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LEAP Online is a Web based community connecting Quincy Gear-Up and Central Washington University
Similar Projects
Opening the Door: Technology and the Development of University-Community Partnerships [PDF file, 66 pages, 304K]. Report on six case studies that use IT projects to revitalize distressed neighborhoods. Of note, MIT developed a program combining computer access, courses, and web-based content to build community, empowerment, and self-sufficiency for residents of a low-to-moderate income housing development (http://www.camfieldestates.net/). A common theme to many of these projects is that they are based around an Application Service Provider (ASP) model where the university hosts the servers and maintains the hardware & software and the community users maintain the content.
James-Deramo, M. and Macedo, P. (1999) "Distance and Service-Learning in the Sciences: Augmenting the Science Curriculum of Rural Schools through On-line Mentoring and Electronic Communication" in Best Practices in Cyber-Serve: Integrating Technology with Service-Learning Instruction, Michele James-Deramo, Editor, Virginia Tech Service-Learning Center (pages 39-). Used the Internet and a project-based approach to link physics majors and faculty with high school students and their science teachers to stimulate the high school students' interest in and access to advanced science topics. Email was found to be the most common mode of communication, posting of on-line journal of project activities to a public web page was considered one of the successes of the project. Real-time chatting was not successful; few mentors were free during the class time of the high school students. Lack of motivation of the high school students was also a concern.
The Use of Technology in Higher Education Service-Learning
Privacy Issues
Federal Trade Commissions fact sheet on How to Comply with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule.
Report on a privacy audit [PDF] of 95 Victoria Web sites. Contains useful best and worst practices with privacy statements. The cover art of the PDF file is attractive use of graphics
Example of Watchfire's Privacy Statement
Grant Opportunities
FIPSE: Fund for the Improvement of Post secondary Education supports projects that encourage post secondary reform, innovation, & improvement with a focus on equality of educational opportunity. Successful projects are comprehensive, action-oriented, risk-taking, & responsive to needs of practitioners. Competition is a 2-stage process, with required preliminary proposals due 11/03/03, & invited final proposals due 3/22/04. In FY 04, up to $9 million is available to fund approximately 55 awards, ranging from $50,000-$275,000. Browsing through their list of FIPSE funded 2002 projects shows many projects similar to Giddy-up in approach and objectives.
Links to Needs Assessment
From Greater Expectations: A New Vision for learning as a Nation Goes to College, Association of American Colleges and Universities, Chapter 2, p. 12. (Emphasis added)
Barriers to Readiness
Although readiness refers to the preparation of all students for successful college-level learning, different sets of hurdles confront traditional age and older students. Eighteen to twenty-two-year-olds face:
Uneven preparation for independent, demanding college-level study. Despite nearly two decades of school reform triggered by the 1983 report A Nation at Risk, many high schools are unable to produce college-ready graduates. Reasons include poor quality teaching, low teacher and student expectations, large class size, weak curricula, and unconscionably poor resources. Some schools suffer from all these handicaps. Models for how to solve the problems of uneven preparation exist, but the will to replicate them broadly has not yet been mustered.
The continuing patterns of separation and discrimination. Students of color tend to be concentrated in schools with the poorest resources and lowest expectations. Their high school dropout rates exceed those of majority students, thereby limiting their potential for advanced study. This unfair situation jeopardizes the futures of minority students, as well as the country's ability to equitably produce a well-educated populace.