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Students and teachers are taking the 4 liter challenge. Here's the curriculum and information to bring resources and instruction to children of all ages. "To make the 4 Liter Challenge an even more enriching experience, we've created a free curriculum that introduces themes of water, poverty and human rights to any 7-12th grade classroom. The 4L Curriculum is multidisciplinary and designed to align with national standards. It's built on an innovative "See, Judge, Act" model and will greatly enhance your students' 4L Challenge."

I got this notice from Moby Max. There are a proliferation of websites that let you check and have kids working in online spaces like this. Remember that these can be helpful, but you should and must have students programming and inventing with computers. These can be very helpful but are only one use of the computer. Below is what they sent me about the service. Please let me know if you're using this (educators only, please). "MobyMax has just released the easiest way to get your students motivated and start the year off right-a free 119 prize school contest. Within the first ten minutes of releasing the free 119 prize contest on Monday with no announcement, 22 schools signed up! Not only are the contest and 119 prizes free, but MobyMax curriculum is free as well. (You may remember that teachers can upgrade to the Pro version for just $79 per year, but the prizes, contest, and curriculum are completely free whether you upgrade or not!) We are also proud to announce our students' results from the last school year. The results from over 600,000 students showed that those who used MobyMax for 40 hours averaged more than a 1.4 grade level increase in math and a 1.5 grade level increase in language. Students answered over 1 million problems in MobyMax's new reading module released this summer."

Common Sense Media has launched a new version of its free digital citizenship curriculum, Digital Literacy and Citizenship in a Connected Culture. The new version adds student, teacher, and parent resources, including comprehensive lessons on cyber bullying, for fourth and fifth graders.

Health teachers will love this site for kids. If you have a rainy day and have access to some computers, this would be a great place for activities. As we emphasize health, we should seek out engaging content in this area. This site is free. Love it. "The multi-award winning program is focused on teaching the basics of cardiovascular health, including anatomy, nutrition, and exercise, by offering comprehensive curriculum materials to teachers and a site just for elementary school children to explore. The curriculum was developed as part of our mission to educate the public in a collaborative effort with medical professionals and certified teachers.  Project Heart is completely free to use and free of advertisements. It is also fully translated into Spanish. 

Students interact with music, movies, software, and other digital content every day-but many don't fully understand the rules surrounding the appropriate use of these materials, or why this should even matter. To help teach students about intellectual property rights and encourage them to become good "digital citizens," software giant Microsoft Corp. has unveiled a free curriculum that offers cross-curricular classroom activities aligned with national standards. The Digital Citizenship and Creative Content program was designed for students in grades 8-10 but can be adapted for use in grades 6-12, Microsoft says. In one unit, students are given a scenario in which a high school sponsors a school-wide Battle of the Bands. A student not involved in the production decides to videotape and sell copies of the show to students and family members. Later, one of the performers ("Johnny") learns his image has been co-opted by the maker of a video game without his permission. Students research intellectual property laws to see who owns the "rights" to the Battle of the Bands as a whole, as well as the rights of individual performers, to determine three or four steps that Johnny can take. http://digitalcitizenshiped.com

Now offered free to educators, this site has a TON of resources, curriculum enhancing content, activities, and lots more. Watch the demo first to get an idea of what's in the site.

Microsoft has announced an initiative as part of the ConnectED movement in the US. Here are the details: "Windows 8.1 Pro Operating System: One of the most powerful and flexible operating systems for education, it provides the ability for students and teachers to use education apps and Microsoft Office, search for information across their device and the web, and is optimized for touch, education apps, research, productivity and digital inking, critical keys to better learning outcomes. Office 365 Education Communication and Collaboration Tool: Email, sites, online and offline document editing and storage, IM, and web conferencing capabilities for all you students for free. Plus 5 copies of Office for free for more than 12 million students at qualified institutions. Partners in Learning Network Teacher Training and Resources: Partners in Learning provides educators with a network of nearly 1 million educators from 136 countries. It offers them a forum where they can share ideas, find free lesson plans to inspire classroom learning and develop professionally. Bing for Schools Ad-free search: An ad-free digital literacy platform aimed at helping students learn important digital skills based on access to a connected computing device, daily common-core aligned lesson plans, and a safe, private environment where search history will not be mined for data. Student training and resources: Microsoft IT Academy: For roughly 2,000 high-needs schools, Microsoft is providing academic institutions and their educators, students, and staff with digital curriculum and certification for fundamental technology skills. Affordable Broadband from EveryoneOn: A critical component to connected learning, Microsoft's non-profit partner EveryoneOn is offering home Internet service for as low $10 to the 36 million Americans living in low-income communities."

Cool (not free though) website with some really nifty gizmos.

I think we're going to see more companies that have valid, standards based games like this one for elementary science and math. This isn't free but you can have a free trial and try the games free for 5 minutes. I think that games are going to be part of what we do and smart textbook companies would behoove themselves to embed games as part of the curriculum for each chapter. I wish my school could do something like this, another thing to look at.

Free Student Curriculum K-8 "Empowering students to use the Internet safely, responsibly, and effectively."

Free middle school cyberbullying curriculum!

Free open textbooks that are peer reviewed to be of higher calibre. Free online and low-cost in print. If you're looking at options, this is where you should go (if you're curriculum director or administrator.) Start here for free open textbooks.

The Reggio Emilia Approach is an educational philosophy focused on preschool and primary education. It was started by Loris Malaguzzi and the parents of the villages around Reggio Emilia in Italy after World War II. The destruction from the war, parents believed, necessitated a new, quick approach to teaching their children. They felt that it is in the early years of development that children are forming who they are as an individual. This led to creation of a program based on the principles of respect, responsibility, and community through exploration and discovery in a supportive and enriching environment based on the interests of the children through a self-guided curriculum.

This site has a growing collection of free printables for many areas of the curriculum. Find maths, English and other PDF resources to use in your class. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Cross+Curricular

Here are more free printable resources. http://www.textbooksfree.org/Free%20Internet%20Libraries.htm

CO14 is happening this weekend and so many great people are presenting. It runs from February 7-9 and is free. My session is sharing how writing has been reinvented as I share the 9 tools that have changed how we teach forever (a sneak preview of my book coming out in May.) If you teach writing, work with curriculum or teach, feel free to join in. The session is at 8 am EST on Saturday morning, February 8. Anyone can join. Lots of amazing presenters are speaking so check it out.

If you want to understand what FLOE does and how it can help you use free resources to help all learners, then you can watch this video. This is for everyone in special education and especially those developing curriculum for those in special education. The first year it is free and after that they do charge for the service, I believe.

Check out this free writing adviser that students can use to get instant feedback on their writing. Students can type in the tool itself or upload a document. Awesome formative tool. Students are allowed to focus on their purpose and audience, essay structure, and use of written language (sentence economy, variety, power, and clarity). You will see your students learning to ask questions experienced writers ask automatically. As a result, you'll see your students express themselves with greater precision and power. Best of all it is free. You will need an account set up to use this amazing tool, and then you can also enroll your students.

So many great health and science lesson plans running around. This is from the American Heart Association and is three lessons to help kids. This from the site: "Sudden Cardiac Arrest can strike anyone, anywhere - and a victim's chance of survival depends on the people around them. Be the Beat offers free games, music, videos and giveaways to educate teens about recognizing a cardiac arrest, calling 911, CPR and using an AED, while they have fun! Schools play a vital role in this movement to train teen lifesavers. As a complement to your CPR and AED program, or other curriculum, check out our free resources and register now so we can keep you updated on the latest news. Then, encourage your students to play and learn on Be the Beat. Together we can create the next generation of lifesavers!" With summer approaching in the USA and the inevitable tragic drownings that always happen - your teaching could save someone's life!

You have found the very best drawing curriculum on the Internet: ideal for individuals, homeschooling families, and art educators. You can make your Portfolio-gallery too Check out our huge (and continuously growing) library of free, downloadable, high-quality lessons authored by world-renowned artists, art educators, and authors (no registration or log-in needed).You are welcome to view, download, share, translate, and redistribute all our free lessons. 

"A free resource to help teachers and students to gain a deeper understanding of how the body works has been launched by The Physiological Society in partnership with the University of Liverpool. The resource, a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), has been specifically designed to support the A-level Biology curriculum, with a focus on the respiratory, cardiovascular and nervous systems."

This is a great site for creating all sorts of online cloze text of missing words and sentence ordering activities. It's great for sentence and grammar work, as well as using text about topics from across the curriculum. Register for free to create text activities to share and embed. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Cross+Curricular