Iowa Learning and Technology Networked Improvement Community (Historical)

The National Education Technology Plan outlined the critical role of education technology in preparing students for postsecondary success. Education technology is  an especially important tool in meeting the specific challenges in rural communities, which accounted for at least one-fifth of public schools in each of the seven states in the REL Midwest region.

Active from 2017 to 2019, the Iowa Learning and Technology Networked Improvement Community (NIC) brought together rural districts to engage in continuous improvement research activities to identify effective ways of integrating technology into instructional practice. Participants in the NIC included staff from rural Iowa high schools and the Central Rivers Area Education Agency (AEA).

Increasing the access to and use of educational technology and re-examining traditional instructional delivery models are of particular interest to Iowa education stakeholders. Half of the state’s public schools and 70 percent of its districts were in rural areas, where technology can connect students and educators with resources that might otherwise be out of reach. Districts in the Central Rivers AEA identified the use of education technology to improve instruction as a primary goal for the next several years.