Week 2 Assignment, Part 3: The National Technology Plan

The National Technology Plan 2010 (NETP) urges a transformation of American education.  This plan outlines goals for achieving this transformation. The Obama administration desires to see 60 percent of our population holding a two or four-year degree plan by 2020.  The NETP strives to close this achievement gap by preparing our high school graduates to succeed in college and their chosen profession. With technology embedded into every aspect of our lives, the plan stresses that our educational system must provide engaging and powerful learning experiences. The NETP identifies five areas to address this technology powered learning model: learning, assessment, teaching, infrastructure, and productivity.

Learning: This area revolves around providing an engaging and empowering learning experience for all learners. The learning experiences should mirror students’ daily lives and prepare them for their futures and must have technology woven into all content areas. To accomplish this goal, states must continue to revise and implement standards to include emerging technology.

Assessment: Educator’s must be able to assess student performance. Technology-based assessments can give important data about each student to help make improvements in our education system. To accomplish this educators and leaders must have the tools and training to be able to assess the data accurately.  

Teaching: We should be moving towards a model of connected teaching. Teachers have access to data and resources to help improve their instruction and also build online learning communities which give them access to fellow educators and professional experts. This model also replaces ineffective professional development with collaborative, continuous courses and workshops.

Infrastructure: Educators and students need access to resources when and where they need them. An infrastructure includes people, processes, learning resources, policies, and sustainable models in addition to effective hardware and software. A school infrastructure is driven by emerging technology and should provide for learning both in and out of school.

Productivity: Our educational system must be redesigned. Some schools have restructured their learning days by organizing around competence rather than seat time. If we are to see every student graduate high school with a diploma, we have to be more productive in our classrooms, and organize them to meet the needs of all students. 


Department of Education. National Education Technology Plan. [Online] Available http://www.ed.gov/sites/default/files/netp2010-execsumm.pdf, September 1, 2011