21st Century Teaching & Learning Initiative: A Pilot Project

How can rural schools take advantage of the latest technology to stimulate classroom learning?

The Friday Institute is collaborating with educators from northeastern North Carolina school districts to create innovative classroom practices – and a technology infrastructure to support them – that illustrate the use of 21st century tools.

Having Our Say: Middle Grade Student Perspectives on School, Technologies, and Academic Engagement

What happens when you ask middle grades students what they need to be engaged and inspired to achieve in school?

There is growing consensus among policy groups that if current generations of students are to be competitive in the twenty-first century, our education system must be transformed to address the needs of a connected global economy. We must acknowledge that today's students learn in different ways than those of previous generations, and much of the change is due to advancements in information technologies. North Carolina has actively sought input about education from various groups (e.g. teachers satisfaction survey, NCBCE's survey for business leaders); however, student's perspectives are often absent from the dialogue.

HI FIVES: Highly Interactive, Fun Internet Virtual Environments in Science

What happens when you combine the fun of video games with the serious business of learning?

Educators are increasingly concerned that children aren’t learning to think as much as they are mastering memorization of isolated facts. Yet children are proving incredibly adept at developing skills that allow them to connect and manipulate information – in the virtual world of video games.

Next Generation Education for Pervasive, Technology-Rich Learning Environments

Can centralized management of technology free far-flung schools to focus on the business of teaching?

An IBM research grant supports a Virtual Computing Lab, enabling research to determine how powerful centralized computing resources can be effectively deployed in classrooms across the state.

Project MiddleData

What can we do to stop middle school students in the U.S. from falling behind their peers academically?

The NC State University College of Education and its partners have teamed up to address the relative decline of American middle school students’ academic achievement.

IMPACT

What can we do to stop middle school students in the U.S. from falling behind their peers academically?

The Friday Institute is evaluating a North Carolina Department of Public Instruction model designed to produce technologically literate students by the 8th grade.