National Educational Technology Plan 2010

Transforming American Education Learning: Powered by Technology

It’s a lazy Sunday morning, and what do I choose to do? Read the National Education Technology Plan, of course.  124 pages of stimulating prose that makes you excited to see that our leaders get the purpose and need for technology to propel our teachers and students into the 21st century.  As I begin, I try not to be swayed by the fact that the ‘working group’ who developed this plan is mostly made up of members in academia.   I wonder how much input they got from educators in K-12 who struggle everyday with access to technology and real time professional development and support to improve our students’ learning.  (To my friends in academia I apologize for this dig, don’t take it personal I just would have liked to see a more well-rounded panel of educators PK-20)

The plan has five goals, which I have presented here (for those of you who don’t have a day to read the whole 124 pages).

Learning: Engage and Empower

Goal: All learners will have engaging and empowering learning experiences both in and out of school that prepare them to be active, creative, knowledgeable, and ethical participants in our globally networked society.

Translation: We need to offer our students a learning environment that allows them to use the digital world, that is their world, to engage their brains in authentic learning experiences.

Assessment: Measurement that Matters

Goal: Our education system at all levels will leverage the power of technology to measure what matters and use assessment data for continuous improvement.

Translation: We need to use technology to gather and analyze data in order to drive quality instruction to insure that all students learn. The ‘we’ here includes all stakeholders: students, parents, educators, administrators, and community members.

Teaching: Prepare and Connect

Goal: Professional educators will be supported individually and in teams by technology that connects them to data, content, resources, expertise, and learning experiences that can empower and inspire them to provide more effective teaching for all learners.

Translation: Educators need to be connected to many minds, tapping into the power of  local and global PLNs (personal learning networks) that allow them to learn 24/7 in order to improve their craft and facilitate improved learning in their classrooms.

Infrastructure: Access and Enable

Goal: All students and educators will have access to a comprehensive infrastructure for learning when and where they need it.

Translation: It isn’t just about the tools, but certainly a stable infrastructure is key to access and availability.  I’m glad they talk about processes and policies here as well, since it has been my experience that often these are what limits great educators in  using technology to truly provide authentic learning experiences.

Productivity: Redesign and Transform

Goal: 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.

Translation: We don’t have the money to pump into education, so we need to be better at using technology to be more productive and accomplish more with less.  You knew this was coming, right? I totally agree with the idea in this section that we need to rethink our educational structure and get away from ‘seat time’, ultimately being creative with the way learning is structured including online, blended environments. I raise a cautious hand at replacing a truly excited, challenging, engaged educator with technology ‘assessment’ packages that progress a student through ‘lessons’ electronically.

Some of the things I liked about the plan:

• Acknowledges the need for factual and procedural knowledge, but more importantly motivational engagement: the embedding of technolgy in authentic learning that is engaging for students.
• Supports using quality data to drive instruction and data systems that talk to each other in order to triangulate data and find relationships. (I’ve been waiting for this for years!)
• Discusses the ‘connected educator’, we cannot afford to be isolated in our rooms anymore. It is time to be collaborators and network both locally and globally.
• Recognizes student cellphones as being a valuable resource that we need to tap into, instead of banning them from our classrooms.
• Discusses the need for exploring open source digital resources, including textbooks and other student materials.
• Recognizes the importance of social networking and other digital tools in the lives of our educators and students.
• Identifies the need to reexamine ‘seat time’ and focus more on the actual learning that takes place. (not about what is taught, but what is learned)

Of course, at the end of the day it is a plan. A plan written in black and white that doesn’t always have the ‘how’ explicitly spelled out. There are actions that address each goal and, don’t get me wrong, they sound good.  I just logistically question some of them.  I also know that at the end of the day the plan is also backed by assessing teachers based on summative student assessments that currently aren’t very authentic nor engaging. I worry that what educators will focus more on is the ‘what needs to be covered’ for the tests and less on the engaging authentic learning.  I hope I’m wrong.