Funding Proposals

Lorraine Sherry

First Annual Review
Second Annual Review
Third Annual Review

The Rocky Mountain Lesson Exchange: A Bridge from Lessons to Standards

 Brent Wilson and Lorraine Sherry
A grant proposal submitted to the USWest Foundation, December 1994

In the fall of 1994, Brent Wilson formed a committee to submit a grant proposal to USWest. A hard copy is included in my paper-based portfolio. Our team consisted of Brent Wilson, Jeff Wein, myself, and four teachers who represented different participating school districts. This was my first experience in grant-writing, and needless to say, it was not accepted. However, the idea was good: it had

The idea of the Rocky Mountain Lesson Exchange lived on, and in June of 1995, Brent, Jeff, and I presented a prototype of the system at the TIE (Technology in Education) conference in Steamboat Springs, where it was warmly received.

I have continued to work on a spin-off of the original proposal. It is called K-12 Connections, and is found under the Research section of the School of Education Home Page.

The Navajo Learning Network

Lorraine Sherry and Dianna Lawyer-Brook
RMC Research Corporation
A field-initiated grant proposal submitted to OERI, March, 1996

In the spring of 1996, part of my job at RMC Research Corporation was to write a funding proposal. Our CEO (Shelley Billig) gave the project full corporate support, since this was a major funding proposal for $5 million over five years. She told me "it looks like a winner" once it was finished, though we realized the competition was very stiff for field-initiated grants.

I wrote the research proposal, and Dianna Lawyer-Brook wrote the timeline, meeting notes, setting and some of the appendices. Our office manager wrote the budget. Jim Kettering, who was familiar with the Navajo Learning Network, sat in on a few meetings as we fleshed out the research design, but contrary to the authoring statement, he did not contribute any written material to this proposal. And unfortunately, he left the corporation soon afterwards, which most likely led to the proposal's not being accepted.

Some of the other staff at RMC recognized the value of this proposal and the evaluation model included in it. Later on, I fleshed out the model and submitted it as a research proposal for Phase II of the BVIP, where it was incorporated and used. Subsequently, a further expanded model based on this proposal was incorporated into the Texas Star Center modules, where it has recently been funded.

The original online version of the document is in the corporate file at RMC Research. A hard copy is included in my portfolio. An online copy can be found at Navajo Learning Network. It contains all the necessary information, minus confidential corporate budget data.

Videoconference: UCD and OPTEK, Finland

Lorraine Sherry
University of Colorado at Denver
A funding proposal submitted to Ed Nuhfer (UCD) and Esko Johnson (Finland), August 24, 1996

In June 1996, I received an e-mail message from Dr. Esko Johnson at Kokkala Institute of Technology, Finland, inviting me to participate in a videoconference to be held in Finland on October 12, 1996. Dr. Johnson has invited several noted experts in distance learning to be part of this conference, to be held via satellite.

I immediately contacted three distance learning experts here in Denver: Clark Nelson from DPS (also in the ILT program), Ellen Waterman (adjunct faculty at UCD and graduate of the ILT program), and Dianna Lawyer-Brook (director of The French Connection, a distance learning program connecting a rural school in Kansas with a suburban school in Paris). All three agreed to participate, provided we could get funding for the studio and the satellite uplink from our end. I submitted abstracts and biographies of each of these experts to Dr. Johnson, who replied that he would try to seek some funding from his end, and requested I write a proposal.

When I mentioned this to Ed Nuhfer at UCD in July, he suggested that he might be able to match some funds, and asked me to write him a proposal as well. Both Esko Johnson and Ed Nuhfer accepted the proposal, which is online at Videoconference with Finland.

With funding from both the Finns and UCD, we fully expected that the videoconference would become a reality, and we set about developing our agenda and presentations. Unfortunately, on September 19th, we received a message from Muriel Woods at the Auraria Media Center that the the scheduling problem was insurmountable. The studio and the support staff would not be available at such an early hour on a weekend morning, so we had to cancel the videoconference at the 11th hour. I passed on Muriel's note to the Finns and to my team, and I hope that next time we will meet with more success.

Annenberg Follow-Up

Lorraine Sherry
RMC Research Corporation
A funding proposal submitted to Libby Black on September 16, 1996

After the Creating Connections Annenberg/CPB Initiative II evaluation was accepted by the project director, I was asked by my supervisor to write a proposal for a short follow-up study. We realized that since all data were gathered via e-mail by NWREL, and since the response rate was very low, we needed to have some idea about the types of barriers encountered by the nonrespondents to the evaluation survey.

Since the BVIP contract was already underfunded and the deadline was well past, this proposal was not accepted.

Caddo Parish Technology Initiative

Lorraine Sherry, David Hoffman, Shelley Billig, and Joseph Martinez
RMC Research Corporation
A funding proposal submitted to Caddo Parish, Louisiana, April 25, 1997

This proposal grew out of the final stage of an old contract between RMC Research and Caddo Parish for consultation on their technology initiative. I wrote the overview section based on our meeting notes with the project director (Clay Slagle), and revised all of the focus group questions. If funded, the project will net RMC Research approximately $80-120,000 per year for two years. The initiative will connect 19 elementary schools throughout Caddo Parish, provide a lending library of laptop computers for parents, and attempt to raise student achievement through the use of technology in the classroom. Our efforts will be to support a technology leadership summit and thereafter to provide monthly training to teachers, staff, and administrators in the use of technology for teaching and learning.

The WEB Project

Shelley Billig and the Technology Team
RMC Research Corporation
A funding proposal submitted to The WEB Project, Montpelier, VT., February 24, 1997

This proposal was written by the entire technology team of RMC Research. I was one of the readers of the proposal because of my experience in evaluating the BVIP. It was funded, and provides money for RMC Research to evaluate a unique Web site that supports arts, music, and dance. The WEB Project is a consortium of schools, organizations, and private industries working together to use technology to facilitate systemic educational reform.

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Lorraine Sherry
File moved November 7, 1997