Describes staff-development programs for a secondary school district, focusing on technology training. Discusses the district setting; the importance of a district-wide vision; professional development courses focusing on alternative assessment techniques, student-centered curriculum, and technology use; technology as a transformational tool; and…

Not just computers, technology is the product of human imagination, inventiveness, and creativity that has defined the iron, industrial, and information ages. Technology education is a core subject that provides fundamental understandings to build future citizens, family members, consumers, and workers. The United States has been slow to develop…

Fourth-graders in Oklahoma City used the Internet to find an expert to identify a 75-pound Pleistocene-Era mammoth femur they found in a nearby river. A superintendent explains how his technologically backward district wired its schools for Internet learning and facilitated genuine instructional improvement. (MLH)

Striving to meet a diverse community's learning needs, the Federal Way (Washington) Public Schools leverages technology to help students acquire world-class skills while reaching to achieve grade-level standards. A laptop-based learning program and a statewide Internet academy give students new learning options. (MLH)

Illustrates the possibilities of freely or inexpensively connecting a library to the Internet. Discusses the advertising-supported approach; local resources for free or budget Internet resources; public access catalogs; examples of free Web materials and of libraries that have achieved a low-budget Web presence; building an effective planning…

Describes the prominent place of teacher training in the Duncanville (Texas) Independent School District's technology planning. Research based on teacher post-test and survey results overwhelmingly concludes that professional development for teachers is an essential ingredient for effectively integrating technology in instruction. (MLH)

An Illinois school district's quest for magical answers to technology-integration woes inspired a homegrown potion. Planners advise others to begin the journey regardless of available resources, find supportive "munchkins" within the community, face and overcome obstacles, choose traveling companions wisely, fight off attacks together, and create…

To witness greater success with technology, educators should begin their planning with a set of assumptions that consider staff fears and frustrations. Staff's personal needs include control, creativity, caring, challenge, and commitment. Professional needs include empowerment, time, assistance, leadership, communication, and opportunity. (MLH)

Examines the differences in technology planning and implementation among schools in the southeastern United States. Analysis of survey data was conducted in three areas: comparison of technology planning variables by state; ranking of overall percentages to determine technology most prevalent in schools; and chi-square analyses on each survey item…

Describes the pitfalls that school technology planning processes can engender and presents an improved model for planning for the use of technology in K-12 schools. Emphasizes the secondary nature of technology in relation to other considerations, such as curriculum and pedagogy, and presents a case study in an urban K-8 school. (Author/LRW)

Describes the Resource-Enriched Learning Model (RELM), a process which dovetails the individual efforts and interests of college librarians, instructional technologists, and faculty, requiring their collaboration at the micro level to succeed in meeting their separate but overlapping goals. The process results in a technological and information…

When a state makes the decision to award a small number of high-dollar grants, the stakes are considerable. For North Carolina's IMPACT Model School Grant applicants, professional development started long before a single dollar was ever awarded. In light of these conditions, the state decided to issue a high-dollar, highly prescriptive grant, the…

With a new wave of campus IT solutions comes a familiar challenge: How does one encourage and help build distributed applications without being overrun by stovepipe solutions? Anticipating significant enrollment growth (5 percent per year) for the next several years, double-digit annual growth in funded research, and little chance that resources…

Some predictions made by the author 20 years ago, in the first issue of Computers in the Schools, are revisited. The author explains how he didn't see some trends that developed and how he predicted things that never came to pass. A distinction is made between empirical and ideological arguments for using technology in the schools. Numerous…

In its second decade of education reform and its third cycle of national ICT master plans, Thailand struggles to transform its aspirations into practice. This paper chronicles three decades of Thailand's ICT national plans and their relation to education reform. It also discusses the effect of global trends, Asian cultures, and Thai cultures on…