Week 8

My first reaction to this article is that the problem is caused primarily due to lack of communication among department of education, community, and schools. Although they share the same purpose- to help students to be ahead of trend for using online-based instructions and tests, the money spent on the previous projects failed to reach their expectations due to lack of organized planning and understanding the relationship between good instructions and technology. It seems to me that office believes that new technology equals to good instruction, despite the new does not necessarily mean an revolutionary change in its functioning but merely a more fast version of the old one yet will cost multiple times than the previous ones. In sum, number and figures cannot be translated as the effectiveness of instruction, and they need to be more careful when purposing for new technologies.

If I were the superintendent, I would redistribute the fund by first reevaluating the effectiveness of currently ongoing projects and cut off those overrated in performance yet costly, and spend more money on those promising ones which can address more immediate needs of schools for better teaching. Then I would try to reduce the gaps among different schools on technology spending. Although the capital fund cannot be used for salaries, I would use the money to build up a training program for teachers in which they are taught on how to effectively use those new tools so that the purpose of developing new technologies can be fulfilled. I would also evaluate if the current technologies can sufficiently serve its instructional goals because wasting money on a fast version of the old one which is perfectly doing its job is anti-productive. Last but not least, I would opt for technologies which have more developmental potentials. In another word, the technology should be able to be ungraded in the future to complete its functions as well as improving performances without overhauling the entire system, so that the money spent in the past won’t be wasted by throwing them away into the trash can.