I just stepped out of the National School Boards Association’s press conference on the results of its new Technology and Learning Survey results. This is the fifth year that NSBA has done the survey, which asks about 500 district-level technology administrators to identify their biggest concerns and interests.
This year, they added three new questions to the survey: what the top priorities of the next administration in the White House should be related to ed-tech, how the current economic situation has impacted technology programs, and how data is being used to drive decisionmaking.
Not surprisingly, the number one challenge ed-tech leaders felt that they are currently facing is a lack of funding for technology. To deal with those cut backs, and the current financial climate, 65 percent of districts said they were delaying hardware purchases/upgrades. However, as Ann Flynn, the director of educational technology at NSBA, pointed out, because of those conditions, 29 percent of districts said they were exploring or adopting open technologies and 20 percent said they were introducing new “green” IT initiatives.
It’s worth noting that the Fall 2008 issue of Digital Directions includes articles on technology funding, open technologies, and “green” IT initiatives--all the issues cited above.
There’s a lot of information packed into this survey, so definitely check it out once it’s up online.