Teachers of the Year Enjoy Wonderful Dinner in Chicago!

          Last Wednesday in Chicago, we wined and dined our Teachers of the Year. We’ll be adding more pictures in the next few days, but let’s start with this: the dinner menu created especially for our Teachers at Smith & Wollensky. Everything you’ve ever heard about the restaurant is true. The food was awesome. The beef melted in our mouths. We’re proud of our Teachers of the Year, and are delighted we had the chance to share such a fantastic meal with them in Chicago.

It's SUMMER - and teachers rejoice!

"Though we've gotta say goodbye, for the summer..."

Okay, not really.  We'll still be here, all summer long, planning for the new school year, prepping to bring you more terrific educational DVDs and teacher resources.

So while you're reading, decompressing, enjoying the beach, taking classes yourself, designing new bulletin boards, and doing all those other things teachers do over summer vacation, if you need some help from us, we're still here, 8 am-6 pm EST, every weekday. Call us (toll free: 888-242-0563)or email us (ask@izzit.org).

When you come back...be prepared to write an essay, "What I Did on My Summer Vacation."  (Just kidding! Have some fun!)

New Release - Inventing the Future

Apple computer company. (And their amazing Macs, iPods, iPads, and iPhones.)

Wireless internet.

Can you imagine what life would be like today if the people who’d come up with those ideas hadn’t been able to get the money to transform their ideas into reality? Imagine life without those things?

I can’t.  And likely your students can't, either.

 

 

Entrepreneurs and venture capitalists have transformed our society time and time again. People with ideas…and people who bet their money on those ideas. Our new DVD, Inventing the Future, focuses on those two groups of people, and helps your students understand the system of risks – and rewards – that fuels innovation and leads people to change and enhance our everyday lives.

Discover how Steve Jobs and Mike Markkula (Apple Computer), Sandy Lerner, Len Bosack, and Don Valentine (Cisco Systems) created two companies that have greatly impacted our lives today.

Want to see how this DVD aligns to National or your state education standards? Go hereand plug in Inventing the Future, your grade level and subject area, and which standards you want to investigate. The correlating standards will be shown to you.

Teacher of the Year winners!

Congratulations to all of our Teacher of the Year winners and the runners-up!

 

As you can see, our winners are classroom teachers from all across the United States, from Pennsylvania to Washington. On average, they’ve taught for 13 years in their current schools. Most of them hold advanced degrees, including one doctorate. They teach a variety of subjects and grade levels, from English & Composition, Social Studies & History, Government & Economics, to Business Education and Mathematics.

Many of our winners enjoy spending time with their families and pets. Other top hobbies include reading, running, cooking, and traveling. More unique pastimes listed were genealogy and blogging, and one of our winners is also a professional singer who shares his name with a very famous (though a different genre) professional singer.

Though they varied on their favorite izzit educational videos, there were several titles repeated as favorites: “Unintended Consequences: EminentDomain,” “Pennies a Day,” and “2081.”

Our winning teachers use izzit DVDs in their classrooms because not only do the videos present complex concepts clearly, but they also make the concepts real and relevant to their students. Our teachers also like using them to meet common core standards of exploring/discussing themes in multiple formats.

The runners-up won $150, a complete library of izzit educational DVDs, lifetime PLUS membership, and an izzit fleece/hoodie. In addition to that, our winners receive a $2,000 prize (instead of $150) and will be presented with The David and Annette Jorgensen Award for Excellence at a formal awards banquet on June 19, 2013 in Chicago, IL. This is an all-expenses paid trip for each winning teacher.

We look forward to meeting our winners in Chicago in June!

Newly Available: When Horses Fly

          Attention: Get our new video, When Horses Fly, here: http://www.izzit.org/products/detail.php?video=when_horses_fly

          Just 150 years ago it took months to travel from New York to California by covered wagon. But in today’s globalized world, communicating with virtually anyone on the planet is a matter of touching a button, and traveling from New York to California takes a mere five hours.

          Enter one of the most important inventions of our time - the jumbo jet. And enter two bold entrepreneurs who sought out business partners in a most unlikely place. Come along as 47 prize-winning thoroughbred race horses journey halfway across the globe and marvel in the fact that somewhere a horse is in flight every day of the year. Learn how airfreight, more than just a way to get consumer goods in a hurry, is a global platform from which unique business partnerships are born.

Teacher of the Year Contest - One Week Remaining!

Our annual Teacher of the Year Contest ends next week on Thursday, February 28th. We're giving away more than $10,000 in prizes, including cash, trips, DVDs and more!

Make sure to go over to www.izzit.org/contests today to submit your entry!

New DVD - 2-for-1 Special

We've just released Risk and Reward, a new teaching unit about the beginning of venture capital and the rise of Silicon Valley as the tech center of the U.S.  It focuses on the stories of Atari and Genentech and is great for teaching about business, economics, entrepreneurship, technology, and American history.  

For a limited time we are offering our popular DVD about space entrepreneurship, Everyone's Space, as a free bonus for any teacher who orders Risk and Reward, as their free video selection.  

Visit www.izzit.org and order your DVDs today!