Strategies for Supporting Education Technology

One of the barriers to technology's use in K–12 schools has been a question of how to fund that investment. Traditionally, school districts have considered educational technology as an "add on" to a school budget—nice to have but not mandatory. A review of many school budgets will find staff salaries, transportation, building and facilities maintenance, textbooks, and other essentials that must be accounted for. Yet, a regular budget allocation for the purchase, maintenance, support, and professional development related to new technologies widely varies in size and scope. The fact is, a great many school districts do not consider funds for educational technology as a "cost-of-doing-business"; instead they omit technology line items and rely on grants and special bond issues to fund the integration of technology into classroom instruction when possible.

School administrators seeking technology funding must first develop a strategic district-wide technology plan that includes a funding plan that clearly identifies IT costs. The plan must include more than just hardware. Software, ongoing-maintenance, technical support for teachers, and instructional guides should all be included. After all the costs are identified, the plan should prioritize needs:

• What is mission critical and must be done immediately?
• What should be done in one to three years?
• What are the long-term priorities?

Advantages of planning and budgeting

Planning and budgeting for technology is crucial, as a plan will help clarify goals and strategies for the school district and highlight explicit needs for technology. For example, the typical useful life for hardware is 2-5 years. By highlighting this within a technology plan, a school knows that every 2–5 years, they can plan on replacing or upgrading their hardware. The life-cycle approach has several advantages:

• Gives an understanding of the true costs of technology and support.
• Explains the expectations between central and departmental responsibilities.
• Defines expectations for technology and strategies.

The planned approach to budgeting bridges the gap between the strategic plans of the school and technological side. Having a technology budget links plans to actions, which translates into a strategic plan that defines what financial resources are necessary to implement a technology plan at your school.

Balancing Expenditures

It is important that a funding plan balances expenditures. It is easy to overspend on hardware and leave too little for staff development, instructional materials, and technology support. It is important to develop a financial plan that includes a realistic amortization model for infrastructure, maintenance, and support services. One rule of thumb is 50% should be spent on hardware, 20% for instructional software and media, and 30% for training and teacher support.

The next step is to determine how to cover some of the expenditures with a funding stream. Finding alternative ways to cover the cost of technology begins with a good strategy. That’s why you need to develop a district-wide technology plan before making any serious attempts for funding.

Strategies for Funding Technology

• Seek bond initiatives for initial technology implementation, but address the budgetary line item needs for ongoing expenses such as training, repair, and maintenance. These factors are ongoing expenses and cannot be financed all at once.
  • Ensure funding requests clearly support a higher purpose than simply the acquisition of hardware and equipment. Making this linkage explicit in the technology plan, as well as a funding request, can aid in understanding why technology funding is important to your school or district.
  • Increase the value of grants with local matching contributions. Grant values can be increased if matched by local contributions toward ongoing expenses. Therefore, grant requests should always indicate where local funds or other resources will match the requested funding.
• Submit technology funding requests that state how the funding will be evaluated for their impact on teaching and learning.

By incorporating the above strategies you can jumpstart your ability to obtain funding for technologies such as; networked or stand-alone computer workstations, or suitable education software applications. Securing funding for the implementation of these technologies will better support your district technology plan beyond short-term planning cycles and enable your teachers to create learning environments that better prepare students for the 21st century.