It all starts with registering your district (or independent school) as a Bing In The Classroom partner. When your schools community members use Bing at home they can donate to your school to receive credits from their searches. Those credits add up to free Surface tablets for your school. Simply search and earn free tech. Neat!
What I think the most beneficial part of the Bing In The Classroom program are the free to use digital literacy lesson plans. They range in topics from traditional computer science lessons like programming and coding to more integrated content areas like math, chemistry, the arts, design and more. Lessons range from Kindergarten all the way through High School. Each is aligned to the Common Core and has additional resources to help extend the lesson.
Some of my favorites:
- K-4: Query Formulation-Even our youngest students can learn the best terms and ways to find the information they need.
- All Grades: Texting-There are several lessons for all grade levels to help students (and adults) understand texting, how to do it appropriately and how to avoid the pitfalls as we grow older.
- K-8: Robotics-These lessons introduce students to the history of robotics but also the impacts robots have on our daily lives.
- HS: Hungry On Mars- Students are challenged to grow food in an environment hardly supports life.
There are so many more! And many have a tie in to the Skype Education community so you can find a subject matter expert to help extend the lesson.
Take some time and check out the entire Bing in the Classroom initiative. There's lots to discover and learn!