A r c h i v e d I n f o r m a t i o n
Technology to Help Us Reach Our Full Potential
From the Desk of Craig Luigart
Welcome to the official turn of the millennium?the one without the Y2K bug worry!! As we start the new year, I'd like to tell you about how we at OCIO foresee technology assisting education in the near future.
It is important to us at OCIO to ensure that all our nation's people?rich or poor, able-bodied or disabled?can access the wonders of technology to learn and to improve their lives. I believe technology can compensate for our handicaps?financial, mental, physical and more?so that the playing field can be leveled in ways never before imagined. It's already happening.
Through today's technology, a small child with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder can finally understand a concept using special software that helps her focus on the main idea. Right now, a blind man in rural Iowa can re-connect with the world and access the wealth of information on the Internet using screen readers and other devices. And one day in the near future, a poor teenager from rural Alabama could grow into one of the finest surgeons in the land after using experiential learning to practice surgical procedures over and over on surgical simulation software.
Technology can help all of us reach our full potential, and by extending the full reach of technology into all our nation's schools, it will.
At the Department, our goal is to keep the technical operations running smoothly so that all of ED is able, through technology, to meet its mandates. At the same time, OCIO needs to ensure that the Department is prepared for the next generation of technology. As we do this, we will plan carefully to ensure that we base the new technologies upon the framework of the old technologies, whenever practical, in order to save resources and effort.
At OCIO, we already are working to make technology accessible to all people through our Assistive Technology Team. These efforts are important, and we will continue them.
Other projects we have planned include the following:
- Improving the flow of information?OCIO, along with other ED offices, is reaching out to the states and teachers to help solve a decades-old problem: the time-consuming and cumbersome process of collecting and sharing data. We plan to implement new systems and special databases that will mean the states have to collect data just once?instead of time after time, and that allow us to share information with schools in months?instead of years.
- Warm Site Engineering Services?We are working to establish a ?warm? site for the Department. The warm site is a place kept ready for the Department in case a disaster should make it impossible for ED to continue operations at its usual headquarters buildings. The warm site is located at the Naval Air Warfare Center in Patuxent River, Maryland. OCIO established the warm site to comply with the Department's Strategic Plan and in response to audits by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG).
- Asset Management?We will continue our program to track all Department IT assets. The program helps the Department control theft and helps us comply with OIG recommendations.
