Teachers, administrators, and district policymakers are being asked serious questions about the effectiveness of technology in education. Meanwhile, schools are just on the cusp of achieving the critical mass of connectivity and installed base that will enable them to reach all children with improved learning opportunities through technology. Schools need to more carefully define what effective use of technology is, decide how it will be measured, establish the essential conditions required to achieve such ends, and monitor the progress they make in establishing those essential conditions. While many school and district leaders are being driven to accountability by pressure from above and outside, this pressure is finally making many of the traditional technology proponents take a hard look at existing practice. The lack of tools and information is currently inhibiting effective reviews in many schools, and districts.
Research is difficult to put into practice.
Much of what is now known through research in educational technology, cognitive learning theory, and brain research is not widely disseminated among P-12 practitioners and, as a result, infrequently applied in today's schools. Schools need a credible, trusted source to cast a wide net on emerging research, bringing them both the information and the trends that emerge from that information. Vision is scarce. Schools and districts do not share a forward-looking vision of what technology can bring to learning. As a result, schools are beginning to use learning technology, but most use it to automate rather than to bring students powerful learning opportunities never before possible.