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Northeast Receives Major Federal Title
III Grant
The U S Department of Education (DoED) has notified personnel at
Northeast Alabama Community College that the college has been
awarded a grant of $1,176,664 as a part of the federal
government’s Title III Strengthening Institutions Program. The
funds, allotted over a five-year period, will permit the college
to establish a Center for Students and Faculty Technology. It
will allow NACC to purchase additional technology equipment and
software and provide training for students, faculty, and staff
in technology applications.
“We are excited about this grant,” NACC President Dr. David
Campbell stated. “Over the past several years, we have made a
concerted effort to bring more educational technology to our
campus, and this grant will permit us to make even greater
strides in utilizing technology for student learning. There is
great competition for these grants, and I commend our staff that
put together this proposal. This is actually one of the largest
federal grants that the college has ever received and it will
certainly be very well utilized.”
The funding is the result of a grant
proposal submitted by the college more than a year ago. The
project is titled “Enhancing Student Engagement in Learning and
Student/Faculty Interaction with Technology.” It will create
learning communities of faculty, students, and staff in which
the goal is to create a welcoming environment where information
about the use of technology for learning may be easily exchanged
among participants.
“This funding will enable us to look more
closely at the effective use of instructional design strategies,
web-based resources, multimedia technologies, and instructional
software and systems to improve teaching and learning, with both
the online and face-to-face modalities,” stated Dr. Joe Burke,
Vice President/Dean of Instruction and Title III Coordinator.
“As we broaden the applications of educational technologies we
plan to work closely with faculty in some course redesign to
include course content delivery, assessment, and online
interactive activities.”
NACC has expanded its educational technology in recent years.
The college has more than 600 personal computers on campus for
faculty, staff, and student use. There are eighteen computer
laboratories at Northeast, with access available for almost all
specific programs and subject areas. The college has added Smart
Teaching Boards to classrooms, complete with Internet
connections, and instructors and students can use Blackboard and
Wimba software systems, the latter of which permits instructors
to video tape their lectures for student replay and review. At
Northeast, students may obtain e-mail addresses and personalized
student accounts, and the college is one of the few in the South
that provides an Internet/video club for students. The college’s
new Health Education and Technology Center alone contains some
ten miles of Internet fiber connections. ”We see the application
of technology as being the cutting edge of education in the 21st
Century,” Campbell stated, “and we want our students to be
prepared the best they possibly can be. This grant is a major
step in our achieving this goal.”
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The NACC
Committee that wrote the Title III grant proposal was
Dr. Joe Burke (Chair), Larry Guffey, Marilyn Reece, Dr.
Mike Kennamer, Sam Dobbs, Tonie Niblett, Martha Banks,
Judith Lea, Dr. Cindy Jones, Susan Hancock, and Dr.
Wayne Woods (retired).
For
examples of computer technology at Northeast, select
"Online Resources" from the "Students" menu (above). |
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Northeast Alabama Community College sophomores Erin
McGee, Colton Clark, and Dustin Timmons are shown in one
of the many computer laboratories on campus.
(Photo taken by Debra A.
Barrentine, Director of Promotions and Marketing) |
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