At the ISTELive 26 conference, educator Andy Mann presented a resource-sharing model designed to lower the financial barriers of educational technology. During his session, "Borrow Don’t Buy: Creating a STEM Loaner Library," Mann detailed how he used strategic funding to build a collection of high-end STEM equipment for the Muskegon Area Intermediate School District in Michigan. The library allows local teachers to check out sought-after devices, including virtual reality headsets valued at $10,000, to test in their classrooms without requiring individual schools to purchase them.

This shared-inventory approach addresses a common challenge in ed-tech procurement: the risk of investing limited school budgets in expensive hardware that may not fit classroom needs. By centralizing the acquisition of advanced STEM tools at the district level, the model enables low-risk experimentation and pedagogical validation before schools commit to permanent technology investments.