Digital Promise

Digital Promise, also known as the National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies, is a non-profit organization originated by the U.S. Congress as part of the 2008 re-authorization of the Higher Education Opportunity Act. Its mission is to spur innovation to improve the opportunity to learn for all Americans.

History

More than a decade ago, the Carnegie Corporation of New York joined with the Century Foundation to launch the Digital Promise Project, an initiative to recommend policies that could harness breakthrough technologies to advance the public good. Project co-chairs, former FCC Chairman Newton N. Minow and former NBC News and PBS President Lawrence K. Grossman, published their project recommendations in a book titled A Digital Gift to the Nation.

At the request of Congress, the Digital Promise Project, in partnership with the Federation of American Scientists, developed a road map for transforming teaching and learning with technology in the digital age. This road map was the basis for Section 802 of the 2008 Higher Education Opportunity Act, authorizing the National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies, also known as Digital Promise.

Digital Promise is an independent, bipartisan nonprofit, signed into law by President George W. Bush and launched in September 2011 by President Barack Obama. Initial board members were appointed by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, whose department provided start-up funds and support with the goal of "supporting a comprehensive research and development program to harness the increasing capacity of advanced information and digital technologies to improve all levels of learning and education, formal and informal, in order to provide Americans with the knowledge and skills needed to compete in the global economy."

Mission

Digital Promise is a nonprofit organization authorized by Congress to spur innovation to improve the opportunity to learn for all Americans.

Closing the Digital Learning Gap

To ensure the full benefit of digital learning, Digital Promise works to ensure access, participation and empowerment for all learners if the Digital Learning Gap is to be closed.

• Access: learners and educators must have access to personal technology and the Internet, both at school and at home.
• Participation: learners and educators must have sufficient digital literacy to participate fully and responsibly in a connected world
• Empowerment: learners and educators must be empowered to use technology to solve complex, real-world challenges

Digital Promise's Initiatives

League of Innovative Schools

In 2011, Digital Promise launched the League of Innovative Schools, a national coalition of forward-thinking school superintendents dedicated to harnessing technological innovation to improve learning opportunities for all Americans. The League represents a wide array of school districts—large and small, urban and rural, low-income and middle-class. Overall, it consists of 73 districts and education agencies, serving 3.2 million students in 33 states.By working together on shared priorities and partnering with entrepreneurs, researchers, and education leaders, League districts are pioneering innovative learning and leadership practices.

Verizon Innovative Learning Schools

Digital Promise and Verizon partner with middle schools, providing all teachers and students with always available access to technology and empowering them to be content creators, adept problem solvers, and responsible consumers of digital media and learning content. Digital Promise documents each school's progress and will publish a unique, behind-the-scenes online guidebook highlighting best practices to close the Digital Learning Gap.

Adult Learning

Adult education in America needs attention, investment, and innovation. Learning technology has the potential to open doors for under-skilled adult learners; in particular, expanding access to learning opportunities will help adult learners acquire the skills necessary to succeed in a global and highly competitive 21st century workforce. Digital Promise is raising the profile of adult learning among developers and entrepreneurs by informing stakeholders about that are improving adults' skills and competencies through digital learning.

Micro-Credentials

Digital Promise is building a coalition of educators and partners to develop a micro-credential system that provides teachers with the opportunity to gain recognition for the skills they learn throughout their careers. As an emerging professional development strategy, educator micro-credentials can enable our public education system to continuously identify, capture, recognize, and share the best practices of America’s educators so all teachers can hone their existing skills and learn new ones.

Marketplace

For the promise of learning technology to truly become reality for students and teachers, classrooms have to be equipped with the tools that fit their needs. The “Improving Ed-Tech Purchasing,” report identifies the key obstacles, common challenges, and potential solutions for the procurement of K-12 personalized learning tools. By working with both education purchasers on the demand side and education technology providers on the supply side, Digital Promise helps informed purchasers and innovative developers collaborate to create solutions that result in simplified procurement processes in districts and schools around the country.

Research@Work

Researchers and scientists across disciplines are working to better understand how people learn, what environments nurture the mind and how to better understand learners. Yet, much of the science about how people learn does not influence teaching practice or the design of learning tools and environments. To fully realize technology’s potential to improve the opportunity to learn, research findings should be communicated in a way that is useful to educators and developers as they work to improve student outcomes. Digital Promise is identifying ways educators and entrepreneurs can better access and put to use the research findings that shed light on how people learn.

Funding

Digital Promise was launched with public and private funding from sources including the U.S. Department of Education, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and its range of corporate partners.

Today, Digital Promise has the support of many foundations and corporate partners enabling Digital Promise to work towards its goal of closing the Digital Learning Gap.

External links

• Digital Promise