CHAPTER 8: China and the United States: A Comparative Review of Educational Technology

Both the United States and China have benefited from national initiatives that have supported technology integration in schools. In the United States, the eRate program was established in 1996 to ensure Internet access to schools and libraries at discounted rates based upon the income level of the students in the community (Bare & Meek, 1998). In 2000, the Chinese government invested a lot of money to improve the condition of the schools by constructing a public service system by implementing the ICT project in education.

In the United States, the federal government has sponsored a number of various initiatives, such as the Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Teach with Technology (PT3) project (Polly, Mims, Shepherd, & Inan, 2010) and consistent funding at the federal and state levels to support technological infrastructure (U.S. Department of Education, 2010). Further, the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) has established for the United States the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS; ISTE, 2012) for teachers (NETS-T), students (NETS-S), and administrators (NETS-A). ISTE also created the ISTE standards for coaches (ISTE, 2012) to emphasize the need for technology leadership.