Summer Reading in the City!

The New York Public Library, Queens Library, and Brooklyn Public Library invite you to join the Summer Reading Program at your local library. Each year, these three systems come together to do what they do best: encourage everyone to read, especially children. Several research studies have shown that students who read during the summer months do better academically the following school year, and the Summer Reading Program is designed to make reading activities exciting and appealing through a variety of library-based incentives. Stop by your local branch to pick up a free booklist and learn about the many special programs, discussion groups, author chats, and workshops available. In addition to visiting your local library, a dedicated website — summerreading.org — allows you to keep in touch with the program from your own computer. And don’t forget, you can download eBooks, videos, music, and recorded books from your public library — for free! For more information, visit: http://www.summerreading.org/

DIGITAL RESOURCES: How to Find a Novel, Short Story, or Poem Without Knowing its Title or Author

Locating a novel, short story, or poem without knowing its title or author can be very difficult. "Lost Titles, Forgotten Rhymes" online guide is intended to help readers identify a literary work when they know only its plot or subject, or other textual information such as a character's name, a line of poetry, or a unique word or phrase. For more information, visit: http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/lost/

DIGITAL RESOURCE: Architecture+Design Education Networ

The Architecture+Design Education Network website serves as a resource for K-12 architecture+design educators, school teachers and administrators, design professionals and community members interested in the design process and the built environment as means to enrich the student learning experience. For more information, visit: http://www.adenweb.org/

FYI: eChalk Adds 'Student-Safe' Academic Blogging

eChalk provides a Web-based suite of communications, learning, management, administrative, and collaboration tools, along with standards-aligned digital content. Their online learning environment is targeted toward K-12 schools and now includes blogging. eChalk reported, "The integrated blog is designed to improve how students practice writing and thinking by aligning K-12 education to higher education, where all assignments require cognitive skills like logic, reasoning, and judgment to be used regularly. The blogging tool can be maintained publicly or privately, with all participants equally protected in a system controlled by each school or district. All users can create posts, moderate comments, enable RSS syndication, add images, upload videos and podcasts, and subscribe to other appropriate blogs. Posts and comments are archived in a portfolio that follows students year to year."

The system also includes polling and survey tools for evaluating blogs based on student- and teacher-defined criteria. For more information, visit: http://www.echalk.com/

GRANT ALERT: Tommy Hilfiger Education Grants

An important part of the Tommy Hilfiger Corporate Foundation's operating philosophy is commitment to community, particularly in the area of education. Proposals submitted to the Foundation for review for educational and cultural programs must address the priorities listed below:

• Target K-12 and college students
• Expose students to career opportunities
• Develop skills in new technologies
• Leverage teacher/administrator, parental, and community involvement
• Include hands-on program activities
• Lead to comprehensive, systemic change on a regional and/or national basis
• Involve collaborative partnerships
• Demonstrate capacity to gain continuing support
• Will result in dissemination and replication of lessons learned
• Have broad and positive impact on diverse populations with a special emphasis on women, minorities, and at-risk students
• Develop evaluation component with measurable results

For more information, visit: http://www.tommy.com/

Tech Learning's Grant Guru Offers 3 Tip for Finding Funding

Tech Learning's Grant Guru offers this series of tips listed below on how to best write a winning grant proposal.

1. Find. Apply. Succeed.
1. http:/www.grants.gov
2. http://www.ed.gov
3. http://www.ed.gov/news/newsletters/edinfo/index.html
2. Some Organizations Worth Checking Out
1. National Grants Management Association
2. The Foundation Center
3. The Grantsmanship Center
   
3. Some of the Grant Guru's Favorite Websites
1. The Grant Wrangler
2. Web English Teacher
3. Los Angeles County Office of Education’s Technology Assistance Project

FYI: A Summer Workshop for Educators on Using Historical Documents in the Classroom

This workshop provides a varied program of lectures, demonstrations, analysis of documents, independent research, and group work that introduces teachers to the holdings and organization of the National Archives. Participants will learn how to do research in historical records, create classroom material from records, and present documents in ways that sharpen students' skills and enthusiasm for history, social studies, and the humanities. Each participant selects and prepares to research a specific topic, searches the topic in the records of the National Archives, and develops a teaching unit that can be presented in his or her own classroom.

Presented by staff of the National Archives and Records Administration:

• The National Archives in Washington, DC, June 24 - July 3, 2008 *
• The National Archives Regional Facility, Denver, CO, July 14 - 18, 2008
• The National Archives Regional Facility, Chicago, IL, July 14 - 18, 2008 *
• The Lyndon B. Johnson Library, Austin, TX, July 28 - August 1, 2008
• The National Archives Regional Facility, Waltham, MA, July 28 - August 1, 2008
• The National Archives Regional Facility, Laguna Niguel, CA, July 29 - August 5, 2008
• The National Archives Regional Facility, Philadelphia, PA, August 4 - 8, 2008
• The National Archives Regional Facility, Fort Worth, TX August 4 - 8, 2008
• The National Archives Regional Facility, New York, NY, August 11 - 15, 2008
• The George Bush Presidential Library and Museum, College Station, TX, August 11 - 15, 2008
• The National Archives Regional Facility, Seattle, WA, August 18 - 22, 2008

Workshop Overview with Location Details and How to Apply