I Need to Write More about the NETP (30/365)

I’m in D.C. for a couple of days at the CoSN conference. Part of being here has also meant having conversations about the National Education Technology Plan. Talking about the NETP usually includes an awkward deflection or understatement of how much I was involved in its drafting and writing. It comes from not wanting to take away from the work or the fact that the document was a serious team effort. Here’s the thing, for more than a year of my life, the NETP was my life. I’ve read nothing else in the world more times than I’ve read the NETP in its various drafts, versions, and revisions.

I crossed the country a couple times and put many miles on many rental cars to get ideas, feedback, and the state of the art around how we might craft a national vision for how learning can be supported by technology.

It’s a good document.

We got input from learning scientists, classroom teachers, librarians, technologists, and even one of the inventors of the internet to write it. It’s a piece of government policy written for and by educators. Still, I’ve rarely talked about it. In fact, other than its mention in my CV, this is the first time I’ve written of the NETP on the blog. Part of that has to do with conflict of interest concerns while I was working at the Department, but that was nearly two years ago.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be writing more about the NETP, its content, and where we might look for and see the vision of the document in practice. For now, though, take a few minutes and read it.