My favorite first grade teacher asked me last week if I knew of any good tech money available to teachers. She has iBooks in her room, but they’re definitely showing their age. Working in a school district where sustainability is a huge problem, there’s no plan for her school to replace them. So if she wants updated equipment, she’s on her own.
I asked the network, and they responded. This is the time of year when lots of opportunities are available. Here are a few options:
Best Buy Teach Awards: The Best Buy Teach Award program recognizes creative uses of interactive technology in K-12 classrooms. Winning programs focus on kids using technology to learn standards-based curriculum, rather than on teaching students to use technology or educators using technology that children aren’t able to use hands-on. Teachers can apply for $1,000 - $5,000, which is awarded in Best Buy gift cards. Additionally, 15 projects serving 9th grade students will be awarded $10,000 each as part of their new @15 philanthropic focus. The application deadline is October 12, 2008.
Kids In Need Teacher Grants: The purpose of the grants is to provide funds for classroom teachers who have innovative, meritorious ideas. Your project may qualify for funding if it makes creative use of common teaching aids, approaches the curriculum from an imaginative angle, or ties nontraditional concepts together for the purpose of illustrating commonalities. Innovation and merit account for 40% of the evaluation. The grant amounts range from $100-$500, and they won’t buy computer hardware. But if you need some software, or consumable supplies, this might be a good source. The application deadline is September 30, 2008.
Toshiba America Foundation Grants: The Toshiba America Foundation has separate grant programs for K-6 and 7-12 math and science teachers. Elementary proposals of up to $1,000 are due October 1. Secondary proposals of more than $5,000 are due on February 1 and August 1. Smaller secondary proposals are accepted throughout the year. The focus of the grants is to support innovative projects designed by math and science teachers to make their own classrooms more exciting and successful for students.
NEA Foundation Student Achievement Grants: The NEA Foundation provides grants to improve the academic achievement of students in U.S. public schools and public higher education institutions in any subject area(s). The proposed work should engage students in critical thinking and problem solving that deepen their knowledge of standards-based subject matter. The work should also improve students’ habits of inquiry, self-directed learning, and critical reflection. Deadlines are October 15, February 1, and June 6. Awards of up to $5,000 will be considered.
Have a need that doesn’t quite fit into any of these? Check out Grant Wrangler. This is a clearinghouse of educational grants, awards, and competitions, organized by application due date.
E-rate: More Important Than Ever
September 30, 2008
This is a guest post written by our Director of K-12 Operations and E-rate Expert, Paul Karlin
The country is facing serious financial challenges. Our nation’s school districts will experience the fallout through declining tax revenues and budget cuts. Will schools have to cut technology? How will our schools pay for their everyday technology costs, or keep up with technology changes that occur so often?
As 21st century educators, we recognize that technology is not a luxury or frill, it is a necessity. Thankfully, the E-rate program recognizes this fact, and helps schools cover their ongoing technology costs and infrastructure improvements in cases of financial need. The Federal E-rate (“Education rate”) program was started in 1998. It provides discounts of 20% to 90% to schools for typical tech costs such as Internet service and telephone service, as well as for the purchase and maintenance of network equipment. Eligibility for different types of products depends upon a school or district’s financial need. While it is common for all schools to receive discounts on, for instance, long distance service, only a small percentage of schools receive funds for hardware. Because E-rate funds come not from taxes but from the “Universal Service” fee on phone bills, it is a program that will not be cut – very important in today’s economic environment!
If your school or district is going through tough financial times, it is worth taking a close look at E-rate to see if there are ways to get more E-rate dollars, reduce local spending, and maintain or even improve their technology programs. Some entities are able to redistribute savings to areas of need. Many schools and districts maximize budgets in other creative ways that we would be happy to talk to you about.
Important questions to consider are:
Is your entity applying for all of the eligible products and services that it can? Surprisingly, many applicants do not realize that services for which they pay thousands of dollars are actually eligible for discounts.
Is your entity correctly filling out all required paperwork? As a federal program, E-rate is considered a pain to school administrators. But missing a date or filling in a form incorrectly can be very costly.
Has your free and reduced rate increased? Eligibility for free and reduced lunch is the measure used to determine program discounts. If your eligibility rate has increased, this means your entity is eligible for more money –- perhaps very significant dollars.
When the program first started, the $2.3 billion a year in funding for the entire nation seemed huge! Compared to the size of federal assistance to banks and other institutions, $2.3 billion seems paltry today, yet this program has effectively enabled our nation’s schools to connect to the Internet, join the 21st century, and to help address our current technology challenges.
Paul KarlinDirector, K-12 Operations
Smart Solutions
216-765-1122 ext. 8371
cell: 216-926-5997
pkarlin@smartsolutionsonline.com
Grant opportunities
September 30, 2008
John Schinker from Brecksville just posted this great list of education technology grant opportunities. Check it out!
Teacher Leadership to Effect Change in Education
July 28, 2008
Leadership is a major theme on most educator’s minds.
A typical example of school leadership usually involves an enlightened principal, or great superintendent - but rarely involves a great teacher affecting the school beyond their classroom.
Teacher leadership should move to the next level to include the question: how can a teacher effect change in their district?
I believe that institutional change will be driven by teachers who are committed to changing the culture of their districts.
It is no longer tenable for enlightened educators to act as silos of innovation. Teachers should target educational leaders, curriculum directors, superintendents, and boards to help educate them on the importance of 21st century skills and the role of technology in teaching these skills.
The ed tech blogosphere would benefit from more discussions about implementing change management programs and less talk about the latest gadgets or web sites.
An ideal school culture would award risk-taking and innovation in instruction. An investment in technology is often a tough, risky decision that requires genuine leadership and buy-in.
But leadership does not need to happen solely at the principal, or administration level. Leadership can function at the teacher level as well.
Educators are great leaders and experts in consensus building, aligning students around a vision, gaining political capital, managing conflict, and driving change. But, educators are typically not trained in applying these skills to effecting enterprise-level change. In essence, teachers should apply their classroom leadership skills to their entire districts.
The education sector can borrow from change management, turnaround management, and leadership classes from traditional business schools to learn how to apply these skills to district-level change.
Genuine leadership at the teacher level is the key ingredient to institute systemic, sustainable change in school districts.
How does a school choose a technology vendor that they have never worked with?
July 1, 2008
@mom2cjm on Twitter asks:
Trying to choose a vendor to provide my wireless network…any help out there?
I solicited advice from my team to help understand how schools should choose a technology vendor. I got this thoughtful 3-point evaluation criteria from my manager of network services:
1. Length of time the company has been in business and producing the product you are interested in. The longer the production time, the more mature and stable the product generally is. You never want to buy a first year car and this same philosophy holds true with technology as well.
2. Ongoing costs/Warranty - Compare the warranty of each unit (how long is the initial warranty), and what are the support hours? Do they have a toll free number to call? Some smaller companies may have email only support. What are the maintenance costs for the unit for a year (ie software upgrades, etc)?
3. Ask for at least 2 references (aside from the case studies on their website) and call and talk to them. How long they have had the wireless, how much their support costs were, how expensive was the install, etc)?
Ohio Education Technology Network
June 17, 2008
I am proud to announce the official launch of the Ohio Education Technology Network (OETN).
One of the greatest strengths of Web 2.0 technologies is its ability to empower individuals. In 2000, with the launch of Blogger, individuals were empowered to easily publish content online. Later in the decade, Podcasting empowered individuals to easily distribute audio content. Wikis empower individuals to contribute content to a central body of knowledge.
The latest transformational online technology that is empowering individuals is a free product called Ning. Ning allows an individuals to create an entire social network through a simple click of a button.
A few weeks ago, Abby Kelton, our manager of professional development, used Ning to create a social network called the Ohio Education Technology Network.
Over the course of a few weeks, the network has grown to include over 40 educators across the entire region! We have professors, teachers, education technologists, principals, and superintendents from all over Ohio collaborating on a free online space. They are sharing videos, discussing professional development, posting events, and making friends.
The launch of OETN represents the amazing power of the digital age that we live in. An individual educator can connect a community together through a click of a button.
How to Support Technology in a Small School District
May 30, 2008
John Puskar from Classroom2.0 asks:
I am the technology coordinator for a rural SW Pennsylvania K12 district with about 2100 students and about 155 teachers. Its just me and another guy taking care of it all! Computers, servers, network, phones, security cameras, you name it….if it connects to something else….we ultimately end up being the ones to figure it out. We don’t use any outside companies for anything, we install it, fix it, replace it. Whatever needs done, we do it ourselves. Our budget is next to negative. I’m insterested in discussing with others best practices with limited resources. The school environment presents challenges that no other IT professionals will ever have to deal with. Every computer is a shared computer and that makes for some difficult obstacles to overcome. I am more than willing to share and learn what works and what doesn’t.
Quick answer - look into working with companies that can provide staffing and expertise as needed so you can better manage resources and plan for the future.
Now, given that Smart Solutions offers these kinds of services I’m somewhat biased in favor of this approach. I honestly believe, however, that by bringing in outside technology partners, school districts can provide better IT services at lower cost than they can by “going it alone.”
This is part of the reason I chose to come work for Smart Solutions, and it’s the reason I’d recommend John look into this approach for your district.
What John has described will likely result in the internal IT staff getting overwhelmed with day-to-day work and not having the time to think strategically about leveraging their IT assets.
My first few questions if I were John’s consultant would be:
- Does your district qualify for State/Federal funding through E-rate Priority 2 to help with their network maintenance?
- Are you working with surrounding districts to pool resources?
If you have other contributions to this important topic, please feel free to leave a comment in this post.
UPDATE 6-5-2008
John responded:
Nitin, just out of curiosity, how many employees does your company have?
“What John has described will likely result in the internal IT staff getting overwhelmed with day-to-day work and not having the time to think strategically about leveraging their IT assets.”
-After 10 years, it hasn’t yet………and I don’t think the amount of technology assets and useage will likely increase anywhere near as quickly over the next 10 years as it has over the last 10.“I honestly believe, however, that by bringing in outside technology partners, school districts can provide better IT services at lower cost than they can by going it alone.”
-I think this is what the “solution providers” just don’t understand about the smaller districts. There is no way a district with limited financial resources is going to continue to pay a full-time salary for a Technology Director that needs to outsource “his” work, which is an additional expenditure to the district. Because, when all is said an done, “partnering” with a vendor or provider, does not eliminate the need to have someone there all day, full-time. And if it did, what Tech Coordinator would in his right mind put himself out of a job?
My response:
Thank you for sharing your point of view. I think this is a fascinating discussion.
We have 4 offices in Canton, Cleveland, Columbus, and Detroit. We have ~75 employees.
I am a bit of a neophyte to the IT and “solutions provider” industry, and therefore find your comments extremely interesting.
In general, I believe having specialists in Citrix, VMWare, Security, etc. as needed is more effective than one “network admin” doing it all.
The mix of skill sets could add up to one full time person, but the district can potentially rely on a team of individuals instead of one single person.
Our assertion is that your team, with the right support, could likely support up to 3-4 surrounding districts.
I also think it makes a lot of sense to work with a solutions provider for specialized services such as an end-user help desk, remote monitoring, etc. that an individual IT department could not provide.
I encourage you to write on here or e-mail me at njulka-at-smartsolutionsonline.com or call my cell phone any time at 216-374-6723 to continue the discussion.
Bottom line: I believe there are important options you can consider that have nothing to do with being “put out of a job.”
Unnecessary Technology
February 12, 2008
One of the dangers of selling education technology is selling unnecessary technology. I was talking to Jeanne Hayes from the Hayes Connection yesterday, and she was telling me about her workshop on the topic of how Large Scale Technology Implementations Fail.
Then, today, this article from the Washington Post crossed my desk:
The problem? What a former Alexandria school superintendent calls “technolust” — a disorder affecting publicity-obsessed school administrators nationwide that manifests itself in an insatiable need to acquire the latest, fastest, most exotic computer gadgets, whether teachers and students need them or want them…
To paraphrase the movie “Field of Dreams,” if a computer company makes a classroom gizmo, the Alexandria school system will buy it.
We are trying to develop a number of methods to protect us from this tendency:
- Aim to become the long-term strategic technology partner for the school as opposed to a short-term sales person
- Choose our technology partners wisely and make sure that our partners’ philosophy is in line with our philosophy
- Help administrators understand the professional development needs that surround any new product
- Understand that buy-in will be required by the teachers, administrators, curriculum directors, and IT directors before adoption of any new technology
Jon Becker from the blog, Educational Insanity, writes about the “people” issue in technology adoption:
educational leaders/policymakers are guilty of installing systems without regard to the personnel…the ed. tech. policy agenda has been dominated by a focus on infrastructure development supported by a bit of professional development. In other words, the “systems” have been installed and the leaders are then forced to try to fit the personnel into the system.
One of the largest initiatives at SSI K12 this year has been developing a professional development practice for these reasons exactly. If we want to be a technology partner for every school in America, we need to understand how training and professional development fit in this picture.