A common complaint among users of educational technology is "No one used it!" However, this is frequently because the technology was added to the class as an "optional" (which students hear as "superfluous") and relatively unstructured activity. In other words, the students didn't use it because they just didn't have a compelling reason to use it.

• Does your use of technology add something to the class that would be impossible without it?
• Could you accomplish the same thing with simpler methods?
• Is the activity you are planning with technology relevant to the other dimensions of the class (or is  it stand-alone and somewhat "gimmicky")?
• Is the level of difficulty appropriate to your students' experience?
• Do they have sufficient support (in the form of written instructions, online help, an instructor to help answer questions or overcome problems, a computing class customized for the assignment, etc.) to complete the assignment successfully?
• If you were a busy student what would make you bother to learn and use the technology? 
• What "carrot" or "stick" could make using the technology attractive?

• distribute things electronically such as lecture outlines, exam-review questions, Excel files, study tips
• lecture outlines that students can print out and then "flesh out" during lecture
• exam-review questions posted online
• structured discussion activities that you tie into in-class discussion
• class announcements and syllabus changes
• images that illustrate points in class
• scans of slides or other images that can be accessed for study outside of class
• "bury" extra credit questions in resource areas of a course website

• count posting to a newsgroup/listserv/conference as part of class participation
• require n postings per week
• require that discussion questions be turned into you electronically
• require an assignment on a topic available from your course website

• Have students answer basic questions about a case online before class - class time can be used to get to more complex case issues. 
• If your course depends heavily upon homework sets, have an "on-line help desk" watchdogged by you and/or your AIs
• Exploit the textual nature of the Internet by having students proof each other's paper ideas, outlines, abstracts or drafts before posting them to the whole class (e-mail and/or listserv).
• Exploit the multimedia capabilities of the web by posting images that illustrate course concepts
• Provide links to the latest data available in your field, like up-to-the-minute court decisions, weather data, or press releases (Web-site).
• Make one of your office hours a "virtual office hour," during which you engage the ideas and questions sent to you by students who don't feel comfortable speaking out in class (e-mail).

* Adapted from University of Oregon's online document, "Practical Strategies for Using IT"