COMMUNITIES FOUNDATION of TEXAS
2014 Impact Report
Case Study: Blended Learning and Texas Teaching Technology Innovation Fund (T3IF), continued Through support of the T3IF initiative, Educate Texas has learned that as an organization, we would have benefited from a more discrete and concrete plan for establishing parameters for project scope, depth of integration, and budget options and for communicating these parameters to the two school districts. We inadvertently created different sets of expectations among the districts by asking them to develop a “blue sky” strategy for themselves, as opposed to setting guidelines based on a defined budget range. Another major lesson learned was how challenging it is to secure local, state, and national philanthropic financial support for Next Generation/Blended Learning projects when they focus on traditional school districts rather than charter-management organizations. It remains a challenge to find those organizations that are interested in supporting Next Generation/Blended Learning on such “traditional” campuses and in school districts in Texas. What is our focus moving forward? Given the lessons learned and our continued focus on building public school district models to increase the effectiveness and impact of this innovation, Educate Texas’ T3IF is focused on the following moving forward: • B uilding the capacity of our internal T3IF team and Texas district leaders to create a comprehensive plan for successful implementation of blended learning in one or more schools in 2014 • S ecuring strategic philanthropic and corporate partnerships (e.g., with service providers, networks, research and evaluation organizations, funders, and technical-assistance providers) to support the growth of blended learning in Texas • Exploring the blended-learning needs and practices of schools/districts statewide Educate Texas is committed to providing opportunities for Texas students and teachers to innovate and explore promising Next Generation/Blended Learning over the next three years.
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