Close this Advertisement

Policy & Issues

What Are the Top-10 Ed Tech Priorities for 2010?

Which issues in education technology should drive policymaking in 2010? Start with establishing technology as the "backbone of school improvement," and we'll be on the right track, according to the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), which published a list of its top-10 priorities for decision makers for the coming year.

According to ISTE, it released its "Top Ten in '10" list in an effort to provide a framework for policymakers and educators when making decisions about how education funds will be spent--with a particular emphasis on employing technology for school improvement in the context of new and pending federal funding programs tat are demanding education reforms.

"No matter what kind of improvement path a state or school district may follow, the use of technology in learning and teaching is essential for real and lasting change," said ISTE CEO Don Knezek in a statement released this week.

ISTE's recommendations include the following:

  1. Establishing technology "as the backbone of school improvement" for student learning, professional development, and administration;
  2. Integrating technology to prepare students for careers and keep students engaged;
  3. Increasing federal funding support for technology through Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT);
  4. Keeping educators up to date on the latest technologies to help them be more effective in their teaching environments;
  5. Increasing support for pre-service education technology programs to help produce more technologically adept teachers;
  6. Using technology to "scale improvement" and "accelerate reform";
  7. Ensuring universal access to broadband services, which ISTE described as "critical so that students and parents have access to school assignments, grades, announcements and resources";
  8. Developing systems and strategies that will help educators use assessment data to improve student learning;
  9. Investing in research and development focused on "innovation in teaching and learning"; and
  10. Promoting "global digital citizenship" through technology-based, cross-border collaboration.

ISTE's complete "Top Ten in '10" with explanations and additional calls to action can be found within the organization's education technology advocacy pages here.

About the Author

David Nagel is the executive producer for 1105 Media's online K-12 and higher education publications and electronic newsletters. He can be reached at dnagel@1105media.com. He can now be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/THEJournalDave (K-12) or http://twitter.com/CampusTechDave (higher education).

Comments

Thu, Jan 14, 2010 Editor

To Jim Plamondon: I saw your note a little while ago, and I'm glad you re-posted it here. This is a topic I believe is worthy of further discussion. --David Nagel

Thu, Jan 14, 2010 Jim Plamondon Texas

Two comments. First, re Priority #9 (Investing in research and development focused on "innovation in teaching and learning"), please note that the DoE's research grant programs limit R&D spending to projects that are aimed at improving "reading, writing, mathematics, science, or general study skills." The quoted wording is taken from the DoE's Education Technology grant program (http://ies.ed.gov/funding/ncer_rfas/edtech.asp). This wording specifically excludes and research into improving the efficiency of arts education. Given the substantial portion of US export earnings that come from the "creative industries," and the budget cuts to arts education across the country, this exclusion seems short-sighted. Second, most approaches to education technology assume that technology is a delivery system for existing content, or novel (i.e., interactive) expressions of existing content. Please allow me to suggest that the biggest gains in the application of technology can come from re-engineering a domain's core concepts and notations to take advantage of the new technology. Consider, as just one example, the notational systems used in many domains. Historically-speaking, the adoption of improved notational systems has been one of the biggest boosts to pedagogical and operational efficiency (see examples here: http://www.igetitmusic.com/blog/2009/09/once-upon-time.html). Computer-based learning can dramatically reduce the cost of adopting a more-efficient notation, by giving users the ability to choose, at run-time, the notation in which their field's information is displayed (a la "cascading style sheets"). Yet zero research dollars are invested in developing more-efficient notations, because the teaching of a domain's content is conflated with teaching the notation in which that content is traditionally expressed. The benefits of using an improved notation are not just increased efficiency, but also greater creative power. With the Periodic Table, Mendeleev could predict new elements; with calculus, Newton and Leibnitz could predict the paths of the planets; with Arabic numerals, mathematicians could contemplate numeric relationships that Roman numerals had obscured. Hence, I respectfully submit that research into education technology should not focus solely on the delivery of existing educational content through technological means, but also focus on the re-engineering of the concepts underlying that content and the notations with which they are expressed, in order to gain both simplicity and power. Jim Plamondon Texas

Thu, Jan 14, 2010 Harry Keller Manhattan Beach, CA

Given the brevity of the ISTE list, it's more specific than I would have expected it to be. The appropriate use of technology promises great gains in education. As computers and Internet access become more widespread and less expensive, technology can help to level the worldwide playing field in education. Here, in the U. S., we have large disparities among schools, sometimes only a few blocks apart. Even within communities, the playing field often is not level. I am working to see that many of these goals are achieved for science education by providing prerecorded real experiments for virtual labs so that schools don't have to choose between no labs (because hands-on can be unsafe, expensive, time-consuming, or awkward) and the fake science of simulations. I'm excited about the future of technology in education and also cautious. Too many people are ready to use technology without evaluating its value in a given educational situation. Despite great excitement about probeware, for example, studies have shown no gain in learning compared with traditional labs. Probeware tends to dissociate the students from data collection and shift emphasis to lab technique. And, it's not truly inexpensive. Technology can be utilized as mind-numbing drill rather than used to open up new horizons for teaching thinking. By all means, let's use it but use it well.

Add your Comment

Your Name:(optional)
Your Email:(optional)
Your Location:(optional)
Comment:
Please type the letters/numbers you see above

White Papers:

  • Desktop Virtualization in K-12 Schools: Reducing Costs, Saving Time And Delivering Anytime, Anywhere Access for Students and Staff PDF screen shot

    This paper will show how desktop virtualization can positively position educational institutions for the future, enabling them to reduce expenses through hard dollar savings and time efficiencies while delivering the experience that students, faculty and staff need and desire. Through the experiences of Babylon School District, as well as Manchester Essex Regional School District in Massachusetts and Rockford Public Schools in Michigan, we’ll paint a picture of how desktop virtualization can revolutionize education’s approach to delivering technology — an approach schools can actually afford. Read more...

all white papers