The Digital Opportunities initiative is funded by the New Zealand Ministry of Education, in conjunction with a range of ICT business partners.
During 2004, schools were asked to submit Expressions of Interest for funding from the Digital Opportunities project funding pool. Funding could be granted for up to three years. The key to successful submissions was the ability to meet the key criteria around teaching and learning innovations:-
- The project directly assists in providing, supporting or enabling learning or learning opportunities for students;
- The project assists in developing and sustaining collaborative relationships between students, teachers, schools and/or communities and businesses;
- The project enables the fulfilment of ‘a digital opportunity’. This is defined as a unique teaching or learning opportunity, which is substantially facilitated through the innovative use of electronically-based ICT resources.
To date, funding allocated for the 2005-07 projects has amounted to over $2 million. However, the purpose of the funding is not the development of a school’s general ICT infrastructure or the purchase of ICT equipment and resources unless directly related to the achievement of DigiOps project goals. It is specifically targeted at providing opportunities for teachers to ‘run with’ innovative ideas they have for using ICT to support their student’s development, but never had the time or opportunity to do so!
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