Friday, March 25, 2005
Get Students Involved Is One Answer
Education World's Lorrie Jackson has an interview with DOE's Office of Educational Technology Director Susan Patrick about the National Educational Technology Plan (NETP).
They discuss some pretty interesting findings and new initiatives. One I found to be very innovative is having students involved in the process of the development of the plan. We always talk about 'the students.' But how often do we go to 'the student' for input?
Here is Susan Patrick's response to one of the questions...
"This was the first time in the history of the federal government that the government asked for students' views on education and included student voices in a major policy document. Today's students were born into the age of the Internet, and we wanted to know if technology had made this generation different. How can we teach if we don't know the students? So, first, we convened a focus group to try to draw information from existing studies from the business sector (because education didn't have the data). Second, we partnered with NetDay to hear the voices of the students themselves. We were hoping to get 5,000-10,000 open-ended surveys. Instead, we received 210,000 -- from students in all 50 states! Their input helped provide us with a much better picture of today's students."
They discuss some pretty interesting findings and new initiatives. One I found to be very innovative is having students involved in the process of the development of the plan. We always talk about 'the students.' But how often do we go to 'the student' for input?
Here is Susan Patrick's response to one of the questions...
"This was the first time in the history of the federal government that the government asked for students' views on education and included student voices in a major policy document. Today's students were born into the age of the Internet, and we wanted to know if technology had made this generation different. How can we teach if we don't know the students? So, first, we convened a focus group to try to draw information from existing studies from the business sector (because education didn't have the data). Second, we partnered with NetDay to hear the voices of the students themselves. We were hoping to get 5,000-10,000 open-ended surveys. Instead, we received 210,000 -- from students in all 50 states! Their input helped provide us with a much better picture of today's students."
# posted by Mrs.Bowllan @ 10:22 AM 
