Dive Brief:
- The Online Learning Consortium received $2.5 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to continue its work on improving student outcomes by developing best practices for digital learning.
- Campus Technology reports that OLC will focus specifically on adaptive learning tools that can help disadvantaged and underserved students find greater success in general education courses.
- The money will go toward a new prize competition to recognize schools and instructors doing especially well with adaptive learning and student outcomes, and it will fund an expansion of OLC’s Quality Scorecard.
Dive Insight:
The higher education market is being flooded with new educational technology products. Investors are making record-breaking contributions to start-ups and companies that have gained dominance in the field. Schools are spending millions to acquire new technology. Context is always an important addition to such situations, and the OLC prize could create that. Soon schools will see some of the best work of their peers and have more information about emulating it.