AND THE WINNERS ARE...
Mini-Grant Winners Announced

Congratulations to all of the winners and thank you to all who took the time to enter this grant competition. Mini-grant winners have been notified, contracts are being completed, and grant monies are being sent from NJAET so the projects can be implemented. We look forward to learning more about these winning projects when they are presented at the Annual Fall Conference in October.

Grade Level:  PK-2

Stacy Milan of the Milton School in Oak Ridge, NJ is the Project Manager for this winning grant that will support a minimum of 24 PK disabled students by using augmentative devices (talking photo albums and buttons) to help autistic students communicate. Specifically, the educational goals and objectives of the grant say, "Through the use of augmentative devices it is our goal to accelerate skill acquisition for our autistic, developmentally and language delayed students.  The following areas will be targeted: communication skills, independence and academic goals. These devices will facilitate the child’s communication abilities to express needs and wants, comment, put ideas into words and subsequently sentences and improve articulation skills.  Independence will be increased as the child is able to participate in classroom routines and initiate interactions with adults and peers. Utilizing assistive technology will improve academic goals in language arts and literacy; i.e. sequencing experiences; story retelling."

Grade Level:  3-5

Debbi Marra of the Ocean Road Elementary School in Point Pleasant, NJ is the Project Manager for this Fifth Grade project - integrating iPods in the curriculum as learning and creation tools. A total of 87 students will be involved in the project that will include Language Arts, Social Studies, Science, and Math curriculums. Included in the educational goals and objectives of this grant are "One of the primary goals of this project is the use of digital tools, more specifically iPods, as part of the fifth grade curriculum to increase our students’ active participation in 21st century learning and overall exposure to new and exciting forms of technology. Also, by incorporating multimedia activities into daily lessons, students will have access to a wide range of interactive lessons to enhance their learning."

Grade Level:  6-8

John Volpa of the Indian Mills Memorial School in Shamong, NJ is the Project Manager of this grant - using math and science equipment and software to study how individuals’ homes impact plant and animal life in the pinelands. The grant will involve 92 sixth grade students this year (The project will continue after the grant is completed and will involve 120 students next year.). From the educational goals and objectives of this grant, we learn that this is a "multidisciplinary project based learning experience joining math, technology and science researching the local ecosystem.  Using exciting new hardware and software and some Web 2.0 tools (Survey Monkey, Google Docs,…) in the project, students will learn and be amazed at how their families’ ordinary use of the land effects the animal life, plant life and water system in the area."

Grade Level:  9-12

Anthony Sciaino of DePaul Catholic High School in Wayne, NJ is the Project Manager of this grant that will have an impact on all 630 students in grades 9, 10 and 11. As outlined in the educational goals and objectives of this grant, the "objective is to design and pilot a digital learning game to demonstrate knowledge and skills related to computational skills." The grant funds will be used to purchase software to develop a math game for a 3D programming course. DePaul Catholic currently offers two 3D Game Programming Courses. This grant will allow a third course in which the specific collaborative effort would be to design an “Escape the Room” game. The student playing the game would move through a series of locked rooms by solving assorted mathematical problems. Once the game has been proven to be a success, it can be shared with other schools.

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