This report contains consortia-approved summaries of their ongoing work as well as articles about technology readiness, near-term challenges and future opportunities to enhance the power of these systems to support student readiness for college and careers. SETDA’s Doug Levin and Geoff Fletcher co-author an chapter titled “Crossing the Chasm to Digital Teaching, Learning and Assessment” (page 57).
The Race to the Top Assessment program is ambitious and has the potential to help make far-reaching changes not only in how students are assessed, but also in how teachers teach and students learn. One important feature shared by both the PARCC and Smarter Balanced assessment systems is that student assessments will be technology-driven. About two-thirds of states currently deliver one or more state tests via technology.
The National Education Technology Plan is the flagship educational technology policy document for the United States. The Plan articulates a vision of equity, active use, and collaborative leadership to make everywhere, all-the-time learning possible. While acknowledging the continuing need to provide greater equity of access to technology itself, the plan goes further to call upon all involved in American education to ensure equity of access to transformational learning experiences enabled by technology. The principles and examples provided in this document align to the Activities to Support the Effective Use of Technology (Title IV A) of Every Student Succeeds Act as authorized by Congress in December 2015.
