Personalized Learning

California Educators’ Online Community Awarded $2.25M to Advanced Personalized Learning Platform

• By Sri Ravipati
• 11/02/16

The Californians Dedicated to Education Foundation (CDEF) has received a $2.25 million award from the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, in an effort to support enhancements to CDEF’s professional learning platform and support the state’s #GoOpen campaign.  

The Collaboration In Common (CiC) platform is California’s first professional learning community and open resource exchange built for educators. CiC's tools enable educators to:

• Connect with other educators through online communities (at the local, district, county and state levels);
• Access standards-aligned curricular resources, including resources from the National Learning Registry and the California Department of Education (CDE); and
• Share their expertise and experiences through online discussions.

CiC was launched last August, through CDEF’s partnership with CDE. The platform is powered by Declara, a personalized learning technology company. With the $2.25 million award, Declara will work closely with CDEF and CDE to develop a platform that leverages artificial intelligence “to provide accurate, relevant and real-time recommendations for content and human connections to accelerate learning,” according to a statement.

California was the 16th state to join the United States Department of Education’s GoOpen campaign to adopt openly licensed educational materials, which prompted the state’s superintendent of public instruction, Tom Torlakson, to launch the CiC platform.

“This is a terrific step forward in helping California teachers prepare their students for 21st century careers and college,” Torlakson said in a statement. “This new online learning space helps educators make sense of the vast amount of materials available. Collaboration in Common will help California become a leader in supporting teacher-led innovation that scales personalized learning.”

To learn more, visit the CiC site.