http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/os/technology/plan/2004/plan.pdf

In days of yore — say, pre-millenial — parents relied on paper report cards, teacher conferences and honest children to learn how their charges were doing in school.

E-mail and school Web sites have helped, but some school districts are pushing the digital envelope a bit further.

Several local districts — including Galt Union High School, Sacramento City, Folsom Cordova, Natomas and Elk Grove — provide their school communities with online platforms that mimic popular social networking sites.

The U.S. risks falling behind other countries in technology innovation unless the next president works to shore up education, loosen immigration policy and bolster spending in R&D and broadband.

That was the consensus of leaders who gathered Thursday at the University of California, Berkeley, campus to discuss the future of the U.S. tech industry in light of growing competition overseas.

The study “Are students ready for a technology-rich world?” provides the first internationally comparative data in this area, based on OECD’s PISA 2003 assessment of educational performance by 15-year olds. It backs up previous OECD analysis about the importance of computers in schools.

Drawing on data from the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), Are Students Ready for a Technology-Rich World? What PISA Studies Tell Us, examines:

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Whether access to computers for students is equitable across countries and student groups;
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How students use ICT and what their attitudes are towards ICT;
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The relationship between students’ access to and use of ICT and their performance in PISA 2003;
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The implications for educational policy.