CHANGE OF COURSE
For the Distance Learning Lab, Project Archimedes represents a significant change of course for the group, which was founded in 1994 — originally as the Distance Learning Lab. Since 1994, the lab has received $4 million in funding from the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency of the U.S. Defense Department. The funding has paid largely for researchers, software designers and instructors to develop software presentation technologies. Members of the Digital Learning Laboratory gained notable attention in the Washington area for its mentoring and teaching partnership with Benjamin Banneker High School.
The newest focus of Project Archimedes grew out of Beasley's concern that too much of the discussion over the digital divide in higher education centered on making sure schools are wired and that they have enough computers on the campus.
"Digital divide is thought of as a hardware problem. The know-how gap is the real gap," Beasley says, contending that HBCU faculty members are way behind their colleagues in community colleges and majority-White four-year institutions when it comes to using IT for teaching and learning.
"Pound for pound, HBCU faculty don't use IT as proficiently as faculty in (majority-White) institutions," he says. With regard to establishing distance learning on higher education campuses in general, "It's the faculty that's the bottleneck," he notes.
To move Project Archimedes into arenas such as online distance education, Beasley is attempting to raise funds from new sources of support. "We can make a contribution," he says.
To view the October 2001 HBCU Web sites Rating, visit <www.dll.org/>.
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