Demonstration Sites Seek To Help Schools Make Technological Leap

By Peter West

When officials of the Sanborn (N.H.) Regional School District began weighing how to spend their limited funds for technology and software, they decided their first step should be to get some consumer information.

So Steve Kossakoski, the technology coordinator for the 1,800-student rural district, and Tana Lewis, a teacher at the district's middle school, visited the Software Preview Center at the Regional Laboratory for Educational Improvement of the Northeast and the Islands in Andover, Mass.

There, they logged on to the Internet computer network's World Wide Web and downloaded free "shareware" programs. They also got to test equipment and hear some advice from the staff members on how to buy...