National and State Technology Standards

    1. What did you determine to be the purpose of the National Education Technology Plan (NETP)? How does it affect teacher and students, people like you and me?

Answer: According to the Introduction of the National Education Technology Plan, I believe the purpose is to dramatically transform the way we deliver education by integrating technology at all levels of curriculum so that we produce better educated citizens ready to meet the challenges of a “21^st century global economy”.

This ambitious plan has implications for teachers, students and common citizens. One negative implication is that with any technology implementation there are financial and budgetary concerns. Who will assume the burden of the cost to implement this initiative? It is evident by the current government shutdown that we as a nation are already in a financial crisis. Federal funds are sparse, state and local governments are struggling to meet their budgets, and taxpayers continue to seek relief.  If funding is generated, how will we support such an initiative within schools? Added staff will be needed to support any hardware and software infrastructure within the school system. Additional training will be needed for teachers who are digital immigrants and are not quite as comfortable with technology. Until standards for teacher training align with technology use in the classroom, you will continue to have a subset of teachers who do not possess the skills necessary to fully integrate technology into the classroom creating yet another learning curve. However, time does not stand still. Technology is the wave of the future, being proactive rather than reactive will allow us to get ahead rather than trying to play catch up. It’s very important to have a technology plan in place at the federal level, so state and local governments can use the information to form and align their plans to meet the overall goals.

     2. What were the main assumptions under which the plan was developed?

The plan is based on the following assumptions:
·         Many of the failings of our education system stem from our failure to engage the hearts and minds of students.

·         What students need to learn and what we know about how they learn have changed, and therefore the learning experiences we provide should change.

·         How we assess learning focuses too much on what has been learned after the fact and not enough on improving learning in the moment.

·         We miss a huge opportunity to improve our entire education system when we gather student-learning data in silos and fail to integrate the information and make it broadly available to decision-makers at all levels of our education system—individual educators, schools, districts, states, and the federal government.

·         Learning depends on effective teaching, and we need to focus on extended teams of connected educators with different roles who collaborate within schools and across time and distance and who use technology resources and tools to augment human talent.

·         Effective teaching is an outcome of preparing and continually training teachers and leaders to guide the type of learning we want in our schools.

·         Making engaging learning experiences and resources available to all learners anytime and anywhere requires state-of-the-art infrastructure, which includes technology, people, and processes that ensure continuous access.

·         Education can learn much from such industries as business and entertainment about leveraging technology to continuously improve learning outcomes while increasing the productivity of our education system at all levels.

·         Just as in health, energy, and defense, the federal government has an important role to play in funding and coordinating some of the R&D challenges associated with leveraging technology to ensure the maximum opportunity to learn.

 What are some concerns administrators, educators, or even students might have with these  assumptions?

Answer: Some concerns administrators, educators, or even students might have with these assumptions are varied. Administrators and teachers might take issue with assumption number one that “we are failing to engage the hearts and minds of students.” Many of the school districts I am familiar with already use some level of technology within the classroom and are striving to utilize technology to enhance what students are learning. It’s a strong assumption stating that the current system is unequivocally failing to meet the needs of students. However, I do think most educators would agree there is room for change in all aspects of education. Schools are already taking a proactive stance by investing in more technology education and training for teachers. There are also many initiatives promoting comprehensive school reform in the curriculum areas, such as Literacy Collaborative and Common Core Initiatives to improve the education we are delivering to students. Many administrators are already calling on private industries such as Batellle to do statistical analysis of data that will help teachers modify their curriculum to suit student’s needs. Batelle also helps schools analyze the assessment data more in depth to inform administrators on how teachers are performing. I am sure most administrators, teachers and students all agree technology has a significant role in enhancing the way we deliver education now and in the future.

3.      “The NETP presents a model of learning powered by technology, with goals and recommendations in five essential areas: learning, assessment, teaching, infrastructure, and productivity.”

What are the “21^st century competencies, what and how people need to learn” in the summary? How will technology support these competencies?

Answer: The skills they want people to acquire to become expert learners are “critical thinking, complex problem solving, collaboration, and proficiency in multimedia communication”. The belief is technology will play a key role in helping students develop these competencies. Students are already technology savvy, it’s the educators’ job to take what students already know and integrate it across all curriculum areas so students are building on their prior knowledge. For example, technology will enable students to do more in-depth research, which might enhance critical thinking skills because they have access to many forms of multi-media for research. With computers in the classroom, students can work collaboratively to research, present and share information they learned. There are on-line lessons that exist now that utilizes multimedia formats that empower students with information they might not have had access to in the past.

4.      How does the State of Ohio’s Technology Plan’s purpose and mission align with NETP or not align and why?

Answer: Both the State of Ohio and the NETP align because they are concerned with making sure students are better educated and equipped to meet the demands of a “21^st century global economy”. However, the State of Ohio’s plan references the No Child Left Behind Act from President Bush’s Administration, but the NETP does not. In addition, Ohio’s plan is concerned with making sure technology is implemented for all students from preschool-graduate school (called P-20). The Ohio plan takes on a more state specific initiative, such as increasing the number of charter school and distance learning opportunities. The NETP’s technology plan seems mostly concerned with k-12, but also completely overhauling and rethinking how we deliver traditional education. Ohio seems to have action steps, but NETP has more of an outlined plan.

5.      How do you believe the outline aligns, with the “model of learning powered by technology, with goals and recommendations in five essential areas” proposed by National Education Technology Plan? In which areas are the two not aligned? Why?

Answer: The outline for the State of Ohio plan seems to align with the NETP plan on the following items: learning, teaching, productivity and infrastructure. The State of Ohio plan does not address assessments like the NETP plan does. The NETP plan is concerned with working with governors to make sure data is used to improve the technology implemented. In addition, the NETP calls for a comprehensive look at the research done in the learning sciences to improve education. The State of Ohio plan is more concerned with our individual state and the NETP calls for research and development to be funded at the national level.

6.      What barriers do you see fulfilling this plan (Ohio’s State Educational Technology Plan measurements of success)? Provide four reasons why it may not be possible to reach these “measurements of success” in the state of Ohio.

Answer: The number one barrier I see to accomplishing these measurements of success is the amount of funding it requires accomplishing such a large initiative. A good example would be a recent article in the Columbus Dispatch regarding Columbus City Schools trying to pass a 9.01-mill levy so all students in middle school and high school in Columbus city school district could have a laptop computer. In this district they would be fulfilling a part of the initiative, but it requires taxpayer money. When initiatives are subject to the hands on the voters, they may not be implemented. Secondly, the Ohio plan was adopted under the Democratic leadership of Governor Strickland, and we currently have a Republican Governor, John Kasich. I am not sure what kind of support the current state administration is giving to this initiative. The measurements of success will need to be fully supported and funded to be accomplished. Thirdly, in order to accomplish these measures of success you need to have highly trained and qualified people to carry out the initiative. Who are these people who will carry out the goals?  What is the infrastructure in place to support and carry out such a large initiative? Fourthly, if the target goal is having these measures of success assessed in 2014, the initiative will need more time. Technology is rapidly changing and the current plan will need to be fluid. A task force will be needed to oversee and support strategic planning and long term goals.