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Updates on: Lincoln Financial Foundation, Illinois Valley Community College, Vocational and technology institute in Ghana, HP 2008 Technology for Teaching Grant, high-tech search tools, Wikipedia, Voorhees College, Marshall University, West Virginia University,

Lincoln Financial Foundation is stepping forward to support Philadelphia’s struggling school system, awarding more than $900,000 to nonprofit organizations that are providing critical academic support in the city. These education and workforce development grants come just months after the Lincoln Financial Foundation augmented arts education opportunities in the city by giving nearly $600,000 to agencies that bring artists into the schools, provide free and reduced-priced tickets to performances, or offer in-school or after-school arts programs to underserved children in the city. — CNN

Illinois Valley Community College student organization Students in a Free Enterprise is contributing to an international educational project by collecting used, working computers to ship to Guatemala. The college’s SIFE students are partnering with a grass roots Guatemalan organization of community directors — ASDIC — to bring computers to 13 rural mountain communities. — My Web Times

A Vocational and technology institute was on Thursday commissioned at Agona Duakwa in the Central Region of Ghana to provide the opportunity for unemployed youth and school dropouts in the Agona District to acquire appropriate skills and technology to earn income and reduce poverty. The Institute is affiliated to the National Coordinating Committee on Technical and Vocational Educational and Training (NACVET) and other bodies that seek to enhance the vocational and technological skills of the youth. — AllAfrica.com

HP has opened up its 2008 Technology for Teaching Grant program, offering $6 million to K-12 and higher education institutions in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. The initiative is aimed at efforts to improve education through the use of innovative uses of technology in the classroom, increase the number of underrepresented students on a path toward high-tech careers, and enhance student success in math, science and engineering. — Campus Technology

It appears that some colleges may be trying to improve their ratings and future donation potential by literally “buying” their students, armed with high-tech search tools for test-score application information, target zip codes, neighborhood demographics and socioeconomic data. In this article, a National Merit student reflects on her experience getting bombarded with college offers. — Bloomberg

Wikipedia: time-saver for students, bane of professors everywhere. Or is it? Martha Groom, a professor at the University of Washington at Bothell’s Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences program, assigned Wikipedia projects as a core curriculum component. Readers’ comments show that she is not alone. — Inside Higher Ed

Voorhees College in South Carolina has completed a multi-phase deployment of new voice and data solution to enable distance learning, increase bandwidth, and add emergency communications services. The college partnered with CDW-G for planning and implementation, with systems provided by Verizon and Sprint. — Campus Technology

Online classes can serve as a recruiting tool for universities. Marshall University and West Virginia University, West Virginia’s two biggest universities, reflect on growing enrollment trends for the past decade as related to online education. — Charleston Daily Mail

Illinois Valley Community College’s adult education program, in association with the Richard A. Mautino Memorial Public Library in Spring Valley and the Peru and La Salle public libraries through a state-supported library outreach, will sponsor an online GED study program. The GED-i online program is designed to prepare students to take the GED test. — MyWebTimes