Tech Plans

I really wish that all of our students that graduate were completely ready to start a career or enter college. I seriously thought by now that most of my students would know how to attach a document to an email, but I soon learned they did not have this knowledge. Almost every student I teach owns a cell phone and can text faster than I can speak, but when it comes to using a computer to type, email, create a power point or the like, they are ill prepared. When I was in high school, I had to take a keyboarding class so I could learn to type. Our county no longer teaches typing in school; they assume the students come with this knowledge (we all know what assuming does). I think as a society we want to believe our students just know how to use the technologies we provide, when in reality we are making a rather large assumption.


I believe our National Educational Technology Plan needs to set lofty goals. I always set high standards for my students and that is what they have done for us. We know in reality reaching those goals will be difficult, especially given our economic difficulties currently. But I think the point of setting the goals is the dream that each state will do their best to reach those goals and will ultimately raise student achievement. Michigan did a nice job trying to align their state goal with the national goals. I really like the detail in their plan. Out lining each goal specifically makes it easy on school districts to determine how they need to go about reaching those goals.

In my district (Douglas County, GA), our plan is laid out like a paper you would write in college. The goals are stated, but they are not written in a way that makes it easy to identify the national goals. We have the same goal of providing as many students with access as possible as well as updating technology when possible. I know we participate in the 21st century grant and we continue to look for ways to improve how we use technology. Our district used the national and state goals to help develop our goals and we have created a plan to address these goals in the best interest of our students. I am beginning to picture a funnel.

Thanks:

http://techplan.org/STP%202010%20Final.pdf

http://www.ed.gov/sites/default/files/netp2010-execsumm.pdf

http://web.douglas.k12.ga.us/web/DCSS_TechPlan_09-12.pdf