The US Department of Education recently released a draft of The National Educational Technology Plan. The plan addresses the needs that are developing to create an educated workforce that can compete in today’s global economy. The plan does not advocate school as usual, but rather outlines changes to the current American education system to highlight innovation and a continuous improvement model based on assessments. The plan outlines five key areas to make the change happen: Learning, Assessment, Teaching, Infrastructure, and Productivity.
LEARNING: Creating powerful, engaging learning experiences should be linked to technology. Technology used in education should be researched based and aimed to equip students with the 21st century skills they need to be successful as graduates. An emphasis is placed on anytime, anywhere learning that is based on a core set of standards, but is also customized for the learner.
ASSESSMENT: Technology should be used to measure what matters and to use those assessments to improve the learning situation for all students. Assessments should be ongoing provide a clearer picture of needed interventions for each students with each assessment. Assessments should nto remain as the standardized tests that we use today, but new technologies such as gaming, virtual worlds and collaborative environments should be incorporated to motivate student learning. Teachers need training for this to happen and the increased data available about each student needs to be protected.
TEACHING: Teachers need to be connected to the resources they need to make them better teachers. Staff development is needed to increase teacher proficiency with technology so that they will be able to take advantage of the learning resources available. Teachers should be developing their own personal learning networks with which that can collaborate and improve their skills. The plan also calls for the training of teachers to teach online courses, vital to improving student learning.
INFRASTRUCTURE: Every student and teacher needs to be provided with an internet device and the necessary software to access learning resources whether at school or out of school. The infrastructure to support these devices needs to be developed and strengthened to provide for adequate broadband and increased wireless opportunities. To help with budget obstacles, the call is also made to use more open-sourced software to have access to cost-effective solutions.
PRODUCTIVITY: Budget is an issue in today’s economy and this part of the plan calls for creative ways to make the plan happen. We first need to set clear outcomes and then find the most cost effective way to achieve them. Standardization of technology would help to save money and to ensure collaboration between districts and states could happen. Looking to private models could provide some insight in how this could be accomplished. Schools should also start looking at mastery of concepts instead of seat time when educating children.
Overall this plan has some good intentions. I agree we need to do more with less money and technology can help make this happen. I also agree that sometimes we waste time and money trying to keep kids occupied during the day with standardized curriculum. I am excited to try to engage students in learning in ways that they use in their personal lives and the opportunity to customize what students are learning. Using online learning to connect students and teachers with resources beyond the school walls is a great way to improve the quality of learning opportunities available. I become a little hesitant when I see how many times assessing students with technology is mentioned. In my experience in education, whenever we talk about assessment on a large scale, it always goes back to a standardized situation when we stop creative learning to measure against a uniform standard. Attempts to include project-based assessments have so far failed at a state level. How to pay for this and how to pay for the re-training of teachers remains to be seen for me. As with all government plans the real obstacle is to get buy in at the state and local levels. I see a lot of resistance to this plan as we try to change the way school is taught. Moving towards this is risky and no real model has been provided on how to make the transition and unless schools think that they will truly be supported with attempting to make these changes, they will not make the move.
Office of Educational Technology U.S. Department of Education. (2010). National educational technology plan 2010. Retrieved April 22, 2011. http://www.ed.gov/sites/default/files/NETP-2010-final-report.pdf
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