Teachers everywhere have until 30 June to submit an entry to a new, special category to honor them in the World Young Reader Prizes, the annual awards from the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) that recognise success in engaging the young.

A new “Digital NIE (newspapers in education)  Teacher” award the will honor the educator who has created the best set of lesson plans that use the electronic version of the newspaper in class, and with the best result for all parties involved.

“The increasing pervasiveness of interactive white boards and other classroom technologies has allowed more widespread study of the electronic versions of newspapers, especially when not all students have computers in class,” said Aralynn McMane, WAN-IFRA executive director of young readership development.

The entry for this and for all categories involves creating a Powerpoint™ presentation following prize guidelines. Full details can be found at http://www.wan-ifra.org/worldyoungreaderprize

The winning teacher will receive 1000 Euros for their school and come as our guest to the 63^rd World Newspaper Congress and 18^th World Editors Forum, set for 12-15 October in Vienna, Austria.

The other Young Reader Prize categories will honor newspapers for excellence for actions during the past two years in to promote newspaper reading and usage, on all platforms, among those under 25.

The five basic categories are Editorial, Making the News, Newspapers in Education, Public Service and Brand.

Three special categories for 2011 are "Connecting with Mobile", for a newspaper that has success in engaging the young via mobile telephone delivery, “The Natasa Prize for Printing Plants” for a newspaper printing plant action that teaches the young about journalism, and "Enduring Excellence," to honour young reader programmes that have continued to deliver benefits for both the newspaper and the young for at least five years.

Entries for all categories involve creating a Powerpoint™ presentation following prize guidelines. Full details can be found at http://www.wan-ifra.org/worldyoungreaderprize

Top prize in each category is 1000 Euros and free registration at the WAN-IFRA World Young Reader Conference from 16 to 18 November next in Madrid, Spain. Judges will also choose a "Newspaper of the Year" that will receive a free registration and hotel and travel costs for the conference, as will the Digital NIE Teacher winner.

The World Young Reader Prizes are supported by Norske Skog, the Norway-based global paper producer, as part of its partnership in WAN-IFRA's Newspapers in Education Development Project.

WAN-IFRA, based in Paris, France, and Darmstadt, Germany, with subsidiaries in Singapore, India, Spain, France and Sweden, is the global organisation of the world’s newspapers and news publishers. It represents more than 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites and over 3,000 companies in more than 120 countries.  The organisation was created by the merger of the World Association of Newspapers and IFRA, the research and service organisation for the news publishing industry.

Hi teachers!

Today I got an e-mail from Derek Munson the author of Enemy Pie book and he is giving away FREE books .

Here is his message:

"The school year is winding down, I’ve got some extra books left over from this year’s school visits, and I’d like to show my appreciation for all the kids, teachers, and schools I’ve worked with over the past 10 years. Every school day in the month of May, I will be giving away one free autographed copy of Enemy Pie. Go to www.enemypie.com and enter your email, desired inscription, and mailing address, and you will be entered in all our daily drawings for the rest of the month."

You can get more info about the book here.