Our mission is to develop in our students and in ourselves the ability to responsibly use appropriate technology to communicate, solve problems, and access, manage, integrate, evaluate, and create information, to improve learning in all subject areas, and to acquire lifelong knowledge and skills for the 21st century.
(Adopted from the Common Definition of Technology Literacy, State Educational Technology Directors Association).

The Lowndes County Schools System has made a substantial investment in technology. Through local funds and a Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, we have been able to provide our students and teachers with a wealth of resources to support instruction. Most elementary and middle school classrooms have 6 classroom computers. Over 150 classrooms have SMART boards, and last fall we opened Westside Elementary, our 21st Century model school, with SMART boards and projectors in each classroom. This fall we are opening Pine Grove Middle School with projectors in each classroom, and each teacher will have a MOBI wireless slate.

In 2000 we initiated a plan to roll-out integrated learning systems in our elementary and middle grades.  We have implemented Successmaker, an individualized instructional software program, in grades K-8 and NovaNet, a curriculum-based software package, at Lowndes High School for credit recovery, and also in the Lowndes Alternative School and the Performance Learning Center. We also support the Waterford software in grades PK-2. In addition to these integrated learning systems, we support other software programs at each school, and we provide several online resources, including Nettrekker, NewsBank, Study Island, Georgia's Online Assessment System, and Galileo.  Our media automation software is web-based Destiny, which can be accessed from school and home. Infinite Campus is our new student information system, and this fall we roll out the Infinte Campus Parent Portal so that parents can see online information about their child's classroom performance.

In Spring 2007 we introduced out teachers How-to-Master, an online training resource through Infosource Learning.  Through this training solution, our teachers are able to take online courses on computing fundamentals, living online, computer applications, and technology integration. We also use this portal for scheduling and tracking all professional development courses.

After a pilot at Lake Park Elementary, we adopted SchoolCenter systemwide in 2008-09 for the creation and posting of school and teacher web pages.  With SchoolCenter, each teacher can post photo albums, favorite links, a calendar, daily assignments, and much more. We provide content-filtered Internet access to our classrooms, and each certified staff member has email access. We have implemented a spam/virus filtering system that in its first year of operation blocked 3 million inbound messages. In the past year, we have blocked over 40 million spam and virus messages, and we are now blocking 80,000 spam messages per day! We presently have over 5000 computers and laptops in the school system. Each school has at least two 16-laptop mobile labs, and we have provided laptops to over 350 teachers. This year we will provide laptops for an additional 200 teachers to use for planning and delivering instruction. All this technology was made possible through SPLOST and through local dollars appropriated by the Lowndes County Schools Board of Education.

Supporting technology in the system is a department of eleven dedicated individuals.  We are a mix of certified educators and computer and network professionals who provide training and support. Last year we responded and resolved over 7000 reported problems.  To this core staff we have added five technology paraprofessionals who are based at the schools to provide a first-line of support.  Our goal is to do all we can to facilitate the integration of technology into the classroom to improve instruction.