Jim’s Grant Writing Tips

Identify your educational objective. For example:

• Differentiate instruction to maximize learning for each student
• Enhance communication and collaboration with/among students, teachers, parents, and/or community members
• Foster student-initiated learning
• Enhance student awareness of other cultures
• Facilitate student creativity

The goal of the grant is SHOULD NOT BE to get the tools, materials and funding you want, the goal should be an educational objective.

Support your Ideas

Educational research and standards can help you discover your strengths and weaknesses. Standards help you to identify and support the opportunities and challenges that your grant proposal seeks to address. Your grant should be supported by research, standards and your subject-area curriculum.

For example: The NETS-S standard National Educational Technology Standards (NETS-S) number two is Communication and Collaboration “Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others. “ A teacher could write a grant to help Students “develop cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with learners of other cultures”.

Target your Message

Learn about the mission of the company or foundation that is sponsoring the grant. Continually demonstrate and describe the alignment of your grant proposal with the mission of the foundation. If the foundation’s purpose is to develop innovative practices in education, be sure to highlight how your proposal is new and innovative.

Learn about the grant evaluators and target your message to that audience. Are they educators or business people? Use clear and concise language they will understand. Do not assume that a business person, or an educator outside of your subject area, will automatically understand terminology or nomenclature specific to your field.

Follow the directions

Make sure to follow the submission guidelines and question prompts to a “T.” Entire applications can be dismissed over something as simple as incorrect formatting.

Whenever possible, use the exact terminology requested in the prompts. This makes it easier for those grading the application to see that you are addressing the issues asked for in the application.

Funding

Plan for long term costs when funding technology with grant funding. Consider the cost of ownership and the need for long-term support. Technology tools purchased with grant funds must be approved and supported by your school district.

Be Persistent

If at first you don’t succeed, try again! You may have had a fantastic idea that the organization was simply unable to fund at that time. That failed grant can serve as the foundation for future grant applications. You can rework and rewrite your ideas again to a different organization. The writing process itself is extremely valuable to reflect on your practice and explore innovative ways to improve your own teaching.

Links to grant sources can be found on my bookmarks at http://delicious.com/vennemeyerj/grants

What is Social Bookmarking?

Social Bookmarking is a way of saving, organizing, and sharing your favorite internet bookmarks/links.

Instead of saving all my bookmarks on the computer, I use a free social bookmarking service called delicious.com. All of my bookmarks are related to educational technology, curriculum, instruction, and educational research. If you have similar interests you can view my bookmarks at http://delicious.com/vennemeyerj . You can also use the subscription and network features to keep track of my bookmarks and other delicious.com users you find most interesting. View the bookmarks of the people in my network at http://delicious.com/network/vennemeyerj . Each of my bookmarks has a title and description. The Bookmarks are organized using “tags” that describe the general topic of the bookmark. For example 21stCentury Skills, Math, Research, Web2.0…etc

Teachers can use Social Bookmarking to collaborate with other educators and effectivly communicate information with students, parents and the world.

The National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers #3 is to Model Digital-Age Work and Learning. “Teachers exhibit knowledge, skills, and work processes representative of an innovative professional in a global and digital society.” Social Bookmarking can help teachers meet this standard. Some related indicators are that teachers should collaborate with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation. Teachers should communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital-age media and formats.
Finally, teachers should model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources to support research and learning.

What are podcasts and iTunes U?

Podcasts are free audio or video files that you can play on your computer, iPhone, or iPod. 

Podcasts are like a TV or radio series that you can subscribe to on your computer. iTunes is a free application for mac and PC that makes  getting podcasts easy. Open iTunes and click on the iTunes Store and click Podcasts or iTunes U.  Search for a podcast that interests you. You can listen to a single episode or subscribe to the podcast series so that new episodes will automatically be downloaded in to your iTunes library. 

iTunes U has over 100,000 educational audio and video lectures, language lessons, audiobooks, and more from top universities, museums and public media organizations from around the world. See below or Click here for a video introduction to iTunes U 

Podcasts are a great way for teachers to demonstrate life long learning and keep up with educational research. 

The National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers #5 is to Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership. Podcasts can help teachers meet this standard. One related indicator is that teachers continuously improve their professional practice, model lifelong learning, and exhibit leadership in their school and professional community by promoting and demonstrating the effective use of digital tools and resources. The second related indicator is that teachers evaluate and reflect on current research and professional practice on a regular basis to make effective use of existing and emerging digital tools and resources in support of student learning.

What is a Wiki?

A Wiki is a collaborative web site.

Teachers can use a wiki to enable each student to contribute to a great class web site. The teacher can set the wiki permissions for each of the students in their class. For example, Students may be given permission to "read only" some pages on the site and permission to edit other pages.

National Educational Technology Standards (NETS-S) number one is Creativity and Innovation. "Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology." Creating original works as a means of personal or group expression is an indicator.

A Wiki is an fantastic platform for teachers and their classes to demonstrate personal or group expression with technology.

The video below gives a great general explanation of a wiki.

I contribute to the Tech Tactics Wiki at https://techtactics.wikispaces.com

Mason teachers that are interested in starting a wiki can contact your Technology Curriculum Leader (Jim or Randy) to get started. Other teachers can check my bookmarks for wiki resources.

Click here for my Wiki related bookmarks.

What is RSS?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication .

Many web sites use RSS feeds to broadcast the new information posted on their site. 

Teachers and students can use RSS to easily keep up with all of the new information posted on many different web sites. 

The video below explains the process.

What are Blogs?

A blog is another name for a web log. This web page is an example of a blog. Notice that the articles (called posts) are organized in chronological order. Blogs can provide information on a wide variety of topics. The focus of my blog is educational technology tools. 

Teachers can read blogs to learn and write a blog to share their expertise and point of view on effective educational tools and practices.

The video below gives a good explanation of Blogs. 

Blogs are a great tool for teachers to share with other educators and meet The ISTE National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS•T)

Click here for my bookmarks related to blogs