Texas Long Range Plan for Technology Week 2 Blog # 1

Teaching and Learning is the first part of the Texas Long-Range plan for Technology. It addresses the need to diversify instruction to fit the wide variety of backgrounds and experiences that make of Texas students. The plan promotes the use of rich content, educational experiences, and the multiple avenues for building knowledge and skills through the use of technology. The goal is to ensure that students are fully engaged in the learning process rather than the use of a more traditional instructional approach that uses a a 'one size fits all' method of teaching.

This area of the Texas Long-Range plan has several additional goals. They include student access to “relevant technologies, tools, resources, and services for the individualized instruction 24 hours a day/7 days a week”, the “use of information and communication technologies to collaborate and construct knowledge and to provide solutions to real-world problems and situations that are encountered.” The plan also includes a goal for all learners to effectively communicate in a variety of technological formats for a diverse population of audiences.

Since the start of this plan in 2006, there has been much growth for students and teachers in the area of Teaching and Learning. Students are able to direct their own learning with the wide variety of technological resources available to them along with the increased technology based staff development of their teachers. The nation has also seen increased advances in technology and has realized the importance it plays in the education of our students. In addition to the Texas Long-Range Plan there is a national plan that includes a 7 step process that addresses Leadership, budget, teacher training, online learning, broadband access, digital content, and the integration of data. The national plan also makes recommendations at both the state and local level.

Improved teacher training is one suggestion made in the national technology plan. Because technology is constantly changing and growing their needs to be an effort for schools to make efforts to provide continuing technology education to teachers in order to keep with the trends needed to prepare students and pass this knowledge on to them. Along with maintain and utilizing the ever-changing technological advances, teachers need increased staff development in utilizing technology for instructional purposes. Students are native to technology and are better able to learn with its use. Therefore, to increase student achievement and academic performance, educators must become experts in using it for instruction and facilitation of learning.