The National Education Technology Plan lists goals in the areas of learning, assessment, teaching, infrastructure, and productivity. The plan is to facilitate the education by technology to ensure economic growth for America in a global economy. This is an ambitious plan to graduate all student form high school and 60% holding at least a 2 year post secondary degree.
The plan is to redesign instruction through technology. Increase accountability, and become more efficient is the idea. The report talks of major gaps in technological savvy among our educators, administrators and shareholders. This leads to major flaws in teaching practices and to budget issues for funding of technology. We must assess our productivity and align our curriculum to state standards. We must continually assess our progress towards the goals set forth in the National Plan.
The plan talks of ongoing professional development, increasing the infrastructure to expand internet access., This is especially needed in rural and low economic areas. Use collaboration and online learning communities to increase teacher efficiency and knowledge. We need to continually assess our progress as educators, students and as communities as a whole.
This is an ambitious plan and in my opinion vital to the prosperity of our young people in the global economy. The problem as I see it is the same in many of our major issues. It is the lack of understanding and the agreement on solutions to the problems. We need to improve our technology skills for more effective teaching, That translates to educating teachers in the use of technology. It means convincing the school boards to fund technology. It means to ask all of the older shareholders to think outside the box. To stop thinking…”when I was in school”. Times have changed and are changing exponentially. We need to step up now. This requires funding and some creativity. We need to change the way we look at education.
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