Thursday, November 24, 2011

Education Technology Grants Aim to Increase Student Retention and College Graduation

Nationwide figures show that only fifty-% of U.S. students who enroll in postsecondary schooling really total a diploma plan. In a main work to improve student retention and college graduation, personal organizations and the U.S. authorities are doling out grants to advance training by means of technological innovation.

In December 2009, the Bill and Melinda Gates Basis announced $twelve.9 million ed-tech grants for local community schools and remedial programs. In accordance to the Gates Basis net web site, the recipient of the grants will:

Hard work with local community college educators to develop cutting-edge virtual environments that will help teachers and enhance students' educational overall performance.

Generate collaborative engineering and social media resources to form virtual communities for substantial top quality educators to generate a Nationwide certification system for teachers of remedial schooling.

Generate dynamic virtual studying labs, which can be freely accessed and utilized as open instruments.

EduC ause, a non-revenue organization, lately earmarked large funds for engineering tasks aimed at getting ready students for college. 1 of EduCause's objectives is to mix on-line courses with conventional classroom curricula, exactly where students can consider fundamental, non-credit score, supplemental programs for college readiness. The grants will also concentrate on postsecondary schooling by making technologies to track students' educational functionality in real time, as nicely as produce open, virtual academic instruments.

Below the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) Training Technologies Funds, ARRA EETT Aggressive Grant Plan supports efforts to increase students' studying and educational progress by way of progressive makes use of of technological innovation. Amid other points, the authorities grant plan seeks to foster on-line studying and instruction related to students' and educators' advancement.

Today's collaborative technologies and social media instruments are integral to maintaining students and teachers engaged in the understanding method . Why is it crucial to consider refreshing initiatives to integrate World wide web 2.0 technologies in schooling to enhance student retention and college retention?

In accordance to the U.S. Division of Labor stats, by 2016, fifty- % of all U.S. projects will need college-degree abilities.

Furthermore, a current study carried out by PayScale, an U.S. business that gathers info on salaries, exhibits college graduates from top rated colleges make almost $One million more than a common large school graduate (source: Bloomberg Businessweek, June 28, 2010).

Primarily based on particular variables, a comparative breakdown of the PayScale information reveals a thirty-yr world wide web return on college investment as follows:

Ivy-League schools = $One.4M
Personal College = $559.2K
Non-Ivies = $384.4K
Public schools = $322.5K

The PayScale numbers also benchmark the typical thirty-12 months world wide web return on investment of college training at 9%, only second to S&P 500 investment at oneOne particularpercent, and forward of thirty-12 months Treasuries and Gold at 4% and 2.6%, res pectively.

In broad terms, college degrees will yield a large rate of return the two in terms of ability-set advancement and earnings.

Initiatives to generate collaborative, on-line understanding equipment and virtual environments, funded by ed-tech grants, are methods toward making modular, individually personalized curriculum Centered on students' wants, interests and goals. This, in turn, will assist students put together for and negotiate college, and depart with degrees in hand.

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