Funding technology initiatives

Scott McLeod
16 February, 2011

Schools always have limited resources. Even when they get a big grant or the community approves a technology referendum, there's never enough money to go around. It seems to me that schools have a couple of general approaches that they can take...

Option 1 - Spread the money widely across the organization. Try and get as much hardware and software as possible, even if this means little or no staff development.

Option 2 - Identify strategic investments. Spend only in certain places within the organization and invest deeply in staff development to ensure that those projects are successful.

Obviously there's a continuum here - this is not necessarily an either-or choice. That said, why does it seem like most school organizations almost always pick Option 1? Does anyone think this strategy is working?

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