National STEM Education Distributed Learning

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This program aims to establish a national network of learning environments and resources for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education at all levels. The program has four tracks: Pathways projects are expected to provide stewardship for the content and services needed by major communities of learners; Pathways II projects are expected to move beyond the major stewardship goals and use Stage II support to ensure the expansion and stability of an original Pathways effort; Services projects are expected to develop services that support users and resource collection providers by enhancing the impact, efficiency, and value of the NSDL network; and Targeted Research will focus on investigating the educational impact of networked digital resources. The existing NSDL Resource Center will provide collaboration assistance across all projects; undertake strategic partnership development on behalf of projects particularly with respect to non-academic entities; coordinate and, in some cases, perform thematic research and evaluation studies related to the program; synthesize findings across the portfolio; and disseminate findings of the accomplishments of the NSDL program. The NSDL Technical Network Services project operates NSDL's infrastructure and NSDL.org; provides technical support for NSDL tools, services, and collections management; supports Pathways and other NSDL projects in contributing resources and collections to NSDL; and engages the NSDL community in identifying priorities for services developments. In FY2010, the program will accept proposals for large grants in 1) the Pathways track, 2) Pathways - II, 3) specific sub-tracks of Services, and 4) Targeted Research. In all tracks, the program will also accept proposals for small grants that extend or enhance results from existing services, collections, or targeted research activity to enlarge the user audience for the NSDL network or improve capabilities for the user.Technology-intensive projects that explore specific topics that have immediate applicability to collections, services, and other aspects of the development of the NSDL network should seek small grant support under the Services section of the program. In addition the program particularly encourages proposals for small grants from institutions and organizations new to NSDL that look to establish partnerships with existing Pathways project activities.

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