The Department of Education will inaugurate the first year of the new decade with a national technology plan for the nation's schools and colleges. Karen Cator, the Department's new director of education technology, believes technology belongs in every aspect of the education-reform agenda.

The new technology plan is a four-point focus: learning, teaching, productivity, and (trumpet fanfair, please), ASSESSMENT. "The biggest hole," Cator told eSchool News, "is in research, development, and evaluation. It's critical to go beyond anecdotal observations that students 'look happy and seem to be learning.' The question for any ed-tech application should be "How do we know it works?'"

Teachers need to ensure that technology helps them teach what matters.

Preliminary comments about the National Educational Technology Plan are online, including exemplary cases of current uses of educational technologies and on the Department of Education's National Educational Technology Plan homepage.