Manchester Center, VT- July 7th, 2011- Thanks to the generous support of Espresso Education, Digital Wish has just announced a $600 matching grant on all Espresso Elementary subscriptions purchased by educators through September 30, 2011. Using this limited time grant, educators can get an Espresso Elementary Annual Subscription valued at $1595 for their entire school for just $995.

Espresso Education has been the leading digital curriculum service in the UK for years and has expanded its high quality educational program to America. Appropriate for the PreK-5 classroom, Espresso is a huge library of video clips integrated with interactive activities, games, quizzes, and a weekly News Roundup. Its cross-curricular learning modules cover all subject areas, helping elementary school teachers deliver memorable lessons, engaging students in the learning process.

"Earlier this year, we were thrilled to offer educators a free trial subscription of Espresso Elementary and introduce them to such a high quality program," said Heather Chirtea, founder and executive director of Digital Wish. "We got such a great response that we have introduced this large grant opportunity so that educators can take full advantage of everything Espresso Elementary has to offer."

Lewis Bronze, Espresso CEO commented, "We think Digital Wish is a fantastic organization and a real service to teachers who need extra support to bring technology into their classroom. We are proud to have been selected as a 'wish list' product and really pleased that we can offer a grant that makes Espresso even more affordable. We promise to make a difference in your classroom!"

About Digital Wish

Digital Wish is a non-profit on a mission to solve technology shortfalls in K-12 classrooms. The www.digitalwish.org website is designed to help teachers locate much-needed funding for classroom technology. Teachers make technology wish lists, and supporters make those wishes come true. Digital Wish provides a host of fundraising ideas and allows teachers to e-mail and print their technology wish lists so that parents and community members can contribute. A new fundraising feature lets teachers, supporters, organizations, PTAs, and PTOs start online fundraisers for new classroom technology in just a few mouse clicks. Over 25,867 technology wishes have been granted.

Digital Wish Contact: John Sullivan, Communications Manager, 802-549- 4572, [email protected]

About Espresso Elementary

Espresso Elementary for Pre-K to 5 is a cross-curricular, multimedia learning site with a wide range of interactive, video-rich classroom resources that inspire children to learn. The award- winning resources on Espresso Elementary have been built up since 1997, and have proven to engage students while helping them to achieve educational outcomes. Each week, fresh curriculum material and News Roundup new stories are added, with links to learning outcomes, alignments to common core and state standards, and links across other relevant subject areas.

Espresso Elementary is a product of Espresso Education, the U.K. market leader in the provision of video-based digital curriculum services to primary and secondary schools. In April 2010, the company launched and announced an agreement with Defined Learning, Inc. to adapt, market and sell Espresso in the United States.

Espresso Elementary Contact: Hazel Carter, Marketing Manager, 847-850-0188 x218, hazel_carter@espressoeducation.com

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Manchester Center, VT- June 16th, 2011- Earlier this year, more than 1,000 educators took advantage of a special trial of Vocab Videos through Digital Wish. Now, thanks to the generous support of A-List Education, Digital Wish is offering educators a 50% matching grant on all Vocab Videos subscriptions purchased through August 15, 2011.

Vocab Videos is a revolutionary new vocabulary system from A-List Education that brings essential high school and SAT vocabulary words to life. The online platform was developed by a group of educators frustrated by the lack of high quality and affordable vocabulary resources. Their solution came in the form of hilarious short videos illustrating the meanings of crucial, frequently-tested SAT vocabulary words. Episodes feature entertaining characters and parodies of popular TV shows, making learning vocabulary words fun for students. The Vocab Videos package includes an extensive video library that reinforces learning for over 500 vocabulary words, plus quizzes, worksheets, a multimedia flashcard maker, and a teacher dashboard for monitoring individual student and class progress.

Vocab Videos takes away the stress of vocabulary preparation and engages students in the learning process with fun spins on dictionary definitions, showing students what the words mean instead of just telling them. The video content and words are appropriate for grades 9 through 12.

"We are very excited to facilitate this grant opportunity for every high school teacher in the country," said Heather Chirtea, executive director and founder of Digital Wish, "These Vocab Videos subscription grants will help thousands of students across the country learn vocabularly essential for their English classes and the SAT."

Digital Wish is a non-profit on a mission to solve technology shortfalls in K-12 classrooms. The www.digitalwish.org website is designed to help teachers locate much-needed funding for classroom technology. In addition to making over 23,000 wishes come true for American educators, Digital Wish provides a host of fundraising ideas and allows teachers to craft a technology wish list so that parents and community members can make a classroom contribution and invest in America’s future.

A-List Education (www.alisteducation.com) is an innovative provider of educational services for families, schools, and non-profit organizations. The company is dedicated to helping students achieve their academic goals and prepare for undergraduate and graduate studies. A-List’s services include standardized test preparation, academic tutoring, college admissions advising, and professional development for educators. A-List is committed to helping underserved youth and provides customized college readiness solutions to non-profit organizations, including Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Harlem Children’s Zone and Year Up.

Manchester Center, VT- June 2nd, 2011- Three educators will win a 10-pack of the software used to create Aardman Animation’s Wallace & Gromit movies, simply by submitting their animation lesson plans to Digital Wish.  Any educator who submits a claymation or animation lesson plan to Digital Wish before July 31st, 2011 will be entered to win a 10-user software license of Stop Motion Pro Action!  Three winners will be chosen.

Stop Motion Pro is the software used by Aardman Animations to produce the much-loved Wallace & Gromit films.  Great for beginners and advanced users alike, Stop Motion Pro’s intuitive user interface makes creating cross-curricular animated projects a breeze.

Students can use a video camera, digital still camera, or webcam and the Stop Motion Pro software on a Windows PC to create digital stories and animated projects by capturing one frame of their character or subject, making a small change, and then capturing another frame to build the illusion of movement. Stop Motion Pro digitally compiles the frames, and sophisticated tools make it easy to integrate eye-popping special effects into your animations.   Microphones or pre-recorded audio can be used to add sound and music, and frames can be painted on for limitless creative expression.

Different language options (English, French, German and Spanish) make Stop Motion Pro perfect for multiple language learners and ELL/ESL students. Educators working with younger learners or students on the Autism spectrum will appreciate the creative ways the program can be used as a digital storytelling device to foster emotional literacy and give a "voice" to students who would otherwise be unable or unwilling to express themselves.

“We’re very excited to see schools utilize the magic of animation to bring their stories to life with Stop Motion Pro,” said Heather Chirtea, founder and executive director of Digital Wish. “I’ve taught animation for years, and Stop  Motion Pro makes it easy for learners of all levels to turn out impressive projects."

Stop Motion Pro comes in five editions, including versions well -suited to all levels of education from elementary through post-secondary institutions. The versions include Action!, Action! Plus, Action! HD, Studio HD Commercial, and Studio HD Education.  All versions are available to educators through Digital Wish.

For more information on the Stop Motion Pro Lesson Plan Contest, visit DigitalWish.org

About Digital Wish

Digital Wish (http://www.digitalwish.org) is a non-profit on a mission to solve technology shortfalls in K-12 classrooms.  The www.digitalwish.org website is designed to help teachers locate much-needed funding for classroom technology. Teachers make technology wish lists, and supporters make those wishes come true. Over 25,000 technology wishes have been granted. Digital Wish provides a host of fundraising ideas and allows teachers to e-mail and print their technology wish lists so that parents and community members can contribute.  For more information, please visit http://www.digitalwish.org.

About Stop Motion Pro

Stop Motion Pro (http://www.stopmotionpro.com), produces world-leading software for stop motion animation production. Stop Motion Pro has become an industry standard for teaching animation techniques in schools and universities around the world, and animation studios have embraced Stop Motion Pro with feature films, television series and commercials utilizing this innovative technology.

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Editor's Note: A few teachers were asking about the winners of the Flip Innovation Lesson Plan contest, so we re-posted this article.

Manchester Center, VT- June 2, 2011- Digital Wish has announced the winners of their wildly successful Video Innovation Lesson Plan sponsored by Flip Video™.  Four winning lesson plans were selected from almost 700 entries. One winner was chosen from each of the K-2nd grade, 3rd-5th grade, 6th-8th grade, and 9th-12th grade levels and awarded a classroom set of ten Flip UltraHD™ 1 hour video camcorders.  

K-2nd Grade Winner
Ashley Parker from Martin Elementary School in Flowery Branch, GA won for her lesson plan "1st Grade Shape Search."  Students use Flip video cameras to record their search for shapes in their school and compete to find the greatest amount of correctly identified shapes.

3rd- 5th Grade Winner
Debbie Matteson from Olathe Elementary School in Olathe, CO won with her lesson plan "Phantom Tell Booth."  A Flip video camera "tell booth" is set up in her classroom (a refrigerator box with a mounted Flip inside is recommended) for students to record their ideas and solutions to problems.  She notes it is especially useful for students who are reluctant to participate in group discussions.

6th- 8th Grade Winner
Michael Buist from Audrey and Robert Ryan Elementary in Chandler, AZ won with his lesson plan "30 Ways In 30 Days."  Students use Flip video cameras to create original documentaries on what they can do to change the world for the better.  Buist has posted pictures of the project on Flickr and started a blog to highlight the 30 Ways project.

9th- 12th Grade Winner
Gordon Brown from Clyde A. Erwin High School in Asheville, NC won with his lesson plan "Flip, Flop and Fly Your Way Through Adjectival Endings."  Students form groups to make videos teaching foreign language adjectival endings.  Through bloopers on film requiring remakes, students will learn quickly how adjectival endings, and the language at large, works.

All four winners will receive classroom sets of 10 Flip cameras.  Their lesson plans, as well as every lesson plan entered in the contest, will be hosted and made available to the public for use in their classrooms at www.digitalwish.org.

To qualify for the Video Innovation Lesson Plan Contest, teachers from all over the country submitted their best lesson plan ideas that utilized Flip video cameras.  Lesson plans could cover any subject area and were judged based on their utilization of Flip video cameras, degrees of innovation and originality, and level of student involvement.  The winners were announced publicly through Digital Wish's Twitter account on June 1st, 2011.

About Digital Wish
Digital Wish (http://www.digitalwish.org) is a non-profit on a mission to solve technology shortfalls in K-12 classrooms.  The www.digitalwish.org website is designed to help teachers locate much-needed funding for classroom technology. Teachers make technology wish lists, and supporters make those wishes come true. Over 25,000 technology wishes have been granted. Digital Wish provides a host of fundraising ideas and allows teachers to e-mail and print their technology wish lists so that parents and community members can contribute.  For more information, please visit http://www.digitalwish.org.

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It’s that time of year again, when the battle between teachers and nice weather begins.  Luckily, Digital Wish has the ultimate tool for teachers to engage their students: the Stylus 7010 Bundle, featuring the Olympus STYLUS 7010 digital camera and Tool Factory Slide Show V3 software.

The Olympus STYLUS 7010 digital camera makes it easy to capture beautiful photographs for classroom projects.  It automatically switches to the style of scene the user is shooting, be it a simple portrait, panoramic landscape, detailed macro close-up, or fast-moving sports scene.  The camera packs a 7x zoom for getting in close and a wide angle lens lets you capture large groups or landscapes with ease.  Stabilization sensors in the camera make sure images comes out clear, even when the subject or the photographer is moving.

Students’ photos come together as a classroom project with Tool Factory Slide Show V3.  Drag a folder of photographs onto the page and Tool Factory Slide Show will transform the images to slides. Click the 'play' button and watch the photos come to life with eye-popping transitions.

Digital Wish combined these powerfully simple tools with a padded camera case for safe transport, and a spacious 2GB xD card for hours of creative shooting. At 25% off the retail price, the Digital Wish Stylus 7010 Bundle is available to PreK-12 educators only and is perfect for any grade!

Teachers and supporters alike can start an online fundraiser on Digital Wish in just a few clicks to get the Stylus 7010 Bundle in their favorite classroom.  To get started, visit DigitalWish.org

Seattle, WA – May 3, 2011 – To celebrate National Teacher Day today and this week’s Teacher Appreciation Week, WhitePages is announcing that Mrs. Campbell from Perry Elementary in Perry, Kansas has been named America’s Favorite Teacher from the WhitePages’ Run & Hug Contest. With 47,141 online votes, Mrs. Campbell and Brandi Turner, the former student who nominated her, will each win two all expenses paid trips to New York City to meet in person. Mrs. Campbell will also be presented with a $1,000 check for her dedication and inspiration to the students at Perry Elementary.  Launched in early April, the Run & Hug contest garnered 196,634 votes for 205 submissions.

“Mrs. Campbell truly is an amazing teacher and person,” said Brandi Turner. “As my second grade teacher, I remember her caring voice, her sucking on cough drops while reading to us, her kind words if you were worried or upset, her helpful ways in encouraging positive friendships, and most importantly, her display of the importance of receiving the most out of education as possible. I look forward to reuniting with Mrs. Campbell in NY to thank her in person.”

Mrs. Campbell taught in Perry, KS from 1984-1994 and Mrs. Turner, who graduated from Perry Lecompton in 1997, was in her first class. From 1994 to the present time, Mrs. Campbell has been teaching in Lawrence, KS, which is about 15 miles from Perry. For the past 11 years, Mrs. Campbell has been the librarian at Prairie Park Elementary.   Mrs. Campbell’s influence on Mrs. Turner inspired her to also become a teacher. Mrs. Turner taught in De Soto for five years before moving “home” to Perry in 2007, where she is now coincidentally the librarian at Perry Elementary where Mrs. Campbell was her 2nd grade teacher.

“I am so touched by the idea that Brandi nominated me for a "favorite teacher" award.  When I read the submission, it made me cry because I am so moved by her kind words and fond memories of our second grade that I too share,” said Mrs. Campbell.  “I have been contacted by many former students because of this nomination and cannot express the joy it brings me.   I have been teaching for 28 years and it is the connections I make with students that are so rewarding.  "Run and Hug" is a wonderful opportunity to show teachers that they do make a lasting difference.  I am grateful for this recognition, although I know that many teachers would be just as deserving."

As part of the contest, WhitePages offered to donate $5 to Digital Wish for every nomination and will soon mail a check for $1,025. Digital Wish is a non-profit with a unique mission to modernize K-12 classrooms and prepare students for tomorrow's workforce by creating equity in school systems so that each child has equal access to technology.

Below is the Top 10 List of Nominees for America’s Favorite Teacher contest and their stories:

1. Mrs. Campbell, Perry Elementary, Perry, KS
2. Ms. Hudacek, Lambuth University, Jackson, TN
3. Ms. Gyory, A. G. Richardson Elementary, Culpeper, VA
4. Ms. Fletcher, Homecroft Elementary, Indianapolis, IN
5. Ms. Latessa, Veazie Street Elementary School, Providence, RI
6. Ms. Brumbaugh, Tussey Mountain School, Saxton, PA
7. Ms. Wineland, Highline High School, Burien, WA
8. Mr. Kleefisch, Rockford High School, Rockford, MI
9. Mr. Cytryn, Manzanita Elementary, West Covina, CA
10. Ms. Stegimen, Slonaker Elementary, San Jose, CA

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