The Pew Learning and Technology Program is an 8.8 million, four-year effort to place the national discussion about the impact that new technologies are having on the nation's campuses in the context of student learning and ways to achieve this learning cost-effectively. The Program has three areas of work:
1. The Pew Grant Program in course Redesign is a $6 million institutional grant program that will support efforts of colleges and universities to redesign their instructional approaches using technology to achieve cost savings as well as quality enhancements. Redesign projects will focus on large-enrollment, introductory courses, which have the potential of impacting significant numbers of students and generating substantial cost savings. The program expects to award 30 - 35 grants over three years (approximately 10 awards per year) with an average award of $200,000.
2. The Pew Symposia in Learning and Technology will conduct an ongoing national conversation about issues related to the intersection of learning and technology. It will marshal the thinking of acknowledged experts and frame the issues in ways that are useful to the higher education community as it incorporates uses of technology into the academic program. The program will convene two invitational symposia per year from 1999 through 2002 and produce monographs based on those discussions from a public-interest perspective.
3. The Pew Learning and Technology Program Newsletter is an electronic newsletter that will be published quarterly beginning September 1999. It will highlight ongoing examples of redesigned learning environments using technology and examine issues related to their development and implementation.
To have your name added to the Pew Learning and Technology Program electronic mailing list, which ensures that you receive the newsletter, periodic updates and information about this new effort, send an e-mail message (with subject line left blank) to listproc@lists.rpi.edu. In the body of the message, type SUB PLTP-L your name.
The Pew Learning and Technology Program is coordinated by the newly created Center for Academic Transformation at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute led by its executive director, Dr. Carol A. Twigg. The Center's mission is to serve as a source of expertise and support for those in and around higher education who wish to transform their academic practices to make them more accessible, more effective and more productive by taking advantage of the capabilities of information technology.
For further information, please see the Center Web site at www.center.rpi.edu. If you have any problems accessing the site, please contact Abbie Basile at basila@rpi.edu or 518-276-8323.