ICT in education has been on the agenda for educational authorities for a little more than 30 years. Much water has passed under the bridge since then. The educational technologies have changed significantly. In the public domain the presumption that ICT is a necessary and innovative tool for change of education has been firmly rooted in the public opinion. The idea that ICT is  a crucial element in the strive to secure better and more significant learning processes is now a fundamental idea in our thinking about how upbringing and socialisation takes place in the technological context of our society.

However, simultaneously, it seems like the educational system is slightly out of sync with how the technological development actually happens and how the educational authorities describe its omnipotence and necessity. One might say that the actual practices in the area represent a “cultural lagging” in the sense that authorities as well as researchers to a very small degree manage to demonstrate and furnish the ambitions and visions expressed in policy papers, with substance.

The positions enthusiasts and sceptics to this high investments - and meager results - take, differs on many points. Enthusiasts regard the field of common teachers and institutions who fail to implement new technological methods and practices at the desired pace as a conservative and unwilling grassroot that will resist changes as long as possible. They no not know their own best. Their response is to invest more and attack the problem from new angles with even more sophisticated technologies in order to finally prove how ICT accelerates learning and develop skills for the future society.  

The sceptics think of this “cultural lag” as a proof of how ICT in education consistently will fail to address teaching and learning in productive ways, that the technologies are “oversold” - and therefore “underused” for very good reasons. The arguments behind the ICT investments in education are not solicited and will never be proved to hold its promises.

In between these two positions are the ICT-neutrals. They claim that the persistent problem of using ICT in education is only to be expected because it represents a very slow type of reform. All initiatives of this sort and magnitude will always “lag behind” because institutions change at a much lower pace than reformers intend to.

This research project takes the position of the ICT-neutral as its point of departure.The aim is to provide an overview and summary of how successful the policies of ICT in education is considered to be, and thereby provide a platform for choices and stances for future policies in this area. To our knowledge there hardly exist any ambitious and encompassing analysis of policies in this area and their effects, in Norway nor internationally. We find it necessary to cover topics like these:

- The actors: Who were the leading initiators and providers of ideas and strategies in the various areas that were involved: researchers, politicians,  bureaucrats.

- Their arguments and discourses: How did they identify the dominating ideas in the first place, and how where these ideas chained and connected to a form a more consistent and convincing set of arguments?

- The magnitude of investments: Over time, how expensive has this development been, and how can we calculate the costs in various areas?

- Results: How have the educational authorities or researchers documented the results of the investments. What were their methods, and how did they frame their results as issues of cause and effects, motivations and intentions.

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