Using technology for learning Issues of learning and technology are more critical today than ever before. To meet new challenges, educational decision makers need information about technology - its cost effectiveness, how it delivers information, and its accessibility. Technologies are still very expensive. Decision makers must understand differences in cost, capabilities, use, and effectiveness among various technologies and technology-based programs in order to spend their limited dollars wisely. Technology changes how information and resources get to schools and other agencies.
Electronic publishing allows many different kinds of information providers to serve schools.
Printed textbooks may no longer be schools' primary sources of content. This reconfiguration must be planned with our learning goals for students as the top priority. Access to technology and technology-enhanced programs must be equitable, and not promulgate and extend differences in educational quality among schools. Decision makers must ensure that poor schools, especially those with students who are academically at risk, have the same opportunities to access and use technologies as schools that are financially better off. Most evaluations of the effectiveness of technology focus on the technology itself - its costs, its complexity, and its feasibility in particular circumstances.