Prototype @ the MOREnet Missouri Future of Learning Forum was an intensive, hands-on design camp immersing passionate and creative students in a collaborative environment to re-imagine the future of learning. The Forum shaped up to be an exciting event that brought together high school students, designers, pre-service teachers, education leaders, technology experts and vendors for an interactive discussion and workshop. Led by Prototype architect and designer, Jeff Sharpe, students learned how design and design-thinking can unlock real world challenges and worked with acclaimed designers and educators to craft new classroom and learning models.

Spanning three days in October, the Forum brought together 37 students from 20 Missouri high schools; large and small, rural and urban. As design participants, students were fully-immersed in a creative setting, presented with a challenge, collaborate as a team and talk with innovative designers and educationalists from around the country as they designed their prototype solutions. Student teams  presented their creative ideas to the entire MOREnet Instructional Technology Conference audience during an interactive closing session on Tuesday, Oct. 11.

For more information see www.more.net/futurelearning or send e-mail to conferences@more.net.

Beginning in September, 2011, the Great Plains Network (GPN) will be launching a web-based Professional Development Program for faculty and staff at member institutions and GPN Network Participants. Planned topics are in areas of advanced networking, high performance computing, data life cycle management, and other aspects of advanced technology, critical to advancing the missions of the higher education community. Each program will be brief–60 to 90 minutes–and will be interactive.

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KANNAPOLIS, N.C. (Aug. 12, 2011) – MCNC, the private, not-for-profit operator of the North Carolina Research and Education Network (NCREN), hosted a Statewide Virtual Groundbreaking Ceremony today in four locations throughout the state to highlight the start of construction on Round 2 of the of the Golden LEAF Rural Broadband Initiative (GLRBI).

The GLRBI is funded through grants from U.S. Department of Commerce’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) and significant matching funds from private donations and investments including a $24 million investment from the Golden LEAF Foundation. The GLRBI will greatly expand the reach and capacity of NCREN in northeastern, north central, western and south central North Carolina.

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