The Evolution of U.S. e-Learning Policy: A Content Analysis of the National Education Technology Plans

The purpose of this study was threefold: to expand on existing reviews of 20 years of educational technology policy in the United States, to perform an empirical content analysis of the four National Education Technology Plan (NETP) documents issued by the Department of Education since 1996, and to provide a dialectic analysis of the evolution of U.S. e-learning policy. The content analysis revealed that, as the United States aims to reestablish its leadership role internationally, with a focus on global competitiveness, a sense of urgency is communicated in the development of e-learning policy and general education reform over time throughout each of the NETP documents, justifying the need for increased funding and support for federal level initiative in terms of educational technology policy. Through a dialectical analysis, endemic tensions within the NETP discourse become apparent in the competing visions of education as a means of both conferring economic fluency and mobility to individuals within the society.