Speak Up America is here!

Happy Speak Up America week and countdown to the finale of Speak Up! This year's survey has been a great success, with over 325,000 surveys already submitted. To celebrate this superb survey period, we've launched our Speak Up America weeklong event (December 7th - 11th). Now in its third year, Speak Up America plans to celebrate past and present participants with opportunities to win classroom grants, free national and regional conference registrations, and more - participating in our Speak Up America campaign is a great way to end this year's survey period on a high note! Keep reading to learn more. In this blog post: ▪ Last Minute Outreach: Try one of our promotional ideas to make the most out of the last two weeks of Speak Up. ▪ National Speak Up Day: Mark your calendars for Wednesday, December 9th! ▪ Classroom/School Grant Photo and Video Challenge with 5 chances to win! ▪ Free National Conference Registrations to the 2016 BbWorld, CoSN, iNACOL, and ISTE Conferences! ▪ Free Regional Conference Registrations to CUE, NCCE, NETA, and TCEA. ▪ Speak Up America Book Giveaway: Submit your name and take the survey for a chance to win 1 of 3 books! ▪ Speak Up 2015 Preliminary Data Snapshots released daily!

We hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! Feel free to share your thoughts with us on Facebook, Twitter, and our Blog. -The Project Tomorrow team

Last Minute Outreach Ideas Kick your promotion into high gear with our last minute ideas! With less than 2 weeks to go there is still plenty of time to get the word out about Speak Up. If you just registered your district or are looking for new ways to promote the survey, try one of these ideas: ▪ Host a Speak Up Day or week ▪ Focus on one survey type ▪ Get your community involved in Speak Up America week ▪ Highlight the Speak Up survey on your website using one of our Speak Up logos (with a link to the survey).

Click here to view our full list of last minute outreach emails and promotional ideas.

National Speak Up Day Wednesday, December 9th The highlight of the Speak Up America 2015 Campaign will take place this Wednesday, December 9, 2015 with National Speak Up Day! National Speak Up Day is the day to encourage your community to participate. We would like everyone to have a voice in the future of how technology is used in our nation’s schools, so please share this link http://www.speakup4schools.org/speakup2015 with your students, teachers, parents, administrators, community organizations, members, affiliates or anyone who has a passion for improving education and ask them to take the Speak Up survey. The Speak Up survey is open to anyone who is interested in sharing their thoughts about education. If you are not a student, educator, administrator or parent but would like to take the survey, please take our community members survey. Feel free to share the survey (http://bit.ly/SU15survey) with anyone who may be interested as well!

Photo and Video Challenge Educators, win a grant for your classroom or school just by having your students participate in Speak Up! Planning to have your class or school participate in Speak Up this week? Already had your class or school participate? Need a little incentive to get your class or school to participate? Submit your photos and videos to our Speak Up for America Photo and Video Challenge - we've already had a few entries submitted, so start sending in your photos and videos! Photo Challenge Hashtag: #SpeakUpSnapshot To celebrate technology and all our wonderful Speak Up participants, we will be offering $225 grants to three lucky Speak Up participating classroom or school during the week of December 7th. All you need to do is take a picture with the Speak Up for America 2015 Badge (above) highlighting your Speak Up experience and upload to one of our social media sites or the photo challenge page. Contest is open now, so get your cameras out and shoot a photo showing you and your students Speaking Up! For contest rules please visit our photo challenge page here. Video Challenge Hashtag: #VoicesofSpeakUp Last year, we heard you loud and clear with multiple #speakupsnapshotssubmitted to the 2nd annual Speak Up America photo challenge. Now in our third year of Speak Up America, we want to see you and your class “Speaking Up” in action! In our social media video challenge, Project Tomorrow wants to know: "Why is using digital tools for learning important for your (students’) future?” All you need to do is create a short 15-30 second video answering the question above. Use this opportunity to get your class involved by making this into a class project. Submissions can come in the form of videos, animations (PowToon), slideshows, voice snippets and more! The more creative the better! In this challenge, there will be 2 grant opportunities to win $225! Never has your chance of earning a classroom grant been easier. Enter your#VoicesofSpeakUp video into the Speak Up America video challenge today! Learn more about the video challenge contest rules here.

Free National Conference Registrations We are excited to announce chances to win free conference registrations toBbWorld 2016, the 2016 Annual CoSN Conference, the 2016 iNACOL Blended and Online Learning Symposium, and the International Society for Technology in Education 2016 Conference and Expo! One lucky district will be chosen for each free registration, and two will be chosen for ISTE 2016. Winning is easy – just follow the instructions below to enter your district into our competition: 1. Get in any last minute surveys! Any survey that comes in during Speak Up America 2015 campaign beginning Monday December 7, 2015 through Friday December 11, 2015 (in addition to surveys already submitted earlier in the survey period) will be entered into the competition. Increase your chances to win! 2. Encourage participation in National Speak Up Day (12-9-15)! Every survey submitted on this date will be entered into a separate drawing for a free ISTE 2016 Conference & Expo registration.

Free Regional Conference Registrations to CETPA, CUE, NCCE, NETA and TCEA. Are you a California, Nebraska, Nevada, Texas or Northwest (Idaho, Montana, Oregon, or Washington) district? You're in luck - the awesome folks at CETPA, CUE, NCCE, NETA, and TCEA are also offering free conference registrations! Winning is as easy as speaking up! All you need to do is encourage your staff, students, their parents and the local community to participate in Speak Up. Every participant from your district will enter you in to the drawing to win – the more surveys you have in the more chances you have to win! One winner will be selected for the NETA, NCCE, and TCEA conferences, and three for the CUE conference. We will randomly select a survey from your state and announce the winners on Friday, December 11th at 5PM PT/7PM CT/8PM ET.

Speak Up America Book Giveaway Submit your name and take the survey for a chance to win 1 of 3 books! Thanks to our wonderful friends at Arfstrom Consulting and Girls Thinking Global, we're hosting a special book giveaway this week! All participating parents, educators, and community members are eligible to enter the giveaway – all you’ll need to do is take the Speak Up survey (http://bit.ly/SU15survey) and enter your information into the webforms below. Once you hit the submit button, you’ll be entered into the giveaway for the book of your choice! Feel free to submit your name for each book. Click on the book title to submit your entry: ▪ Flip Your Classroom by Bergmann and Sams (donated by Arfstrom Consulting) ▪ Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis by Robert Putnam (donated byArfstrom Consulting) ▪ Real Women, Real Leaders: Surviving and Succeeding in the Business World by Kathleen Hurley (donated by Girls Thinking Global)

Thanks again to Arfstrom Consulting and Girls Thinking Global for their donations!

Daily Speak Up 2015 Preliminary data snapshots Click here to visit our Speak Up 2015 preliminary data snapshot page During Speak Up America Week, we'll pull a special snapshot of preliminary data for students, parents, teachers, administrators and community members. Each day we will release a special video infographic on NEW Speak Up findings. Check below to see when we will be releasing each snapshot of data: ▪ Monday, December 7, 2015 —Teachers ▪ Tuesday, December 8, 2015 —Parents ▪ Wednesday, December 9, 2015 —Students ▪ Thursday, December 10, 2015 —Librarians ▪ Friday, December 11, 2015 — Principals

We will also be releasing preliminary data reports to all participating schools and districts during Speak Up America week! Stay tuned for more details.

Thank you for your interest and continued support of Speak Up! Be sure to stay updated on all things Speak Up by following us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagramand our Blog. If you have any questions please feel free to contact our Speak Up Operations Manager, Jenny Hostert, at jhostert@tomorrow.org or via phone at (949) 609-4660 ext. 17.

Many thanks to our sponsors and partners for the support of Speak Up: Blackboard, Inc., BrainPOP, CDW, DreamBox Learning, Fuel Education, Qualcomm Wireless Reach, Rosetta Stone, Scholastic Education, American Association of School Administrators, Consortium for School Networking, CUE, Digital Learning Day, iNACOL, International Society for Technology in Education, National School Boards Association, National School Public Relations Association, National Science Teachers Association, National Secondary School Principals Association, State Education Technology Directors’ Association and TCEA (Texas Computer Education Association).