So many upgrades, so little cash.

As a new school year kicks off, that might be the tag line for local school districts flush with technology needs and wants but not the budgets to fulfill them.

"I could probably spend a million dollars a year on new technology," said Munster schools Information Technology Director Leonard Lessner -- adding that taxpayers would never go for that.

"By the time we order a computer, there's something better out there," said John Hunter, superintendent of Union Township School Corp.

Despite the balancing act of providing students and teachers with the best technology and paying for it, districts around the region will roll out a number of technology advancements in the new year.

All 250 or so teachers in Munster schools will receive a new computer and monitor in their room or work station, in an across-the-board upgrade. By buying at that quantity, the cost was discounted to $700 per system, Lessner said.

Among the new applications Munster teachers will be able to use those for is a video retrieval system that will eliminate a librarian as middleman in securing classroom videos. The district has been digitizing and uploading its 1,800 educational videotapes and DVDs this summer. Teachers will be able to call up a video or segment of a video from their computer and play it directly to a classroom monitor.

Crown Point schools will implement a similar capability in all schools. One benefit of the system is that videos and clips can be catalogued according to state educational standards, said the district's Technology Director George Tachtiris.

Students doing research will be able to access those clips, too, Tachtiris said.

Valparaiso and Crown Point are among the districts implementing an online "parent portal" at some schools that will allow parents greater and more immediate access to their child's assignments and progress. Each student has a password-protected page. The system will improve communication opportunities between teacher and parent, Valparaiso Assistant Superintendent Robert Rarick said.

Bishop Noll Institute is entering the second year of its three-year rollout of its Digital Learning Center program in which students receive laptop computers and classrooms are equipped with Smart Boards and digital projectors.

Many districts will issue palm-held devices to kindergarten to second-grade teachers that they can use while walking around the classroom to gather data on math and reading work. The devices, a result of state grants, can feed into student information systems and provide the teachers with immediate feedback on students' academic needs.

Clay Corman, curriculum director for Porter Township School Corp., said his district will increase use of the online course management system Moodle this fall. Moodle allows teachers to post and manage a range of interactive activities, from homework assignments to tests and journaling work.

By setting controls, a teacher can allow students taking a test to immediately redo items they got wrong, helping them to actually learn something from the test, Corman said.

Corman said students respond well to using the electronic communication. And, he added, "The more exposed they are, the more they'll be prepared for the world around them."

Because of that, school officials say they rarely hear objections to the introduction of new technologies.

"What I hear (is), 'We need to upgrade more,'" Union Township's Hunter said.

Some computers in the district still operate on Windows 95, Hunter said, leading to situations in which students often have newer programs at home and can't transfer their work to the older applications at school.

Munster's Lessner gets similar feedback.

"People in this community expect Munster schools to be top of the line," he said.

For Porter Township's Corman, a budget-necessitated gradual introduction of hardware may be the best approach. Installing a Smart Board in every classroom, for example, may not be embraced by teachers unfamiliar with the interactive screen's capabilities. Better, he said, to add a few at a time and build word-of-mouth interest among teachers.

In the end, technology in the classroom comes down to the teacher, Corman said.

"If they don't have the comfort level with it, it's not going to be used appropriately," he said.