ICT, Education Transformation, and Economic Development: An Analysis of the US National Educational Technology Plan

Abstract

In support of the conclusions and recommendations in the National Education Technology Plan (NETP), this article makes explicit the connections between the economic rationale used in the plan and the educational transformations it recommends. The article reviews macroeconomic research, microeconomic research, labor market and workforce studies, and studies showing patterns of the everyday information communication technology (ICT) use in American life to document the profound changes occurring in the American economy and society. It also reviews studies showing a gap between what is happening in American schools and the experiences and skills that our youth need to enter the information economy. The article concludes with an analysis of and an elaboration on the transformational recommendations made in the NETP, based on these reviews.In March 2010, the US Department of Education (Office of Educational Technology, 2010) released a draft of the National Educational Technology Plan (NETP) to advance the educational reform goals of the Obama administration. An explicit premise of the NETP, and of the Administration's educational goals more generally, is that 'education is the key to economic growth and prosperity and to our ability to compete in the global economy' and that education 'is the path to good jobs and higher earning power for Americans ' (p. v).Citing this economic rationale, the NETP calls for a transformation of American education. With a backdrop of high unemployment and the worst recession since the Great Depression, the economic rationale has a particular saliency and the call a particular urgency. The plan goes on to review research literature in education and the learning sciences and it makes recommendations for the use of technology to support the transformation of the US education system. Information communication technology (ICT) recommendations are made about the availability and access of all teachers and students to broadband connectivity, Internet devices, software, and digital resources for research, communication, content creation, and collaboration. But the plan does not limit itself to infrastructure considerations. A particular strength of the NETP is that infrastructure recommendations are made as part of a constellation of coordinated recommendations related to other components of the education system, such as curriculum, pedagogical practices, assessment, teacher professional development, and school organization.In support of the conclusions and recommendations in the NETP, this article makes explicit the connections between the economic rationale used and the transformations recommended by the plan. It reviews a different body of research than that cited by the NETP to describe the tectonic shifts occurring in the US economy and society -much of it propelled by advances in ICT -and to elaborate on the growing gap between the processes and outcomes of our current education system and the requirements of the nation's economy and society. As the plan contends, there is an u...

An Analysis of the Content, Policies and Assessment of ICT Curricula in the Final Years of Secondary Schooling in Australia and Vietnam: A Comparative Educational Study

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