Technology Training: in Search of a Delivery System

American school districts find themselves being pressured by parents to buy microcomputers for their classrooms. The schools are responding, but frequently underestimate amount of training teachers and administrators need to become competent with the new technology. In the Houston Independent School District, all microcomputer hardware and software purchases are coordinated through a Department of Technology. No campus may receive computers until a written Microcomputer Implementation Plan has been approved. The document requires campus technology users to anticipate student needs, which personnel are to be trained, and how the technology will affect the existing curriculum. Houston's technology training program is based on several tenets: Personnel who actually will use the computers are trained first, training is mandatory for teachers and administrators, approximately 70% of training is “hands-on,” the training is competency-based, and each year a special cadre of “teacher technologists” receive 296 hours of training to make them campus technology experts.