Summary & Reflection of NETP Draft

Summary and Reflection of the National Educational Technology Plan
Summary:
The National Education Technology Plan (NETP) was released in the form of a draft on March 5, 2010 in response to a national agenda for education improvement and reform. This document is a declaration to the imperative integration of technology into the national education system. The plan prioritizes two main goals: (1) raise the proportion of college graduates, and (2) close the achievement gap among students of different race, income, or neighborhood. The document clearly states that “just as technology is a core of virtually every aspect of our daily lives and work, we must leverage it to provide engaging and powerful learning experiences, content, and resources and assessments that measure student achievement in more complete, authentic, and meaningful ways.”
Five fundamental areas are presented with goals and recommendations for states, districts, the federal government, and other stakeholders in our education system that addresses learning, assessment, teaching, infrastructure, and productivity.
Learning should be personalized and focused on relevant/real-world knowledge and facilitated and supported by technology available to all students
Teaching should shift to a model of “connected teaching” in which educators have continuous support and access to resources, data, and critical collaborative dialogue via technological avenues
Assessment should be technology-based applications that provide immediate insight into the active learning process of a student
Infrastructure should be a continuous effort to provide and sustain the availability of technology to all students and educators
Productivity combines the learning, teaching, assessment, and infrastructure into a systemic initiative to attain the indicated goals

Reflection:
The experience of reading and analyzing this document has provided me an opportunity to view efforts above and beyond a familiar state level of educational reform. A clear message of needed change and a strong sense of urgency of the magnitude of the importance of technology into learning, teaching, and assessment resonate in my daily thoughts as I work with teachers to improve student achievement in science.