By Frederick M. Hess
and Robert F. McNergney

With everyone from the president to business leaders and education pundits touting technology as the answer -- never mind the question -- administrators and school board members can be forgiven if they feel intimidated and woefully unprepared to make purchasing and implementation choices that could affect the course of their schools for years to come.

But as a local school official, you are in a better position than you might realize. You and your colleagues are the ones who best know your schools' mission, and it is this mission that should drive your school district's decisions about technology. If your district especially values "child centeredness" or "interdisciplinary studies" or "preparation for the workplace," then decisions about technology ought to reflect these aspects of its mission.

Certainly, many decisions that policy makers might be expected to make are already made for them by the constraints of funding. Districts and schools often are given money on the condition that they buy hardware, or not buy hardware, or spend one dollar on training for every dollar spent on hardware, and so forth.

But when unrestricted decisions can be made, frequently the strategy has been to leave these choices to technology experts who are only generally aware of the district's overall needs, resources, and direction. Thus, a school district's technology policy might be shaped by an outside consultant, a director of technology, or a school-level decision maker -- people who are apt to be less familiar with the district's overall mission than the decision makers steering the district itself.

Making technology decisions in this manner almost ensures that districts will be unable to use technology to cut costs, improve the efficiency of educational programs, or assist teachers. And when technology directors or coordinators change, the policies of technology acquisition and use frequently also change. If such changes are not well-conceived, the district could end up wasting hardware, software, and valuable faculty expertise.

Traditionally, districts have focused on the question: "What technology will produce the optimal educational outputs?" This is obviously a crucial consideration, but generic answers proferred by experts might not be the most appropriate for your district. School boards, legislators, and administrators make decisions in different contexts. They must purchase, implement, and oversee the use of technology in systems that are subject to human and material constraints. Deciding what technology to purchase and use without recognizing these constraints diminishes a district's capacity to build resources and expertise.

What are those constraints? Physical constraints might include the age and layout of schools or the wiring of phone lines. Among the human constraints could be the educational level, years of experience, and technological expertise of the teaching force.

We work with public schools and colleges that are trying to involve their staffs in the so-called technology revolution while seeking financial support for these efforts. For the majority of these organizations, the main challenge is getting the most for their money. This decision turns on a host of judgment calls: how to divide resources between hardware and software, how to balance expenditures between procuring new technology and training system personnel, how to select the classrooms to be refitted and the applications that best serve those students.

Guiding each decision should be a fundamental question: What is this specific technology investment supposed to achieve? That is, are computers expected to become study aids that will help students drill on tasks and understand classroom material? Are computers expected to become the "instructors" for certain types of lessons? Are they supposed to enrich and enhance material the teacher has taught? If they are to fulfill a combination of these functions, how much importance will be accorded to each?

One way to promote wise decisions is to start thinking about the trade-offs implicit in those decisions and how those trade-offs are shaped by the local context. Whether or not these trade-offs are made consciously, they are implicit in most decisions about school technology. Depending on what technology is expected to accomplish, different approaches to hardware, software, training, implementation, and evaluation can be warranted.

Here are five general trade-offs that illustrate how you and your colleagues can think strategically about investments in technology:

Substitution vs. enhancement

Policy makers must often decide whether they want to use technology to enrich teaching or to substitute for some teaching activities. The idea that machines might replace teachers can be traced to the early 20th century theorist Frederick Taylor and his notion of the scientific management of schools. Science had transformed American business, he reasoned, so surely it could do the same for public education -- and do so inexpensively.

These ideas were tempting at the turn of the century, and they are downright seductive today given the large proportion of school budgets devoted to personnel. The decision, however, is not one of buying machines to replace people -- realists recognize the dismal history of such efforts. The challenge is one of using technology to help redirect teachers' and students' energies to more productive areas.

This issue was reflected last spring in the Fairfax County (Va.) Public Schools, a large suburban district outside Washington, D.C. The district faced the difficult question of whether to expand access to a software program that helps elementary school students with language arts, math, and other basic skills -- help that a teacher might have provided. "We just aren't sure it makes enough difference to justify the cost," Marianne O'Brien, the district's technology coordinator, told the Washington Post after the district rejected the move. "There are other things we'd rather do with the money -- like give more students access to technology and do more creative things with it."

At W.S. Wetsel Middle School in Madison, Va., building administrators Sherri Harkness and Chester Mummau began their technology search by forming a committee to create a building-level technology plan. The committee assessed the school's existing technology and the students' technological literacy, surveyed teachers on their technology practices, and explored several areas of concern, including curriculum, staff development, safety and security, ethics, and technical support.

For the short term, the committee focused on curricular issues, folding some staff development and technical support into the mix. Among its suggestions were the introduction of an after-school technology enrichment program and an internal e-mail system to help teachers and students communicate electronically in a safe environment.

Instead of trying to use technology to replace people or cut instructional costs, you might decide to invest in technology that enhances instruction. A set of Internet-based courses for teachers, called CaseNET, falls into this category. These courses do not offer technology training per se. Instead, participants analyze cases or teaching problems as they occur in a variety of multicultural settings. Studying cases and discussing them with other educators at distant sites helps CaseNET participants become comfortable in a web-based environment. The technology training occurs as a natural consequence of grappling with cases; teachers learn how to use technology in their classrooms by experiencing it in their own professional development.

Personnel vs. hardware

Should you invest in technology or in the people who use it? One of the old saws of technological advancement is that most of the capabilities of any new technology are wasted simply because potential users are not getting involved. Moreover, those who are using technology might not be positioned in the organization to share their expertise with others.

If these conditions exist or are likely to exist in your school district, you should think about personnel issues before and during the adoption of innovations. It makes little sense to invest heavily in hardware if people cannot use it, or if they are unlikely or unable to learn.

If personnel concerns figure prominently, should you train current faculty members or recruit new ones who are skilled in using technology? It depends on the backgrounds of your district's current teachers and the relative difficulty of recruiting and retaining new teachers. Resource-strapped districts tend to lose talented employees to better-paying districts. So, for poorer districts, it might be unwise to spend large sums on training unless skilled professionals can be shared in some way, perhaps through intermediate service units. Where the human infrastructure is unreliable, a district might invest more heavily in simple technology that requires less technical expertise to use and maintain.

Hardware vs. hardware

Should you maximize the number of computers available or pursue the most up-to-date technology? The question is not actually this simple, of course; the answer might be "neither" for districts that opt to invest more in training or software. A promise to provide a large number of computers ("a computer for every student") commits the district to a regular program of updating hardware and purchasing new machines.

Schools and classrooms can be equipped with technology that provides a range of capabilities for a range of prices. You can opt for relatively simple machines that are cheap and adequate for word-processing and other procedures. Alternatively, you could purchase more sophisticated, expensive equipment that can turn your schools into television production studios or simulated rocket ships, but the costs can easily outweigh the benefits. Many districts are deciding that it makes little sense to buy only high-end machines when basic models will perform most applications adequately.

"We're pretty strategic about buying computers that we think will fit the tasks we want children to perform," says Laurie McCullough, principal of Stone Robinson Elementary School in Albemarle County, Va. "In our school, we have a few top-of-the-line machines that we use for projects requiring a lot of memory or a sophisticated software application. But the general kinds of word processing and graphics tasks that go on all the time in the classroom can be done with a much less expensive -- but compatible, of course -- machine. So we are careful about which computers we put where, taking care that at least one high-end machine is fairly accessible to every classroom."

One dilemma of the hardware vs. hardware debate has been deciding whether to buy IBM-compatible personal computers (PCs) or Macintosh machines (Macs), made by financially troubled Apple Computer Inc. According to Quality Education Data (QED), a Denver-based market research firm, district-level technology coordinators report that about 60 percent of the current installed base of computers in schools are Macs. About 90 percent of the rest of the computing world use PCs. Business and industry have typically pieced together combinations of both systems, along with mainframes, in order to function in both environments.

Until recently, elementary and secondary schools, as well as universities, have gone one way or the other on deciding which platform to adopt. But increasingly, schools are purchasing both Macs and PCs. QED reports, for example, that PCs made up some 40 percent of planned school computer purchases in the 1996-97 school year. Apple enthusiasts need not worry, however; there is little chance that Macs will disappear from schools, especially with Microsoft's infusion of $150 million into Apple this past summer and its promise to continue to distribute Mac versions of its own programs.

Moreover, if instruction is to occur in a web-based environment, hardware decisions will rapidly become irrelevant -- either platform can access the web. And the increasing use of "intranets" -- local or regional networks that run on an organization's own server -- might simplify matters. Schools will simply need the hardware that is appropriate for their own network.

Software vs. hardware

Should you invest in more and better machines or concentrate on getting more powerful programs for those machines? Again, this question is not as simple as it seems. Some sophisticated programs require high-powered computers, though the capacity of those machines might exceed what is required for any purpose beyond running the given program.

The use of intranets can also influence this debate. If your school district operates its own server, people in the system can download software that has been purchased for the district as a whole. This possibility, however, raises the potential of a software-versus-software concern. Should you buy general productivity software that is broadly useful, such as word-processing software, spreadsheets, databases, and presentation programs? Or should you buy software fitted more closely to the educational needs of certain classrooms?

Some districts with generous budgets and highly trained personnel can purchase flashy machines and peripherals that do incredible things such as video production and editing and point-to-point or multiparty conferencing. Going for the best, of course, means being willing to contend with the theory of rising expectations -- expectations that are likely to be frustrated without a strong continuing combination of internal and external support. Other, less-affluent, districts are likely to find that equipping one school with razzle-dazzle technology has a predictably depressing effect on those that must do without.

"The key to this dilemma lies in the curriculum," McCullough says. "We continually have to resist the urge to purchase 'cool' or 'fun' applications and direct our attention instead to the question of what software might help us meet those goals. And then, finally, we ask ourselves what hardware is required to make the software work. Maybe we don't always get the jazziest machines that way, but we try to end up with what we think will do the job."

Now vs. later

Should you invest in technology now or wait for new developments, just on the horizon, to materialize? There are strong institutional incentives for people to be active when dealing with technology. Foundations, government agencies, and local citizens want districts to become participants in -- not observers of -- the technology revolution. Yet we know that when we rush, we often make mistakes. We also know that people who want to force a choice often overlook the option of doing nothing at all and living to fight another day.

Unfortunately, lost time means lost educational opportunities. As difficult as money is to get, and as troubling as misspending limited funds can be, we can never recover lost time. The rub is lessened when policy makers and administrators take the time to consider deliberately how new technological opportunities fit into the broader educational mission of the district or the school.

All of these trade-offs must be addressed with an eye toward how decisions will play out in the real world. Purchasing high-powered technology does little good if your faculty cannot or will not use it. Investing in expensive software packages is wasteful if the products will soon become obsolete. In short, in technology, the search for the one best approach is a foolish quest. The strategies that are most likely to succeed will be those driven by the local educational mission and fitted to local needs.

How will you know if you have succeeded in acquiring and using technology effectively? The evaluation of these decisions needs to occur on several levels:

* First, examine the impact of decisions on educational inputs -- students' and teachers' capabilities, motivations, and interests. Have the energy and interest of those on the front side of the innovation been enhanced or squandered?

* Examine how the decisions have affected the processes of education. Are there greater or fewer opportunities for involvement with technology? What kind of work is being done by students and teachers as a result of the decisions?

* What are the outcomes? After the decision has been made and implemented, are students and staff more productive? Are their attitudes toward innovation, their ability to use technology, and their attitudes toward work positively affected by local policy?

* Finally, has the overall effect of the decision added value to the organization? Are people doing things they could not have done otherwise?

Buying equipment that will be unused or underused is not only a waste of resources; it can frustrate everyone and impede efforts to improve classroom practice. If teachers believe they are constantly being asked to learn new technology on the fly, they can become resentful and resistant to new efforts. A district that repeatedly changes its policies on technology will alienate faculty members because they will not be able to build on prior training and expertise. Too many innovations too fast can kill the enthusiasm of even the boldest risk-takers.

The fundamental lesson is that one size does not fit all. The education community needs to pay more attention to how technology can help schools educate the local student population, given the district context -- a context broadly defined by the educational mission of the system. The issue is not whether decisions about technology are good or bad, but whether they make sense for your students in your classrooms, your schools, and your district.

Frederick M. Hess is an assistant professor of education and government and foreign affairs at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. Robert F. McNergney is a professor of educational evaluation at the University of Virginia. He serves on the Technology Task Force for the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education and writes a technology column for AACTE Briefs.