The Department of Education is pursuing the integration of technology and education not only because it is important as a new teaching tool but because it provides an incredible opportunity to reach people we have not been able to reach before. If you want to get a sense of the overall National Plan for Technology of the Department of Education, our home page on the World Wide Web presents a set of educational objectives for the nation, which have been developed with the input of teachers, educators, and other experts. The four goals of our plan are straightforward, and I hope you will consider them when you think about how to integrate technology into the learning environment of your projects. Technology is now a basic educational skill, and just as we find it inexcusable that some children cannot read, we believe we do our kids a tremendous disservice if we don t teach them to use technological resources well and wisely.
Technologies are really tools for thinking.
They give us ways to capture content and help learners engage in more authentic and more appropriate learning experiences. Through educational technology, we can now give our students and teachers rich content to which they might otherwise never have access. It is important to be able to go beyond the four walls of the classroom, the museum, the library, or the local institution and bring in resources to meet the needs of the learning situation and to engage students in exciting and important work. The four goals of the Department of Education are really quite fundamental. The first goal is to make sure that teachers have the training and support they need to use computer and on-line resources effectively in their classrooms.