United States National Educational Technology Plan 2024

Introduction

Technology can be a powerful tool to help transform learning. It has the potential to empower students to expand their learning beyond the confines of the traditional classroom, support self-directed learning, help educators tailor learning experiences to individual student needs, and support students with disabilities. Technology also has the potential to allow students and educators to collaborate with peers and experts worldwide, engage with immersive learning simulations, and express their learning creatively. Furthermore, it has the potential to collect student performance and engagement data, providing insight into student progress and allowing educators to deploy targeted support.

Yet, as researcher Justin Reich (2020) noted, “Predictions of imminent transformation are among the most reliable refrains in the history of educational technology.” And, across that history (Cuban, 2001) and present-day classrooms, it has failed to realize this full potential. Where technology has realized its potential, it is often for a small minority of learners and contributes to growing inequities (Attewell, 2001; Connected Learning Alliance, 2017; Reinhart, 2011). Similarly, educational technology (edtech) tools sometimes claim (without independent, research-based evidence) that student assessment results will soar if school systems adopt a given digital resource. Such claims are not only misleading, but they can undermine the true potential of edtech. Reliance on a specific tool to accelerate learning or deliver a comprehensive and rigorous education for every student places all responsibility on the content (City et al., 2009). It ignores educators and students and the relationships between all three.

Somewhere between the promise of transformation and the barriers to realizing that promise lies the potential for states, districts, and schools to build systems that better ensure that edtech’s promise is afforded to all students, no matter their geography, background, or individual context.

This 2024 National Educational Technology Plan (NETP) examines how technologies can raise the bar (U.S. Department of Education, 2023) for all elementary and secondary students. It offers examples of schools, districts, classrooms, and states doing the complex work of establishing systemic solutions to inequities of access, design, and use of technology in support of learning. The identification of specific programs or products in these examples is designed to provide a clearer understanding of innovative ideas and is not meant as an endorsement.

Digital Divides

Building on the concept of the instructional core, this plan considers the barriers to equitable support of learning through edtech as three divides:

1. Digital Use Divide: Inequitable implementation of instructional tasks supported by technology. On one side of this divide are students who are asked to actively use technology in their learning to analyze, build, produce, and create using digital tools, and, on the other, students encountering instructional tasks where they are asked to use technology for passive assignment completion. While this divide maps to the student corner of the instructional core, it also includes the instructional tasks drawing on content and designed by teachers.

2. Digital Design Divide: Inequitable access to time and support of professional learning for all teachers, educators, and practitioners to build their professional capacity to design learning experiences for all students using edtech. This divide maps to the teacher corner of the instructional core.

3. Digital Access Divide: Inequitable access to connectivity, devices, and digital content. Mapping to the content corner of the instructional core, the digital access divide also includes equitable accessibility and access to instruction in digital health, safety, and citizenship skills.

As a path to closing these divides, the NETP also provides actionable recommendations to advance the effective use of technology to support teaching and learning. The recommendations in each section are also followed by tags identifying whether they are most immediately intended for states, districts, or school buildings. These recommendations are meant as components of solutions that bridge each divide but cannot comprise all of what is necessary within a given geography, culture, or context. Throughout each section, examples are offered of states, school districts, and schools engaged in the work of putting these recommendations into practice.

Many schools in the United States are equipped with greater connectivity and access to devices and digital learning resources than ever before as a result of the need for emergency remote learning brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this continued bridging of the access divide will only add to the failure of edtech to deliver on its promises if systems do not consider its use in conjunction with all components of the instructional core. This NETP attempts to chart a path for all schools, educators, and students to realize the potential of technology in supporting better “everywhere, all-the-time” learning.

The Digital Use Divide

As discussed in the 2017 National Educational Technology Plan, a divide exists between those students who regularly encounter opportunities to leverage technology in active, critical, and creative ways and those whose experiences with technology in their learning are limited to more passive expectations of use. Some students experience a school year full of critical media analysis, video and podcast creation, real-world data collection, connections with remote content area experts, and authentic opportunities to share their learning with global audiences.

Other students—often students from historically marginalized backgrounds—have very different experiences with technology (Fishman et al., 2016; Ritzhaupt et al., 2013; Valadez & Durán, 2007; Warschauer & Matuchniak, 2010). They are guided towards more limited engagements that frame them as passive technology users. They have school years of digital worksheets, point-and-click assessments, locked-down devices, and penalties for organic collaboration. In some cases, they may have access to more technology than their peers on the other side of the divide but seldom have opportunities to use that technology in formal education beyond digitized versions of practices of classrooms of a century ago.

Closing this digital use divide—ensuring all students have transformative, active, creative, critically thoughtful experiences supported by technology—is the focus of the following section. Beginning with a clear vision of what states and districts want for all graduates, it then offers guidance and recommendations for operationalizing, evaluating, and systematizing the experiences necessary for all students to fulfill that vision.

Recommendations for Closing the Use Divide

1. Develop a “Profile of a Learner/Graduate” outlining cognitive, personal, and interpersonal competencies students should have when transitioning between grade levels and graduation. (States, Districts)

2. Design and sustain systems, including needs assessments, technology plans, and evaluation processes supporting the development of competencies outlined in the “Profile of a Learner/Graduate” through the active use of technology to support learning. (States, Districts, Schools)

3. Implement feedback mechanisms that empower students to become co-designers of learning experiences. (Districts, Building-Level Administrators)

4. Develop rubrics for digital resource and technology adoptions to ensure tools are accessible and integrated into the larger educational ecosystem, support Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles, and can be customized in response to accommodation or modification needs of learners with disabilities. (States, Districts, Building-Level Administrators)

5. Review subject area curricula or program scopes and sequences to ensure that student learning experiences build age-appropriate digital literacy skills through active technology use for learning. (States, Districts)

6. Build public-private partnerships with local businesses, higher education institutions, and nonprofit organizations to help students access edtech-enabled hands-on learning and work-based learning experiences. (States, Districts)

7. Provide professional learning and technical assistance to district leaders, building-level administrators, and educators to support the use of evidence to inform edtech use. (States, Districts)

8. Develop guidelines for emerging technologies which protect student data privacy and ensure alignment with shared educational vision and learning principles. (States, Districts)

Digital Design Divide

While the digital use and access divides are well documented by decades of scholarship, we present the digital design divide as a new consideration of the intersection of school culture, professional learning, and edtech. The design divide is between and within those systems that provide every educator the time and support they need to build their capacity with digital tools and those that do not. While socio-economic status has historically been a predictor of where schools and school systems may fall on either side of the use and access divides, the same is not true of design. Absent vision and sustained support, effective learning design using edtech can vary between neighboring classrooms within a school, schools within a district, and districts within a state (Cuban, 2018; Cline, 2018; Dexter et al., 2016; McLendon et al., 2015; Senge, et al., 2015). Considering the instructional core defined in the introduction of this report, the design divide can limit equitable, active student use, even when all students can access the necessary technologies and content. Not all teachers have the time, support, and capacities necessary to design instruction that incorporates active technology use.

Closing this divide requires a clear vision, re-imagining systems of support, and bringing teachers to the table as co-designers of their professional learning. The guidance, recommendations, and examples that follow lay out a path to supporting teachers inundated by increasing demands on their time and unclear expectations as to how they utilize technology most effectively.

In systems where the average teacher can access more than 2,000 digital tools in a given moment, training on a tool’s basic functionality is insufficient. Closing the design divide moves teachers beyond the formulaic use of digital tools and allows them to actively design learning experiences for all students within a complex ecosystem of resources.

Recommendations for Closing the Design Divide

1. Develop a “Portrait of an Educator” outlining the cognitive, personal, and interpersonal competencies educators should have to design learning experiences that help students develop the skills and attributes outlined in the profile of a graduate. (States, Districts)

2. Design and sustain systems that support ongoing learning for new and veteran teachers and administrators, providing them with the time and space needed to design learning opportunities aligned with the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Framework. (States, Districts, Building-Level Administrators)

3. Implement feedback mechanisms that empower educators to become leaders and codesigners of professional learning experiences. (Districts, Building-Level Administrators)

4. Provide educators and administrators with professional learning that supports the development of digital literacy skills so that they can model these skills for students and the broader school community. (States, Districts, Building-Level Administrators)

5. Develop processes for evaluating the potential effectiveness of digital tools before purchase, including the use of research and evidence. (State, District, Building-Level Administrators)

6. Foster an inclusive technology ecosystem that solicits input from diverse stakeholders to collaborate on decision-making for technology purchases, learning space design, and curriculum planning. (States, Districts, Building-Level Administrators)

7. Support and facilitate a systemic culture that builds trust and empowers educators to enhance and grow their professional practice to meet the needs of each student. (States, Districts, Building-Level Administrators)

8. Regularly solicit educator feedback and evaluate professional learning efforts to ensure alignment with the Portrait of an Educator. (District, Building-Level Administrators)

Digital Access Divide

For all learners to have the deep, complex, active learning experiences described above, states and districts must focus on closing one other key divide - the digital access divide. This divide has historically been defined as providing equitable access to reliable, high-speed connectivity, hardware, and digital resources. Accessibility and digital health, safety, and citizenship are also key to closing the access divide. While school systems have made great strides in closing the digital access divide since the publication of the 2017 NETP, pernicious problems such as geographic barriers and local skill capacity require swift action at all levels to realize the design and use visions laid out above. This section outlines the recommendations and examples of learning environments designed (or re-designed) to close that divide and enable “everywhere all-the-time learning.”

Recommendations for Closing the Access Divide

1. Develop a “Portrait of a Learning Environment” to set expectations around habits and abilities no matter what the space. (States, District)

2. Establish and maintain a cabinet-level edtech director to ensure the wise and effective spending of edtech funds. (States, Districts)

3. Conduct regular needs assessments to ensure technology properly supports learning. (States, Districts, Building-Level Administrators)

4. Develop model processes and guidelines for device refresh policies based on local funding structures. (States, Districts)

5. Leverage state purchasing power or regional buying consortia when purchasing edtech hardware, software, and services. (States, Districts)

6. Develop learning technology plans in consultation with a broad group of stakeholders and according to established review cycles. (States, Districts, Building-Level Administrators) The Digital Access Divide stands between those students and educators who have equitable, sustainable access to connectivity, devices, and digital content and those who do not. This also includes accessibility and digital health, safety, and citizenship.

7. Leverage public/private partnerships and community collaboration to bring broadband internet access to previously under-connected areas and ensure student access to “everywhere, all-the-time learning.” (States, Districts, Building-Level Administrators)

8. Develop processes and structures that ensure the inclusion of accessibility as a component of procurement processes. (States, Districts, Building-Level Administrators)

9. Plan for and incorporate skills and expectations across all grade levels and subject areas for Digital Health, Safety, and Citizenship, and Media Literacy. (States, Districts, BuildingLevel Administrators)

Conclusion

As has ever been true, educational technology holds vast potential to improve teaching and learning for every student and teacher in the United States. In recent years, driven by the emergency of a pandemic, schools have found themselves with more connectivity, devices, and digital resources than at any other moment in history. This current context presents a unique opportunity.

States, districts, and schools across the country can leverage this momentum of a narrowing access divide to focus key efforts in providing all teachers the time, support, and capacity they need to design authentic learning experiences for all learners supported by this proliferation of digital tools. They can set bold new visions of the skills, knowledge, and experiences all students must have as they progress through and graduate from PK-12. Furthermore, states, districts, and schools can eliminate barriers and uncover biases in practice that have historically limited innovative and promising learning experiences supported by edtech to a predictable minority.

The nation can close the digital access, design, and use divides. The NETP includes examples from every state in the country where schools, districts, and their partners are proving it’s possible. For this possibility to reach all students will require an understanding that the kinds of instructional tasks students need to prepare them for the world they will inherit cannot rely on content alone. The instructional core requires attending to both content and people.

An NETP24 Guide for Educators

The National Educational Technology Plan (NETP) is the flagship edtech policy document for the United States articulating a vision of equity that calls upon all involved in American education to ensure every student has access to transformational learning experiences enabled by technology. As the individuals entrusted with educating the students in their classrooms, educators play a critical role in achieving this vision, but may not feel empowered to drive system-level change. This guide provides teachers with some practical steps they can take to support their peers and the communities and students they serve to advance the goals of the NETP.

As a starting point, every educator should use the NETP to evaluate their own practice by reflecting on critical questions relating to the three digital divides:

Digital Use (active student creation and critical analysis):

• Are all the students I serve having transformative, active, creative, critically thoughtful experiences supported by technology?

• Am I actively empowering students to become co-designers of their learning experiences?

Digital Design (universal design for learning; teacher time and capacity):

• Am I developing my digital literacy skills and am I modeling those skills for the students I serve?

• Am I taking advantage of opportunities to grow and enhance my professional practice?

• Am I designing learning opportunities and experiences that align with the Universal Design for Learning principles?

Digital Access (connectivity, devices, content, accessibility, digital health, safety, & citizenship):

• Does every student in my classroom have equitable access to the learning experiences I design?

• Have I ensured that every student in my classroom can access the edtech tools we use?

The following are some immediate, high impact steps educators can take to advance the goals of the NETP and improve the equitable and effective use of edtech in their communities.

1. Establish professional learning networks and communities with your peers on topics in the NETP.

2. Advocate directly or through your member organizations for the conditions necessary to support the effective use of technology in your classroom and community.

3. Inspire your peers and leaders with examples of incredible work taking place in other schools across the country.

4. Adopt the UDL Framework in your school. Educators are encouraged to read the full report for more recommendations and examples of states, districts and schools that are using technology effectively to drive outcomes for learners.

References

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Warschauer, M., & Matuchniak, T. (2010). New technology and digital worlds: Analyzing evidence of equity in access, use, and outcomes. Review of Research in Education, 34(1), 179–225.