When students in Florida's Broward County Schools returned to class earlier this year, chances are they hardly noticed the hard work school information technology (IT) and instructional staff logged over the summer to get the system's 262 school buildings ready for their return.

But even amid catching up with friends, decorating lockers, and finding their way from class to class, there was one element students couldn't possibly have overlooked: the school system's supply of shiny new laptop computers--all 40,000 of them.

The computers are the centerpiece of an ambitious four-year, $68 million technology refresh program designed to provide students and teachers with the tools they need to be successful in the 21st century--what some already have dubbed the era of the digital learner.

As with any large school district, Broward County officials couldn't just walk into a local electronics store and purchase thousands of new machines for students. The transition--or refresh process, as it's commonly called--was the culmination of months of planning, intense technology pilots, and bridge-building between IT and instructional staff.

Broward's experience, though complex, provides a host of lessons as educators across the country confront the daunting task of upgrading their IT infrastructure to achieve technology's promise.

"The district has to have a vision and it has to work toward that vision," said Jeanine Gendron, Broward's director of instructional technology. "Unless you have a plan in place, it's difficult to get where you are going."

For Broward, the nation's sixth-largest school district with more than 270,000 students, the problem was akin to convincing four football stadiums full of screaming fans to cheer for the same team.

From drawing up a sound technology plan, to reaching out to parents, to helping teachers and students adapt to changing learning environments, a lot went on behind the scenes to prepare Broward schools for the upgrade. District officials say it was that effort that will lead to a full return on their investment.

Out with the old...

Before the county could even begin to think about replacing its old technology, administrators first had to devise a plan for the future--or what Gendron called a "roadmap" for success.

Given Broward's long history of technological and instructional innovation (see "eSN Special Report: Reinventing School IT Infrastructure"), school officials wanted to find new technology solutions that would allow instructors to carry that tradition into the 21st century.

That thinking paved the way for the Digital Learning Environment Study. Now in its second year, the program was designed to help school administrators evaluate new instructional technologies and teaching methods before rolling them out to the entire district.