TITLE:
Evaluating Cultural and Technical Obstacles in School-Based ICT Programs: An Analysis of Two Case Studies
AUTHORS:
Miriam Judge
KEYWORDS:
Knowledge Economy; ICT Infrastructure; ICT Integration; Change in Schools; Thin Clients
JOURNAL NAME:
Creative Education,
Vol.4 No.9B,
September
30,
2013
ABSTRACT: The emergence of a knowledge-based economy has been identified as a
central trend in modern economies as a result of the increasingly important
role of information technology and learning in economic performance. In
recognition of this most governments throughout the developed world have
responded with a series of policy initiatives since the late 1990’s to either
introduce or significantly increase information technology provision in schools
to prepare students for life in the twenty first century. Ireland, with its
growing reliance on the knowledge economy sector for employment and continued
economic prosperity, developed its own policy initiative for computerizing the nations’ schools known as“Schools IT 2000: A Policy Framework for the
New Millennium”. It was an ambitious
programme with high expectations for the integration of ICT (Information and
Communications Technology) in education. This paper examines two longitudinal
educational ICT projects in Ireland in the first decade of the new millennium
to query how far schools have travelled along the information superhighway and
to ponder how well the catalytic capabilities of ICT have become embedded in
the realities of classroom life and teachers pedagogic practices, with
attendant implications for Ireland’s economic development.