Jason Ribeiro's Thesis: A Case Study On Technology Acquisition

It is my pleasure to nominate Jason Ribeiro's thesis, A Case Study on Technology Acquisition for 746,000 Ontario Students, for consideration for the CASEA Margaret Haughey Master’s Award.

Mr. Ribeiro's exemplary thesis explores the intersection of educational leadership and educational technology. Unlike many in the educational administration field that attempted to merge these research areas by simply capturing educational leaders’ use of technology or documenting district leaders’ opinions related to the use of technology, Jason pursued the greater challenge of investigating the policies, processes and perspectives that guide the technology acquisition process. This investigation was a response to the dearth of information regarding the processes that take place before technological resources
Consequently, Jason’s research provides much-needed insight into how technology acquisition decisions are currently being made and how the research literature can be used to guide this process. Mr. Ribeiro’s Strategic Model for Technology Acquisition, that grew out of the conceptual framework, represents the merging of theory and practice while highlighting the need for educational researchers to play a greater role in providing the insight needed to positively affect the decisions that influence educational policy and classroom practice. With this insight, there is a greater likelihood that technology acquisition practices grounded inn research, will result in improved student outcomes and avoid the disappointments of previous technologies that failed to have a positive impact on student