In Technology Too, Wise Investing Counts

School Administrator, April, 1998

Ever since his days as a superintendent from 1986 to 1991, Jamie McKenzie has observed a curious phenomenon: School districts buying and installing expensive technology without thinking much about its intended purpose or without properly training those expected to use it in their classrooms.

His predilection since leaving the superintendency has taken him to a central-office post in Bellingham, Wash. (one of the nation's pacesetting districts in the use of learning technologies) and now to full-time consulting and editing of an on-line technology journal.

McKenzie's ideas on how to ensure your heavy investment in technology does not lead to irrelevancy in the classroom appear in our lead story this month. His central advice for wise decisions? Better to move slowly and invest in people over time rather than to move fast and invest in networks.

This month's theme issue on technology addresses several other prevailing questions of the moment.

Doug Johnson, an administrator in Mankato, Minn., posits that a major reason why educators find it so challenging to measure the impact of technology is that schools do not use technology in a single way for a single purpose. He suggests how to appreciate the four major uses of computers in a school setting before you assess their merits.

Free-lance writer Bob Sanchez offers an interesting look at how some school districts are using their Web sites to expand their contact with stakeholders and the wider world. And in a related piece, Candace Bowen, a widely respected scholastic journalism educator, discusses how administrators might deal with the burgeoning interest of student editors in adding their publications to their districts' Web sites.

Finally, William Hamilton, an assistant superintendent in Walled Lake, Mich., builds a case for leasing computers in schools when district voters are unwilling to approve the needed bond support.

We hope these articles touch some of the technology matters that you're confronting. This is territory with ever-expanding boundaries, so I hope you'll let me know what we ought to look at next.

Jay P. Goldman

Voice: 703-875-0745

E-mail: jgoldman@aasa.org