1. As you read the Introduction to the National Education
Technology Plan, what did you determine to be the purpose of the National Education
Technology Plan? How does it affect teachers and students, people like you and
me? (feel free to be critical if you like).
The Introduction to
the National Education Technology Plan states that our education system
needs to close the current gaps and success and failures among the varied
populations of our students. Minority students are not graduating high school
and are not continuing on to college at the same rate as white students. These
gaps must be closed . Students must receive education that will aid them in
succeeding and completing high school and post secondary educations.
These ideas
and requirements are beautiful ideas, however the high stakes assessment idea
is causing a weakening to our education system. Teachers are not teaching what
needs to be covered they are teaching what is on the tests. Teaching the teast
is not aiding our students critical thinking or creative problem solving. We
are teaching them nothing but how to regurgitate answers. This requires
Professors to spend time deprograming students and getting these students to
understand how to go find the answers.
2. As you read the Introduction to the National Education
Technology Plan (NETP), what were the main assumptions under which the plan was developed? (you may copy and paste
the main assumptions, and then answer the question below in your own words)
- 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.
The
plan also assumes that with technology we can provide engaging and powerful
learning content, resources, and experiences and assessment systems that
measure student learning in more complete, authentic, and meaningful ways. With
technology-based learning and assessment systems, we can improve student
learning and generate data that can be used to continuously improve the
education system at all levels. With technology, we can execute collaborative
teaching strategies combined with professional learning strategies that better
prepare and enhance educators' competencies and expertise over the course of
their careers. With technology, we can redesign and implement processes to
produce better outcomes while achieving ever higher levels of productivity and
efficiency across the education system.
What are some concerns
administrators, educators, or even students might have with these assumptions?
These assumptions are pretty critical of professional
educators. Stating that we do not engage the heart and minds of students maybe
true with some but many of us show our students we care about them and we do
attempt to engage them in conversations as they enter the room. Assessment data does show us weaknesses but
it does not show us why these weaknesses exist. Is this student from a single
parent home? Does this student have to watch siblings because the parent work a
second or third shift for the shift differential?
Administrators should be worried about the team concepts
stated here I love the ideas of team teaching but where does the time come from
for teams to meet and discuss and figure all of this out. Learning from private
industries makes me believe that education should be approached as a business
and not as something about the students and about success in education.
3.
As you read the Executive Summary, the NETP presents a model of learning powered by technology,
with goals and recommendations in five essential areas. ( You may copy and
paste the areas directly from the document and then answer the question below
in your own words).
1.0
Learning: Engage and Empower
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.
2.0 Assessment: Measure What Matters
Our
education system at all levels will leverage the power of technology to measure
what matters and use assessment data for continuous improvement
3.0 Teaching: Prepare and Connect
Professional
educators will be supported individually and in teams by technology that
connects them to data, content, resources, expertise, and learning experiences
that enable and inspire more effective teaching for all learners.
4.0 Infrastructure: Access and Enable
All students
and educators will have access to a comprehensive infrastructure for learning
when and where they need it.
5.0 Productivity: Redesign and Transform
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.
What are the “21st century
competencies” - see the section titled “what and how people need to learn”-
listed in the summary? How will technology support the growth of these
competencies?
The 21st century competencies basically state
that across all the disciplines in education, students need to have critical
thinking, problem solving as well as collaboration and finally the ability to
communicate in a multimedia manner.
Technology can enhance and stimulate these competencies by allowing us
to model a lesson and then provide basic information on where to find examples
and answers on line. By making assignments include group work and allowing
students to use computer technology as a means to present their work, we will
enhance student’s use of technology.
While reading the mission statement from the State of Ohio
Educational Technology Plan there was one thing that ran true through both the
state and the federal plans and that is the desire to incorporate community and
business partners in realizing these technology goals. I also noticed that the
state document comments that this document is a living document. The federal
document seemed closed and was not open to any further comment or revision.
While reading Ohio’s Educational Technology Plan on page 8
and comparing it to the Federal plan’s
goals and recommendations, I see very few similarities. The only idea that I see is the fact that
both call for increased quality professional development for teachers. I do
believe that the Ohio plan narrows down the broad guidelines set at the federal
level. Examples of this would be the
federal call for the infrastructure and access and enabling, the Ohio plan
calls for teachers and students having access to the internet but it goes on to
call for distance learning for students. I believe that this shows that Ohio
went further with the federal guide lines.
While looking at Ohio’s State Technology Plan’s
“measurements of success” I find one huge barrier to success in measuring the
progress in meeting these goals. There are no provisions for funding these
indicators. How can a district with a low tax base come up with enough money to
higher or train educators to be AP teachers? How can these lower income
districts find funding to purchase the equipment for teachers to integrate
technology into their curriculum? While duel credit classes for high school
students is a great idea but these classes require HGT teachers and how do
these schools afford these highly qualified teachers or teachers with a masters
degree in their subject area? The third
hurdle to cross is how does a secondary school offer credit for a class that is
taught off campus a post secondary school? I mean how does a high school give
credit for a curriculum that is outside their control or oversight? How can they be sure that the student
actually took a class of merit and not under water basket weaving? Finally the
last hurdle to all of this is that these are yet another unfunded mandate by
the state. Examples of these are such as all day kindergarten, the measuring of
a students body mass index and we can go on and on. Ohio has many great ideas,
but someone needs to truly change school funding so that all district are some
how funded equally so these mandates are possible.
