Aircuity Celebrates National Energy Awareness Month

Aircuity (www.aircuity.com), the indoor air quality company, today celebrated National Energy Awareness Month by recognizing the work done by Aircuity’s cutting-edge clients to reduce their energy impact in the laboratory, K-12 school, university and commercial office industries. By optimizing ventilation with Aircuity, these facilities are significantly reducing both their energy consumption and their carbon footprint, and have saved 76 Billion MBtus to date.

Aircuity reliably reduces energy use by 40-60% in labs and by 15-30% in other variable population buildings such as: office buildings, classrooms, libraries, casinos and arenas. According to the International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories, labs typically have 5 to 10 times the energy and carbon usage of a comparatively sized office building. In many cases, Aircuity is the highest energy conservation measure.

“We are excited to have helped clients reduce their CO2 emissions by 11 billion pounds, saving over 70 million MBtus,” said Dan Diehl, CEO at Aircuity. “National Energy Awareness Month is a perfect time to recognize our clients who are committed to reducing their energy consumption and making a significant impact on the environment. As the world thinks about utilizing more ventilation for healthy environments, it’s absolutely critical that we do this intelligently and in the most sustainable way. The global need for sustainable and efficient buildings is not going away and in many cases is more important than ever.”…Read More

Forces Join To Grant the Wishes of More Than 500 Classrooms Nationwide

My Wish For U.S., the digital platform that invites Americans to share their wishes for the country’s future, today announced a partnership with First Book, a non-profit social enterprise that provides new, high-quality educational resources to children in need, and AMERICAN HERITAGE® Chocolate. The partnership will provide classrooms nationwide with books to add to their libraries, chosen by educators to support the wishes they submit with their students on MyWishForUS.com. Educators will be able to select books from categories like Activism and Civic Engagement, Making a Difference, Biographies, and more. The program will launch this fall and will distribute approximately 15,000 books to classroom libraries serving children living in poverty.

My Wish For U.S. and First Book will encourage educators across the country to post their classroom’s wish to the My Wish For U.S. platform and social media. At least 500 educators will be chosen to receive gift credits to the First Book Marketplace (www.fbmarketplace.org), where they can select books that support their students’ areas of interest.

“Often, we tell students what they need to know and learn about, and that relationship only goes one way,” said Caroline Kilbanoff, Program Manager for Made By Us. “We are excited to collaborate with First Book to let students tell us what they are interested in learning more about and giving them the tools and information to take action.”…Read More

4 Reasons to Run a District-wide Reading Challenge

Most librarians are familiar with reading challenges — the challenge format is a type of reading program that provides a more engaging way to get students to read. Challenges give students a set of goals to accomplish within a defined period of time.

Libraries and schools around the country run all sorts of reading challenges, and there are lots of ways to do it, themes to use, and ways to promote it — if you’re thinking of running one, feel free to take our quiz to see what type of challenge would work best for you.

But reading challenges don’t have to be run by one teacher or media specialist independently. Many K12 educators are finding success with reading challenges at the district level as a way to engage all their schools and students at once. It’s easier to get started than launching multiple individual school/grade level challenges all over the area, and students (and their parents) stay more engaged when they hear it promoted more broadly.…Read More

District wide campus communications suites

Murrieta Valley Unified School District educates 23,400 students from transitional kindergarten through high school at 20 campuses. MVUSD executed a major 18-month renovation of campuses across the district including the installation of AV systems built around Extron’s WallVault Digital System in 1,100 classrooms, multipurpose rooms, libraries, and meeting rooms.

During the renovation project, the district began evaluating Extron’s GlobalViewer Campus Communications Suite – GVCCS – with intentions to modernize campus public address, bell, and intercom systems as a complete solution for unifying all campus audio systems under an easy-to-use interface using the existing network.

Jonathan Pratt, the Senior Systems Engineer for MVUSD, observes that GVCCS is yielding multiple advantages that may prove critical in a changing learning environment: “From an Operations standpoint, we are convinced that GVCCS is the way to go. But the technical case for GVCCS actually takes a back seat to its value-added. The ability for school sites to create and control their own schedules and audio content is a game-changer. Putting this kind of technology into the hands of school administrators allows creativity to flourish.”…Read More

7 tips for future-proofing school libraries

Click Here to Discover Some Innovative Ideas for School Libraries

Schools in urban districts like Denver Public Schools often struggle to fund library programs, which only exacerbates already existing equity gaps for students of color. And while it is painfully true that tight school budgets often result in unstaffed or understaffed school libraries, I am hopeful. I sense a revolution in how we serve our students — a revolution in how we walk the talk of equity.

Prioritizing equitable library access for students…Read More

Free download of “The Class That Can: Coronavirus”

Elementary educators looking for a free resource to teach students about the Coronavirus and COVID-19 will have help from a zany book character named Mrs. Can. Thanks to a grant from Northwestern University and its Center for Food Allergy & Asthma Research, a free download of “The Class That Can: Coronavirus” will be available to teachers nationwide, along with a virtual resource to libraries and school systems by request.

The book features third graders from a fictional “Class That Can” who are learning from home because of the Coronavirus. The students are excited when their teacher, Mrs. Can, introduces them via computer to her friends, Dr. Kenneth Fox and Dr. Ruchi Gupta, both of whom are real-life, seasoned pediatricians.

“Teachers create meaning for students, and this resource can be a powerful part of their toolkit as they boldly innovate in the age of COVID,” says Dr. Fox, a pediatrician for more than 30 years and Chief Health Officer of Chicago Public Schools, the nation’s third-largest school district. “The Class That Can: Coronavirus is written in a fun, honest voice that kids can understand and that our times recommend.”…Read More

Northwestern University Grant Delivers Free COVID-19 Children’s Book

Elementary educators looking for a free resource to teach students about the Coronavirus and COVID-19 will have help from a zany book character named Mrs. Can. Thanks to a grant from Northwestern University and its Center for Food Allergy & Asthma Research, a free download of “The Class That Can: Coronavirus” will be available to teachers nationwide, along with a virtual resource to libraries and school systems by request.

The book features third graders from a fictional “Class That Can” who are learning from home because of the Coronavirus. The students are excited when their teacher, Mrs. Can, introduces them via computer to her friends, Dr. Kenneth Fox and Dr. Ruchi Gupta, both of whom are real-life, seasoned pediatricians.

“Teachers create meaning for students, and this resource can be a powerful part of their toolkit as they boldly innovate in the age of COVID,” says Dr. Fox, a pediatrician for more than 30 years and Chief Health Officer of Chicago Public Schools, the nation’s third-largest school district. “The Class That Can: Coronavirus is written in a fun, honest voice that kids can understand and that our times recommend.”…Read More

Free Digital Enrichment Kits for Librarians and Educators

Wizards of the Coast today announced that the company will distribute 2,000 digital kits to schools and libraries in the U.S. and Canada to provide educators and librarians with resources to engage their communities with Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering virtual play while many are practicing social distancing.

Each kit will include a Legendary Bundle for D&D Beyond that unlocks access to all current rules and adventure content for D&D as well as a 15% discount on future D&D Beyond purchases and 30 Magic: The Gathering Arena digital codes, which can be redeemed for three Ikoria booster packs. The kits will also feature tips to help teachers and librarians engage their audiences in a virtual play environment.

Kits will be available upon request through the Wizards of the Coast customer service request portal to organizers over the age of 18 who are employed by or official volunteers at enrichment organizations, such as a schools, libraries, community centers, and scout troops, and represent the organization’s gaming programming.…Read More

Distance Learning Packages for Schools, Academic Institutions, and Libraries

Infobase, the award-winning provider of digital reference content to the school and library community, today announced that it has created a variety of distance learning packages to help schools, colleges and universities, and public libraries affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The distance learning packages provide open access to curated, multi-subject groups of online databases, with or without streaming video collections, for elementary schools, middle and high schools, colleges and universities, and public libraries—helping educators and librarians set up virtual classrooms and remote reference libraries for their students in the wake of closures due to the pandemic.

“These are unprecedented times, and educational institutions face unique challenges as they work to create successful remote learning environments,” said Paul Skordilis, president and CEO of Infobase. “We created these distance learning solutions because we want to help our community in this time of need, and we know that our online resources, created with distance learning in mind, can be of great value.”…Read More

Create and share story time and read-aloud videos

In order to encourage reading and classroom read-aloud experiences, and to support schools and public libraries forced to close by the escalating COVID-19 outbreak, Penguin Random House is permitting teachers, librarians and booksellers to create and share story time and read-aloud videos and live events, according to the following guidelines:

For Teachers and Educators providing distance learning to students in a virtual classroom setting:

  • Story time or classroom read-aloud videos in which a Penguin Random House book is read aloud and the book is displayed (for picture books) may be created and posted to closed educational platforms such as Google Classroom, Schoology, Edmodo and Discovery Education, in order to replicate the read-aloud book experience that would otherwise be available to educators in the classroom.
  • If a Teacher or Educator plans to share a story time video by recording a video, uploading it to a YouTube channel, and posting a link to that YouTube video inside a closed educational platform, that YouTube video must be designated as “Unlisted” (not “Public”) when uploading. See screenshot for how to choose “Unlisted” while uploading on YouTube.
  • These story time and classroom read-aloud videos may be hosted on the educational platform and/or YouTube (as an “Unlisted” file) until the end of the current school year, after which we request that they be removed from the educational platform and/or from YouTube, unless this permission is extended for the next school semester.

For Booksellers and Librarians who wish to provide a story time reading or other read-aloud experience to young people who would otherwise visit the library or bookstore in person:…Read More

Free access to English and Spanish eBook libraries

Benchmark Education is are now offering free access to their extensive collection of eBooks to families and educators. The library includes books both in English and Spanish for grades K-6 and is accessible to users using nearly any device with internet access.

The books are organized by subject and reading level making it easy to find the books that will interest your students while they are reading at home.

This library is available through July 31, 2020.…Read More

Free At-Home Learning Content During Crisis

WESTCHESTER, IL, Mar 18, 2020 – Follett, a trusted partner to PreK-12 schools, public libraries, and college campuses for more than 145 years, is working with customers to ensure they can quickly and easily use the company’s wide range of eLearning solutions and access to content as more students shift to learning from home due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

“As we all navigate through these unprecedented times, we want educators and parents to know they’re not alone,” said Patrick Connolly, President and CEO of Follett Corporation. “Follett offers a variety of eLearning products for both PreK-12 and Higher Ed that can be quickly and easily accessed. These are solutions customers already have access to, and our goal is to ensure they know about all their options to help with the continuity of education.”

Here is a closer look at Follett’s company-wide eLearning resources that are being made available at libraries, schools and universities in communities across North America affected by the COVID-19 virus:…Read More