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<h1>edX and Massachusetts Community Colleges Join in Gates-Funded Educational Initiative</h1>
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<h2>First Blended MOOC Course slated for Bunker Hill Community College (BHCC) and MassBay Community College</h2>
<p><strong>LOCATION – November 12, 2012</strong>— THE_CONTENT </p>
<p><strong>CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – November 19, 2012</strong>–
<ahref="https://www.edx.org/">edX</a>, the world’s leading online-learning initiative founded by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), today announced an innovative blended massive open online course (MOOC) offering at <ahref="http://www.bhcc.mass.edu/">Bunker Hill</a> and <ahref="http://www.massbay.edu/">MassBay</a> Community Colleges, the first community colleges to work with edX to bring a new teaching model to the classroom. Through this public/private initiative, community colleges will benefit from edX’s platform, connecting students with leading MOOC professors from around the world.</p>
<p>“Our technology and innovative teaching methods have the potential to transform the way community college students learn, both in and out of the classroom,” said Anant Agarwal, president of edX. “Our work with Bunker Hill and MassBay will enable us to work with other state institutions throughout the country to provide excellent educational opportunities on an ever-tightening budget.”</p>
<p>The collaboration between these two innovative community colleges, both of which have a history of offering online and hybrid courses, and edX was made possible through a $1 million grant from the <ahref="http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Pages/home.aspx">Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation</a>. The grant is part of a $9 million investment to support breakthrough learning models in postsecondary education. EdX, Massachusetts and the Gates Foundation believe that investing in this initiative will pave the way for further innovations in online learning and on-campus improvement for these and other community colleges around the country.</p>
<p>“I thank the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and edX for understanding the importance of innovative thinking in order to better prepare our students for the jobs of the 21st century global economy,” said Governor Deval Patrick. “A stronger community college system fuels our economy by connecting well-prepared students with employers.”</p>
<p>Beginning in the spring 2013, Bunker Hill and MassBay Community Colleges will offer an adapted version of the <ahref="https://www.edx.org/courses/MITx/6.00x/2012_Fall/about">MITx 6.00x Introduction to Computer Science and Programming</a> course at their respective campuses. This unique learning experience will allow students to benefit from superior virtual courses, enhanced by in-class supporting materials and engaging breakouts. The collaboration aims to build upon edX and community college data-driven research to examine the advantages of a blended classroom model that utilizes edX’s MOOC content, consisting of innovative learning methodologies and game-like educational experiences.</p>
<p>“Community college professors are both teachers and mentors to our students. The blended classroom model allows our professors greater one-to-one contact with our students, allowing for greater course content mastery and application,” stated Dr. John O’Donnell, president of MassBay Community College.</p>
<p>According to BHCC President Mary L. Fifield, “The invitation to participate in edX comes on the heels of several highly successful classroom-based student success initiatives at our College that have increased student persistence by as much as 32 percent. The timing couldn’t be better.”</p>
<p>Through its open source platform, edX enhances teaching and learning by using research on how students learn and transformative technologies that facilitate effective teaching both on-campus and online. EdX’s ultimate goal is to provide access to life-changing knowledge for everyone around the world.</p>
<p>For more information or to sign up for a course, please visit <ahref="https://www.edx.org/">www.edx.org</a>.</p>
<h2>About Governor Patrick’s Community College Priorities</h2>
<p>Governor Patrick has prioritized strengthening and unifying the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ community college system in order to be more responsive to employer needs for skilled workers and help get people back to work. This past summer, the Governor signed legislation that set aside $5 million for community colleges to be used for four main purposes: the development of efficiency measures that may include consolidation of IT platforms and services; the creation of innovative methods for delivering quality higher education that increases capacity, reduces costs and promotes student completion; engaging in statewide and regional collaborations with other public higher education institutions that reduce costs, increase efficiency and promote quality in the areas of academic programming and campus management; and improving student learning outcomes assessments set forth by the Board of Higher Education under the Vision Project.</p>
<h2>About edX</h2>
<h2>About edX</h2>
<p>edX is a not-for-profit enterprise of its founding partners Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that features learning designed specifically for interactive study via the web. Based on a long history of collaboration and their shared educational missions the founders are creating a new online-learning experience. Anant Agarwal, former Director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, serves as the first president of edX. Along with offering online courses, the institutions will use edX to research how students learn and how technology can transform learning—both on-campus and worldwide. edX is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts and is governed by MIT and Harvard.</p>
<p><ahref="https://www.edx.org/">edX</a> is a not-for-profit enterprise of its founding partners Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that features learning designed specifically for interactive study via the web. Based on a long history of collaboration and their shared educational missions, the founders are creating a new online-learning experience. Along with offering online courses, the institutions will use edX to research how students learn and how technology can transform learning—both on campus and worldwide. edX is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.</p>
<h2>About Harvard University</h2>
<p>Harvard University is devoted to excellence in teaching, learning and research, and to developing leaders in many disciplines who make a difference globally. Harvard Faculty are engaged with teaching and research to push the boundaries of human knowledge. The University has twelve degree-granting Schools in addition to the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.</p>
<p>Established in 1636, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher education in the United States. The University, which is based in Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts, has an enrollment of over 20,000 degree candidates, including undergraduate, graduate and professional students. Harvard has more than 360,000 alumni around the world.</p>
<h2>About MIT</h2>
<p>The Massachusetts Institute of Technology — a coeducational, privately endowed research university founded in 1861 — is dedicated to advancing knowledge and educating students in science, technology and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century. The Institute has close to 1,000 faculty and 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students. It is organized into five Schools: Architecture and Urban Planning; Engineering; Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences; Sloan School of Management; and Science.</p>
<p>MIT's commitment to innovation has led to a host of scientific breakthroughs and technological advances. Achievements of the Institute's faculty and graduates have included the first chemical synthesis of penicillin and vitamin A, the development of inertial guidance systems, modern technologies for artificial limbs and the magnetic core memory that made possible the development of digital computers. Seventy-eight alumni, faculty, researchers and staff have won Nobel Prizes.</p>
<p>Current areas of research and education include neuroscience and the study of the brain and mind, bioengineering, cancer, energy, the environment and sustainable development, information sciences and technology, new media, financial technology and entrepreneurship.</p>
<h2>About the University of California, Berkeley</h2>
<p>The University of California, Berkeley is the world's premier public university with a mission to excel in teaching, research and public service. This longstanding mission has led to the university's distinguished record of Nobel-level scholarship, constant innovation, a concern for the betterment of our world, and consistently high rankings of its schools and departments. The campus offers superior, high value education for extraordinarily talented students from all walks of life; operational excellence and a commitment to the competitiveness and prosperity of California and the nation. </p>
<p>The University of California was chartered in 1868 and its flagship campus in Berkeley, on San Francisco Bay, was envisioned as a “City of Learning.” Today, there are more than 1,500 fulltime and 500 part-time faculty members dispersed among more than 130 academic departments and more than 80 interdisciplinary research units. Twenty-two Nobel Prizes have been garnered by faculty and 28 by UC Berkeley alumni. There are 9 Nobel Laureates, 32 MacArthur Fellows, and 4 Pulitzer Prize winners among the current faculty.</p>
<h2>About The University of Texas System</h2>
<p>Educating students, providing care for patients, conducting groundbreaking research and serving the needs of Texans and the nation for more than 130 years, The University of Texas System is one of the largest public university systems in the United States, with nine academic universities and six health science centers. Student enrollment exceeded 215,000 in the 2011 academic year. The UT System confers more than one-third of the state's undergraduate degrees and educates nearly three-fourths of the state's health care professionals annually. The UT System has an annual operating budget of $13.1 billion (FY 2012) including $2.3 billion in sponsored programs funded by federal, state, local and private sources. With roughly 87,000 employees, the UT System is one of the largest employers in the state. www.utsystem.edu</p>
