January 2004 — Web/Net
Print this article | Email this articleClick here to receive your FREE subscription to T.H.E. Journal
Tips for Getting Your Technology Projects Funded
Create goals for your project. When writing a proposal for technology funding, start by ignoring the technology. Too often a focus on the technology simply becomes a wish list. Concentrate on the needs of the audience you have identified as your target. How should the audience, their lives or their environment be different when your project is fully implemented? The answer to this question will form your project goal or goals. How will you determine if the project goal or goals are met, and how will you measure to what degree the goal(s) are met? The answers to these questions will form your project's objectives. Objectives should be as specific and measurable as possible. For example, "Students will be able to use a word processor to write a report" is not a satisfactory objective. Compare that statement with "90% of the students will be able to demonstrate at least three essential word processing skills, such as copy-and-paste or find-and-replace." Once effective objectives are developed, project activities should be easily discernable.
Communicate internally. Be sure to communicate your project idea and activities to other departments in your organization. Your organization's goals, objectives and initiatives may expand or limit the range of impact your project may have. You may already know that your project will impact the business office with record keeping and the purchasing office with buying equipment or services, but what about the staff development office? Will your project require training of personnel? How about the HR office? Will your project require hiring new personnel? What about use of facilities, custodial services, technology infrastructure or any other department support? Without communication and coordination between and among internal departments, grant projects could impose burdens on other areas of your organization that may result in challenges to project implementation and management within other departments.
Addressing Sustainability
Having spoken with the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Commerce, we have become acutely aware that the government is not only interested in funding innovative educational technology projects that focus on how technology will be used to improve academic achievement, but also those that offer a clear plan for sustainability and electronic distribution of outcomes.
Irving ISD's CTC project - Project C.A.P.S. (Conquering Academics with Parent Support - selected a software management system for this project that offers an unlimited user site license and no recurring annual license fee. In other words, the cost to continue the project beyond the initial grant year was minimized, and the unlimited user license enabled the district to serve all high school students, which is a key element of NCLB.
Irving.Net serves to bring the entire community together to bridge the digital and social divides of a diverse urban community. Sustaining a project in the initial few years of implementation is difficult for any one organization. If possible, hire a project director who has business development experience. Irving.Net is a comprehensive community project with a business and risk management plan, which includes a sustainability component.
