This Week in the Classroom: A Throwdown for Public Schools ... That Feeds Your Social Media Obsession

While our free time may be getting slowly siphoned off in five minute intervals and 140 character chunks by the blogs we read and write and the Tweets we post and follow, in the month of October at least, we don't have to feel guilty about it.

Starting October 1, DonorsChoose.org is kicking off its Social Media Challenge, a friendly competition among bloggers, Twitterers and other online media personalities to help thousands of public school students. Last year, more than 165 bloggers and their readers raised $275,000 for classrooms in need and this year participants include: Craigslist.org founder Craig Newmark, VC Fred Wilson, the BlogHer community, Gawker, SBNation, Serious Eats, and Apartment Therapy, to name a few.

Anyone can get involved by creating a Giving Page of your own, where you'll be invited to pick classroom projects you'd like to see funded and given tools to share your page with your online community.

For those truly obsessed social media fans, fill your Giving Page with classroom projects helping the next generation of bloggers and Twitterers get their internet-legs, like these requests:

• Mrs. F's high school seniors need $219 to complete Blogging with Dr. Frankenstein, a project to start a blogging book club around Mary Shelley's classic.

• With $691, Mrs. W's sixth grade class will get that staple piece of technology needed by all social media wannabes -- a laptop -- and become Bloggers-R-Us.

• If Mrs. P's fourth grade class receives $388, they'll bring "Lights, Camera, Action!" to life -- a project requesting a digital camcorder so the class can take their act to the web.

Feel like throwing down for public schools in October? Create a Giving Page today!

Have additional questions? Send them to smc (at) donorschoose (dot) org.

Comments

[leah19438]

What a great article, well done! A wonderful use of technology, inspires people to give. Who doesn't like a little friendly competition!