An overly narrow and specialized focus on technology in schools discourages the use of computers to promote higher-order thinking. Many districts have concentrated on skills training, failed to supply such necessary supports as professional development, conflated technology use with instructional quality, and classified all software applications as being cognitively and instructionally equal. In their classrooms, teachers tend to use lower-order technology tools, such as Word and PowerPoint, at the expense of higher-order tools, such as spreadsheets and databases. Schools and school districts can change such patterns of use and nonuse by teaching critical thinking first and technology later and by focusing on curriculum, instruction, and assessment. (Contains 1 figure.)