1. AD-FREE SEARCH
Technology directors can sign up their school district for an enhanced search option for Bing that provides an ad-free search environment for the staff and students. This option eliminates the ads that usually appear when searching. It enhances privacy protection for students and teachers and includes the ability to filter adult content via SafeSearch.
2. DIGITAL LITERACY LESSON PLANS
The Bing in the Classroom program offers daily mini-lessons focused on search and digital literacy skills. These lessons include mapping to the Common Core Standards and have been created by the educators who are members of the Microsoft Educator Network. This network includes a collection of over 1500 lesson plans.
The lesson plans can be narrowed down by grade level, subject, the 21st century skill set, and instructional approach. Here is a sample of a search page for one of the digital literacy lesson plans.
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| Bing in the Classroom digital literacy lessons |
Each lesson includes the learning objectives as stated in the Common Core standards, as well as an overview which contains the skills, instructional approach, Microsoft tools needed, and any required hardware. There are details to help the teacher use the lesson plan, and many lessons include an attached product, such as the Microsoft PowerPoint attached to this searching lesson.
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| Sample digital literacy lesson |
The PowerPoint presentation presented with the lesson above contains a teacher guide, slides to use with students with speaker notes, and a background slide about the lesson creator.
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| Support material for a lesson plan |
In addition to these digital literacy lesson plans, Bing already has many features that make it a good choice as a district-wide search engine. Here are my favorites!
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| Search by "calculator" in the Bing search box to get a working calculator |
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| Search by "unit conversion" in the Bing search box and convert almost anything |
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| When searching Bing for images, students can limit the search to Creative Commons-licensed items |
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| Another useful search limiter in Bing Images is to search for images that have no background |
3. SCHOOLS CAN EARN CREDITS FOR TABLETS
The third component of the Bing in the Classroom initiative allows those (13 years or older) who sign up for Bing Rewards, an program that allows users to earn credits while using Bing to search, to donate their credits to a school of their choice. The schools can earn free Microsoft Surface tablets through this reward program!
Take a look at Bing in the Classroom for your schools!
Disclosure: This is a sponsored post to raise awareness for Bing in the Classroom.
