PARTNERS

In 1998, Carnegie Learning was incorporated and licensed the Cognitive Tutor technology from Carnegie Mellon.

Our partnership today with CMU encompasses ongoing technology transfer and exchange of research ideas. The CMU Pittsburgh Area Cognitive Tutor (PACT) Center, directed by Dr. Albert Corbett and Dr. Ken Koedinger, continues to conduct empirical research validating the learning improvements achieved by students using the Cognitive Tutor, while also developing new Cognitive Tutor curricula. In January 2000, Carnegie Learning committed $2.7 million to the PACT Center for research and development of a new integrated math curriculum for grades six through eight.

The Heinz Endowments comprise two private foundations, the Howard Heinz Endowment and the Vira I. Heinz Endowment. Our shared mission is to help southwestern Pennsylvania thrive as a whole community—economically, ecologically, educationally, and culturally—while advancing the state of knowledge and practice in the fields in which we work.

For nearly 60 years, the RAND Corporation has fulfilled its mission by providing objective research and analysis to address challenges facing the world. The rigorous quality standards of research has earned RAND a world-class reputation.

As a nonprofit institution, RAND conducts RAND-initiated research and provides objective research services to public and private clients.

The Tiger Woods Learning Center is here to get students thinking about the role education plays in their futures. We want to show them how to relate what they learn in school to their future careers. We offer exciting courses that revolve around careers in math, science, technology and language arts. Because there is something for everyone at the TWLC, we hope to show students how their personal interests can develop into an exciting career. And we do all this in a 35,000-square-foot facility, using the latest technology in a completely wireless environment.

NewSchools Venture Fund™ is a venture philanthropy firm that seeks to transform public education through powerful ideas and passionate entrepreneurs so that all children – especially those underserved – have the opportunity to succeed in the 21st century.

NewSchools Venture Fund believes that all children are entitled to an education that will serve them well in the knowledge economy of the 21st century.

Sadly, too many children are being left behind at schools where expectations for achievement are low, where academic programs are weak, and where too little learning is taking place. NewSchools stands alongside education, business, nonprofit, and policy leaders working to transform the K-12 public education system that exists today.

The Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center (PSLC)will address the widely recognized problem that education research has not yet produced research results that unquestionably work to produce robust student learning and that survive the transition from the lab to the classroom and from one domain, researcher, or developer to other domains, researchers, and developers. Although learning science has no shortage of rigorous laboratory results and associated principles and no shortage of realistic classroom design experiments and associated course innovations, there is a shortage of experimental results that are both rigorous and realistic. Our goal is to produce results that survive rigorous experimentation with laboratory-quality methods in real classroom settings. We call this paradigm in vivo learning experimentation. Such experimentation will focus on robust learning, that is, learning that is retained over long durations, transfers to novel situations, and accelerates future learning.

Founded by Pennsylvania school districts and the Tuscarora Intermediate Unit #11 ten years ago to use videoconferencing technology to deliver specialty and elective courses to multiple classrooms, today blendedschools.net is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation that provides K-12 online courses, videoconference courses, and professional development to more than 100 schools districts. blendedschools.net’s mission is to create and deliver meaningful experiences that enhance flexible, blended learning opportunities for its member school districts and their students.

blendedschools.net hosts a robust, online learning management system, community portal and content system for delivering their own K-12 online courses in reading, language arts, mathematics, social studies, science, French, German, Spanish, Art, Music, Advanced Placement, and PSSA recovery. blendedschools.net’s online courses provided instruction for 38,600 student course enrollments during the 2005 fall semester. More than 100 consortium-taught, videoconference-delivered courses connect students to teachers between school districts for classes otherwise not locally available. In the last two years, the blendedschools.net training staff delivered professional development to 3000 teachers on how to create and teach online instruction. To help school districts transform into 21st century teaching and learning centers, blendedschools.net hosts an annual conference.

The Iowa Educators Consortium, IEC, is an initiative of the Iowa Area Education Agencies. Iowa AEAs formed the IEC as an independent, tax-exempt, nonprofit institution supporting the mission of the Area Education Agencies. The primary function of the IEC is to provide a voluntary purchasing program for K-12 schools by bringing all statewide school purchasing programs under one legal umbrella and one fiscal management group. IEC purchases allow schools to take advantage of aggressive pricing based on the purchasing volume of many Iowa schools.

Founded in 1986 and headquartered in Long Beach, California, Design Science develops software used by educators, scientists and publishing professionals, including MathType, Equation Editor in Microsoft Office, WebEQ, MathFlow, MathPlayer and TeXaide, to communicate on the web and in print.

Carnegie Learning integrates Design Science WebEQ™ to produce and render formatted mathematical expressions for Cognitive Tutor curricula.

Draper Triangle Ventures is a premier source of funding for high-technology start-up companies in the Pennsylvania and Ohio region. As the Midwest-based fund of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, the leader in seed and early-stage venture capital, we offer entrepreneurs and investors a host of benefits unrivaled in the industry. Our Managers have significant experience in founding, investing in and growing early stage technology companies. Through the Draper Network, we have access to the tremendous benefits afforded by the cooperation of 15 venture firms, 25 funds, approximately $3 billion under management, unparalleled resources, and the global reach of powerful relationships around the world.