other students. MindMeister also takes students through the analytical process and breaks down information into simpler concepts before developing arguments. Several students can work together on the same mind map and can correct and amend one another’s information.
Click Here to Visit Website
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