Educational Technology in Schools
The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the vital issues addressed in this part of the book and to reflect on the contextual background of policymaking and policy enactment of educational technology in schools. This section centres around
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3. EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY IN SCHOOLS Policymaking and Policy Enactment
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the vital issues addressed in this part of the book and to reflect on the contextual background of policymaking and policy enactment of educational technology in schools. This section centres around the Norwegian social context as an example discussion case. After the Second World War, Norwegian education changed course from encyclopaedic-centred schooling in the grammar-school tradition to a pupil-centred schooling based on ideas derived from American progressive pedagogy. The progressive movements in education had over several centuries after the Second World War a hegemony in Norwegian education among bureaucratic officeholders, educational researchers, and several teachers especially in primary school. However, a turnaround of educational policy and management was instigated by a center-conservative government in 2002. The first disappointing results from the Programme for International Student Assessment—PISA 2000—gave a legitimation this turnaround, and during the years that followed has the governing system moved toward increased accountability based on performance measures. The advent of educational accountability after the millennium has created more external pressure for improved performance in schools, and performance measures are used as indicators of goal attainment. But progressivistic ideas of using educational technology as a force of developing new teaching methods and the educational zeitgeist of accountability are, however, embedded side by side in Norwegian education policies for school enactment. This is an amalgamation of educational progressivism and result orientation. In this introductory text I discuss, interrogate and identify problems inherent in the tensions between the ideals of educational progressivism and the ideals of precise and adequate measurements of pupil performance in the service of result orientation. These tensions induce still challenges of Norwegian education in the 21th century. CHANGING POLICYMAKING IN NORWAY
Larry Cuban has shown how earlier technologies (television, radio et cetera) have been tried out in schools without making a great impact on how teaching is carried out or on the patterns of work within the school (Cuban, 1986). Educational use E. Elstad (Ed.), Digital Expectations and Experiences in Education, 47–57. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
E. ELSTAD
of television and radio had never a breakthrough in Norwegian schools. However, the situation is very different in respect of digital technology, which is why this presentation of technology in Norwegian schools is preoccupied with digital technology. The Norwegian education authorities have been in the forefront of international development in terms of using information and communication technology in schools. As early as 1987 the use of computers in schools was presented as a requirement and as a resource for inter-disciplinary work in schools. This
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