Re: reasons for writing a tech plan

[Michelle Murrain <mpm@javanet.com>]

>thoughts from an alumna:
>
>last semester i spoke with a tech coordinator whose district, it seemed,
>had written a pretty good plan.  BUT.....they had NO MONEY with which to
>fulfill their plan, and i just could not figure out why they'd even bother
>to write a plan if they had no way of carrying it out.  really, it boggled
>my mind.  finally, dr. a gave me a clue:  that district, & all others in
>MS, had to write a tech plan as a requirement.  they had to write one, and
>not necessarily follow through on it, i guess!!!  that seemed kind of
>senseless to me.
>
>and i wonder what they really should have done:  write a plan that copes
>with no money ["gee, we won't have any money for that, so we'll follow
>through accordingly"], or take advantage of writing a plan to figure out
>how to get some funding.  the latter seems better to me--and i think if you
>are going to undertake writing a tech plan, then you are making a tacit
>commitment to find a way to make the plan happen.  otherwise, why bother?

I have to say that I think tech plans are important whether or not there is
any money. However, if money is an issue, a central part of the plan is to
work on funding, and realistically how that can come about. I worked on a
plan for an organization that has very little money, and the thinking about
the funding peice was really important. Of course the process of this plan
reminded me about the comments made by Larry Anderson about external
factors and deadlines. Basically, we had about 2 weeks to write the plan,
because of the requirements of the funders (state Department of Ed.). I
really wished we'd had more time. We ended up not having a lot of time to
really flesh out the funding peice.

Michelle

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Michelle Murrain, Ph.D.                      mpm@javanet.com
http://www.ursa-minor.com/michelle         mmurrain@hampshire.edu