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National Educational Technology Plan

I learned a long time ago, if you aim at nothing, that is what you will get. This idea can easily be applied to education. To insure that our students do not have to face a future of nothing, the U.S. Department of Education released the National Education Technology Plan (NETP). The Plan is designed to show how important information and communication technologies have become in the transforming of American education.  It is divided into five essential areas: learning, assessment, teaching, infrastructure, and productivity. The focus of this plan is on how people learn and how to teach them what they need to know in an emerging global economy. These young students already have computing, video imaging, social networking, gaming, and various multimedia skills in their personal and recreational lives. Education must meet these students at their level and help them integrate these skills into real tools for lifetime learning. The learning model of the plan is designed to encourage the use of state-of-the art technology in learning. Although there needs to be certain basic core competencies, students must have the power to direct their own learning. The teaching component redefines the role of the teacher from teacher to facilitator, learner and teacher. The emphasis is equipping the teacher with tools and skills so they can bring students to a learning environment that it perpetually on. As a result of redesigning how students learn and transforming education to meet the challenges of the future, our students and teachers have a clear plan with life-long learning and productivity as their goal.
 I am very excited these issues are being addressed in education. My only concern is there may not be the funds available to meet the needs. I am also concerned that unless there is more of an effort to educate the community about the need for such a transformation, they will not be behind this plan. My hope is there will be more in future plans to educate the public as to these issues.

 Education, D. o. (2010, November  9). National Education Technology Plan. Retrieved August 31, 2011,  from ED.GOV: http://www.ed.gov/sites/default/files/netp2010-execsumm.pdf

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