New Grant Program Seeks to Expand Free Online Courses - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education

"Next Gen Learning Challenges, led by Educause, a nonprofit that supports education technology, is designed to find technology-based approaches to improve college readiness and completion among low-income students. Initial goals include expanding access to free educational materials online, exploring the use of social networks for teaching, combining online and face-to-face education, and finding ways to measure learning success....Diana Oblinger, president and chief executive of Educause, announced the initiative today as a partnership between her organization, the League for Innovation in the Community College, the International Association of K-12 Online Learning, the Council of Chief State School Officers, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation...."