Congratulations to 2019 NETA Contest Winners from ESU 8!

NETA recently announced their 2019 Contest results and several winners reigned from ESU 8.

Congratulations to the following:

Ashley Pischel, O'Neill High School

Teacher: Kevin Morrow

Jiya Chaudhari, O'Neill High School

Teacher: Kevin Morrow

Julia Emme, O'Neill High School

Teacher: Mike Peterson

Award winners will be recognized at NETA's Spring Conference, held March 28-29, 2019 in Omaha, NE. A complete list of the 2019 NETA Contest Winners can be found here. 

Advance your EdTech skills with the ESU 8 Certification Challenge!

ESU 8 is excited to announce a new challenge encouraging everyone to advance their technology skills. With recent technology certifications announced by both Apple and Google, educators can pick their platform of choice and work through the quizzes to achieve certification status.

Work through the quizzes, digital badges, and certification tests on your own... or ask your ESU 8 Technology Integrationists for help. After each certification achieved, submit your name to be recognized on the Honor Board and in various ESU 8 publications. If you have already earned either of the certifications, we still encourage you to submit your name and celebrate your professional accomplishments.

Each entry to the form on the ESU 8 website will also enter your name in a drawing for a technology integration day provided by ESU 8 for your classroom. (Drawings to be held March 1, 2017.)

Visit http://www.esu8.org/edtech-certification-challenge/ to learn more and get started! 
Contact tina@esu8.org or katie@esu8.org with any questions. 

Letters About Literature: Reading/Writing opportunity for schools

Young Readers Invited to Write to Favorite Authors

Young readers in grades 4-12 are invited to write a personal letter to an author for the Letters about Literature (LAL) contest, a national reading and writing promotion program. The letter can be to any author (living or dead) from any genre—fiction or nonfiction, contemporary or classic—explaining how that author’s work changed the student’s view of the world. The 24^th annual writing contest for young readers is made possible by a generous grant from the Dollar General Literacy Foundation, with additional support from gifts to the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, which promotes the contest through its affiliate Centers for the Book, state libraries and other organizations. This reading and writing promotion is sponsored in Nebraska by the Nebraska Center for the Book and Nebraska Library Commission, and supported by Houchen Bindery Ltd. and Chapters Books in Seward.

Prizes will be awarded on both the state and national levels. The Nebraska Center for the Book’s panel of judges will select the top letter writers in the state, to be honored in a proclamation-signing ceremony at the state capitol during National Library Week in April 2017. Their winning letters will be placed in the Jane Pope Geske Heritage Room of Nebraska Authors at Bennett Martin Public Library in Lincoln. Nebraska winners will receive state prizes, and then advance to the national judging.

A panel of national judges for the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress will select one National Winner per competition level (Level I for grades 4-6, Level II for grades 7-8, and Level III for grades 9-12) to receive a $1,000 cash award, to be announced in May 2017. The judges will also select one National Honor winner on each competition level to receive a $200 cash award.

Teachers, librarians, and parents can download free teaching materials on reader response and reflective writing, along with contest details and entry forms, atwww.read.gov/letters. Nebraska-specific information (including lists of Nebraska winners of past competitions) is available at http://centerforthebook.nebraska.gov/programs/LAL.html. Get inspired by listening to Nebraska winners, Ashley Xiques and Sydney Kohl, read and talk about and their winning letters to authors that meant something to them in their own lives, see NET Radio’s All About Books(http://netnebraska.org/basic-page/radio/all-about-books). Submissions from Grades 9-12 must be postmarked by December 2, 2016. Submissions from Grades 4-8 must be postmarked by January 9, 2017. For more information contact Mary Jo Ryan, MaryJo.Ryan@nebraska.com, 402-471-3434 or 800-307-2665.

The Nebraska Center for the Book is housed at the Nebraska Library Commission and brings together the state’s readers, writers, booksellers, librarians, publishers, printers, educators, and scholars to build the community of the book, supporting programs to celebrate and stimulate public interest in books, reading, and the written word. The Nebraska Center for the Book is supported by the Nebraska Library Commission.

As the state library agency, the Nebraska Library Commission is an advocate for the library and information needs of all Nebraskans. The mission of the Library Commission is statewide promotion, development, and coordination of library and information services, bringing the most up-to-date news releases from the Nebraska Library Commission are always available on the Library Commission Website, http://nlc.nebraska.gov/publications/newsreleases.

Student PSA contest: Drive4Life

From an email from Scholastic: Student PSA Contest to help prevent distracted walking

View in browser  Sponsored Encourage your students in grades 6–12 to create a public service announcement (PSA) for the 2016 Drive2Life Contest to help prevent distracted walking. PRIZES INCLUDE: • One Grand Prize student winner will receive $1,000 and a trip to New York City to work with an Emmy-winning director to turn his or her vision into a 30-second PSA. Plus, the winner will be featured on the nationally broadcast TV show Teen Kids News and in select Scholastic magazines. • Four student runners-up (two from grades 6–8 and two from grades 9–12) will each receive $500. • The teacher of each student winner will receive a one-year subscription to a Scholastic magazine. Go to scholastic.com/drive2life for free lessons on pedestrian safety and creating a PSA. See Official Rules. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited. The Drive2Life Contest (“Contest”) is open to students who are currently enrolled in grades 6–12 in one of the 50 United States or the District of Columbia, who are legal residents of the United States, and who attend a public school, accredited private school, or home school (“Schools”) in compliance with the laws of its state. To enter the Contest, each student must create a storyboard or written script on 8.5 x 11-inch paper for a 30-second public service announcement (“PSA”) to help prevent distracted walking. One entry per person. One Grand Prize student winner will receive $1,000 plus a trip to New York City, where a professional film team will transform his/her PSA into a 30-second commercial. Four runner-up student winners (two from grades 6–8 and two from grades 9–12) each receive $500 (Total ARV of student prizes: $4,950). Teachers of winning students receive Scholastic magazines (ARV of each subscription: $247.50–$299.70). Entries must be postmarked by February 5, 2016, and received by February 19, 2016. See complete Official Rules at www.scholastic.com/drive2life/rules.   Visit Scholastic.com For Teachers | For Parents | For Kids Please add snp@message.scholastic.com to your address book.  We hope you enjoyed receiving this message from Scholastic National Partnerships. If you would rather not receive promtional emails from Scholastic National Partnerships, please follow this link. Please visit the Scholastic Preference Center to update your personal information and to manage your email subscriptions. Email Marketing, Scholastic Inc., 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012 | 1-800-SCHOLASTIC Privacy Policy | Scholastic Inc. | Terms of Use ©1996-2015 Scholastic Inc.

Keeping current with ed tech opportunities across Nebraska

NETA (Nebraska Educational Technology Association) has recently made some exciting announcements that can benefit any Nebraska educator.

First of all, annual membership in NETA is free.  That's right: Zero dollars.  No matter what subject area or grade level you work with, everyone should consider signing up.  The only difference between the current free membership and the paid $35 annual membership is a printed newsletter.  But by signing up here anyone can receive the same information and announcements in digital format for no cost at all.  This is something that I highly recommend and a great way to stay current with the ever-changing field of educational technology in Nebraska schools.

Secondly, NETA has made some changes to its many contests.  And now that they offer free membership to the organization, anyone can enter!  There are contests for students and for teachers and some open categories, all designed to highlight the great things that Nebraska schools are already doing with technology (as opposed to creating an entry specifically for a contest).  Entries are all submitted digitally and winners receive a free NETA Conference registration plus substitute reimbursement for the two days of the April conference(held April 21 & 22 in Omaha), a really great experience for any educator. For teachers there is an app smashing contest, lesson idea contest, video contest, grant and ISTE attendance opportunities. Student contests include logo creation, graphic imagery, infographics, and more. Read more about the NETA Contests, including the submission deadlines, by visiting this link.

An exciting opportunity exists for us in Nebraska this upcoming summer as the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) is holding its annual conference in Denver on June 26-29, 2016.  For many of us this offers a way to attend a high-caliber international conference without having to purchase a plane ticket. To make travel even more feasible, NETA is looking into possibly sponsoring a bus, with various pickup/drop off points across the state. If this is something you are interested in, you can fill out this form to learn more. If you aren't interested in coordinating travel with others, consider attending on your own. You can read more about ISTE 2016 here.

Another technology-related resource to take a look at is a pre-recorded free webcast from Nebraska Department of Ed on digital citizenship appropriate for all to view:
NCompass Live: Your Digital Footprint: Managing Your Online Identity

Finally, if any school has a group of students doing really great things with technology, considering inviting them to share at the NASB (Nebraska Association of School Boards) Student Showcase. Held like a traditional vendor or project fair during their yearly conference, students would man a "booth" and share firsthand their expertise with educational leaders from across the state. This offers valuable experience in presentation and communication for our young people, as well as an opportunity to showcase the positive learning happening with technology in our schools. If you are interested in signing up, please visit this form.