New and Emerging Technology Purchase Considerations

Narrative Focus

This narrative encompasses some school and system purchasing events in which this chapter’s author is employed: the Pascagoula (MS) School District (PSD). The account is intended to demonstrate the issues and considerations that must be given by the author to short-term and long-range decision-making, and this is always a work in progress. However, the narrative also enlists purchase consideration dilemmas faced and mentioned, via several technology listservs, by the many schools and school systems in the state of Mississippi as well as the region; if not all across the nation and other countries.

The model for discussion in this section will be mobile computing. Because mobile computing is so new to schools at the time of this writing, its effects and the decisions after its rollout are still being measured. There will be references to past experiences with other technologies to illustrate the point that proper planning and executing those plans is necessary for successful implementation of new technologies. Schools or school systems, by virtue of their receipt of E-Rate funds, must have a three-year technology plan written and approved by its state board of education or another approved state entity. The plan should be reviewed and updated on an annual basis and can provide some remedy when coming to impulse or unplanned technology purchases.