I hear this sort of question (or ones closely related….”I have a grant opportunity. What should I buy?” etc.), and I have to say they confound me. This kind of query is also arising in schools across America right now as floods of stimulus money are being unleashed.

This gets to the core of one of the things that is wrong with education — a lack of strategic focus.

As far as I know, every district in America has a technology plan. However, most districts prepare these only as a checkbox item to send to the state (to get more money) not as a true vision or guiding plan. For a district that has a guiding vision, an unexpected influx of funding is not a cause to think “wow…what can I do with this?” Rather, the funds naturally flow toward goals that have already been set.

Beyond this, technology should not exist for its own purposes. Nor should anything else in education. Instead everything should be focused on the main goal of the institution — presumably, student success.

So as you’re thinking about how to spend your ed tech funds, think about these questions:

• What is the main vision of our school?
• What are my own department’s goals and how do they support the main vision?
• Of these, what are the goals that are currently lacking resources or focus that could best help improve our overall organizational fulfillment of our main vision?

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