The Plan

Education is important to the success of this county.  We are constantly changing and the way our students learn has changed tremendously.   Technology plays a great deal in this change and because of this the Department of Education has released a draft of the National Educational Technology Plan.  “The Plan” as I call it has goals in which we can aspire to, to ensure that as these changes are happening we are preparing our students to success.

 The Obama administration is the driving force for the technology goals.  One of the goals is to raise the amount of the nation’s population of college graduates from 39% to 60%.  The goal is aligned with President Barack Obama address to Congress, February 24^th, 2009 “By 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.” (Obama, 2009)   The second goal is to close the achievement gap so that all students who graduate can succeed in the future.  According to the National Center for Education Statistics, “Enrollment rates are unequal: 69% of qualified Whites…58% of comparable Latino and 56% of African American graduates” (National Center for Education Statistics, 2007), actually enter 2 year or four year colleges.  The Plan involves actions to not only raise those percentages but make them equal across the board.

The Plan is focused on not just addressing the issue of students entering college but setting a foundation for all students (K-12) to have the ability to progress throughout school into their college years. The Plan says we can make this happen by focusing on five areas: Learning, Assessment, Teaching, Infrastructure and Productivity.  We can change our standards and learning objective to include technology in different domains to engage and empower learners.  We can constantly assess, revise and research technology to find creative innovative ways to ensure improvement. The way we teach can be changed if educators work as a team and allow the student to become the center of the learning environment.  We would also need to address the infrastructure by ensuring that all educators and students have access to technology in and outside the classroom and ensure that students are making progress thought out there school years.  I find that this plan does work towards changing the way that educators teach in the 21^st century.  If we align teaching the way students learn then it is bound to be a success.  Check out the full plan at http://www.ed.gov/sites/default/files/NETP-2010-final-report.pdf