What Grants are Available????

When looking at all the technology available, a teacher begins to wonder how she is going to be able to get it and use it with their students. After looking at several different organizations that offer grants and other donations to educators, here are three that I felt would benefit me and my students.

Olathe Public Schools Foundation - The Foundation helps the staff and students in the Olathe Public Schools in various ways. One way is by honoring two teachers each month through the Educator Excellence Program. The teachers are presented a check for $500 to be used in any way the teacher sees necessary for the classroom. The winners are picked based on nominations made by parents and students. Another way the foundation supports educators is through grant programs. Through these grant programs, the foundation will award teachers up to $1,000 for innovative classroom projects and up to $5,000 for projects impacting multiple classrooms, grades, or schools. During the 2010-2011 school year, the foundation awarded more than $70,000 in grants but received applications for over $160,000. To receive a grant, the teacher must submit a proposal and then be selected. The proposal should include the following areas: Innovation; Demonstrated Need; Educational Outcomes; and Student Success. This would be a great place for me to start when thinking about receiving donations for my classroom.

Adopt-A-Classroom - This is a non-profit organization based out of Florida that was started by a man who worked as a mentor to a boy in a special needs classroom. He was amazed at the lack of resources the teacher had for these students. He started Adopt-A-Classroom as a way for teachers to get money donated to purchase the things they need without having to spend their own money. Teachers can register their classroom and then donors can donate to their classroom through the organization’s website. Teachers are asked to give a description of the students they serve as well as what they would purchase with the donations. Once donors have donated to the classroom, the teacher is able to shop online through a variety of organizations that have partnered with Adopt-A-Classroom. If the teacher cannot find what they want to purchase for their classroom through the vendors already working with Adopt-A-Classroom, then Adopt-A-Classroom will work one-on-one with the teacher. This program sounds very beneficial as a way to get donations for your classroom. The donors can be anyone who wants to donate to a classroom. Donors can search by school name, location, teacher’s name, and many other ways. Teachers can also put a link to the website on their class website or in the monthly newsletter. This way, parents can donate as frequently as they wish. This is an organization I will be looking into as another resource through which to receive donations. This would be an easy location for people to go to donate money as well as receive a tax deductible donation letter that would benefit them at tax time. People across the world would be able to donate as long as they had internet access so it would not be limited to people in the Kansas City area.

Kathy Schrock’s Guide for Educators - This is a great resource for teachers who are looking for help in writing grants as well as finding grants that are available. Kathy has provided educators with a list of Federal programs, projects, services, and activities that provide assistance to the public as well as information on doing fundraisers. Many teachers have worked with the teachers on their grade level team to develop fundraisers to fund field trips as well as to purchase supplies for experiments or the classroom in general. It is always a good idea to have new ideas for fundraisers so people do not get bored with what you sell and they are more likely to purchase again and again if there are different items. A person will only buy so many tubs of cookie dough before they begin to say “No”. Varied fundraisers will attract different groups of people which may increase the profit from the sales. The grant writing tips found on Kathy’s website are very helpful. I have never written a grant before but after reading the tips she has provided, I think it is something I may be able to do.

There are many resources available to teachers who are looking for ways to fund new technology to use in their classroom. Many grant applications are free but there are some with a processing fee. It is important for the teacher to research the different programs and find ones that would be the best for them. Starting with the school district’s foundation is great because they want to support the students and staff in their school district. Grants may take awhile to write and process, but when you are awarded the money, it is well worth it. The look on your students’ faces when they get to use new technology is priceless!

Collaboration within the Classroom

Student Collaboration:

This week, I created a lesson for my classroom using a wiki. Using the wiki, the students would think of a storyline for a digital rhyming book. The reason I chose rhyming as the focus is because this was an area where most of my students struggled last year. They constantly were using words that had the same beginning sound as a rhyming word. We worked very hard on this concept all year. So, the book is one more way I can work with the students on the rhyming words. The wiki would be nice for this because the students can go back at different time (like centers) and add new words they think of. The students would also be reading words that are at their level. It is not going to have big words that the students who are barely reading will have to figure out. The level will be at their independent or instructional reading level depending on who the other students are in their cooperative group.

The website, 50 Ways to Use Wikis for a More Collaborative Classroom (http://www.smartteaching.org/blog/2008/08/50-ways-to-use-wikis-for-a-more-collaborative-and-interactive-classroom/) has some great ideas about ways to use wikis in the classroom. I really liked the idea of using a wiki for the classroom’s FAQ. This would be great not only for students but for parents as well. It would be one location for parents to go to and post their question or to see if other parents have the same question. This would especially be nice at the beginning of the year when the parents of my students have questions about being in school.

The Flat Stanley Project website (http://flatterworld.com/?nav=home) is a great resource if you do this with your students. I tried doing a Flat Stanley project with my students one year. We read the book right before Winter break. Over break, they were supposed to take their Flat self with them and then journal about what they did. I had perhaps 5 students complete the project. Since then, I haven’t tried it again. After looking through the website, I think it maybe something I can try again using the website this time to help get the students excited about it.

I was also intrigued by the Skype in the Classroom website (http://education.skype.com/). This is a great way for classrooms across the country (even world depending on time zones) to collaborate together. One idea I had was to compare and contrast the classrooms. I think this would be interesting for the students to see how our classroom is similar to other classrooms and how ours is different. Even just the diversity within the classroom would be interesting. The students could also interview the other students. This would allow the students to see how their interests are the same and how they are different.

Teacher Collaboration:

Teacher collaboration is so important to the education world. When looking at teacher collaboration, I would have to say my new favorite website is SMART Exchange (http://exchange.smarttech.com/#tab=0). There are so many wonderful ideas to use with SMART boards or SMART Notebook. There is a group of Kindergarten teachers in my district that do this very same thing via e-mail. Once we have created a SMART Notebook lesson, we e-mail it to the whole group so others can use it without having to take the time to create it themselves. There is so much we have to get done within the day and not enough time to do it. If others have already created it, we do not need to spend the time re-creating it. Scholastic is another great teacher resource (http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/connect.jsp). Many think Scholastic is just for ordering books. They have many great resources for both teachers and parents. This is one website I share with my parents not only for ordering books online but also for the resources.

Cost of Collaboration:

The nice thing about collaboration is that it is free, for the most part. I did find a couple of websites that you have to pay an annual fee ($50 was the average) to be a part of. Other websites do not have an annual fee. Knowing there are websites I can use for free, I would have to consider the pros and cons of the collaborative group before paying an annual fee. In the education world, free is a very good price! To use Skype, you would have to an account. I know there are accounts you can sign up for that are free. The price for a web camera starts at $29 and goes up from there depending on what brand you want.

I am excited about heading back to the classroom this fall and seeing what new activities I can have my students collaborate on. It is so important for students to learn the skills of getting along with others while completing projects because they will be doing it for the rest of their life. If they do not have a good foundation with the skills, they will have a difficult time as they get older and have to do more and more collaborative work.