Schools in many countries are now equipped with computers, networking and Internet connections. It is important to establish what are the expected purposes and the complex influences behind this growth of ICT in school education. It will be demonstrated that there is considerable coherence between agreed policy rationales and technological drivers for change in the field which have combined to promote this growth. However, it will also be shown that international studies demonstrate a lack of success in achieving widespread good use of ICT in school classrooms.
Despite questions about their nature, national policies for ICT in schools are now widespread amongst developed and developing countries (Nleya, 1998; Kearns, 2002). These overarching policies are reflected in policies developed at other administrative levels, such as state, municipal school board, school and even classroom level, where an individual teacher may have personal rules for the equitable use of a relatively expensive piece of equipment (Kogan, 1978, p.123). ICT appeared to become a significant issue for national policy when international digital communications were promoted by USA vice president Al Gore using the phrase “information superhighway” (Gore, 1994a; Holmes, Savage & Tangney, 2000, sect. 3.3.3). The extensive emergence of policies in this field has subsequently been independent of governmental structure or political persuasion, despite the expectation that these variables affect policy (Dahl & Tufte, 1973, p. 37; Pownall, 1999; Dimitrov & Goetz, 2000, p. 2). The question to ask therefore is what has caused this prevalence of such policies: does it have a social or a technological reason, or both?
The social explanation can be examined from the perspective of interactions between elements of executive power (Dogan, 1975; Page & Wright, 1999; Schmidt, 2001) such as the politicians, professionals and bureaucrats (Lawton, 1986, p. 35). Each of these three groups applied their own schema of values to the situation under consideration, and consequently came to different policy recommendations. The political view of policy-making examines forms of governance and patterns of influence, as these maintain or change social structure. An ideological view considers ways of discussing policy and looks at education as a vehicle for the transmission of culture between generations. The third, economic, view looks at the funding of education and compares this to its contribution to productivity and profit. The synthesis of these views implies that education policy is generated by the interaction of lobbyists (Milio, 1988, p. 109) and others such as politicians, professionals and bureaucrats who use political, ideological and economic lenses. Understanding the role of political organization and structure is seen as a vital factor in establishing the future of technology in social evolution (RAND, 2002).
http://www.educ.utas.edu.au/users/afluck/thesis/html/litrev.htm viewed 15th October
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