National Educational Technology Plan Summary

In March, the U.S. Department of Education published a draft of the national Education Technology Plan. President Obama campaigned on a platform of using technology to improve education in the United States. This plan has five major goals.

Goal 1.0 Learning: Engage and Empower: This goal addresses the need for all learners to participate in learning experiences that will prepare them for their future in a "globally networked society." The DOE recommends that states revise their learning standards to integrate technology into all learning environments.

Goal 2.0 Assessment: Measure What Matters: This goal addresses the need to use technology to formatively and summatively assess students more accurately and in a timely matter.

Goal 3.0 Teaching: Prepare and Connect: This goal addresses the need to support and train teachers in using technology to improve their practices.

Goal 4.o Infrastructure: Access and Enable: This goal addresses the need to develop the bandwidth, internet connectivity, hardware and software for teachers and students to have anytime, anywhere access to learning.

Goal 5.0 Productivity: Redesign and Transform: This goal addresses the need for schools to develop measures of productivity for technology use. It also suggests a sea-change in the way schools are structured so that students are placed most effectively for maximum performance.

With respect to professional development and training, of course this report feels that technology will be the answer, by connecting teachers into collaborative learning groups.

I have several concerns with this plan. First of all, the call for immediate and almost complete change in the way schools operate is ridiculous. Change takes time, because changing peoples attitudes and abilities takes time. When the draft says that "we must introduce connected teaching into our education system rapidly" (DOE, 2010, p.11) they seem to be calling for the wholesale replacement of existing educators. What will we lose when their years of experience are gone, only to be replaced by newly trained and hopefully more technologically proficient? I hope the technology is good enough to replace those skills.

Another concern I have is about funding. Where will the billions of dollars come from for this radical change? The DOE seems to think that "contributions of organizations in both the private and not-for-profit sectors" (DOE, 2010, p.13) will fund the new plan. Considering that schools are not adequately funded now, even with those contributions, I can't see even more coming from those sources. The only private sector source that might come through are the video game companies that could gain a stronger hold on the students if they were allowed to develop applications that were tied to their product.