Education News

When it opens in fall 2008, university President Robert Spitzer said the new center would "become the technological heart of our campus." Dennis Horn, dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, predicted it would lead to "a significant jump in interest in Gonzaga among engineering students from around the country."

The Bitterroot Valley Community College Exploratory Committee will turn in the needed signatures to the regents March 1 to put the formation of a community college district to a vote May 8 during the Ravalli County school elections. Voters at that time will also elect the district’s trustees if the proposal is approved.

Getting into college may be tougher than it used to be. But top schools are offering a growing number of courses free online.

“It is really intense,” Damon said of the competition. “Everyone runs around doing everything at once. Last year, we had to take apart half of the robot and put a new wheel and gear in it and put it back together in two and a half minutes.”

UM and the Ravalli County-based Bitterroot Valley Community College Exploratory Committee have each drawn up a separate set of plans for a new campus. Both organizations agree that the expanding Bitterroot Valley needs better access to higher education.

McNealy has spent most of the past year as the leading pitchman for Curriki, a nonprofit group that’s trying to build a mega-Web site of educational materials that teachers, students and parents anywhere in the world can use, modify, critique and expand on. And they can do all that for free.

Gates said he believes that the reasons people select great universities or schools–access to professors’ lectures, the ability to discuss issues with other students and the need to attend classes to gain a degree–will all be changed by technology.

Duke University announced yesterday that it would create a program backed by $30 million, half from a donation from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to help students work on projects like teaching at a school in Durham, N.C., or building one in Kenya.

Business schools are going green.

Few projects are as important or utopian as Nicholas Negroponte’s newest obsession. With the energy of a true believer, he wants to put laptops into the hands of every school-age child with his "One Laptop Per Child" nonprofit project.