Technology utilization in the schools of North Carolina was the focus of a research collaboration between the Rural Economic Development Center and the Public School Forum of North Carolina. The study was broke in to two phases. The first was to design and send out an instrument to assess how much technology is utilized in North Carolina schools, what the condition of that technology is, and how much training and technical support is provided for the technology. Of 1,900 schools, 498 returned a completed survey. The second phase involved case study analyses of four counties across North Carolina, differing in size and wealth. This study of technology utilization found three broad areas of concern, each of which requires serious policy consideration. These include the need for: (1) local school systems to develop the expertise needed to make long-range plans for technology utilization; (2) the state to assess not only what type of equipment is needed for the future, but what is the condition and capacity of equipment currently in use; and (3) the state to avoid the toll which is being paid today as a result of too little training in technology use and too little ongoing technical support. (AEF)