After more than 30 years of relatively heavy investment in computer equipment for schools, computers are available in a good number of schools. Balanskat et al (2006) accomplished a review of 17 impact studies and surveys carried out at national, European and international level. All of them acknowledge a set of important benefits of ICT in learning, ranging from students’ motivation and skills, independent learning to teamwork. The SITES-M2 study of innovative pedagogical uses of technology examined 174 schools in North and South America, Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Overall, the schools in the study report a substantially positive effect of their innovative use on students: 62% reported increased subject matter acquisition; 68% of schools reported increased positive attitudes by students towards learning; and 63% improved collaborative skills (Kozma, 2003). However, not all teachers use them, and this is a pattern around the world (Becker, 2001; Pelgrum, 2001; Conlon and Simpson, 2003; Wilson; Notar and Yunker, 2003; Plomb et al., 2003). When computers are used, teachers find it difficult to modify their classroom routines and their expectations about students’ predisposition to learn. Research consistently shows that technology by itself does not produce “mega-changes” in teaching and learning practices (Cuban, Kirkpatrick and Peck, 2001; Cuban, 2001; Schofield and Davidson, 2002; Ringstaff and Kelley, 2002; Kozman, 2003; OECD, 2004; Sancho et al., 2004). Digital technologies are often used in ways that simply reinforce the prevailing cultural beliefs about education in which teaching is telling, learning is listening, and knowledge is what is in books (Cuban, 1993), or now in educational software. Although for Comber (2002) the majority of teachers explore ICT as a tool following a systematic approach in its use: to enhance existing traditional practice, progressively build it into the curriculum and to more profoundly transform their teaching practice. At the light of this evidences and building on a previous project (Sancho et al., 2004), we argue that, technologically-driven educational change looks practically impossible while the rest of the educational system remains virtually the same and that this scenario has been permanently enhanced by most educational policy regarding the use of computers in education. In this paper we present some results of the RDT project “Policy and Practice regarding ICT in Education: Implication for educational Innovation and Improvement” (Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia. SEJ2007-67562. 2007-2010), aimed to explore the following questions: Why, regardless of the existence of specific programs for introducing digital technologies in the classroom of most of the Western countries, its presence remains insufficient, anecdotic, or doesn’t account for a significant improvement of the learning processes and results? What might change in the educational policy, the schools’ practices and the professional development of teacher, for schools and students to benefit to promote a critical, reflexive and educational relationship with these technologies, and for the school system to be ready to meet the educational challenges of now-a-day society? In this presentation we’ll focus in the discourse analysis of Catalan government policy on ICT in the last 25, as made explicit in different documents, policy practice and the vision of those responsible for this policy. The fist analysis of these documents shows how this policy, as happens in other countries, has been more technologically than pedagogically driven. This analysis helps to understand the difficult transition for Information and Communication Technologies to Learning and Knowledge Technologies.

The main methods used for inquiry have been document discourse analysis, and interviews content analysis. We have analysed all available documents regarding ICT policy in Catalonia in the last 25 years and conducted 12 deep interviews with people responsible for the development and implementation of such policy.

In spite of rhetorical discourse, the implementation of ICT policy in education has follow a rather technological orientation, giving these tools a transformation power which is proven to be rather powerless in front of the persisting grammar of schooling an current teaching practice.