Instructify

BY BILL FERRIS

When I grew up, playing video games was the opposite of a healthy lifestyle — hours of sitting on my butt, staring at the TV, and not socializing (I did, however, rescue various princesses and punch out Mike Tyson).

Humana Games for Health wants to erase the stereotype of the chubby weakling shoving Cheetos in his mouth while mashing buttons in a dark basement. They’re looking reward you handsomely for your ideas for a healthy video game in their InsertCoin competition.

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The Career Awards for Science and Mathematics Teachers is a five-year award from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund that rewards exceptional science or math teachers in North Carolina primary and secondary public schools. The Burroughs Wellcome Fund will support awards to five teachers, distributing $175,000 over a period of five years to eligible NC teachers. A bit of incentive for you? In addition to the teacher’s own recognition, the award allows for $10,000 of the award to purchase needed equipment and supplies for the winning teacher’s classroom or laboratory or be shared with the school or school district.

Do you have an incredible science or mathematics teacher working in your school? Nominations need to be put forth through the school principal, so if you are the principal you should write up a nomination. Several eligibility requirements are in play, so naturally you’ll want to check those out.

Are you a current or past student of an awesome science or math teacher? Nominations need to be put forth through the school principal, so you’ll need to sing your teacher’s praises to the principal and encourage them to submit a nomination. If anything, your unwarranted glowing feedback will at least give your teacher some bonus points with the principal.

Are you a science or math teacher? Perhaps you want to win this award. You might create a fake email account and then pretend to be a former student of an amazing science or math teacher. Now, here is the important part, you name yourself as that amazing teacher. You certainly play fast and loose with the ethics and morals, dude.

Start working on those applications right away — the application deadline is September 15, 2009. -NICK YINGLING

Career Awards for Science and Mathematics Teachers

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Photo credit: c.a.muller on Flickr.

If you’re a PBWiki user, you’ve probably gotten an email that the venerable and easy-to-use wiki app is changing its name. Why they’d want to do such a thing is beyond me — few things have as many positive connotations as peanut butter, in my opinion.

Nevertheless, changes they shall make. That means they have to dump all their old merch, such as PBWiki T-shirts. If you’d like one of these for free, all you have to do is guess PBWiki’s new name. Guess correctly — or even come up with a guess that’s interesting or clever — and you get a free shirt.

Maybe this is just a way to offload old duds, or a desperate attempt to crowdsource their new moniker. Whatever. The first thing I learned in college was to never pass up a free T-shirt. So send in your guesses, and enjoy the new addition to your wardrobe. -BILL FERRIS

Official Announcement - We’re changing our name! via The Daily Peanut (official PBwiki blog)

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The North Carolina Science and Engineering Fair needs judges ASAP. The fair happens this Saturday, March 28 at Meredith College in Raleigh. If you’ve an engineering or environmental engineering background, they especially want to hear from you. If you’re interested in volunteering as a judge (or another position — click here for a list of what else they need), send an email to Eleanor Hasse at eehasse[at]bellsouth.net. -BILL FERRIS

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Easy-to-do experiments for the science fair

Photo credit: FadderUri on Flickr.

In honor of Kathryn Walbert’s new series of feature articles on online teaching, Instructify is giving one lucky teacher a free online course in LEARN NC’s Carolina Online Teacher program.

The COLT program is a certification track in online teaching. The program shows teachers the particulars of online pedagogy, collaboration, and how to navigate the virtual classroom. All COLT courses are online (duh), allowing you to work on them where and when you’re most ready, whether that’s during your planning period, or at 11 p.m. in your jammies. For more information on COLT, please click here.

How to win

We want to hear  your questions, insights and thoughts about online teaching and learning. Simply post a comment on the article, Instructifeature: Taking the plunge into online teaching — your students. One randomly selected commenter will win a free spot in a COLT course.

Please note, your comments must add something to the discussion. Writing “I like online courses,” or “Here’s my comment,” won’t work. However, something like “Online courses provide teachers the unique opportunity to engage different types of learners…” would probably work better.

Deadline

To qualify for the contest, you’ll have to leave a comment by Wednesday, March 25. If you’d like to get some professional development online and see if online teaching is right for you, comment now for your chance to win.

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It’s not often that young poets and artists can actually get something in return for their work. The River of Words Poetry and Art Contest will award prizes to the best student submissions on the topic of watersheds. According to the contest website, “The contest is designed to help youth explore the natural and cultural history of the place they live, and to express, through poetry and art, what they discover.”

Any child in the world aged 5-19 can enter. Four poets and four artists in four different age ranges (K-2, 3-6, 7-9, 10-12) will receive the grand prize — an all-expenses paid trip to the River of Words Award Ceremony at The Library of Congress in Washington, DC. That’s a lot of potential winners, which means it’s a great reason for your students to exercise their creativity, as well as to learn about local watersheds. The entry deadline is February 15, so now’s the time to start painting, photographing or poeming about watersheds in your area. -BILL FERRIS

River of Words Poetry and Art Contest

Congratulations to Lance Bledsoe for winning the Instructify Comments Contest. He won with this contribution to Jerry Swiatek’s post, Professional development is just a “tweet” away:

“…Also, remember that you can use Twitter’s own search tool ( http://search.twitter.com/advanced ) to find other teachers in your geographic area who are on Twitter. For example, you can find all the tweets that contain the word “teacher” from people within 15 miles of Raleigh, NC.”

Thanks to Lance for showing this to all the Twittering teachers out there. Thanks to everyone for reading this blog, and we hope you all will continue to comment on Instructify. -BILL FERRIS

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Photo credit: snooze on Flickr

Happy Holidays, teachers and students. Here’s a little gift from us to you to of some lists upon which everything is nice, ne’er naughty. Hope you enjoy these numbers and have a wonderful holiday season.

10 Things They Need to Teach in High School - Most of my high school classes were there for the masses, and while I got a great dose of Spanish and traveled to a magnet school for a television production course, there are skills I had to wait until college to take. InstigatorBlog presents a list of 10 things they SHOULD teach in High School to help better prepare our students for the real world. For example, Personal Branding, Entrepreneurship, and my favorite Technology & Social Media.

7 Rules for Making a Good First Impression - With the new year upon us, we’re bound to make new relationships, have more conferences and makes more contacts. It is important that students as well as teachers know some of the basics to make sure they won’t be left in the dust when it comes to meeting new people and making a good first impression. Here’s a list from BusinessWeek that is mostly applicable for the office types, but can easily be altered to suit the needs of those in the field of education.

100 Words for Obama’s 100 First Days - With the inauguration right around the corner, Obama is going to have quite a lot on his hands in this troubled economy. What would you do if you were in his shoes? Wait, before you start talking, you should jot your ideas down for this essay contest and get a chance to be published on AlterNet. The rules are fairly simple, basically answer the question: What would you like Obama’s first 100 days in office to look like? in 100 words, and you could see your suggestions be published, and who knows, maybe even come to fruition.

6 Lessons You Learn by Playing Santa - My own dad was once a mall Santa, and despite the fake beard and lack of “bowl-full-of-jelly” belly, he really looked the part. More importantly, he earned a lot of respect from me (I was too old for Santa at the time, and while I was horribly embarrassed at the time, now I realized he did it because he volunteered to, not because someone made him do it). I’m sure having your lap pulverized by kids day after day is lesson enough to buy some thigh pads, there are other lessons to be learned. Dumb Little Man presents 6 of them here, including Appreciate the little things, and When in doubt, ho, ho, ho. - JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Photo credit: Wyscan on Flickr

Here’s a little holiday treat for you: one lucky Instructify commenter will receive free tuition to a LEARN NC online professional development course.

We’ll randomly select one comment made between now and January 14 (that’s the date of the comment, not the date of the post, so if you comment on an older post, you’re still in the hunt). The winner will receive a free spot in his or her choice of one of LEARN NC’s new e-Learning for Educators courses:

• Science 2.0: Using Web Tools to Promote Inquiry-Based Science (beginning on January 21)
• Using Patterns to Develop Algebraic Thinking (January 21)
• Integrating Primary Sources into the Social Studies Classroom (January 26)
• Data-Driven Decision Making: Using Objective Measures to Improve Student Learning (January 28)
• Getting Ready for Algebra by Using Virtual Manipulatives (February 25)
• Classroom Assessment Enhanced by Technology (April 22)

We’ll post a reminder between now and the 14th. In the meantime, we’d love to hear from you, so post a comment. It could get you some free professional development. -BILL FERRIS

If you’ve attended a Project Learning Tree workshop, you can win 500 bucks for your school via the Learn Outside GreenWorks! grant from the American Forest Foundation. You can use this money for all manner of environmental projects at your school, including building a butterfly garden, creating an outdoor classroom, or other creative projects that promote environmental education.

The one downside to this grant is that winners are chosen at random. That said, entering will cost you only the time it takes to complete the application, so it makes sense to apply. The entry deadline is December 30, 2008, so get those applications in soon. -BILL FERRIS

Learn Outside GreenWorks! grant

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Photo credit:  jenny downing on flickr

Do you use Inspiration in your classroom? If so, you probably know what a great mind mapping program it is. If you been using it, consider making that work for you and your classroom. You can enter the Inspired Visual Learning Awards.

The Inspired Visual Learning Awards could get you money to go to a conference, or buy some technology to use in your classroom. Inspiration Software is giving away awards to teachers using Inspiration, Kidspiration, and InspireData. Here is the skinny:

• Gold Star award (3): Includes a new Intel^®-powered Classmate PC. Each Gold Star award will include $2,500, a 10-pack volume license for an Inspiration Software product with corresponding lesson plan books and a 6-month Atomic Learning^® training resource subscription.
• Silver Star award (12): Includes a new Intel^®-powered Classmate PC, and will include $1,000 and a 5-pack volume license for an Inspiration Software product with corresponding lesson plan books.

What do you have to do? Fill out the application by February 27, 2009. You will also need to send in an example using Inspiration, Kidspiration, or InspireData. At least one example needs to be from a student. Good luck, and keep adding those visuals. -ALICE MERCER

Inspired Visual Learning Awards

In first grade, my teacher thought I was pretty hot stuff when I made an electromagnet by wrapping a wire around a nail and hooking it up to a D battery. Sadly, my third-grade teacher wasn’t as impressed when I tried the same project again. Just because I reached my scientific peak at seven years old, that doesn’t mean I’m not interested in what kids with serious scientific aptitude can do. That’s why I’m excited about the North Carolina Science and Engineering Fair, March 28, 2009 at Meredith College in Raleigh.

Of course, to qualify for the state science fair, your kids will first have to drop some science at a regional fair. Click here to find out which region your students will compete in. Take note: each region has its own due dates/application deadlines, so be sure to double-check so your students can procrastinate plan effectively.

Now is a great time for your students to brainstorm projects. You might also peruse the list of winners to see the sorts of projects that impress the judges. Entries like, “Application of a Humpback Whale Fin Morphology to a Standard Airfoil: Revolutionizing Slow Flight Aerodynamics” are pretty impressive. D-battery electromagnet? Not so much. -BILL FERRIS

North Carolina Science and Engineering Fair

North Carolina regional fairs

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The most recent mission to Mars included a lovable little robot fella named Phoenix, who dug up Martian soil samples, who won our hearts with his twitters, and who trundled adorably around on top of towering piles of garbage, and, um, wait, I guess I’m thinking of Wall-E. But wait! So is NASA! They’ve partnered with Disney on a contest for K-12 kids to Name NASA’s Next Mars Rover.

Contestants must be American school kids, and they must submit their entry essay by January 25, 2009. Kids who don’t enter (or who aren’t American) can still vote on the submitted names by worldwide public poll in March 2009, and winners will be announced in April. There’ll be nine winners, who will receive Wall-E prizes and/or the opportunity to sign the actual Mars Rover before it actually goes to actual Mars. Now that’s cute. –AMANDA FRENCH

Name the Rover

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Do you know someone who’s helped improve literacy for children and adults? Are you that person, and are looking for some way you could finally get some recognition from your colleagues and loved ones? If so, you need to know about the Toyota Family Literacy Teacher of the Year award.

The Toyota Family Literacy Teacher of the Year award honors “educators who demonstrate an impact on families through early childhood education, school-based programs, adult literacy and ESL programs, parenting education, library literacy programs and community literacy programs.” The winning teacher will receive $7500 for his or her program, plus a trip to the National Conference on Family Literacy in Orlando March 1 - 3, 2009. Finalists, of which there will be several, get $500 each. Not bad.

Nominations are due by December 5. If this applies to someone you know, nominate him or her today. Educators who work to boost literacy for an entire family certainly deserve some recognition. -BILL FERRIS

Toyota Family Literacy Teacher of the Year

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HASTAC is looking for the sharpest needles on the digital farm, and when they find them, they’ll award them anywhere from $5,000 to $250,000. You’re an Instructify reader; surely you could be one of those talented needles — especially if you’ve got a great Web 2.0 project or idea.

The aforesaid HASTAC (pronounced just like the proverbial bale of dried grass) is actually the Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory, an initiative funded by the deep-pocketed MacArthur Foundation. The 2008 Digital Media and Learning Competition is giving out two separate kinds of awards: one to teams of people on “larger-scale projects” and the other to individual “innovators aged 18-25.” In both cases, the DML Competition wants to encourage “Participatory Learning,” which from their description doesn’t sound much different from social networking: “Participatory Learning includes the many ways that learners (of any age) use new technologies to participate in virtual communities where they share ideas, comment upon one another’s projects, and plan, design, advance, implement, or simply discuss their goals and ideas together.”

Examples of winning projects from 2007 include “FollowTheMoney.org”, which helps civics students (and all of us) understand certain legislative activities; the “Black Cloud” Environmental Studies game played by high school students from Los Angeles and Cairo; and “Always With You”, a mobile-phone network that enables micro-funding to young African social activists.

The deadline for this year’s competition is October 15, 2008, so start honing your application-filling-out skills now. –AMANDA FRENCH

2008 Digital Media and Learning Competition

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