School computers are being used in many different ways and to very different extents. Educational leapfrogging, however, is only possible if the potential of hardware and software is fully exploited. Computers can used as:

• Gaming tool - Computers are used for games, especially in primary education where a playful approach to computers helps students prepare for future computer use and stimulates their creativity and imagination
  
  
• Teacher tool - Teachers themselves may use computers for administration tasks, production of documents, and the creation of lessons.
  This includes keeping of records, manipulating information, producing individual letters to parents or a class newsletter, creating customized follow-up work for lessons, making personalized certificates of achievement, creating student lists or name tags, etc
  
  
• Research tool - Computers are used to provide students with access to information on the Internet. The Internet facilitates gathering data for class projects, taking online excursions to travel reports and photos from various countries, reading work written by other students, following up on current news and issues, reading fiction, taking virtual field trips to institutions such as museums on the Internet, etc
  
  
• Communication tool - The use of computers in the classroom helps students get used to email and it facilitates communication among students, teachers, etc both within class and outside of class
  
  They learn to communicate via Internet be it by emailing with another class working on similar subjects/projects, especially if a school network exists, or be it by consulting an expert or another "significant person" on issues that arise during coursework
  
  
• Training tool for repetitive tasks - This includes the use of drill and practice programmes in the fields of reading, grammar, or simple arithmetic. This also includes solving equations, studying irregular verbs, learning vocabulary in a foreign language, spelling, recalling historical dates, etc
  
  
• Teaching tool for the development of intellectual and thinking skills - Computers may be used for interactive games and real world simulations ie. Interdisciplinary comprehensive explorations that cannot be provided by any medium other than the computer
  
  
• Teaching tool for computer use in itself - Students have to be prepared for computer used in their future lives, ie develop easiness in dealing with both software and hardware tools. The former includes word processing, and dealing with spreadsheets, databases as well as graphics applications that they are likely to encounter at their future work place.

As outlined in the article Empowering teachers to use computers effectively across the curriculum, Hawkridge et al. identified four principal rationales for introducing computers in schools:

• The social rationale is concerned with the overwhelming importance of the computer in modern society that seems to make it imperative for all students to become familiar with it and accept it in everyday use.
  
  
• The vocational relates the need for computer education to the possibility of better access to the job market. This sees the teaching of computer applications or programming as providing skills vital for employment.
  
  
• The pedagogic rationale asserts that computers assist the teaching-learning process and enhance the instruction of traditional subjects in the curriculum.
  
  
• The catalytic rationale sees the introduction of computers as improving the overall performance of schools thus having a positive impact on the education system in general.