Educational Technology

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 21^st 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.