Student data management, online assessment, and eLearning will be key issues in the next national educational technology plan presented to Congress by the U.S. Department of Education (ED), according to Susan Patrick, director of the department's Office of Educational Technology.

The new plan, expected to be released at the end of September, will continue the shift from counting the number of computers in each classroom to improving student achievement with technology, Patrick said.

"It formalizes the vision of what's possible," she said. "The previous two plans had good goals, and we want to highlight those accomplishments, but we really want to move to how you use technology to transform learning."

The first national ed-tech plan, issued in 1996, focused squarely on infrastructure. Its "four pillars" of hardware, software, connectivity, and training set goals such as reducing the computer-to-student ratio in schools to 5 to 1 and connecting all schools to the internet. As a result, policy makers established laws and funding programs, such as the eRate, that emphasized installing hardware and networks in schools nationwide.

The second plan, issued in 2000 near the end of the Clinton administration, began the shift in focus from infrastructure to achievement. It urged policy makers and schools to evaluate their use of technology to determine what works, and it emphasized ongoing professional development for practicing teachers and an overhaul of pre-service teacher education to integrate technology effectively into instruction. It also set the goal that "all students will be technologically literate and responsible cybercitizens."

Yet "despite a decade of investment [in educational technology], most achievement indicators are flat," Patrick said.

With the passage in 2001 of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), the Bush administration has changed the way technology is funded by the federal government, Patrick said, by pairing ed-tech funding with specific educational goals, such as improving assessment, increasing literacy, and providing professional development to under-trained teachers.

The new ed-tech plan--consisting of a 20-page document, case studies, and an array of web resources--will examine where educational technology stands today, who today's students are, and what they expect from their education. It also will provide a roadmap with approximately seven steps that educators and policy makers should take to use technology to improve leadership and student learning.

At the plan's final destination, educators and policy makers "would have realized the golden age of education, where every student has an opportunity for personalized instruction and the ability to reach [his or her] full potential," Patrick said.

Although student data management, online assessment, and eLearning are not new concepts, Patrick said, the new ed-tech plan focuses on them because they are known to improve education--even though their use is still not widespread.