As educators respond to the challenge to utilize computer technology in the teaching and learning process, they must be mindful of an important distinction between using technology and infusing technology. Schools are investing large sums of money toward outfitting classrooms with computers with the assumption that computer technology will somehow enhance the educational experience. Research, however, is inconclusive as to the effect of computer technology on learner achievement. It is too easy to be lulled onto the technology bandwagon, blindly installing networks and computers without thinking deeply about their role in the instructional process. Technology provides opportunities never before available to humankind, yet schools are in danger of sabotaging - through incomplete and, in some cases, detrimental implementation plans - the power of technology to transform the teaching and learning process. Three popular trends regarding technology use in schools threaten to impede the transformational impact of technology on the instructional environment.

Three Problems to Consider:

1. Building only educators' technology skills

The first trend is an over-emphasis on merely building educators' technology skills. In the struggle to use and to infuse technology, learning to use the computer is the easier (albeit often unsettling) challenge for many educators. It is all too easy to place the emphasis on simply learning to use the computer, celebrating success as more and more educators learn to use the Internet, word process documents, and design spreadsheets.

Yet knowing how to use a computer does little to guarantee the successful infusion of technology into the teaching and learning process. Yes, educators must be offered training in using computers, but their training must go beyond that to the instructional strategies needed to infuse technological skills into the learning process.

2. Learners used to support educators

The second trend is the belief that educators' inability to use technology can somehow be overcome by the learners' ability in this area. Often we hear administrators claiming that some educators' fear of computers will not be a problem because the learners will teach one another and the educator. What self-respecting administrator would hire a educator who could not read and claim that is not a problem because the learners will teach the educator?

3. Using computers as an end unto Itself

This dangerous belief lead to a third problematic trend. Computer use is often seen as an end unto itself.

Schools speak of using the computer as a "tool" but upon closer observation, it is evident that the use of the computer is either the goal of the lesson or a convenient side-product of the lesson. The emphasis is on teaching learners merely to use the computer, not to consider it as a tool integral to learning.

Computer technology provides learners and educators with unprecedented opportunities to transform the teaching and learning process, from the most common and simple uses to the most sophisticated. Word processing eliminates endless hand copying and allows educators and learners to place a greater emphasis on content revision. Graphic software eliminates hand-drawing of equation results and allows educators and learners to focus on the effects of various changes in an equation.

The Internet greatly reduces the time and effort it used to take to locate information on a topic, and puts learners and educators in touch with other learners and educators around the world, as well as with content experts. Simulation software enables learners to participate in experiences otherwise unavailable in school.