Transforming American Education?

Since technology has become such a big part of our daily lives, the U.S. Department of Education has drafted an education technology plan for the nation’s educational institutions to follow.  Calling education an “urgent priority,” the Department of Education has identified two goals for it:  Raising the proportion of college graduates, and closing the achievement gap.  To do so, the government has acknowledged four major areas where their efforts will have the greatest impact.  These areas call for states to:  adopt standards and assessments that prepare students for college and the workplace, build a data system that measures student growth and informs educators about how they can improve instruction, recruit and retain effective educators, and turn around their lowest achieving schools.

The Department of Education has called upon educational institutions to embrace learning powered by technology to succeed in these areas.  The goals set forth by the technology plan are in the areas of learning, assessment, teaching, infrastructure, and productivity.   

With regard to the area of teaching, the plan states that teachers should become “connected teachers,” with 24/7 access to tools to help them improve student data.  Connected teaching offers teachers the opportunity to connect with, not only information, but people, too.  Teachers could set up virtual classrooms and online learning communities for their students.  Professional development for these teachers would consist of collaborative and continuous professional learning that would combine more effective courses and workshops with all of the conveniences and opportunities of online learning.

Although the National Education Technology Plan has many good qualities, I find that the plan is vague in how to implement some of these components.  I also noticed that there was not much talk of a national budget in regard to executing this plan.  

Overall, I think that this plan is a great starting point for states and school districts to being incorporating technology into their instructional facilities.