Research Center for Learning Technologies

As part of the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, Congress has established a new National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies. Comparing the new center to historical changes in education such as the Land Grant Colleges Act and the GI Bill, its supporters see it as providing the missing link between the explosion of new technologies and learning strategies. It will bring “learning and skills training into the 21st century,” said the co-chairs of the Digital Promise Project, Lawrence Grossman, former president of PBS and of NBC News, and Anne Murphy, former American Arts Alliance president.

They note that the creativity that developed extraordinary new learning technologies “has not focused on ways to make learning more compelling, more personal and more productive in our nation’s schools.”

The national center will be a not-for-profit agency with its own board and will be able to accept funds from multiple federal agencies as well as the private sector. It will be part of the U.S. Department of Education. Supporters are seeking an initial $50 million appropriation in fiscal 2009.