Adequate Access to Technology

To make technology-supported activities manageable, classrooms generally need at least one computer for every four students. With fewer computers in a classroom, individual students are unlikely to get enough time to benefit from using the technology or to have it make any significant impact on their learning. If the regular classrooms have only a few computers or if the school's computers are clustered in a separate lab, most teachers may have little opportunity to integrate technology into their instruction and indeed may feel less responsibility for doing so.

When students in small groups share the computer, teachers must make sure that all individuals have equal opportunity to do each specific task. Some teachers define particular roles for technology use (for example, the composer, the keyboard user, and the editor) and specify that students must rotate the roles at reasonable intervals.