We discuss issues of funding technology projects and a technology plan during the semester. In addition, parts of the primary textbook, and one entire secondary textbook are dedicated to funding and grant seeking. For one project, you are required to explore issues of technology funding.
Many candidates use this project in partial fulfillment of the Technology Resources Standard for the Pre-Internship Portfolio.
|C. Technology Resources
Being a technology facilitator requires the ability to use technology resources, find new resources, and find ways to acquire new resources that are compatible with the standards used in your school.
This project is best completed in a group of 2 or 3. Groups may not exceed 3 people. Groups are best when candidates are from similar schools. Candidates who are not currently teaching should work with current teachers.
Because the needs of each school of group members might be
different, candidates should discuss any differences that might make
the recommendations different for different schools.
Choose between one and three technology needs that your school has that a grant might help to meet. Seek out grants that can help you meet those needs. This paper would work best if you could identify a single need and locate several sources of funding to meet all or part of that need. However, that is a very difficult task, particularly when identifying five different grants.
Begin your paper with a description of the need(s) you identified.
This can be as brief as one paragraph for each need. When writing about
each of the grant opportunities, describe how that grant opportunity
can best meet one or more of your identified needs.
Use the web, pointers in the textbooks, or any other source of information to identify five specific grant opportunities for your school(s). Write an approximately three-page description of each of the five opportunities. Imagine that your description is a discussion of the grant opportunities for your school's administration or technology committee. You should include details of the grants (deadlines, eligibility requirements, restrictions on spending, award amounts, etc.) as well as a discussion of reasons for or against your school applying for the grants. Attach relevant information that you have received directly from the granting agencies (such as application material and their descriptions of the grant opportunity). You should strongly consider contacting the granting agency to find information about the grant that is not readily available on their Web site (this is not possible for every grant).
You may include grants for which you do not think your school(s) should apply, but do not include grants that are completely inappropriate for your school(s) or for which your school(s) do(es) not qualify. Note that if you come across grants with deadlines that have passed, you may include the grant if you believe there is a reasonable chance that the grant will be offered again. For example, if you find a grant that is given annually, and you missed this year's deadline, you may include the grant on the assumption that it is likely to be offered again next year.
You might come across some things that might better be described as a contest than a grant (even if they use the term "grant"). While these contests might be worthwhile, to qualify as a grant for the purposes of this project, there must be some kind of connection between the application and award. The award does not have to be monetary, but as part of your application, you should be required to describe how you are going to use the award and be judged based on that description.
To receive an A on this project, you are required to find at least one grant that is greater than $10,000. Some grants have options to apply for varying funding levels, and you may count a grant as a larger grant if one of the options is to apply for an amount greater than $10,000. However, there are a few grants for which you may apply for a smaller amount and then a small number of grant recipients are selected for additional awards. This will count as a smaller grant because you are not applying for the larger award.
The exact nature of your project will vary based on your own situation. Projects will tend toward an A if they are presented professionally with proper grammar, spelling, and usage; if they demonstrate an understanding of the nature of the grant(s) described, including information from the books, the web, and from contacting the granting agency (i.e., they go beyond simply summarizing the grant's web site); if they align to needs you identify in your school that go beyond simple hardware needs; and if they explore the pros and cons of applying for each grant. Additionally, "A" projects may include smaller grants (in the range of a few hundred dollars), and they will include at least one larger grant (for at least ten thousand dollars). Click here to view the rubric that will be used for grading this paper.
This page was prepared by Dr. David M. Marcovitz.
Last Updated: August 17, 2012