The 2024 National Education Technology Plan: Applications for Place-Based Youth-Serving Community Organizations
The U.S. Department of Education’s National Educational Technology Plan (NETP) is the flagship educational technology policy document that articulates a vision to ensure every student has access to transformational learning experiences supported by technology. Everyone involved in the American education can help implement this equity-based vision, including Full-Service Community Schools (FSCS) and Promise Neighborhood (PN) grantees.
FSCS and PN are the Department’s two primary place-based programs that seek to deliver “a continuum of coordinated supports, services, and opportunities,” to children in underserved communities. These programs often work with youth-serving community organizations (YSCOs) to ensure these supports, services, and opportunities include equitable access to and use of technology.
High-Impact Recommendations to Improve Digital Use, Digital Design, and Digital Access
The 2024 NETP includes practical recommendations to help place-based grantees and the YSCOs they work with improve their use of technology resources in supporting supplemental instruction, success coaching, mentoring, and other services. The following are some high-impact recommendations FSCS, PN, and YSCOs can take to use technology effectively in their programming.
- Collaborate with local school districts to build a “Profile of a Learner/Graduate,” outlining cognitive, personal, and interpersonal competencies students should develop.
- Review student activities and consider how they can actively use digital tools to develop competencies outlined in the “Profile of a Learner/Graduate.”
- Assess student activities against the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Framework.
- Implement feedback mechanisms to empower students and staff to become co-designers of learning experiences.
- Design and implement ongoing systems that support ongoing learning by providing time, resources, and support for staff, including success coaches and wraparound/integrated support coordinators.1
- Develop a process for evaluating potential effectiveness of digital tools before purchase, including examining available industry certifications.
- Develop model processes and guidelines for device refresh policies based on organization funding structures.
- Include accessibility as a component of procurement.
- Leverage public-private partnerships and community collaboration to ensure broadband and device access for students at organization sites.
- Plan for and incorporate skills and expectations for digital health, safety, and citizenship, and media literacy.
Examples from Full-Service Community School and Promise Neighborhood Grantees
Many FSCS and PN grantees are working with YSCOs to put the high-impact recommendations described above into practice. The examples below show how federal grantees and partnering YSCOs are putting key aspects of the NETP into action.
The Wilderness Education Project is using its 2022 FSCS grant to help bridge the digital access divide in Paintsville and Pikeville, Kentucky. Due in part to a lack of access to computers and high-speed internet, students being served by the Wilderness Education Project were falling behind academically. As their partner school districts invest in efforts to bridge this gap, the FSCS grant is helping support high-quality digital learning opportunities by providing digital literacy training through YSCOs and additional family and community engagement activities. For example, the FSCS grant has allowed the Wilderness Education Project to partner with Big Sandy Community Technical College and the University of Pikeville through formal Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) where each contributes an in-kind match to the grantee. Each MOU helps to educate and improve the employability of students and parents trying to enter the workforce, including by supporting them in earning a NorthStar Digital Literacy Certificate.
The United Way California Capital Region (UWCCR) received a FSCS grant in 2022 that supports a digital equity program to ensure historically marginalized students and their families have broadband and device access. Specifically, UWCCR provides refurbished desktop computers and free access to broadband for 200 families. In addition, UWCCR is utilizing its role as a YSCO to form partnerships with cities and public utility providers, to provide digital literacy training for families. These partnerships build the grantees capacity to help families understand how to use the new devices to support their children as they complete coursework, attend college, and apply for jobs online.
Partners for Rural Impact (PRI) uses its PN and FSCS grants to support their place-based, student-focused approach to close digital divides and improve educational outcomes in Kentucky, Missouri, Texas, and Missouri. PRI’s approach includes a focus on increasing student and family access to technology by providing devices and hotspots. In Kentucky, PRI collaborates with multiple YSCOs and other community partners, such as the non-profit Lead for America to recruit fellows who sign families up for affordable broadband and digital literacy classes. PRI also infuses digital literacy skills into its parent leadership trainings, which aim to help parents facilitate their children’s literacy development.
Guiding Questions for Place-Based Youth-Serving Community Organizations
In addition, the NETP includes guiding questions that leaders of FSCS, PN, and YSCOs can use to address three digital divides — Digital Use, Digital Design, and Digital Access. The following questions from the NETP can help the Department’s placed-based grantees and their YSCO affiliates provide equitable educational opportunities and ensure they design those opportunities in ways that support transformational teaching and learning.
Digital Use (active student creation and critical analysis):
- Does your organization use technology in ways that reflect active use? What changes can be made to ensure digital learning experience do not solely encompass passive completion of assignments?
- Does your organization use technology in ways that are grounded in the UDL Framework?
- Does your organization have a profile that targets cognitive, personal, and interpersonal competencies that students develop through participation in your program?
Digital Design (Universal Design for Learning; teacher time and capacity):
- Does your organization provide time, resources, and support to develop the capacities of staff, including success coaches and wraparound/integrated support coordinators?
- Does your organization collect and apply feedback from staff about technology purchases, learning space design, curriculum planning, and professional learning efforts?
- Does your organization have a process for evaluating the effectiveness of digital tools before or after purchase?
Digital Access (connectivity, devices, content, accessibility, digital health, safety, & citizenship):
- Does your organization engage in activities to reinforce students’ digital health, safety, and citizenship skills?
- Does your organization leverage the digital navigator model to provide digital inclusion services to students and their families (or collaborate with others that do)?
- Does your organization have processes and guidelines for device support, sustainability, and refresh?
- Does your organization have processes and structures that ensure baseline accessibility features when purchasing digital tools?
Additional Resources to Help FSCS, PN, and YSCOs Use Technology Effectively
FSCS and PN grantees and YSCOs are encouraged to read the full report for more recommendations and examples of states, districts, and schools that are using technology effectively to drive outcomes for learners. Additional resources to support this effort are listed below.
