The National Educational Technology Plan: Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology is a plan to drive 21st century learning with goals in five main areas: learning, assessment, teaching, infrastructure, and productivity. I do agree with the report that teachers are given a large task with very little support to ensure they are preparing the students for the future, which in turn causes huge teacher turnaround. The report talks about the “need to strengthen and elevate the teaching profession.” In order to do this they continually talk about an educational shift to a connected teaching model.
The connected teaching model is explained as a team activity. It consist to of online learning communities made up of other students, librarians, teacher, and other community members that can help students 24/7 to be self directed learners. It is laid out as a very complex learning environment. The report states that to prepare teachers for this the teachers themselves need experience this online learning atmosphere, almost a top down model. In reading the vision of the plan it seems a very difficult one to achieve at this time. We are currently inundated with budget issues in the state of Texas, as are many other states. With states in the budget crunches they are in and cutting school finance this seems like an impossible task to accomplish. The infrastructure, teacher training and retention, as well as the support by other stakeholders seem like an impossible thing to wish for with the state of the schools at the moment.
