National Education Technology Plan Unveiled; Sets Goals and Recommendations for Teaching, Learning

This week, the U.S. Department of Education released the National Education Technology Plan 2010 -Transforming American Education:  Learning Powered by Technology, a report to Congress, education stakeholders and the general public outlining key goals and recommendations to better integrate technology into learning.

Centered around five themes: learning, assessment, teaching, infrastructure, and productivity, the Plan incorporates many recommendations provided by CEC – with the input of its Technology and Media Division— especially addressing Universal Design for Learning (UDL).  UDL is a set of principles for curriculum and assessment development that give all individuals equal opportunities to learn provides a blueprint for creating instructional goals, methods, materials, and assessments that work for everyone--not a single, one-size-fits-all solution but rather flexible approaches that can be customized and adjusted for individual needs.

The Plan consists of a comprehensive set of goals and recommendations, including:

• engaging and empowering learning by calling on states to revise, create and implement standards and learning objectives using technology for all content areas that reflect 21^st century expertise and the power of technology to improve learning;

 

• leveraging the power  of technology to measure what matters and using assessment data for continuous improvement by calling on states, districts, and others to design, develop, and implement assessments that give students, educators, and other stakeholders timely and actionable feedback about student learning to improve achievement and instructional practices;

 

• supporting educators individually and in teams by technology that connects them to data, content, resources, expertise, and learning experiences that enable and inspire more effective teaching by expanding opportunities for educators to have access to technology-based content, resources, and tools where and when they need them;

 

• Read more.

Comments

[Jenn]

Assistive technology is so important for so many of our students. It is good to see that this plan incorporates recommendations from CEC. I know that I have personally seen assistive technology devices positively impact students' lives by improving their access to communication, immediate feedback, and alternative ways to access curriculum. Addressing UDL is especially helpful because it allows our students to access necessarily tools without being signaled out. It's like using spell check, every body accesses that tool so it is seen as normal, if only a certain population was allowed to access spell check then some people would view it as cheating or as making them stand out. UDL gives everyone the opportunity to feel normal while experiencing success.

[Online High School Diploma]

This was a perfect post. Thanks for sharing!