Date Approved

6-1999

Graduate Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Education (M.Ed.)

Degree Program

College of Education

First Advisor

Sherrill Pryor

Abstract

As the use of educational technology in our classrooms continues to increase, schools must take every reasonable step they can to ensure the time and money invested in educational technology is not wasted. This is especially true in poorer, rural school districts that do not always have the money and personnel that larger, more affluent school districts have access to. These poorer, rural schools must take extra precautions to ensure their investment of limited resources has the greatest gain possible.

The goal of this thesis was to identify those specific factors related to the effectiveness of educational technology implementations to which poorer, rural school districts must pay added attention. This work began with an extensive review of the existing literature on the effective use of educational technology. This review was followed by a survey of several poorer, rural school districts throughout Southwest Michigan. These surveys asked school districts for their insights into important factors related to the effectiveness of educational technology implementations as based upon their own successes and failures.

In the end, this research found that poorer, rural schools and their larger, more affluent counterparts share the majority of these factors, but some of the factors take on added importance for the poorer, rural school.

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