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Alliance for Excellent Education's New Planning Tool Helps School Districts Determine Readiness for Technology

  • 03/13/15

Washington, D.C. — Nationwide, more than 1,700 school district superintendents have taken the Future Ready pledge—a promise to personalize learning for students using digital tools. To help them fulfill their promise—and determine their readiness to do so, the Alliance for Excellent Education today unveiled the Future Ready Interactive Planning Dashboard, a free online tool to help school districts assess their needs and make data-informed decisions on how to effectively use technology to engage students, empower teachers, and improve learning outcomes.

“Before school districts make a technology purchase, they must develop a plan for how they will use technology effectively to address their specific challenges and learning goals,” said Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education. “The Future Ready Interactive Planning Dashboard helps districts understand their readiness to implement digital learning and determine if they are even ready to make additional investments in technology.”

Built with financial support from AT&T and McGraw-Hill Education, the Future Ready Interactive Planning Dashboard will be unveiled today at 1:00 p.m. (EDT) as part of Digital Learning Day Live!, a 75-minute live broadcast to an in-person audience of thousands of teachers and administrators from around the country, as well as thousands more who will be watching online.

Rooted deeply in best practice research and focus groups with education technology experts, the dashboard is a proven model for implementing digital learning that combines educational technology with quality teaching.

At the heart of the dashboard is a framework for digital learning planning that places student learning at the center and is composed of seven major areas: curriculum, instruction, and assessment; professional learning; use of time; data and privacy; community partnerships; technology, networks, and hardware; and budget and resources.

The dashboard includes self-assessments for each of the seven areas to help districts determine their readiness to undergo a digital transformation, create a vision for student learning, and evaluate what aspects of the system must be addressed to reach it. Through the dashboard, districts can access research-based strategies to address gaps, gather input from school personnel, and evaluate progress over time.

“The Future Ready Interactive Planning Dashboard will help school districts move their goals into actionable next steps and create schools with empowered teachers and leaders, students who take charge of their own learning, and parents who are engaged and informed,” Wise said. “The end result is a more personalized approach to teaching and learning that ensures that all students have the skills they need to succeed in college or a career.”

More information on the Future Ready Interactive Planning Dashboard is available at http://dashboard.futurereadyschools.org.

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