Kayenta is a small rural Navajo community located in an isolated region in the northeastern corner of Arizona, near the magnificent Monument Valley. This school district serves 2600 students from Kayenta and several other smaller, more rural communities. The nearest public library is 100 miles away, while the nearest museums, bookstores, and universities are 150 miles. This isolation has provided the motivation to use technology to assist in increasing literacy, while permitting students to sustain critical elements of the rich traditional life of generations of Dine.

The Kayenta Unified School District (KUSD) committed itself to the implementation of educational technology about ten years ago under the leadership of former superintendent Bob Roundtree. At that time, a long-range technology plan was outlined that specified infrastructure development. This aggressive technology plan began with district administrators, expanded to office staffs, and eventually extended to every classroom. Thus the long-range plans for infrastructure were put into place, along with technology support systems.

Presently, all six school and administrative buildings, and all classrooms, offices, and administrators are connected to an Internet/intranet email system. There are currently 550+ desktop workstations; both Macintosh and Windows based. Infrastructure upgrades will continue within buildings and classrooms during the coming school year.

Kayenta's Staff Development Office began training teachers in the personal use of computers, Internet, and Intranet email three years ago. During the 1998-99 school year teacher's skills were assessed using a locally developed assessment instrument based on a five-stage model of Classroom Technology Use. Initial results show that almost all teachers are comfortable with some use of computers, but that few have fully integrated technology into classroom instruction. Each teacher's classroom technology use is now focused through an Individual Technology Action Plan that will be completed and renewed annually.

An initial internal evaluation indicated that in order to maximize student learning the efforts made towards training teachers would need to be expanded to include students, support staff and eventually community members. This presents an uncommon challenge, since there are no other sources of multimedia technology available to the larger community population.

Determining ways to complement traditional instruction and values, while using technology to increase literacy and reduce isolation is the compelling challenge faced by Kayenta Unified School District and other rural isolated school districts.