Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Charge Your Small Electronics Without The Cords

Charge your Cell phone, PDA, iPhone without the cord!?! What? Are you serious?

Well the technology is here and now you can buy it yourself. Watch the video and get the low down.




The POWERMAT offers two charging pads, a home unit or a mobile unit at a cost of just under $100 each. Have not seen a dual pack yet, but that does not mean it is not out there. The mobile, or travel, unit folds down to store in its own case.

Specs: In box items

Each station will charge up to 3 devices at a time.
A USB connector to charge a 4th device
A Universal Powercube w/ 8 interchangeable adapters
The big thing I can see is that it deals with is the mess of cables and having to find enough power outlets to charge all of the stuff we carry around with us daily. A great concept in the way that it charges my stuff.
Here is how it works: The system uses magnetic induction to deliver a charge to the devices on the mat with Receivers (that are sold separately).
And now there is always some bad with the good and it is that you have to buy those receivers separately for your devices. An additional cost of between $29-39 to have the receivers for your phone, pda, or game system.

All in all it looks like a great product with a lot of potential and will probably be under the Christmas tree this year for me and my family, and maybe between now and then they will come out with a package deal to get a receiver or two with the mat at a reduced cost. Either way it is under the tree at my house.

Image and video provided by POWERMAT

Monday, October 12, 2009

Let's Talk Money

I know that this is a sore subject for everyone right now. We do not know whether or not money is coming into the schools or going out of the schools. So what do we do to keep up with the Jones' so to speak?

Let's take a look at some available options out there that can assist us in easing the pain. Yes I am talking about Grants if you have not already figured it out. There are many grants out there that can help you as teachers to get what you think is necessary to aid in student achievement.

So what is available, now for a while now I have been sharing a few Grants through our WSFCS wiki page, but I think I will also give you some more information here as well as those grants.

Upcoming and Current offerings:

The NEA Foundation is offering $5000 per award to improve student achievement. Available for all grades and universities to show students involved in critical thinking and problem solving skills. Find out more here. The deadline for applications is October 15, 2009.

Send your Teachers, yes teacher, to attend a Free math and science education camp. The Mickelson ExxonMobil Teachers Academy is taking nominations for teachers in grades 3-5 to attend a summer camp where they will learn ideas and experiments to take back to their classrooms. Find out more information here. The deadline for applications is October 31, 2009.

AverMedia is giving away, once a month, their AverVision CP300 gooseneck 3.2MP document camera. This contest coincides with their Teacher Forum where teachers share best practices for teaching with visual technologies. Find out more about the contests here. This is an ongoing application so no deadline.

Check out my upcoming posts on how to successfully search and write for grants.