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21 Ed Tech Recommendations from the U.S. Education Department

The U.S. Education Department outlines what it hopes to see over the next five years in its new 2016 National Education Technology Plan.

A new National Education Technology Plan reveals 21 recommendations for policymakers, administrators, teachers and teacher preparation professionals. 

The plan that the U.S. Education Department released on Thursday, Dec. 10, does not look like a typical plan. Instead, it includes a mix of examples from education institutions, recommendations and commentary on what education institutions should do to change learning with technology over the next five years.

Here's what the Education Department recommends, in our own words:

1. Create an anywhere, anytime learning environment that's equally accessible to all students.

2. Incorporate learning science design principles into ed tech resources.

3. Work backwards so that learning technology resources and methods lead to the desired student learning outcomes.

4. Design a rubric that helps educators determine which learning resources work for their students so that all of them have an equal opportunity to access the resources.

5. Build learning communities of various stakeholders who can evaluate and provide access to instructional materials.

6. Help develop incoming and long-time educators with professional development designed to encourage their use of technology as they improve student learning.

7. Provide online instruction for students in subjects that they may not be able to access at their home school site.

8. Train educators to teach in blended and online learning formats.

9. Establish technology competencies for teachers and professors.

10. Connect strategic planning initiatives across various education levels as educators try to improve learning with technology.

11. Collaborate with various stakeholders to set a vision for technology-enabled learning.

12. Use openly licensed content and figure out how to sustain technology purchases.

13. Pull together communities of practice for education leaders.

14. Revamp privacy practices and policies around sharing assessment data.

15. Develop dashboards and other systems that give stakeholders access to assessment data.

16. Try out a system to make better assessments across academic disciplines.

17. Research the effectiveness of interactive assessment technologies.

18. Set up equitable high-speed broadband access and wireless connectivity at school, making sure that students can also access these resources at home.

19. Figure out how to make sure every student and educator has enough tech tools to learn.

20. Draft sustainable funding plans for mobile devices and wireles access.

21. Track connectivity, device access and use of openly licensed educational resources throughout the country.