Review of the National Educational Technology Plan

I found the plan to be very interesting reading and was encouraged to hear the direction that education is moving in. The goals of the plan are very similar to those of the Michigan Educational Technology Plan, however, the national plan goes into much greater detail within each goal. It was evident that the people that developed this plan understand the plight of the American educator: teaches in isolation, not enough planning time, limited resources. The plan discusses how we as educators need to become involved in Connected Teaching, to not be so isolated in our teaching; that we need to explore best practices through on-line professional learning communities. The document also had within it links to on-line teaching resources. I was instantly connected to sites such as Mathforum.org and Teachers.tv.

Although I found the plan to be inspirational, as with any plan there has to be a way to implement it. Unfortunately, updating the technology found in schools and educating teachers to use the technology is very costly. The computers in the school that I work in are so old and slow that newer software and internet applications won’t run on them and we do not have the funding to outfit each classroom with new computers. I could not find where the plan discussed where the funding to reach all of these wonderful goals is going to come from. How do we keep schools outfitted with the equipment and training they need to keep up with the technology that our kids need to be successful in the 21st century global economy? I saw a t-shirt once that read, “It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to get a new bomber.”