Two events prodded me into writing this. The first was my involvement in formulating a technology plan for a local school. During this process I became increasingly concerned that while the school leaders were keen to bring in technology, and intuitively knew they should, they did not really know why. It was a kind of gut instinct.
The second event was an email I got from a teacher concerning my web site Math Open Reference. She wrote (I paraphrase): "Thank you so much! Now I have something to do with those laptops they gave me!". You can visualize the scene: a school decided to move technology into the classroom so it gave the teacher the computers. Again I wondered if this school really knew why they wanted the technology. In what