State Street Foundation

The State Street Foundation offers grants year round on a rolling basis. There is no application deadline. One of the Foundation's priorities is to support educational programs that "
enhance education and employment opportunities by focusing on mentoring
and tutoring, job skills training, and financial and language literacy."

Can you hear me now?

The Verizon Foundation offers grants to schools and educational programs.

http://foundation.verizon.com/grant/guidelines.shtml

Intel Community Grants

Intel supports the communities in which it has a presence through a Community Grant program. The primary funding priority of the program is to support K-12 educational programs that advance math, science, and technology learning.

The school / program must be located in an area where Intel has a presense. In the US, it must be in: Arizona, California, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Utah, or Washington.

http://www.intel.com/community/grant.htm?iid=community_lhn+grant

Federal Computers for Learning

Computers for learning is a Federal Government program that works to transfer surplus computer equipment and peripherals from Federal government departments and agencies to public school districts.

School administrators can apply to participate in the program here:

http://computersforlearning.gov/

Bank of Opportunity?

Bank of America offers grants to school districts through it's Local Grant program. There is no deadline for submitting an application, and one of the funding priorities is to support K-12 education.

http://www.bankofamerica.com/foundation/index.cfm?template=fd_localgrants

More Grants!

www. us-government-grants.net/grants-information
This is for a science technology grant. The due date is 11/30/2008. It is for $3,000.00 cash.

At&T grant
http://www.att.com/foundation
this has ongoing due dates. Learning network grants

I also found this one
www.microsoft.com/about/corporatecitizenship/us/
this is community engagment grant.

I can see from what has already been posted grants are out there. You just need to read through them all and see what would work for your school. I am thinking that at first you might not find what it is you are looking for. But......you might find something that would help your school/classroom out.

Grant tips

I think that if we have to write a grant proposal here is a link to some tips for writing grants.

Here is the link http://www.k12grants.org/tips.htm

Grant Writing Tips
The most important thing for grant-writers to remember is that they might submit a perfect application and still receive a rejection. Most foundations have limited resources with which to fund projects. Do not get discouraged if you get a rejection from a possible funding source.
READ the grantor's guidelines and instructions carefully. Do not try to make the grantor's program fit what you want to do - your program must be in line with the funding agency's priorities.
Ideas should be innovative, creative and educational. Grantors will rarely fund operating expenses - they usually invest in supplemental programs. Private foundations often seek creative solutions to problems/needs, but they usually do not wish to fund risky projects. Try proposing a project that puts a fresh spin on an existing idea.
Keep your goals realistic! It is important to have an evaluation plan. Grantors want to know if the projects they fund are successful--that your project is meeting its goals.
Is your project replicable? If so, tell the grantor how you plan to extend the project to other grades or schools.
Have a reasonable, detailed budget. Do your homework on costs prior to submitting your application and be sure to explain your budget even if there are no requirements to do so.

Grants and Grant Searches

I found several grants that had specific dates and purposes, but in searching the corporate world, I found sites for open-end grants. Each year people submit grants and they are rewarded based on the merit of the request. Even after selecting just a few sites, I can see why grant writers are in such great demand. One of the first sites I visited, Teacher Tap, offered a links to other sites.
http://www.eduscapes.com/tap/topic94.htm
Toyota provides an on-line grant process.
http://www.toyota.com/tma/about/community/orgForm.do?tms
Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services has a Grants and Funding page;
http://www.ed.gov/fund/grant/apply/nidrr/index.html
NOVA 5000 Science Grant
http://www.nova1to1.com/science-grant/index.php
Corning invites grant applications “Corning Incorporated Foundation makes grants in
support of education, culture and community service programs at the local level, and to selected national
and international programs identified by the Foundation.”

http://www.corning.com/assets/0/15/19/55/119/163/F848CF05-1A41-4F1D-AE08-5287ADB85F35.pdf
Sun Microsystems
http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/comm_invest/ogp/index.html
The government has several on-going grant programs at;
http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/os/technology/edgrants.html

EDS Technology Grants

Below is a grant I think would be useful for purchasing equipment.

http://www.eds.com/about/community/grants/

Best Buy and HP Grants

I have found two grants for technoloy in a high school setting. Best Buy and HP have wonderful grants, unfortuanalty money for this school year has been awarded, but...it is something we could/ should apply for next year.

The process of blogging as it relates to funding

The process of blogging can act as a catalyst, not only for conversation and exchange of ideas, but also as a repository for information. As exhibited in this blog the bloggers are posting information that enables the group as a whole to stay abreast of ideas at little or no cost.

One of the ways to fund technology is to reach out to the community, but even that method is meeting with some resistance in today’s economic environment as evidenced by this article from the Boston Herald. http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1127499&srvc=home&position=1

Non-profit orginazations are often set up by the public to aid communities or schools where funding falls short. Having a profosenal non-porfit executive can often find revenue stream where there appear to be none. There is money out there, http://www.wave3.com/Global/story.asp?S=9213583&nav=menu31_2

It may take some personel investment to find a source, but nothing is for free.

Students Computer Work

If we set up a program that used our students to fix computers/printers or other IT issues, then we could open this up to our community. Community members could drop of their computers and our students could help fix them or load software. Also, our students may be able to provide some training to seniors in the community that may want/need to learn internet basics...Like e-mail, blogging and surfing the net...We could charge a small fee for these types of workshops. So the Technology department gets some money, the students get to develop their skills and the community has some basic technology services.

Re: Chronicle Article

What a great idea to have students provide tech services for a fee! The service could be set up as a student-run business project. The district could combine technical education with an entrepreneurship exercise.

Chronicle Article

I found this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. It outlines ways a school can help their information technology department. I like the point of having the Information Technology department fix computers for a small fee and become involved in updating the systems instead of hiring an outside firm. Also, for higher education they can higher their technology fee cost.

http://chronicle.com/free/2001/05/2001051001t.htm

Use Computer Students

I think another way to help with cost is to use any students in our current program that can help with IT issues. We have many students who are very knowledgable about computers and how they work. If we use these students to problem solve small issues. This will free up our time so we can look for grants and other sources of funding. Of course we would only use students that we felt comfortable.

More Web Resources

We need to use the web as much as possible to keep current on tech trends and developments.

Cnet.com is one of the top technology news and information sites.

http://www.cnet.com/?tag=hdr%3bbrandnav

Find What's Free - Teacher's First

Our next strategy to keep current with changes in hardware and software for educators is to use the web to find high quality tools and information that is free. I have found a great site that we can use to find free tools, read technology reviews, and stay current:

http://www.teachersfirst.com/index.cfm

Check out the "What's Hot" section:

http://www.teachersfirst.com/content/edge.cfm

They list their contributors on the one of the site's pages. All are professional educators:

http://www.teachersfirst.com/contributors.cfm

First Response - Find Funding

My first response to the challenge posed by the technology budget cuts is to try to find grant money that will allow us to restore some of the planned hardware and software purchases.

This link hosted on techLearning.com provides a calendar of grant deadlines and URLs for each grant listed.

http://www.techlearning.com/techlearning/pdf/grants/dellgrantscalendar08_09.pdf

Blog

The topic area for your blog is funding for technology in education. You are the director of technology in education for your school district. You just learned that your funding has been reduced by 35% in this year’s budget, so instead of replacing hardware and software in the classrooms, you have to find another way to keep up with current technology trends. In your blog, be sure to cite experts in the field.

BLog

So I think the blog can be used if everyone else logs in.

Invitations to Blog

I did some research, and I tried to log in to the Thomas set up using the info that Thomas posted I received a password incorrect message, so I stopped because I didn't want to lock up Thomas's ID.

I think that Blogger is the right tool for us. I set up this blog to play with, and found that the blog settings allow me to invite others to blog. I have sent emails to everyone on the team inviting you to join. That way, we can all post directly to the blog.

Thomas did the work of finding the tool and formating the original blog. (Note, I don't have any cool photos posted). If we decide to stick with that original blog, I can give a hand in how to set it up so we can all post.