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Earlier today I responded to a reader's questions about applying for grants. One of the questions was about how to find grant opportunities. Grant Wrangler was the first resource that came to mind when I read the question. Grant Wrangler is a free service that lists grant opportunities for teachers, school administrators, and students. Grant Wrangler also lists some contest opportunities. You can search Grant Wrangler by content area, grade level, and application deadline.

They sound like something out of science fiction, but Bitcoins are getting just a little bit more real every day. They're intangible and invisible, but bitcoins recently attracted some real investment capital from the Winklevoss twins, who first dreamed up the idea for Facebook - or so their lawsuit argued. A bit of background: Bitcoins are a virtual currency system. They were programmed by an anonymous programmer(s?) in 2009. There are a limited number of possible bitcoins that can ever be traded-21 million-and the "coins" become available incrementally. That process is crowdsourced (anybody can mint bitcoins) but it requires solving complex encryption problems. Most bitcoin miners have an army of computer hardware to do the work for them.

MentorMob is a site for creating learning playlists. Within a maximum of 10 "steps" you can lead your students through the learning process focused on any topic. Since playlists can include links to websites, to files you've created or to pop quizzes you'll have a variety of media at your disposal to support student learning. At the MentorMob site, create an account then browse the learning playlists already created by other educators. You'll find that some authors have shared their work publicly so that others can save their playlists and be able to edit them. While you're exploring the MentorMob website, be sure to also check the MentorMob blog where one of our recently created playlists is currently being featured. Creating your own learning playlist couldn't be simpler. Begin with some basic information: a title, description, category and tags. Next, you'll decide who will be able to view and edit your playlist - these can be changed later if you'd like to start by keeping your work private while it's in development. The plus sign that you find next will help you create the first step which can be a web link, a file or a pop quiz. Keep in mind that the links could lead your students to anything on the web such as videos, online polling tools, Google forms, interactive sites, or articles. Enter a title and description for each step you create as well as a representative image. Save your work and you're ready to create a new step.

"This is the first piece in a series explaining the 4 fundamental principles of Good Disruptive Change: mindset, motion, measurement, and mastery."