THE Journal — Funding
Discovery Opens Science Competition to Teachers
Discovery Education and 3M this month opened up entries for its 2008 Young Scientist Challenge, a science competition for students, and recently followed it up by adding on a Teacher Challenge, which will pit educators against one another for prizes, a trip to Washington, DC, and the title of Discovery Educator Network Science Teacher of the Year.
(3/21/2008)
Technology Immersion Turns Around Texas Middle School
Take a Title I urban school with fewer than 50 computers for some 850 students and a staff that wasn't strong in technology. Add an ambitious plan to roll out a new technology program that gave a laptop to every teacher and student. Sound like a recipe for problems? Actually, it wasn't.
(3/20/2008)
Gates to Congress: Improve Math, Science Education
In testimony before the Committee on Science and Technology at the United States House of Representatives Wednesday morning, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates implored Congress and the President to "act decisively" to ensure that the country maintain its global leadership position in technology innovation. Gates's testimony focused on three key themes: education, research, and immigration.
(3/13/2008)
ExploraVision Science Competition Regional Winners Named
More than 4,500 student teams submitted projects for the 2008 Toshiba/NSTA ExploraVision Awards Program, an annual K-12 science competition. Twenty-four of them were named regional winners in the science competition this week.
(3/7/2008)
Open Source Computer Donation Program Aims To Go Nationwide
Ensuring that schools in low-income communities have access to the same technologies as wealthier schools isn't enough for James Burgett, executive director of the Alameda County Computer Resource Center in Northern California. He wants them to have better technology, and he wants them to have it for free. Burgett--along with several partners, contributors, volunteers, and staff--has been for years refurbishing computers, loading them up with open-source software, and deploying them in classrooms (and giving them to individuals) in the San Francisco Bay area. He's recently expanded that effort and is now looking to take it national.
(3/6/2008)
Report: EETT Cuts Threaten NCLB Goals
Slashing EETT ("Enhancing Education Through Technology") has become an annual event in federal budget planning. A little more than a month ago, the Bush administration again proposed eliminating funding entirely for the program for fiscal year 2009. But a new report from the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA), released today, suggests that cuts imperil the scope of programs that have improved academic achievement and helped to ensure teacher quality.
(3/6/2008)
Case Study: Bloomfield SD's Migration to Broadband and VoIP
As the IT director for Bloomfield School District in New Mexico, I faced a major challenge with our infrastructure when it came time to upgrade our network and voice systems to meet our educational and technological objectives. The district, with 10 administrative and school sites, is located in a rural area of northwestern portion of the state, which limited the alternatives available to us. Its network was based on T1 connections, and the bandwidth would not support the education initiatives of the district. It was also very expensive, costing us about $5,900 each month.
(3/3/2008)
'Installfest' Brings Open Source Tools to Northern California Schools
Open-source developer Untangle and the Alameda County Computer Resource Center are holding an event called "Installfest" in the Northern California Bay Area March 1. The event will see donated hardware and open-source software distributed free to several schools in San Francisco, Berkeley, San Mateo, and Marin County.
(2/27/2008)
Adobe Kicks Off School Innovation Awards
Adobe this week kicked off its 2008 School Innovation Awards program, a competition in which high school students in accredited private and public schools can submit creative projects to win prizes, including Adobe software, cash, or a Levono laptop.
(2/22/2008)
Microsoft 'DreamSpark' Makes Software Free for Students
Microsoft has announced a software giveaway program targeted to college and high school students. "DreamSpark" makes available, at no charge, a number of development and design programs for download. The program is now available to more than 35 million college students in Belgium, China, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the U.K. and the United States.
(2/19/2008)
OSLN Grant Focuses STEM Education on Low Income Students in Ohio
The Ohio Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Learning Network (OSLN) has received a $12 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to promote 21st century learning and STEM education. The grant, according to the organization, is part of a $50 million cooperative effort between public and private institutions.
(2/14/2008)
PA Educators Receive $100,000 Verizon Grant
The Verizon Foundation has awarded $100,000 to the Pennsylvania Department of Education. The grant will be used to provide access to Thinkfinity resources and training for teachers in the use of those resources and to raise awareness of the Thinkfinity service.
(2/14/2008)
Sony Kicks Off High School Video Contest
Sony Creative Software, developer of the Vegas video production suite, has opened up its first Technology in Motion: Vision of the Future video contest for high schoolers. The competition includes $20,000 in prizes per winner for original video creations. Free software and other materials are being provided to participating schools.
(2/12/2008)
Bush Budget Cuts EETT
EETT is once again on the chopping block. In a proposed budget from the Bush administration released Feb. 4, the Enhancing Education Through Technology program (EETT) was listed among the programs recommended for zero funding. EETT is part of Title II D of the No Child Left Behind Act, designed to support the deployment and integration of educational technology into classroom instruction.
(2/4/2008)
Cash for Classrooms: AVerMedia Kicks Off Lesson Plan Contest
AV technology developer AVerMedia this week launched a new contest for K-12 and higher education: to develop a lesson plan centered around the use of a document camera. An AVerVision document camera and $1,000 (to be used for classroom technology purchases) will be awarded to the winning lesson plan in each of six subject areas.
(1/30/2008)
Are You an Average E-rate Applicant?
Think you have it tough filing a E-rate funding requests for a half dozen sites? In the 2007 E-rate funding year, one applicant made requests for 1,519 sites! This according to a new report from Funds For Learning released at the FETC 2008 conference in Orlando, FL Thursday. The report, "The Average E-rate Applicant," compiled data from nearly 23,000 applicants over the course of the year to generate a picture of typical E-rate behavior.
(1/25/2008)
Microsoft To Expand Partners in Learning
Microsoft this week said it intends to redouble (or retriple) its commitment to education through its Partners in Learning program. Over the next five years, the company will "triple the impact" of the initiative through three of the programs under the Partners in Learning umbrella: Innovative Teachers, Innovative Students, and Innovative Schools.
(1/23/2008)
Teachers To Go Head to Head in Tabula Gaming Tournament at FETC
Educators this month will go head to head in a multi-player educational gaming tournament at the FETC 2008 conference in Florida. In the event, the "State Challenge Multiplayer Educational Games (MEG) Tournament," presented by Tabula Digita, competitors will represent their states in an effort to bring home a site license of Tabula's DimensionM Evolver Multiplayer gaming software.
(1/7/2008)
3 Schools Win $15,000 Classroom Makeovers
Three schools were named winners in Interwrite Learning's first "Classroom Makeover" contest, a competition that called on students and teachers to produce videos parodying a song while demonstrating technology used in the classroom. Each winner took back a $15,000 classroom makeover (consisting of various interactive technologies) and a $1,000 cash prize.
(11/28/2007)
Cisco Grant To Assist Math Education Development
The MIND Research Institute, a non-profit education research and publishing organization, said this week that it's received a $500,000 cash grant from the Cisco Foundation--this on top of a previously awarded grant of about $500,000 in equipment, bringing the total donation to $1 million. The funds will be used to develop MIND's elementary and middle school math programs and make them available over the Internet.
(11/27/2007)
NMSI To Grant $25 Million for STEM Teacher Prep
The non-profit National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI) will award $25 million to 12 universities in the United States in an effort to boost the number of teachers with "enhanced math and science teaching skills." The grants will be awarded to universities whose teacher preparation programs are modeled after the UTeach program at the University of Texas at Austin--a program that has doubled the number of math and science majors being certified at the university.
(11/20/2007)
Moto Grants Fuel STEM Education, STEM Equity
The Motorola Foundation has announced the recipients of its Innovation Generation Grants, a $3.5 million ed tech initiative designed to "inspire young people to embrace science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)." For this year's grants, 106 programs were selected to receive funding, with recipients ranging from curriculum developers to museums and science centers to universities and K-12 schools.
(11/20/2007)
ExploraVision 2008 Science Competition Opens
The ExploraVision Awards Program from Toshiba and the National Science Teachers Association has now opened up and is accepting entries for the 2008 competition. The annual student science competition is open to K-12 students in the United States and Canada, offering prizes of up to $10,000 in savings bonds for the winners.
(11/16/2007)
Verizon To Award $1.2 Million for Web-Based Program
The Verizon Foundation said it will award $1.2 million in grants to education organizations in 17 states in the coming months. The aim of the grants is to raise awareness of Verizon's Thinkfinity, a Web-based program that provides access to about 55,000 educational resources, including lesson plans and interactive tools and materials for K-12 students.
(11/16/2007)
LeapFrog To Give Away $35,000 in Classroom Technology
LeapFrog SchoolHouse this month launched a new sweepstakes for schools. Through Dec. 15, educators who register at the company's online education store are entered to win shopping sprees at the store ranging from $1,000 to $10,000.
(11/15/2007)
