Resources are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Orders must be
received by February 12th, 2010.  Pay only for shipping and handling. {Nothing is ever for free }

Free Books for Read Across America Day:  Order Form at http://www.lefbooks.org

Developing a School Technology Plan

LACOE has created an online Tech Plan Builder to assist you in creating a School Technology Plan.  Your plan should include input from all stakeholders and should cover at least a three-year span.  Set goals and reachable benchmarks along the way with the outcome focused on student achievement and not how much technology you have or need. The website is modeled after the State’s guidelines. Sign up at http://ito.lacoe.edu/tpb.

Digital Voice Awards 2010 Entry Deadline: March 31, 2010

The California Technology Assistance Project (CTAP) Region 11 and Multimedia Services of the Instructional Technology Outreach division at the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) invite K-12 school educators from Los Angeles County to submit exemplary classroom instructional technology projects to the Digital Voice Awards. Information can be found at http://ito.lacoe.edu/dva

California Streaming Digital Photography Contest Deadline: March 14, 2010

The CaliforniaStreaming Digital Photography Contest judges will select up to six student winners and two teacher winners that best reflect the 2010 contest theme: ENERGY!

Winners will have their photographs incorporated into a collectable poster, which will be distributed to classrooms across the state of California. Two teacher winners will receive a 16GB iPod touch and six student winners will receive 16GB iPod nanos. For additional information, go to http://ccetc.net/photocontest

* For a list of current and/or ongoing grants, go to http://www.grantsalert.com/gsft.cfm

Here’s additional site with available grants. http://www.vernier.com/grants/corporate.html

Who is eligible to apply?
Grant applications will be accepted from teachers in grades 3-8 currently teaching in an accredited, non-profit, public school building in the United States. There are no entry fees and no purchase is required. Fifteen (15) classroom awards will be made.

What will recipients receive?
Grant package is valued at over $5,000.00 per classroom award.

• Grant Program

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Here are the rules:

- Each video must be submitted by an active student, age 13 or older.

- Contestants chosen as finalists will be contacted through their YouTube account and must respond within seven business days to confirm eligibility.

- Finalists under the age of 18 must submit a parental consent form.

- Videos must be two minutes or less in length.

- The contest’s page on the U.S. Department of Education (ED) web site (www.ed.gov/IAmWhatILearn) must be featured in the video.

- The video content must be original.

- The video must convey the importance of education, as well as the student’s individual academic goals.

source: eSchool News http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/index.cfm?i=60852

Future Cities is is a national competition you’ll find as fulfilling as it is fun for your students. Now in its second decade, the National Engineers Week Future City Competition is a program developed for seventh and eighth grade students to help them discover and foster interests in math, science and engineering. As you’ll soon discover, it’s a program that’s both challenging and stimulating for everyone involved.  LAUSD is looking for Middle schools teams to compete at the regional in January.  Contact Joe Oliver for more information.  Winning teams get to compete in a national event in Washington DC. Joe.oliver@lausd.net 213-241-1362.

Netbooks

We’ve all heard about the netbook phenomenon. They’re small, low on power, ultra-cheap, super portable and the fastest growing segment of the computer industry.  Now, you can purchase them for your school.  These light weigh computers are configured for student use.  Teachers may use them, but they are not designed to handle district applications.  AreyJones offers three models, HP, Dell and Lenovo.  Prices range from $448 to $465 for the basic model that comes equipped with 1GB of memory and a 160 GB hard drive.  Contact AreyJones at 800-998-9199 for a custom quote or send me an email and I will forward you the standard quote.

Developing a School Technology Plan

If you are updating or creating a School Technology Plan, LACOE has created an online Tech Plan Builder to assist you in the process.  The website is modeled after the State’s guidelines.  Sign up at http://ito.lacoe.edu/tpb.

School Websites

If your school needs a website, there are various ways to go about acquiring one.

•    Have a staff member create one and host it on LAUSD.  Contact Diana Liston (Diana.liston@lausd.net).
•    Contact Educational Networks (http://www.educationalnetworks.net ) to have them create and maintain it for you ($3,000 – $5,000/year).
•    Use SchoolLoop (http://www.schoolloop.com ) to get a school website with individual teacher websites (Free).
•    Use Class Jump (www.classjump.com ) for individual teacher websites only. (Free)

Both SchoolLoop and Class Jump are free and you do not need any website development experience to set one up.

* For a list of current and/or ongoing grants, go to http://www.grantsalert.com/gsft.cfm

http://samsunggrants.com/

Creating Lifelong Learners » Blog Archive » Educational Grants and Tips

We will have our last meeting of the year on May 15, 2008. We will meet from 3-5 pm at the Local District 4 office. Our meeting will cover the use of SmartBoards in Education. We will have an introductory PD on SmartBoards. This meeting will be open to anyone interested in learning about SmartBoards. Please register for this PD through the Learning Zone. Select Local District 4 Professional Development as the program for the PD. The course is listed as “SmartBoards in Education.”

News

Site Computer Inventory
Each school site is responsible for updating their site computer inventory as detailed in Memorandum 4170 (mem-4170). The memorandum outlines several ways this can be done. One of the options mentioned is to update the inventory at http://pc-inventory.lausd.net/ . This information was given to all principals several months ago. Please make sure that this has been completed.

CAMSP Science Leadership Institute
There are still a few spaces available for this summer’s week long wonderful professional development experience at the Thacher Academy in Ojai, CA. This is available for free to all 4-8 grade science teachers. Teachers will also be able to earn salary points. Join us for an incredible week of learning science for the classroom, using technology as a tool. Download the flyer for more information and registration details.

Great Opportunities

EdZone – from California’s K-12 High Speed Network
From their website: The California K-12 High Speed Network (K12HSN) is offering a comprehensive set of tools to support teaching and learning in California classrooms. This free suite of tools, edZone, currently includes blogging, videoconference scheduling and a file sharing system where educators can upload videos, podcasts, images and documents.
If you have been wondering about where to upload and share your videos and podcast episodes, this sounds like a great place to do so. They will be adding social networking, wikis, and instant messaging this summer. This is a fantastic offering by our California State Department of Education! Registration is free!

Customer Self Service

Please use the following link to connect to the new Customer Self Service application (CSS): http://techsupport.lausd.net/selfservice.htm Bookmark this page so that you can see the new items that are continually added to the Self-Service page. This will include outage announcements and a system status page.

If you have been using the 6.1.3 version of CSS with this same link, you will only see two difference:

1. You only have to login once with your SSO account
2. The categorization of your tickets is simpler now

Google Teacher Academy
Google is once again offering the Google Teacher Academy on June 25th in Mountain View, California. The application is due May 28th. For more information, please visit http://www.google.com/educators/gta.html I hope many of you decide to apply. This is a fantastic opportunity to work and collaborate with outstanding passionate educators with innovative tools.

LACOE’s Professional Development
Please take advantage of all LACOE has to offer. There are workshops, week-long institutes, and events that are outstanding. Visit their website at http://ito.lacoe.edu/ for all the great opportunities.

Grants and Funding

From LACOE’S Grants and Funding Page:

ASM International’s Living in a Material World
Amount: $500
Target: K-12 Teachers
Deadline: May 25th, 2008
ASM International Foundation’s mission is to excite young people worldwide in materials careers. To help teachers bring the “real world” of materials science into the classroom, the ASM International Foundation is awarding 10 grants of $500 each to teachers, K-12.

From E-School News

Save Our History Grants
Museums, historic sites, historical societies, preservation organizations, libraries, and archives are invited to partner with a local school or youth group and apply for funding to help preserve the history of their communities.
Amount: Up to $10,000.00
Deadline: June 6, 2008

Live Green Teacher Grants
From their site:
What’s your vision for inspiring the next generation of eco-smart, energy aware kids?…
Earn a $1,000 LIVE GREEN grant – 40 grants will be awarded to teachers for the most forward-thinking ideas. In addition, the 40 recipients will be treated to an exciting online professional development program designed to help them reach their school’s specific green initiatives, including a free digital camera to document and share the experience!
Deadline: June 15, 2008

There are a wealth of additional grants at http://www.eschoolnews.com/funding/funding-news/ Free registration required.

Grant Wrangler is another site that lists recent grants for K-12 educators.

Tech Tools

Read the Words
A service that will convert text to speech that can be listened to on the website, downloaded as an .mp3 for portable devices, or embedded on a website. This would be a great tool to use with learners with diverse needs, including English language learners.

MooURL
This great online application works like TinyURL to make long web addressess shorter, but you can also personalize them and make them permanent.

Using Google Docs in the Classroom
A great resource for teachers who want to learn to use this great tool.

The window for completion of the 2008 California Technology Survey is January 24, 2008, through March 14, 2008. The last day to complete the survey to meet the technology survey requirements of the Enhancing Education Through Technology Formula and Competitive grants is Friday, March 14, 2008. Because of these requirements, LD4 is asking for the survey to be completed by Friday, February 29, 2008 in order to avoid technical pitfalls that may hamper the ability to meet the CDE deadline. The link to the survey is http://www3.cde.ca.gov/techsurvey/default.aspx.

InfoTech

InfoTech 2008 is just around the corner. If you have students and/or teachers that would like to showcase their work at this conference, please let me know. I am looking for at least 10 participants. It could be as simple as a Power Point Presentation or websites created by students. This is your opportunity to show off and share with others what your school is doing with technology. Visit http://infotech.lausd.net/ for more information. A flyer for your school is included in your packet.

Funding Opportunities/EdTech Profile:

Enclosed in your packet is a CTAP 11 Technology Funding Alert from the Los Angeles County Office of Education. The document lists funding sources and contests your school can apply for. As a reminder, have your staff complete the EdTech Profile assessment at www.edtechprofile.org . This is an annual survey that teachers need to complete. If you would like to use the EdTech Profile data for any of these grant opportunities, contact me and I will print out your data.

Professional Development

1. Technology Coordinator Meeting – February 21, 2008 – 3:00 to 5:00 pm – Online through Elluminate
2. Smart Board Workshop – March 20, 2008 – 3:30 to 5:30 pm – Local District 4 Suite 204
3. CTAP Academy – May 19-23, 2008 – 8:00 to 4:00 pm – Local District 4 Suite 204
(Register online at http://ctap.lacoe.edu/content/Tech_Academies )

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.