I would rename this plan “Educational Technology Bible”. If you’ve read this plan, then you probably feel overwhelmed with the amount of research put into this plan. According to the plan, it took over 9-months to develop this plan by ten of thousands of people including the public. What’s more impressive is that it was worked on through “collaboration” using “state-of the-art communications tools”. This is important to know because it shows a real life example of how collaboration and teamwork can accomplish great things, such as a comprehensive and well written plan (in my opinion). This plan has 5 goals in place for states, districts, the federal government and other stakeholders and most importantly provides recommendations to achieve these goals. The first goal is directed towards learning and states that “All learners will have engaging and empowering learning experiences both in and outside of school that prepare them to be active, creative, knowledgeable, and ethical participants in our globally networked society”. In respect to learning, the plan recommends four actions and most notably is the recommendation to “develop and adopt learning resources that exploit the flexibility and power of technology to reach all learners anytime and anywhere”. This is important because the plan mentions learning when students are not in school. The “on demand” approach to learning is important because of the vast opportunities it presents with no restrictions on place and time. Some examples of on demand learning include: online “collaboratories”, powerful learning applications such as musical instrument simulators or language learning tools, or augmented reality platforms and games (NETP, 2010). The second goal of the national technology plan is directed towards the improvement of assessment. This goal states, “our education system at all levels will leverage the power of technology to measure what matters and use assessment data for continuous improvement”. The plan recommends several actions to reach the goal. The most interesting approach is to “conduct research and development that explore how gaming technology, simulations, collaborative environments, and virtual worlds can be used in assessments to engage and motivate learners and to assess complex skills and performance embedded in standards”. Although this is mostly theory at this point, the plan does recommend that schools should adopt these systems “as they become validated and available” (NETP, 2010). This is very interesting considering how much time today’s learners spend playing games. The authors credit games as a form of assessing data because it is “engaging” and “provides immediate performance feedback so that players always know how they are doing” (NETP, 2010). The third goal calls for improvements in the professional development, new ways to locate best teaching practices in efforts to teach better. The goal states, “professional educators will be supported individually and in teams by technology that connects them to data, resources, expertise, and learning experiences that can empower and inspire them to provide more effective teaching for all learners”. The authors of the plan feel empathy towards teachers. They believe educators do not have the appropriate tools to do their job. In addition they feel that teachers work in “isolation” with not interaction and with other teachers or experts (NETP, 2010). The authors feel that an appropriate action to remedy this is to “design, develop, and adopt technology-based content, resources, and online learning communities that create opportunities for educators to collaborate for more effective teaching, inspire and attract new people into the profession, and encourage our best educators to continue teaching”. In respect to educator professional development, “Research shows that U.S teachers have less time in their work week for professional development” and “increasing the time for our educators to engage in professional learning will require processes that cross time and space boundaries” (NEPT, 2010). The plan wants new innovative ways for teachers to complete professional development as well as have various forms of resources available anytime for teachers that showcases best practices and the opportunity to communicate with effective colleagues and experts. The fourth goal of the plan talks about improvements to infrastructure. “All students and educators will have access to comprehensive infrastructure for learning when and where they need it.” You’ll find detailed information about programs such as E-rate, open source applications and my favorite next-generation computing such as cloud computing. The plan suggests five actions to help support the goal of infrastructure. My favorite is the recommendation to explore the “open educational resources to promote innovations and creative opportunities for all learners and accelerate the development and adoption of new open technology-based learning tools and courses”. The greatest benefit of cloud computing is that it holds the key to providing access to the same learning material and resources in and out of school, through any type of internet ready device to both students and teachers. On greater scale, it can help both academic and administrative services task be accomplished “anywhere and anytime” (NETP, 2010). The last goal of the plan tries to accomplish the following: more learning using fewer resources. The goal states, “our education system at all levels will redesign processes and structures to take advantage of the power of technology to improve learning outcomes while making more efficient use of time, money and staff”. This section of the plan calls for consideration in areas such as reorganizing teaching and learning (seat time vs competencies), extending learning time, reducing barriers to postsecondary education and moving to meaningful use. I have a major concern about the meaningful use of data. It is a very small section and if you blink you will miss it. It is a very important section especially to those who are enrolled in EDLD 5306. The authors are telling us that there is little to no information on “how technology is actually used in supporting teaching, learning, and assessment is collected and communicated systematically and only by shifting our focus to collecting data on how and when technology is used will we be able to determine the difference it makes and use that knowledge to improve learning outcomes and the productivity of our education system” (NETP, 2010). We know we need to prepare students to become collaborative, continuous and innovative learners for the 21st century. We also know that technology has revolutionized we work and play. So why then is very little has been done to track the relationship between these two? I find this a bit odd considering all the extensive research in all the other areas. I’ll leave it at that!
Source: National Educational Technology Plan 2010 or NETP 2010
http://www.ed.gov/sites/default/files/NETP-2010-final-report.pdf
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