2024 - 2030 KETS Master Plan

The 2024-2030 KETS Master Plan will identify: (a) things we already do well that we want to continue doing well over the next six years, (b) areas to improve upon, and (c) emerging items likely to occur that need to be accounted for by this Master Plan. The studies, research, standards, governance, and technology needs of the state and districts that play a critical role in executing the Master Plan are also identified.

KETS celebrated its 30th year in 2022. It is exceedingly rare for a K-12 state-level education technology initiative to not only survive but also thrive for 30 years through changes of education commissioners and board members, governors' administrations, and state legislators. Fortunately, KETS maintained solid support from numerous leaders throughout the entire time. In that sense, KETS is like a good band of musicians that, over the decades, stays relevant, continues putting out hits, and grows in depth. Progress in earlier years (e.g., the initial six-year Kentucky K-12 Education Technology Master Plan, Internet connectivity, and identification of a variety of sustainable funding sources) created a solid foundation for the unique accomplishments including, but not limited to, cloud-based major state-level services, digital learning initiatives, Student Technology Leadership Program and the Computer Science & Information Technology Academy (formerly Microsoft's Imagine Academy).

Kentucky K-12 has been and continues to be the pioneer and national leader in most aspects of education technology since 1992, while always looking to get better. A comprehensive, graphical view of the KETS major achievements since 1992 can be found in Appendix G.

​Going forward, these will be other areas of emphasis during the next six years:

• Recognize, educate, and continue to build upon previous accomplishments - Educate others about high-quality continuing initiatives to prevent duplicative work for things that already exist and are highly successful for schools.
• Address the importance of having adequate numbers of education technology roles/positions in all districts to ensure that existing and new education technology is (a) extremely reliable and available in the classroom, (b) maximized, (c) secure and safe, and (d) provides data of the highest quality.
• Address funding required for basic cost of living increases, previous budget cuts to basic services, and projected growth by districts (e.g., Internet consumption).
• Recognize the most crucial education technology professional learning needs identified by teachers and identify who can best address the needs.
• Focus efforts on shifting basic cyber security and safety to a prime position on the radar screen of teachers and district staff members.
• A higher percentage of districts annually examine education technology investments to determine which technologies are and are not being used/maximized.
• Interoperability strategies aim to enhance user experiences and drive administrative efficiencies with education technologies. Through this Master Plan, we will implement high-quality, efficient and effective interoperability strategies with statewide, district and school EdTech systems and platforms (including integrations and data exchange).
• Data systems are first-class, but we need to continue to emphasize districts' use of data. Data available in reports and through visual data analytic tools provide more interesting views that are easier to understand for an average person who does not have a technology and data background.
• While it has gotten significantly better due to advancements in mobile hardware and software, there are still too many traditional labs filled with desktop computers (and/or mobile workstations sitting idle in carts not assigned to students) in schools. Typically, labs do not provide ease of access for students throughout the school day and for all parts of the curriculum. Labs are also problematic for large-scale online assessment within a compressed window of time. Student and teacher mobile or portable devices help address the "ease of access" issue.
• Create a deeper partnership with higher education (postsecondary institutions). Focus on giving future teachers currently in a Kentucky postsecondary college of education experience with the K-12 education technology tools and environment. As well as having STLP​ events better maximized by the institution (learning experiences) while we are on their campus.
• Kentucky is the most advanced state in regard to having electronic transcripts sent from a K-12 school and electronically accepted by a Kentucky higher education institution. KDE and public universities through the Council on Postsecondary Education (CPE) fund electronic transcripts to help promote college-going.
• There can be significant cost savings and increased reliability and security by continuing to move more types of services to managed (e.g., printing) and cloud-based services (e.g., phone systems).
• Continue to create a closer connection with Career and Technical Education (CTE) expanding opportunities for students to code, expand the technology and computer science courses/exams available through our Computer Science & Information
• Technology Academy (CS & IT Academy), implement computer science standards, as well as implement digital citizenship skills and technology standards.
• Be a vital part of helping implement the new assessment and accountability system - This includes the implementation of the new school report card/dashboard and summative online assessment. The successes of formative and interim online assessments are now starting to be realized and duplicated with our online summative assessments.
  
• Going forward, these will be other areas of emphasis during the next six years: "KDE considers Artificial Intelligence (AI) to be a vital and important current emerging technology tool for K-12 education.  We will continue to take the steps needed to be knowledgeable in AI related K-12 matters. We will encourage, engage and empower the safe, secure and responsible uses of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into school efficiency and the learning space by teachers and students (ensuring humans remain in the loop with strong AI implementations) .​​