No matter how many SMART boards a school has, there is a limit to how much they, or any other form of technology, can improve students' overall learning. If a school has deeper problems, such as a rift in trust between teachers and administrator, adding technology will be little more than a band-aid on a very deep cut. Teachers need to zero in on the areas where technology can be useful rather than trying to tie it to every lesson.
One advantage technology has over more traditional teaching methods is that students often find it more stimulating. This particularly applies to interactive technology, such as educational games. When you use this kind of technology to help students review, their increased engagement in the activity can make the material covered more memorable.
Technology often gives students more freedom in the way they learn. But anyone who has let students work a project on computers with Internet access has found that some will ignore what they are supposed to be doing to look up sites on sports scores or their favorite bands. Because of this tendency, students need to be monitored closely while using technology to make sure they stay on task.
Certain forms of technology, like the aforementioned SMART boards, can very easily get daily use, because they are simply replacing things teachers already did on chalkboards. However, student-led technology use, such as games or online research, should be spaced out between teacher-led and other kinds of lessons. This lets students have a measure of freedom in their learning while still letting teachers point them in the right direction.
Technology has provided students with easy access to an amount of information that previous generations could have only dreamed of. However, many students, especially younger ones, are likely not to question the validity of what they read on the Internet. Students need to be explicitly taught to separate credible sources of information, such as government agencies, from less credible ones like personal blogs.
There is nothing wrong with tried-and-true uses of technology in the classroom like PowerPoint presentations or streaming educational videos with digital projectors. But these are not its only possible uses. If you are lucky enough to have access to high-quality educational technology, try using it in creative ways, like taking your class on an interactive tour of Pompey or having students create a Wiki on the novel they read.