{"id":406,"date":"2012-01-13T20:27:03","date_gmt":"2012-01-13T20:27:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kweaver.org\/cs\/how-to-get-things-for-your-classroom-and-your-students\/"},"modified":"2012-01-13T20:27:03","modified_gmt":"2012-01-13T20:27:03","slug":"how-to-get-things-for-your-classroom-and-your-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kweaver.org\/cs\/how-to-get-things-for-your-classroom-and-your-students\/","title":{"rendered":"How to get things for your classroom and your students"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Though I am a bit afraid to share, since there is only so much money to go around and so many things needed\u2026 and this is the basis of a talk I have proposed for an upcoming conference.<\/p>\n<p>Donor\u2019s choose at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.donorschoose.com\">http:\/\/www.donorschoose.com<\/a> is a great way to get small items for your classroom.&nbsp; I started out asking for XBox Controller\u2019s and have graduated to netbooks and XBox\u2019s.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s how Donor\u2019s Choose works:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Sign up and get initial points.&nbsp; Since I am doing Game Programming, I asked for XBox controllers.&nbsp; It took a few months but I got donations and got them.<\/li>\n<li>Once you get a project funded, you get the item, and then you have acknowledge the award.<\/li>\n<ul>\n<li>They want pictures of the items being used.<\/li>\n<li>Signed permission slips from the students.<\/li>\n<li>Thank you letters.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<li>Once you\u2019ve done the above, you can get more points.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Couple of hints:&nbsp; <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Make your projects as small as possible. I find it easier to get Netbooks funded than it is for Notebooks. BTW, Netbooks are great for programming NXT Robots, with RobotC.<\/li>\n<li>Go back to your old projects so you don\u2019t have to write everything from scratch.&nbsp; Each project gets easier to write and to fund.<\/li>\n<li>Be creative in your writing.&nbsp; Keywords are low income, minority, etc.&nbsp; Also, my Game Programming and my Robots projects are hits with the techies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I\u2019ve also received several grants and have been on the evaluation end of a yearly reward given by my district.&nbsp; To get a grant, work on it in pieces, don\u2019t try to do it all at once.&nbsp; If you need letters of recommendation, write the letter for the other person, email them and let them tweak it.&nbsp; That\u2019s makes it easier for them and lets them focus on the aspect you need for the grant or the award.<\/p>\n<p>The biggest thing when filling out any form, is to give them only what they need and make it as clear and succinct as possible.&nbsp; The reader will glaze over after the third sentence.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>In the past few years, I\u2019ve gotten the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<ul>\n<li>TI Teaching Fellow and Innovative Teacher in STEM (first year it was awarded)<\/li>\n<li>2 grants from the Texas Workforce Commission for Robotics<\/li>\n<li>1 grant from the Junior League<\/li>\n<li>11 projects from Donor\u2019s Choose<\/li>\n<li>1 student so far \u2013 Dallas Maverick\u2019s Co-Captain<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The biggest thing \u2013 FOLLOW AND READ DIRECTIONS!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Though I am a bit afraid to share, since there is only so much money to go around and so many things needed\u2026 and this is the basis of a talk I have proposed for an upcoming conference. Donor\u2019s choose at http:\/\/www.donorschoose.com is a great way to get small items for your classroom.&nbsp; I started [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kweaver.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kweaver.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kweaver.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kweaver.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kweaver.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kweaver.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kweaver.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kweaver.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kweaver.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}