Bing in theClassroom
PR Toolkit
July 2015
Congratulations on being part of the Bing in the Classroomprogram! You are now one of manyschools and districts across the United States that uses Bing in the Classroom to support digital literacy with ad-free, safer, more private search; digital lesson plans; and a way tohelp schools earn Microsoft Surface tablets through Bing Rewards.
At Bing, we believe great search helps make great education, and students should be able to search the powerful knowledge of the Web at school without distracting ads.We appreciate you joining Microsoft Corp. in this effort to help make things better for students.
Enclosed are some easy ways you can share your involvement with others if you’d like to spread the word. Don’t let these limit you — if you’d like to get creative or have other ideas about how to highlight Bing in the Classroom, we’d love to see them!
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out. If you have a district communications or PR person, I’d be happy to speak with them as well.
Best,
Shindy Skaar
Bing in the Classroom, Product Marketing Manager
Table of Contents
Program Overview4
Social Media Guide 5
Media Outreach Guide7
Template Press Release 9
District User Quotes11
Microsoft Quotes13
What is Bing in the Classroom?
- As part of Microsoft’s continued focus on promoting digital literacy in education, Bing in the Classroom is an ongoing program focused on helping students learn how to use search to inspire curiosity and to ask and answer questions that go beyond modern search.It provides ad-free, safer, more private search in schools;*daily lesson plans that inspire critical thinking that are aligned to Common Core standards; and a Bing Rewards program that community members can use to earn Surface tablets for their schools. More information can be found at you can track the progress of specific schools at
* Excludes Bing Apps. Learn more at
Bing in the Classroom Social Media Guide
Overview:
Welcome to the Bing in the Classroom program!As you know, we are providing Bing in the Classroom to any K-12school in the U.S. We believe in this program and hope you do, too. If you have a good experience and want to share it with others, below are some examples for you to consider. There is no expectation or requirement that you use these examples or even that you spread the word about this program. It is all up to you.
Ways You Could Spread the Word:
- Consider promoting your participation on your blog, website, Twitter and/or Facebook page.
- Consider using our press release template to publicize and promote the news to your local press.
- Include a link back to the Bing in the Classroom site so people can learn more about the program.
Sample Tweets
- We’re thrilled to work with Microsoft and use @Bing in our classroom binged.it/13Kx4Px#bingclassroom
- My students are searching ad-free on @Bing thanks to Microsoft #adfreesearch #bingclassroombinged.it/QnPzWf
- Great search helps make great education. We search ad-free on @Bing, thanks to Microsoft binged.it/QnPzWf#adfreesearch #bingclassroom
- Thanks to @Bing, we have safer search. binged.it/13Kx4Px. #bingclassroom
- Thanks to @Bing, we’re using daily lesson plans to promote digital literacy. binged.it/13Kx4Px. #bingclassroom
- Thanks to Microsoft, you can donate Bing Rewards and help our school earn Surface tablets. binged.it/13Kx4Px. #bingclassroom
Sample Facebook Posts:
- We’re thrilled to use Bing in the Classroom — thanks to Microsoft for bringing safer search to our schools. binged.it/13Kx4Px
- My students are searching ad-free, thanks to Bing in the Classroom. See how you can support them. binged.it/QnPzWf
- Great search helps make great education, thanks to Bing in the Classroom. binged.it/QnPzWf
- Donate Bing Rewards and help our school earn Surface tablets, thanks to Bing. Click to find out how: binged.it/13Kx4Px
- Thanks to Bing, we’re using daily lesson plans to promote digital literacy. Click to find out how: binged.it/13Kx4Px
Media Outreach Guide
Local media will be eager to hear about your school and the Bing in the Classroom program. To help you connect with your local media, below is a template email you can personalize and send.
Before doing any outreach, you may want to check with your principal or the district communications contact to ensure you are approved to engage with reporters in your areasince they may already have another plan in place.This has the potential to bring a lot of positive exposure for your students and your school, but you want to be thoughtful about your engagement.
Suggestions for how to engage with media and press in your community:
- Your school or district likely has someone responsible for communicating with the press and issuing press releases, which is a good starting point. Ask an administrator for suggestions.
- Research, then contact the education, general interest and parenting reporters at your local newspaper,radio stations and TV stations. This is a positive and compelling local story about students, teachers and schools in your community that they should be interested in.You can find the appropriate contacts on the publication and station websites.
- We’ve included Q&A messaging you can reference to respond to media inquiries, but please don’t hesitate to ask Microsoft to support your efforts.We would be happy to provide an interview or quote from a Microsoft spokesperson.Please contact ith any media-related questions.
Bing in the ClassroomTemplate for Media Outreach Mail
Below is a template mail that you, your school or your district can personalize and use in communications with your local media, community and school district. If you are working with local media and you have questions, please feel free to contact Waggener Edstrom Communications, the public relations agency for Microsoft.Email: . Please note: Before you invite any press members to your classroom, be sure to clear with your principal or appropriate school district officials.
SUBJECT LINE:[School/District]using ad-free search thanks to Bing
Hello [Recipient’s Name],
My name is [Name], I’m a [Title] from [School/District],and I wanted to let you know about how Bing in the Classroom is helping our students.
Bing in the Classroom is a new program at [School/District], delivering ad-free, safer more private search and lesson plans designed to teach search skills that are aligned to Common Core standards, all provided for free from Bing.* Recently we learned about [insert subject],and the lesson plan helped students understand that [insert some of the learnings from a recent Bing in the Classroom lesson plan]. The lesson plans are aligned with Common Core standards and use a beautiful Bing image to pose a critical-thinking question that can be solved using search tools.
We’ve also been earning Bing Rewards credits to help earn Microsoft Surface tablets for our school! Anyone can help us earn Surface tablets by searching on Bing and donating Bing Rewards credits to our school.
If you are curious, you can learn more from
or by finding our school-specific page at I would be happy to have you visit my classroom to see the impact on students firsthand and share more about their success.
Best,
[Insert Name]
[insert contact information]
* Excludes Bing Apps. Learn more at
Bing in the Classroom Template Press Release
Below is a template press release that you, your school or your district can personalize and use in communications with your local media, community and school district. If you are working with local media and you have questions, please feel free to contact Waggener Edstrom Communications, the public relations agency for Microsoft.Email: .
Local school joins Bing in the Classroomprogram
[School/District name]utilizes the Bing ad-free search in classrooms.
[CITY, State] — [Date] — [School/District] is proud to announce that, in an effort to raise digital literacy and help protect students, it is joiningthe Bing ad-free search program,Bing in the Classroom, provided to schools for free from Bing.
Using information to build to higher-order thinking has always been the hallmark of an effective education, and Internet search has had a key role to play in helping students find and organize information to increase their critical thinking.Unfortunately, not all search services provide ad-free search to students in school.But with Bing in the Classroom, [School/District] students now have an ad-free option that removes all advertisements from their Bing search results while on the school network. Bing in the Classroom also enhances set strict filters to help block adult content and adds specialized learning features to promote digital literacy in the classroom.*
“Education, especially digital literacy, is a key priority for Microsoft, and Bing in the Classroom is an extension of that,” said Matt Wallaert, creator, Bing in the Classroom. “Offering ad-free search allows students to focus on content and avoid marketing messages.”
[Insert quote from teacher about his/her use of Bing in the Classroom.]
[Add local/school boilerplate/contacts as appropriate.]
* Excludes Bing Apps. Learn more at
Bing in the Classroom – Quotes from District Users
The below are quotes from teachers and administrators you can use in your press release, website or other public materials about the program.
Quotes from Aiken 01 School District:
“Before we started using Bing in the classroom I felt much more compelled to guide students to websites that I was certain were safe rather than just opening up the whole world to them and saying dive in and learn about what you want to learn about. So I had to spend a lot more time researching those websites on my own, checking those websites, monitoring those websites and controlling what they were exposed to rather than just letting them dive in.” – Brandee Green, 4th and 5th Grade ELA (English Language Arts) and Social Studies Teacher and Department Chair at Aiken Elementary School
”I think seeing the enthusiasm in our teachers is one of the best things that I’ve seen in using Bing in the classroom.” - King Laurence, Associate Superintendent for Instruction and Accountability, Aiken County Public School District
“From an IT perspective, what I get out of Bing in the Classroom is content filtering, ad free searches, and I have fewer other problems in general because of the content filtering. I do not have the privacy problems that are prevalent in some other search engines. And best of all, it’s free.” – Andrew Cox,Executive Director of Educational Technology, Aiken County Public School District
“Bing in the Classroom and Skype are indispensable tools in our district. Bing provides timely search results, of course, but the additional features are what makes it a cut above the other offerings. Bing in the Classroom provides our students with a clean, but informative, homepage and search page—completely free of ads! The word of the day and the mystery pic are popular warm-ups, and the lesson plans—especially the awesome OneNote components—are top-quality tools!” – Andrew Cox,Executive Director of Educational Technology, Aiken County Public School District
From Cherokee County School District:
“It is refreshing to have a search engine environment that has the classroom in mind. The embedded teaching and learning resources combined with ad-free, safe searching offer opportunities forteachers and students that is a definite game changer.” – Bobby Blount, Assistant Superintendent of Accountability, Technology & Strategic Planning, Cherokee County School District
From Murrieta Valley Unified School District:
“We initially deployed Bing in the Classroom due to concerns that had been expressed by some of our parents regarding targeted advertising to students. Since Bing in the Classroom had the ad profile disabled it was an easy decision to contact Microsoft Support and enable Bing in the Classroom for our IP scopes. This was a very painless setup. We did not immediately change any settings in terms of our browser configurations, however, as word got out to principals that bing.com no longer had ads, and was chock-full of educational content, we received requests from our principals to push homepages to bing.com - especially at the elementary level, where certain ads could be considered inappropriate. This coming school year will be our first full school year with Bing in the Classroom and we expect broader use of the educational components as well as more requests for Bing in the Classroom to be set as homepages.” -Jonathan Pratt, Senior Systems Engineer, Murrieta Valley Unified School District
Bing in the Classroom Microsoft Quotes
The below are quotes from Microsoft spokespeople you can use in your press release, website or other public materials about the program.
Quotes from Microsoft Spokespeople:
“The Bing Rewards program enables parents and community members to use their searches to earn Surface tablets for their schools.” —Matt Wallaert, creator, Bing in the Classroom
“Not all students have equal access to technology; Bing in the Classroom can help close that gap by enabling community members to work together to earn Surface tablets.” — Matt Wallaert, creator, Bing in the Classroom
“Bing in the Classroom is letting students focus on learning by offering ad-free, safer search.” — Matt Wallaert, creator, Bing in the Classroom
“Search is a critical educational tool, but not all search providers are delivering ad-free search to students in school. With Bing in the Classroom, students can satisfy their curiosity through Bing.com without distracting ads.” — Matt Wallaert, creator, Bing in the Classroom
“Technology is changing the way we work, teachers teach and students learn; digital literacy is a cornerstone of that change,making the ad-free search and daily lesson plans from Bing in the Classroom so much more valuable to students and teachers.” — Cameron Evans, chief technology officer, Microsoft Education
“We believe students are not products — it’s that simple. Technology tools for the classroom should be ad-free andshould be safe. Bing in the Classroom builds on the commitment we made with Office 365 education to not mine student data for marketing purposes.”— Cameron Evans, chief technology officer, Microsoft Education
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