The Alliance for Excellent Education has released a new report that implores school leaders to take a more deliberate approach in using technology reforms as part of a comprehensive plan to address four pressures that face contemporary schools.
The report identifies those four pressures as the need for improved achievement, the tightening of school budgets, the changing demographics of the teaching force, and the increasing technology demands of the outside world.
While not all those pressures originate from technology issues, digital tools can be leveraged to address all of them, provided school leaders outline a comprehensive and deliberate plan to do so, the report urges. It goes on to include suggestions about crafting the details of a comprehensive plan, most of which will be familiar to followers of the Digital Learning Now initiative.
“If you’re a school or district leader who is considering using education technology and learning in your schools, stop—and go no further—until you have a comprehensive plan that addresses your district’s specific challenges and learning goals for all students,” said Gov. Bob Wise, a co-chair of the Digital Learning Council, which developed the 10 elements of high quality digital learning that guide the work of Digital Learning Now, in a press release.
Digital Learning Now was launched in 2010 with the support of Wise, a Democrat, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a Republican, who is head of the Tallahassee, Fla.-based Foundation for Excellence in Education.
Update: A previous version of this blog item stated that Gov. Bob Wise was a co-founder of Digital Learning Now! He is actually a co-chair of the Digital Learning Council.