Open Educational Resources | News

$7 Million CFY Grants To Advance OER for Low-Income Communities

• By Caitlin Moriarity
• 04/16/12

CFY, a national educational nonprofit, will use $7 million in grants it's received for the development and distribution of online educational resources for K-12 students in low-income communities throughout the country.

CFY is planning to use the grants to fund an initiative that will help parents, teachers, and students find and access digital learning materials such as learning activities, simulations, and videos to promote greater learning in the fields of English, math, science, and social studies.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded $5 million in grants to CFY to improve CFY's flagship online learning platform, PowerMyLearning.com.

PowerMyLearning.com provides online educational resources such as instructional tools, digital learning activities, and other relevant content to students, teachers, and parents in low-income communities.

In addition to the grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, CFY has received $1.2 million in grants from the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, which will allow CFY to evaluate the effectiveness of a number of online learning activities.

And the W.K. Kellogg Foundation has provided CFY with $1 million in grants for projects specifically targeting students in kindergarten through third grade, as well as their families.

With the grant funds, CFY reported it will expand PowerMyLearning.com's reach nationwide. Planned improvements to PowerMyLearning.com include better search tools and more resources that are tailored to specific student needs.

For instance, teachers and parents will be able to create customized playlists of learning materials, share those playlists, and track how students are using PowerMyLearning.com to learn.

Educators will also be able to use PowerMyLearning.com to rate the effectiveness of specific digital learning activities, measure student outcomes over time, and grant other users access to that data.

For more information, visit CFY's PowerMyLearning.com site, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation education portal, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation education site, or the W.K. Kellogg Foundation online grants database.