Education, Media Literacy, News, Social Media

Media Literacy Grants Awarded!

Washington’s Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction made history when it recently announced the first group of recipients for our state’s new media literacy grant program. This is the first grant program focused on media literacy offered anywhere in the nation!
Funds were awarded through a competitive process to 12 school-based teams.

Grant Awardees for 2019-20:

  • Ballard High School (Seattle SD)
  • Bryant Elementary School (Seattle SD)
  • Castle Rock SD
  • Central Valley High School
  • Columbia River High School (Vancouver SD)
  • La Conner SD
  • North Central ESD 171
  • Port Townsend SD
  • Selah SD
  • Soos Creek Elementary School (Kent SD)
  • Tacoma SD
  • Whatcom Intergenerational High School

Teams could apply for curriculum grants of up to $25,000 or planning grants of up to $5000. The five teams receiving curriculum grants were Ballard, Central Valley High School, North Central ESD 171, Soos Creek Elementary, Kent SD and LaConner SD in collaboration with high schools in Burlington, Mt. Vernon, and Anacortes. The remaining six teams received planning grants.

All grant recipients will focus on developing media literacy-based curriculum units that can be integrated into social studies, English language arts or health classes. All units will be shared on the OER Commons Washington Hub so that they can be easily accessed by teachers across the state.

The new media literacy grant program was established with a $300,000 allocation from the 2019 Legislature. $150,000 was available for this grant round. The next grant cycle will be announced in Spring, 2020 when another $150,000 in funding will be available for distribution.

Action for Media Education (AME) continues to promote and advocate for media literacy education. Please follow us on Facebook. We encourage you to stay tuned to AME for more media literacy-related happenings in our state in 2020! 

Education, Media Literacy, News

Media Literacy Planning Grants Available

Here’s something to share with your friends in K-12 education: we are excited about the new media literacy grant program from the Washington’s Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. Grants of up to $25,000 are available for teaching teams representing school districts across Washington State. 

 October 21 is the deadline, but if you feel you’re not quite ready to submit a full proposal, here’s another option.  Planning grants of $5000 are also now available.  

Submit a planning grant by October 21st and you’ll be ready for the next grant round in spring 2020. All you need to do is assemble a small team of educators who would work together, describe briefly the idea on which your team will focus and outline the budget needed for up to $5000.

Grant applications are available online at https://www.k12.wa.us/policy-funding/school-technology/free-software-grants

For more information, contact Dennis Small,  dennis.small@k12.wa.us or 360-725-6384.

Education, Media Literacy, Take Action

Grant Details Announced for K-12 Media Literacy Curriculum

History was made this month when the Washington State Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) announced its new media literacy education grant program, funded by recently passed legislation. The grant application package was released September 16, 2019. 

The submission deadline is 4 p.m., October 21, 2019.  

Grants will be awarded on a competitive basis to educational teams representing Washington’s K-12 system. Teams will be expected to develop and share openly-licensed curriculum unitsfocused on one of three subject areas:social studies, English language arts, or health. A unique feature of these units will be that they will be developed using a media literacy lens to address the content that is commonly considered in one of these subject areas. 

Check out this link for a 30-minute recording of the webinar that explains the new grant program, the PowerPoint for the webinar, and a Q & A document.

For more information, contact Dennis Small, OSPI Educational Technology Director, dennis.small@k12.wa.us