SPOTLIGHT! On Education and the Election
During the past week, editors at Big Deal Media have received many statements from educational organizations regarding the results of the recent presidential election. As part of our decades-long effort to provide K–12 educators with resources that promote inclusion, tolerance, respect, critical thinking, and advancement of knowledge, we share with you the words of some of these respected organizations.
Americans for the Arts
“Americans for the Arts, with the support of hundreds of thousands of grassroots arts advocates in every state, … will work hard to advance pro-arts policies and strengthen our efforts to transform communities through the arts. It is more important than ever that we use the arts to help the economy, our communities, families and children, and our nation to seek hope, opportunity, and ultimately to come together.”
Consortium for School Networking (CoSN)
“Now is the moment for the country to reunite, promote civil discourse, and support our students in every classroom in every community. CoSN stands ready to work with the president-elect and Congress to address the top priorities that will improve student learning. Chief among those priorities are advancing digital equity and supporting access to high-quality, personalized learning environments.”
National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS)
“As social studies educators, we teach and learn about our system of government, about controversial and timely issues, and about making informed decisions as active participants and defenders of our democracy. Our civic duty did not end at the voting booth; in fact, it has just begun. We can share instructional practices about the electoral process, the upcoming transition plans for newly elected leaders at all levels, and the new teams that will play a central role in our conversations for the next several years. We teach the principles of our US Constitution. The election itself is the beginning of a more profound instructional focus on inquiry about the way our system of government works, and about making a difference for the greater good within our system.”
Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)
“Fifty years ago, TESOL became a professional association based on the core principles of individual language rights, respect for diversity, multiculturalism, multilingualism, and inclusivity. These values are just as critical today as they were then, and they provide a solid anchor against the strong oppositional forces that are sweeping across nations. As we witness the unfolding of these troubling trends, TESOL International Association reaffirms these core principles and proudly welcomes professionals and students from all backgrounds and all creeds; they provide the rich texture of our community.”
Examine Historical Moments, Engage in Digital Fabrication & More
November 15, 2016
In Partnership With: 
IN THIS ISSUE
Funding & Recognition
Digital Learning • Learning Support
Professional Growth
STEM • STEAM • STREAM
Mobile Learning
Social Media
Funding & Recognition
Creativity Video Contest
Next Vista for Learning invites teachers to enter its Soaring Creativity educational video contest. To participate, teachers need to put a little creativity into a video teaching any concept that might be encountered in elementary, middle, or high school, and keep the length to 90 seconds or less. The video might be about sculpture, negative numbers, supply and demand, alternative energy, adverbs, or any other clever insight. This competition is really a set of three contests: one for students, one for teachers, and one for collaborations between the two (specifically a team of at least one teacher and at least one student who do the planning and/or editing). The three contests will be judged separately, and Next Vista will award prizes to the finalists and winners of each.
Deadlines: Videos must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. on December 18, 2016. Videos submitted by 11:59 p.m. on November 20, 2016, will receive a small bonus in scoring.
Click Here for More Information
Service Learning Award
The Youth Leadership for Service-Learning Excellence Award recognizes service-learning programs, including projects with long-term impact, which demonstrate outstanding youth leadership. The National Youth Leadership Council is seeking youth teams representing K–12 service-learning programs in which the service learning is tied to the curricula. The program should show a high level of youth initiative in all areas, including identifying an authentic need, planning the service, and putting the plan into action. The program will be evaluated on the following components of service learning: youth ownership, genuine community needs addressed, connections to learning objectives, reflection activities, and partnerships. Only young people involved in the prospective program may submit the nomination application. The winner will receive $1,000 to support the program, along with travel, lodging, and registration to attend the National Service-Learning Conference in Anaheim, California, on March 22–24, 2017. Interested applicants will find this opportunity on GetEdFunding, a free database sponsored by CDW•G of thousands of funding opportunities for educators.
Deadline: December 5, 2016, for applications
Click Here for More Information
STEM Video Challenge
Middle school students are encouraged to enter Lockheed Martin’s Generation Beyond Video Challenge and stretch their imagination and skills to show how they would design a habitation module that will dock with NASA’s Orion spacecraft to one day carry astronauts to Mars. Orion is NASA’s first spacecraft designed for long-duration, human-rated deep-space exploration. The habitat will complement Orion, housing the supplies, research labs, and living space that would be needed to sustain a crew on a multiyear journey to Mars and back. A panel of qualified judges from Discovery Education, Lockheed Martin and its partner organizations, educators, and science professionals will judge qualifying videos based on the following criteria: scientific knowledge, creativity of habitation module (ingenuity and innovative thinking), effective communication, and overall presentation. The individual and team grand-prize winners will receive $10,000 and travel to a unique space experience; second-place winners will receive $5,000, and third-place winners will receive $2,500. All cash prizes will be split between team members.
Deadline: Videos must be uploaded with an “Unlisted” privacy setting to YouTube by 8 p.m. (ET) on December 15, 2016
Click Here for More Information
Award for Innovative Use of Educational Technology
itslearning has launched its inaugural The Heart of Education award program to honor K–12 teachers who are using technology in new and engaging ways to connect with their students. Teachers interested in submitting to the award can visit itslearning’s Teachers’ Lounge to enter. Submissions will be judged on the innovative and creative ways teachers are using technology in their instructional process, as well as their results. A winner in each of two categories—K–8 and 9–12—will receive a $5,000 grant.
Deadline: December 17, 2016, for submissions
Click Here for More Information
Digital Learning • Learning Support
Virtual Reality Lab
Virtual reality (VR) can transport students to the beaches in the Maldives, on a science expedition in the Arctic, or into the middle of a refugee camp. The Global Nomads Group (GNG) is harnessing the power of virtual reality (VR) technology to spark curiosity and cultivate empathy in classrooms. GNG’s VR programs are accompanied by curriculum and span across a variety of themes and topics that support global citizenship education. Whether the classroom has 1:1 tablets or is fully equipped with VR headsets, GNG has designed lesson plans to support learning with VR technology. Teachers can get started in the classroom by downloading GNG’s free app for iOS and Android and choosing from two VR lessons—“One World, Many Stories” and “Syrian Conflict”—accessible on GNG’s website. Each lesson takes two to three class periods to fully implement.
Click Here to Visit Website
Plus: For teachers who are new to VR, GNG has designed a toolkit to help them walk their class through different VR experiences.
Click Here to Access Free Toolkit
Digital Financial Education Curriculum
The MassMutual Foundation is offering a new digital financial education curriculum—part of its FutureSmart program—developed specifically for middle school students. Available at no cost to schools across the United States, the new web-based curriculum is offered in English and Spanish to extend the potential reach of the FutureSmart program to youth in grades 6–8, with the overall goal of impacting 2 million students by 2020. More than 300,000 students have already benefited from the FutureSmart program through FutureSmart Challenges—interactive events at NBA arenas—and a pilot version of the digital FutureSmart program. This new offering builds on that success, featuring a custom-made school curriculum that was developed and designed by the MassMutual Foundation in partnership with EverFi. Topics include financial values and goal setting, budgeting and opportunity costs, saving and investing, payment types, banking, risk versus return, and planning for the future.
Click Here for More Information
Lesson Closely Examining Historical Moments
How can closely examining a troubling moment in history inform choices today? Facing History and Ourselves offers a free lesson that draws on readings and short videos featuring the United States Ambassador to the United Nations in conversation with the young people of Newcomers High School in New York—all immigrants—to explain and humanize a crisis that often feels too overwhelming to confront. After surveying the scope and impact of the global refugee crisis, students will come to understand what makes someone a “refugee.” They will then learn how even small ways of seeing the “other” in themselves can make a difference in their approach to large and complicated problems involving the needs and wellbeing of people distant from them. The lesson also considers the value of looking critically at historical moments—in particular, the case of the St. Louis, a ship that carried Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution across the Atlantic in 1939—and recognizing in them implications for their choices today.
Click Here to Access Free Lesson
Videoconference Sharing Stories of Tolerance and Respect
The Museum of Tolerance offers students the opportunity to experience one of the museum’s Special Speakers from anywhere in the world through its Bridging the Gap program. Topics include Holocaust Survivors, From Hate to Hope, and From the Depths of Hate. Using videoconferencing technology, the Special Speakers share their powerful stories with groups. The Speakers generally present their lecture for approximately one hour and allow additional time for questions and answers. The lectures are appropriate for students in grades 5 and above and will be adapted according to the students’ grade level.
Click Here to Visit Website
Professional Growth
Professional Learning Program Using Artificial Intelligence Technology
For the past two years, the IBM Foundation has worked with teachers and their union, American Federation of Teachers, to build Teacher Advisor, a program that uses artificial intelligence technology to answer questions from educators and help them build personalized lesson plans. By the end of the year, the program will be available free to third-grade math teachers across the country and will add subject areas and grade levels over time. The program will help teachers digest educational standards and incorporate them into daily lessons. Rather than just listing a group of skills, however, the program will serve up the prerequisites those skills are built on and present a set of exercises to break down the standard.
Click Here for More Information
Digital Fabrication Labs Discussion Group
Digital fabrication labs, makerspaces, innovation labs are popping up in K–12 schools all over the country (and the world!) but are still rare enough that many educators aren’t living in close vicinity to other, similar labs. A group of K–12 educators are participating in the Fab Labs and Makerspaces discussion group on Google to share best practices, tips, and challenges of managing and running such labs. The virtual community of lab directors/administrators/coordinators/maker enthusiasts is intended to be a forum for all things about digital fabrication in K–12 education: equipment reviews, conference/workshop announcements, rumors about new gadgets, troubleshooting problems, advice about vendors, cool resources for projects, and more.
Click Here to Visit Website
Sponsored by
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STEM • STEAM • STREAM
Hands-on STEM Courses
i2 Learning has partnered with more than 20 of the world’s leading STEM organizations to develop 60 unique hands-on STEM courses. All courses are 20 to 25 hours of hands-on, project-based curricula designed to be taught over the course of a week. The courses can be run for students of all abilities and backgrounds in grades 4–8, and all curricula map to the Next Generation Science Standards. i2 Learning’s website displays descriptions of six courses: “Digital Game Design,” “Kinetic Sculpture,” “Robotics,” “Surgical Techniques,” “Building a Lunar Colony,” and “Interactive, Friendly Monster.” i2 Learning provides complete course kits containing all materials needed to run each of the courses. Teacher and student guides are available for each course, with some course booklets available in Spanish.
Click Here for More Information About Project-based Curricula
Click Here for More Information About Specific Courses
Plus: i2 Learning provides face-to-face professional development for all i2 courses. Because the curriculum is designed to integrate multiple subject areas (including disciplines beyond STEM, such as English language arts and history) i2’s workshops are designed to include teachers from all fields. During the i2 professional development, teachers assume the role of learners and experience the same activities and pedagogical strategies they will later implement with their students during the school day. All materials and supplies necessary for the workshops are provided by i2.
Guide Exploring Science and Technology in Film
The Museum of the Moving Image publishes Sloan Science & Film to enhance understanding of science through film. This is a freely downloadable guide to 46 short narrative (fiction) films, all supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s nationwide film program—available for streaming in the classroom—which explores science and technology themes and characters. The goal is to help teachers engage elementary, middle, and high school students in STEM learning. The films range from four to 33 minutes, averaging 20 minutes in length. Each film correlates with national standards and can be customized to meet teachers’ needs. Subjects include astronomy, biology, chemistry, ecology, evolution, genetics, mathematics, physics, psychology, technology, and the history of science. Included with each film are possible questions to explore and science resources for further engagement.
Click Here to Download Free Science & Film Guide
Mobile Learning
App Turning Stories into “Chat Strings”
Amazon has released an app called Rapids that presents hundreds of children’s stories from various genres in the form of illustrated text message dialogue between characters. In developing the app, Amazon wanted to get children aged seven to 12 engaged in the reading process in a way that feels natural to digital natives. While children make their way through adventure, fantasy, humor, or mystery stories, chat bubbles ask them to think about certain concepts or give funny insights to make them laugh. A customizable glossary helps young readers learn new words and their pronunciations. The app also has a “read to me” feature. Amazon plans to add dozens of new stories monthly. Cost: $2.99 per month with a two-week free trial on all iOS, Android, and Amazon Fire devices.
Click Here to Visit Website
App Providing Coding Adventures for Girls
GoldieBlox is the award-winning children’s multimedia company challenging gender stereotypes with the world’s first girl engineer character. Through the integration of storytelling and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) principles, GoldieBlox creates tools that empower girls aged 4 and up to build their confidence, dreams, and ultimately their futures. Girls can try their skill at coding with the iOS app Adventures in Coding – The Rocket Cupcake Co. They will master the fundamentals of coding with Goldie Blox and Ruby Rails as they deliver cupcakes to friends all over BloxTown. The puzzles and minigames teach young coders the basics of sequencing, mental modeling, and debugging—without their even realizing they’re learning. Cost: $2.99
Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store
Skype Activity Encouraging Learning without Borders
Microsoft is encouraging teachers and students to celebrate global learning by joining the Skype-a-Thon mission to travel 3 million miles over Skype on November 29 and 30. Participation involves three easy steps: (1) Register for the Microsoft Educator Community. From there, set up your profile with your call availability and let other classrooms know you’re participating. (2) Find a classroom or expert to connect with over Skype on November 29 and 30. The site suggests ways to connect with classrooms around the globe during this year’s Skype-a-Thon, ranging from playing Mystery Skype to taking a virtual field trip or hearing from a guest speaker. (3) After selecting a Skype-a-Thon activity, schedule a time between November 29 and 30 to connect. For more information, check out the Skype-a-Thon Quick Start Guide. After the event, post a creative photo on Twitter showing the distance your class traveled. Tag the photo with #skypeathon so everyone can see how your call helped reach the goal of 3 million virtual miles.
Click Here to Visit Website
Click Here to Access Quick Start Guide
Digital Pen Pals for Global Dialogues
A program called Generation Global, part of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, focuses around the skills of dialogue for adolescents aged 12–17. Teachers interested in using Generation Global first must register their schools with the program. Then they can access free lesson plans to introduce the basics of dialogue. Students practice dialogue skills, such as active listening and speaking from the “I” perspective, with one another in class. After students have been introduced to the skills involved in productive dialogue, the teacher can set up various types of interactions with classes in one of the 20 countries where schools have signed up for Generation Global. Teachers can choose a one-to-one dialogue with another class, or they can choose to participate in a multipoint dialogue, where up to four classes are participating. All the dialogues are moderated by a trained facilitator who keeps the conversation moving, helps students get past the awkward beginning, and makes sure that everyone feels safe within the dialogue. The dialogues are all in English. Additionally, Generation Global has a secure online feature that allows two classes to commit to a longer dialogue on a series of questions. The site groups students for a more intimate experience, and they respond to one another in writing. Teachers and facilitators can see all these interactions, and the technology offers teachers a dashboard on their students’ participation.
Click Here to Visit Website
Social Writing in “Circles”
HaikuJAM is a social writing app that lets students write stories and poems together. Students can either write with others around the world or form “circles” with their friends. After users create an account, the app will open up to a timeline. There, students can click on “JAM” and start writing their own poem or help finish someone else’s poem. If they’re looking for inspiration, students can choose from one of the prepared poem titles or click on the “Explore” tab to get a boost. HaikuJAM also suggests topics for students to write about. After they’ve completed their poems, students can save their work to their portfolios and let others “like,” comment, and share their posts. HaikuJAM also hosts writing competitions where students can win prizes. The app is free for iOS and Android.
Click Here to Visit Website
Click Here to Visit iTunes App Store
Click Here to Visit Google Play
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