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"Social studies educators teach students the content knowledge, intellectual skills, and civic values necessary for fulfilling the duties of citizenship in a participatory democracy. The mission of National Council for the Social Studies is to provide leadership, service, and support for all social studies educators."

"Why We Exist: Grockit was created to improve the learning outcomes of students by applying the power of social networks, adaptive algorithms, and gaming mechanics to the process of learning and education. Whether preparing for a standardized test such as the SAT, ACT, GMAT, GRE, LSAT, or MCAT or working toward mastering academic skills in Math, Reading, Science, or Social Science, Grockit students all over the world are choosing to study on Grockit. What is Grockit: Grockit is a pretty simple idea - use social gaming technology and Web 2.0 infrastructure to create a fun learning environment for students. However, the technology underpinning Grockit is extremely sophisticated and took years to develop."

"Good corporate citizenship and operating responsibly are important to Microsoft's long term success. We strive to be a positive partner in communities, and manage our environmental footprint. What Citizenship Means at Microsoft: Our mission is to help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential. As the world's largest software company, Microsoft helps to create social and economic opportunities wherever we work, live, and do business. Our technology innovations, our people, our partnerships, and our day-to-day business contribute to the prosperity of communities and the sustainability of the planet. Our commitment to good corporate citizenship reflects our belief that social and economic opportunity go hand in hand. When individuals, communities, and governments thrive, so do we. Our citizenship efforts focus on four key areas that allow us to best use our technology, people, partnerships and business to promote social good and economic opportunity."

"Launched in the West Virginia school system in 2007, Globaloria is a unique pilot course in public middle schools and high schools where students are creating original Flash-based video games about educational topics and social issues using an online social network for learning. Four WV colleges are also offering Globaloria to their students. Hailed by local, state, and national education leaders as a model for educational transformation, Globaloria increases student mastery of state content standards and objectives and 21st-century knowledge and skills by immersing students in a learning-by-doing, STEM game design and programming curriculum that incorporates the latest social media technology tools. Support for Globaloria is provided by Governor and First Lady Manchin, the West Virginia Department of Education, the WV Department of Education and the Arts, Benedum Foundation, Verizon WV, Knight Foundation, Caperton Fund, West Virginia University, and Marshall University."

The Culbreath Education and Literacy Foundation (C.E.L.F.) is the 21st Century Resource Center and Linking Library for Social Entrepreneurship, Continuing Education, Professional Development, Life Long Learning & Supplemental Educational Services (SES) for the Classroom and the Home. Our Living Library and websites are constantly being updated and expanded to add new Information and Resources for Personal, Professional and Life Long Learning. Our Mission is to develop a World Wide Community of Individuals and Organizations with a passion for Social Entrepreneurship, Life Long Learning, Mentoring and Teaching. This goal is being achieved by sharing the Best Educational Information and Resources via the Internet.

"Excerpt from the Covenant with Black America Without question, education is the key to progress and prosperity in the United States today. Whether fair or not, educational opportunity and academic achievement are directly tied to the social divisions associated with race, ethnicity, gender, first language, and social class. The level and quality of educational attainment either open the doors to opportunity or close them. Education starts at home, in neighborhoods, and in communities. Reading to children, creating time and space for homework, and demonstrating-through words and deeds-that education is important are the key first building blocks for high educational achievement. While schools are responsible for what children are taught, reinforcement at home is essential. As members of the black community, we must take responsibility for educating all our children-whether ours by birth or otherwise-to uplift our people as a whole. - excerpt from Edmund W. Gordon's essay in the Covenant with Black America"

"The Reemployment Works! Community of Practice is a communications vehicle to offer technical assistance, share promising practices, and network with colleagues in the Workforce and Economic Development world. Workforce3One currently has over 50,000 registrants from every corner of our workforce world, not just the public workforce system: Business and Industry, Education and Training, Non-Governmental organizations and Community-based organizations, Faith-based organizations, organized labor. To date, our knowledge-sharing tool, Workforce3One has been a repository for tools and resources that complement the technical assistance offered by ETA and peer-to-peer learning. Using social media and Web 2.0 technology, we can take this to another level. You may consider the Reemployment Community of Practice an exclusive, professional club. Exclusive (we're inviting only 50,000 of our closest associates), professional (we're offering technical assistance to build the capacity of the public workforce system) club (we'd like to keep the engagement informal and socially comfortable). Through our Community of Practice (CoP) we can open more two-way exchanges among thought-leaders and workforce system learners. We can communicate in real time and continue "conversations" we started at a forum, a Webinar, a conference call, etc. We can upload documents to the Wiki section and ask our colleagues to edit them or offer comments. Wikis can also be used to document what's happening in your region on a particular topic. Our CoP can be used to jump start collaboration on a project and to engage in peer-to-peer learning activities. The CoP also complements our blended learning strategy . Now our colleagues can view a PodCast that introduces or defines a topic, then move to a wiki document to be share or edit content, then participate in a Webinar to learn more and to brainstorm further, and then join a discussion thread on the CoP to "continue

"ALISON is a for-profit social enterprise based in Galway, Ireland. We are a resourceful and determined multi-national team of socially-aware technologists, educationalists and marketers who understand that today, we have the opportunity to make universal education free to access via the Web. Through ALISON, we believe we have a sustainable and scalable business model to make education free online. Our starting point is basic skills for the workplace, and for that, we provide a range of high-quality courses. We have a range of courses to be launched over the next few months. Since our launch in April 2007, we have developed relationships with some of the largest and most prestigious institutions involved in promoting education and learning. We believe ALISON can make a profound impact on people's lives and livelihoods around the world. We cannot however succeed in this on our own. To learn more about how you might be able to assist the ALISON mission, click here. We believe that the ALISON model of education can save governments and educational institutions billions of dollars every year if adopted. Read how ALISON can help you as an individual learner, a teacher or trainer, or as an organization. Across the world, billions of people do not have access to high-quality skills-based interactive learning. The reason for this is usually distance and cost. The Internet changes this dynamic, and now ALISON can provide an educational opportunity like none before. Cost and distance need not be a barrier to universal learning. Through your use and support of ALISON, we can break down these barriers to learning permanently!"

"Who we are: Democrasoft is a leading provider of innovation in social collaboration and voting platforms for building successful online communities. With a focus on implementing solutions to build better relationships, identify obstacles, and create actionable, quantifiable outcomes that get results, Democrasoft provides everything you need to leverage the power of a well-engaged group. Democrasoft offers hosted, web-based solutions that "reach-in" to internal groups to promote collaboration and streamline decision-making, and "reach-out" to external audiences to enhance customer relationships, identify market opportunities and provide valuable customer insight and feedback."

"Aerva provides a single platform for Digital Signage, Mobile interactivity, and Social Media networking apps - the new Power Trio! Our team helps develop custom programming or you can manage any Web content in our easy system from any browser."

"United Prosperity is a non-profit organization that helps you combat extreme global poverty powerfully by multiplying the impact of your money through loan guarantees. We are the world's first person to person loan guaranteeing website. There are small entrepreneurs all over the world who cannot afford to start and grow their business alone. Expanding their business may be the only means to adequately feeding their family or sending their children to school. However, banks do not lend to them without collateral, and that's where you come in! You can become a compassionate social guarantor with United Prosperity by providing an interest-free cash collateral or guarantee for an entrepreneur on our website. No minimum amount is required, and you are able to choose which entrepreneurs you would like to support. We maximize the impact of your dollar: For every $1 you put toward a guarantee, you will allow nearly $2 or more in microloan to the entrepreneur from local banks either directly or through our partners . Better yet, you will be able to track your chosen entrepreneur's progress, and when they repay their loan, you will be repaid in full! At that point you will have the opportunity to support another entrepreneur if you wish."

"PolicyLink is a national research and action institute advancing economic and social equity by Lifting Up What Works.® Founded in 1999, PolicyLink connects the work of people on the ground to the creation of sustainable communities of opportunity that allow everyone to participate and prosper. Such communities offer access to quality jobs, affordable housing, good schools, transportation, and the benefits of healthy food and physical activity. Guided by the belief that those closest to the nation's challenges are central to finding solutions, PolicyLink relies on the wisdom, voice, and experience of local residents and organizations. Lifting Up What Works is our way of focusing attention on how people are working successfully to use local, state, and federal policy to create conditions that benefit everyone, especially people in low-income communities and communities of color. We share our findings and analysis through our publications, website and online tools, convenings, national summits, and in briefings with national and local policymakers. Our work is grounded in the conviction that equity-just, fair, and green inclusion-must drive all policy decisions."

"Welcome to the School for Ethical Education (SEE)! SEE is a not-for-profit teaching organization that provides classes, creates programs and offers consultation services to promote strategies for comprehensive ethics and character education. Our work is based in the research of the modern character-education movement and anchored in the practices published by the Character Education Partnership in their 11 Principles of Effective Character Education. Annual Report Now Available. The School for Ethical Education (SEE) has successfully completed 14 years of activity to put ethics in action. Review our Annual Report in PDF format. You are encouraged to browse and search this website to learn about our support for comprehensive character education that include strategies to: (1) advance caring classroom communities through classroom meetings, (2) develop expectations, procedures and rules to support moral discipline and academic integrity, (3) integrate the instruction of core values into academic lessons to promote higher-order thinking and writing, (4) practice cooperative learning strategies in support of academic lessons and service-learning, (5) learn a character-based decision-making strategy to advance ethical choices and actions, (6) recognize important social skills to teach in support of conflict resolution and (7) be familiar with strategies to implement and measure effective character education."

"In2Books was created in 1997 to enhance the intellectually stimulating work available to students in low-income neighborhoods. A basic tenet of In2Books is that all children are capable of deep learning. Children cannot fully develop their learning potential without challenging learning experiences. In2Books promotes ambitious literacy learning in grades 2-5 by having students engage in authentic reading and writing experiences with adult pen pals. The pen pal experience is complemented by the classroom study of genre and genre-related literacy. From its inception, In2Books has focused especially on under-resourced neighborhood where many students come from low-income, culturally diverse backgrounds. The thought-provoking In2Books curriculum includes carefully-chosen, high quality diverse books and research-proven teaching strategies. The strategies are aligned to grade-level literacy standards and science, social studies, and language arts instruction."

"Saving Cities, Ltd. is a civic and social organization based in Cleveland, Ohio. The purpose of Saving Cities, Ltd. is to attract, retain, and engage young professional entrepreneurs whose ideas, skills, and talents positively impact our local economies. Our mission statement is simply this: Actively Believe in People. We don't just believe in ideas, we believe in the people that create them, love them, and fight for them. Our job is to actively believe in people; help them find their voice; and provide them with the support structure they need in order to make the impact they seek to make. If you'd like to get involved, please contact us at info@savingcities.com and attach your resume and a brief summary of how you'd like to be involved."

"About Redu - What is Redu? REDU stands for rethinking, reforming and rebuilding US education. Powered by people and technology, REDU is a movement designed to expand and encourage the national conversation around education reform by providing information and resources to learn, a community platform to connect, and tools and initiatives to act. Following the belief that education will not be solved through a single bill passing or by policy makers alone, our goal is to create a destination where educators, parents, students, and everybody who cares about the issue have the means to engage in the ongoing conversations, be inspired by reform stories, and make a difference in their own way. It's a platform for everyone. REDU was developed by Bing from Microsoft in partnership with CAA, GOOD, Staple Design, Task Force, and Roadtrip Nation. United in the belief that "every child deserves a great education", REDU is powered by Bing's commitment to empower people through knowledge with our founding partners' ability to creatively drive positive social changes through its powerful content, unique network, and expertise in education. REDU supports Microsoft's vision for improving education by using technology to connect, engage, explore and create. To learn about Microsoft citizenship work in education and beyond, visit Microsoft Corporate Citizenship."

"Funded with a grant from the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Program, Digital Docs in a Box was designed for teachers who, like us, find the digital documentary process in social studies rewarding but time consuming. Currently on the site are five digital documentary kits *. Within each kit, there are a collection of annotated documents, images and audio clips primarily from the Library of Congress-all resources are copyright free and easily downloadable. To orient both the teacher and students, we have also provided both an overview of the kit and an introduction to the collection. Our hope is that by providing this resource, we can assist teachers to efficiently and effectively engage their students in the documentary process."

"Freedom is always under siege. Around the world, authoritarian regimes deprive millions of people of basic economic and social rights. Even elected governments can burden their citizens with labyrinthine bureaucracies and complex, unnecessary laws. And while some regimes are obviously worse than others, they all have apologists who obscure these conditions by twisting the relationship between freedom and human fulfillment."

"The The Sylvia Earle Alliance's (SEA) purpose is to explore and care for the ocean. We are committed to inspiring a sea change in public awareness, access and support for marine protected areas worldwide, ranging from the deepest ocean to sunlit reefs, and from the seamounts of the high seas to coastal seagrass meadows. We draw inspiration from the vision evoked by our founder, Dr. Sylvia Earle: to ignite public support for a global network of marine protected areas--hope spots large enough to save and restore the ocean, the blue heart of the planet. Under Dr. Earle's leadership, the SEA team has embarked on a series of expeditions to further this vision and shed light on these ocean Hope Spots. We also bring the discoveries and stories of a network of ocean experts to the public through documentaries, social and traditional media, and innovative tools like Google Earth's "Explore the Ocean" layer. Additionally, we support the work of many conservation NGO's with whom we share the basic mission of ocean protection and public awareness, most notably our global partner IUCN (the International Union for the Conservation of Nature)."

"Gather brings people together around the things they love to do and want to talk about. On Gather, it's easy to meet new people and make new friends."