Middle College National Consortium

Website run by Skip Downing, author of On Course: Strategies for Success in College and in Life. The site provides practical applications of the On Course principles (free of charge). Strategies are designed with the goal of empowering students to become active, responsible learners. There are links to descriptions of workshops and to registration options.

Online publication with content on enterprise networking & infrastructure in education.

Library of videos described as "riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world."

Published by Learning Forward and the National Staff Development Council, this site contains the journal archives as well as related topics (including newsletters and a blog).

Built by the Foundation Center, the PubHub offers over 6,500 (as of Nov 2011) foundation-sponsored reports, from research reports to case studies to issue briefs. All are presented via database, which offers both a keyword search and more extensive browse functions.

This page includes not only completion data, but also the 2011 national report, Time is the Enemy, with downloadable summary, tables, state profiles, and full report. In the Metrics That Matter Most section, see links for remediation enrollment figures and for remediation graduation metrics.

Written by Mark S. Schneider for American Institutes for Research (AIR), October 2011. See this page for the Executive Summary, as well as a link to the full report, available as PDF. From the Summary, "This report focuses on the high costs of the low retention and completion rates that are far too typical of community colleges."

by Derek Bruff, November 6, 2011. The best justification of the Innovation Lab premise that I have seen. "Sharing student work on a course blog is an example of what Randall Bass and Heidi Elmendorf, of Georgetown University, call "social pedagogies." They define these as "design approaches for teaching and learning that engage students with what we might call an 'authentic audience' (other than the teacher), where the representation of knowledge for an audience is absolutely central to the construction of knowledge in a course."" Often our students engage in what Ken Bain, vice provost and a historian at Montclair State University, calls strategic or surface learning, instead of the deep learning experiences we want them to have. Deep learning is hard work, and students need to be well motivated in order to pursue it. Extrinsic factors like grades aren't sufficient-they motivate competitive students toward strategic learning and risk-averse students to surface learning. Social pedagogies provide a way to tap into a set of intrinsic motivations that we often overlook: people's desire to be part of a community and to share what they know with that community. My students might not see the beauty and power of mathematics, but they can look forward to participating in a community effort to learn about math. Online, social pedagogies can play an important role in creating such a community. These are strong motivators, and we can make use of them in the courses we teach.

by Ron Tanner, November 6, 2011 This article echoes some of what Geoff ? said several years ago. When I began teaching a course called "Writing for the Web," three years ago, I pictured myself scrambling to keep up with my plugged-in, tech-savvy students. I was sure I was in over my head. So I was stunned to discover that most of the 20-year-olds I meet know very little about the Internet, and even less about how to communicate effectively online. The media present young people as the audacious pilots of a technological juggernaut. Think Napster, Twitter, Facebook. Given that the average 18-year-old spends hours each day immersed in electronic media, we oldsters tend to assume that every other teenager is the next Mark Zuckerberg. Aren't kids crazy about downloading music, swapping files, sharing links, texting, and playing video games? But video games do not create savvy users of the Internet. Video games predate the Internet and have little to do with online culture. When games are played online, the computer is no longer an open portal to the world. It is an insular system, related only to other gaming machines, like Nintendo and Xbox. The only communication that games afford is within the closed world of the game itself-who is on my team? At their worst, games divert children from other, more enriching experiences. The Internet's chief similarity to video games is that both siphon off audiences from television, which will soon reside exclusively on the Internet. As a delivery system for television, film, and games, the Internet has proved itself a premier source of entertainment. And that's all that most young people know about it. Why wouldn't we educate students in sophisticated uses of the Internet, which is commanding an increasing amount of the world's time and attention? I'm not talking about a course on "How to Understand the Internet" or an introduction to searching for legitimate research-paper sources online (although that is useful, obviously

MCNC's school Greer appealed against the South Carolina's Department of Education and won the right to be amongst 14 out of 179 high schools statewide to met the No Child Left Behind standards.

Paper by Garrison and Anderson on online college student discussions that are part of formal education settings but could be adapted for bridged formal-informal learning situations such as Innovation Lab.

ASCD, formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, is "The global leader in providing programs, products, and services that empower educators to support the success of each learner" (from their Twitter profile).

A DC-based organization that helps students get on the road to college. Site offers tips and links to resources for students in 6th grade through 12th, including guidance on finding scholarships.

On blip.tv. A series of websites and other technology that aid the teaching and learning process. The resources are are curated by instructional designers at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

An organization that promotes higher education opportunities for first-generation and other under-served college-bound students. A variety of initiatives and resources have been developed to achieve this goal, including the College-Bound Coalition, The College Access & Opportunity Guide; CSO College Center online clearinghouse of college programs and admissions information and the College Counseling Outreach Initiative

Supports the work of counseling and enrollment professionals who support students pursuing postsecondary education.

OCAN focuses on program development, advocacy and sustainability.

Fifth Annual Early College High School Initiative Evaluation Synthesis Report. (PDF) Prepared by American Institutes for Research and SRI International for The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. August 2009.

By A. Berger, N. Adelman, S. Cole in Peabody Journal of Education, v.85 n.3 (2010) p 333-347.

This links to the record on ERIC. Full article is available by subscription only; check with your local library for access.

Secure Social Learning Network for Teachers and Students