Digital technologies are increasingly part of the daily life of millions of people around the world. The introduction of information and communication technologies (ICT) in schools is also growing in a much rapid speed than before, especially in the last decade. Indeed, since 2005, when the One Laptop per Child Project (OLPC) was launched at MIT, the one to one programs (1x1), where each student has one computer, spread over several countries. Whilst in Europe the introduction of ICT started long before that, in Latin America such kind of programs spread in schools that never had a computer before.  Thus, the environment for using ICT at school was radically different. Recent studies in a Latin American country (Ames 2014, Christia et al 2012) show that students spent on average two hours per week using ICT in school, far less spent on ICT outside the school. The surprising fact is that the PISA examination 2009 on the use of ICT in schools indicates the same figure for European students (OECD 2011). Having more technology and for a longer time would lead ideally to a more frequent use, and thus one would expect European students to use ICT technologies far more frequently than their Latin America counterparts.

This paper aims to address the reasons behind this limited use of ICT in schools in both contexts. The research question therefore is what are the similitudes and differences among European schools, teachers or students and Latin American ones that make such a similar and limited use of ICT in school, despite the notorious differences in contexts. The comparison of these two different contexts may help to identify specific interventions that may contribute to greater and better use of ICT in education. 

Latin American is an important contrasting case. From 2007, when Uruguay started the Plan Ceibal implementing the 1x1 model nationwide, to date, several countries had follow a similar route: Peru started OLPC, as well as El Salvador; Venezuela launched Canaima Educativo using Classmates, as well as Colombia; UCA in Brasil used two different portable devices; Conectar Igualdad in Argentina introduced EXO netbooks, and MiCompu in Mexico started with netbooks although now distributes tablets. Costa Rica has tried as well with Classmates and XO; Chile, with a long-standing program on ICT (Enlaces) choose mobile laboratories instead personal devices (OEI 2011). From 2014 Bolivia will distribute portable devices fabricated in country (emulating Brasil) (Relpe 2013). In a brief period of time, the region is oriented towards a broader and massive access to ICT in public schools, using particularly the 1 to 1 model.

Facilitating access to ICT has been a longer process in Europe and through different mechanisms. Indeed, not all countries show the same pace and results: whilst Nordic countries and The Netherlands may have universal coverage, countries like Spain and Portugal started 1 to 1 programs to speed up the process around 2009, but the crisis stopped some of them (Cassany 2014). The paper will address two different digital environments with different histories that may shed light to what could be useful from one to the other.

The conceptual approach is guided by the New Literacy Studies (Street 1993), that warns against reifying technologies and reminds us the social, cultural and political contexts in which they are used, starting with literacy but useful as well to the study of ICT (Warschauer and Niiya 2014). A similar approach is also stressed by Kramer et al (2009) when referring to the systemic character of ICT innovations, and how they depend from a whole ecosystem that sustain them, highlighting again the importance of the social context.

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