Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology

The idea of this plan is broad and complex. The basic idea is that all students will have access and availability to technology to enhance the learning environment. The composers of this plan state that technology is an integral part of students lives and that to be effective learners, they must effectively engage this technology in the classroom. The goals of the plan are to increase student learning and preparedness by more actively engaging them in the classroom with the technologies that they are immersed in on a daily basis. The idea that students will be better prepared for the job market and higher education through increases in technological learning is accurate in my own opinion. We have to use the available tools to reach the students. The plan gives specific instructions on how technology should be incorporated into the classroom environment. It discusses the infrastructure that should be put into place to allow everyone to access important information. The plan also incorporates business and government into effectively implementing the target goals. It is impossible for the schools to be solely responsible for making the adjustments to instruction. Without guidance and funding from the government, the plan will not be successful. Also, businesses are innovators in technology and the things that they have learned would be invaluable to the education system in making these changes to its methods.

The issue I have with this plan has nothing to do with incorporating technology into learning. I feel that part of it is necessary and beneficial. The issue I have is that the plan mentions that the one size fits all approach to education is not the best way to accomplish our goals and yet we have our hands tied by NCLB. If the government realizes that different methods and teaching strategies can be effective based on student backgrounds, why are we using AYP and standardized testing as a rating scale for accountability? It seems that we have two different philosophies battling for supremacy and the teachers and students are caught in the middle and suffering the most casualties.