EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY NEWS

From the New Hampshire Department of Education

Office of Educational Technology

Date:                May 22, 2002   

Volume:            2002.05.01

 

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SPECIAL ISSUE: New Federal Technology Funds

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The Office of Educational Technology here at the NH Department of education has been very busy trying to understand the new No Child Left Behind legislation and it's implications for educational technology in New Hampshire. Our intention is to maximize the impact of the few federal dollars we will be receiving, as well as make the process for our school districts to access services and funding from NCLBA easier. The following is a description of our best thinking to date as well as a proposed timeline for activities.  Please contact us with your suggestions for consideration.

 

1.      NCLBA contains Title II Part D entitled Enhancing Education Through Technology or E2T2.  This replaces the Technology Literacy Challenge Fund (TLCF).  Any TLCF projects that are currently outstanding must have their monies obligated prior to June 30, 2002, and reported on the district quarterly.  If there are outstanding monies after September 2002, they will be reallocated.

 

2.      E2T2 has two parts. One part has about $1.5 million to be divided among school districts based upon their Title I participation.  Some schools will receive little to no dollars from this portion. The second part of the funds ($1.5 million) will be used to form consortia of school districts to provide services locally.  This is more fully explained in the draft of our State Educational Technology Plan, currently available online at http://nheon.org/oet/stateplan/nhtp2002.htm.

 

3.      A draft of the State Educational Technology Plan will be posted at http://nheon.org/oet/stateplan/nhtp2002.htm until the end of May 2002 for public comment.  Please read the plan and send us your thoughts.

 

4.      The tech survey format used last year gave us many problems so we decided to host the survey in-house.  We have had numerous issues trying to configure a server for the technology survey for this year.  We are pushing forward on this and hope to have it available before the end of June.  This may not be not a good solution for school personnel who planned to complete it before the academic year ends, so we have revised our timeline.  When the tech survey (on-line) is available, school districts will have throughout the summer of 2002 to complete them.  This looks like we're losing a year's worth of data, but actually we will be getting data at the appropriate time of the school year.

 

5.      Technology plans are another issue we are grappling with.  Our state technology plan has to be revised in order to receive the new No Child Left Behind monies.  We expect the USDOE to approve our plan in the early summer 2002.  After that happens we will have to revise our technology planning guide to incorporate any changes.  Changes are probably minimal, however district technology plans will have to reflect them.  In order to receive any monies from E2T2 a school district must have an approved technology plan. To make this easier, we are going to have you "cut and paste" technology plan elements that correlate to the requirements into an electronic format we will provide.  This is somewhat like a crosswalk between whatever technology plan your district has constructed and the required elements.  If your school district is in the process of developing a technology plan, please continue the work. 

 

TIMELINE:

 

May 2002                State Educational Technology Plan comments due to the NHDOE by May 31, 2002

 

June 2002               NHDOE will submit State Educational Technology Plan to the USDOE

                              Local NH School Technology Survey will be available online

 

August 2002            Revised Technology Planning Guide and electronic submission of crosswalk will be available

 

October 4, 2002      Electronic crosswalk of the school district technology plan is due at the NHDOE

                              Technology Survey (online) must be completed by each school building within the district

                              Applications for E2T2 funding will be available

 

January 17, 2003    Deadline for applications for E2T2 funding to NHDOE      

 

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Regards,

Cathy Higgins for the

Staff at the NHDOE Office of Educational Technology

 

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