Often great faith is given to the use of digital technologies to facilitate and transform teaching and learning in primary and secondary schools. Especially prominent are such a belief in various policy papers on a wide international level of supranational organizations such as the United Nations, OECD, or the European Union (Egea, 2014; Scheurmann & Pedro, 2009, Bassi, 201; cf. OECD 2015;) as well as at national levels (eg. Akcaoglu, 2015). Policy documents often mention digital technologies in terms of their ability and potential to improve and transform educational activities. Such statements can both be seen as part of a political rhetoric in order to push for change, as well as a belief that such claims are reasonable.

Expressions of the reasonable to include digital technology and the use of IT in schools' activities appear in the various trans-national studies that aim to create a picture of the use of digital technologies various European countries. Several such studies have been conducted in recent years (cf. OECD, 2015; Fredriksson, Gajek & Jedeskog, 2009; Blamire, 2009). Many of these studies have the aim to create a form of benchmarking process on the use of digital technologies in schools. The rhetoric of how digital technology can transform teaching and learning is also stressed by private operators offering services that in a simple way seems to be able to solve schools' problems with the use of digital technology and related applications (see eg. Grimaldi, 2013).

However, educational contexts are complex and multidimensional. With scarce financial and human resources, teachers and other school staff is to deal with a variety of requirements, goals and expectations that are not always compatible with each other. In addition, a variety of complex relationships and positions as well as norms, traditions and values ​​of what teaching and learning is and should be, and how it ought to take shape. According to Säljö (2010) research focusing the uptake and use of digital technologies in schools are not always clear and seldom indicate success (e.g. Hammond, 2013; Krange & Ludvigsen, 2009). The outcomes are far from straightforward when digital technologies are introduced either in general or in specific subjects or contexts of learning.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and discuss differences in how digital technology is expected to be used for learning in schools in, on one hand, various policy documents and, on the other hand, the use that is reported in evaluations and research. In that sense, evaluations are seen as evaluations-as-policy, rather than ‘objectice’ search for knowledge. 

The theoretical framework in use is arenas Curriculum Theory and in particular the negotiations and renegotiations that constructs and constitutes the formulation and realisation arenas as well as possible re-formulation arenas (Lindensjö & Lundgren, 2000). The analysis focuses documents and policy-statements made on the policy arena, but also evaluations that are seen as extensions of the policymaking processes.

Akcaoglu, M., Gumus, S., Sukru Bellibas, M. & Boyer, D. M. (2015) Policy, practice, and reality: exploring a nation-wide technology implementation in Turkish schools, Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 24(4), 477-491, Bassi, R. (2011). ICTs in Education. Policies and plans worldwide. Version 8. Available: http://www.gesci.org/policy.html. Blamire, R. (2009). ICT impact data at primary school level: the STEPS approach. In F. Scheuermann & F. Pedró (Eds.) Assessing the effects of ICT in education. Indicators, criteria and benchmarks for international comparisons. European Commission — Joint Research Centre. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Convery, A. 2009. The pedagogy of the impressed. How teachers become victims of technological visions. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice 15(1): 25–41. Denzin, N.K. & Lincoln, Y.S. (eds.) (2005). The Sage handbook of qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage. Egea, O. M. (2014) Neoliberalism, education and the integration of ICT in schools. A critical reading, Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 23(2), 267–283, Fredriksson, U., Gajek, E., & Jedeskog, G. (2009). Ways to use ICT in schools to optimize the impact on teaching and learning. Acta Didactica Napocensia, 2(4), Fullan, M., Hill, P., & Crévola, C. (2006). Breakthrough. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Grimaldi, E. (2013). Old and New Markets in Education: austerity, standards and ICT as pushes towards privatisation(s) in Italy. European Educational Research Journal, 12(4), 425-446. Hammond, M (2014). Introducing ICT in schools in England: Rationale and consequences, British Journal of Educational Technology, 45(2), 191-201. Krange, I., & Ludvigsen, S. (2009). The historical and situated nature of design experiments – implications for data analysis. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 25, 268–279. Lindensjö, B. & Lundgren, U.P. (2000). [Educational Reforms and political Governance]. Stockholm: HLS förlag. OECD (2015), Students, Computers and Learning: Making the Connection, PISA, OECD Publishing. Scheuermann, F., & Pedró F. (Eds.) (2009). Assessing the effects of ICT in education. Indicators, criteria and benchmarks for international comparisons. European Commission. Luxembourg: Publications Office European Union. Säljö, R. (2010). Digital tools and challenges to institutional traditions of learning: technologies, social memory and the performative nature of learning. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 26, 53–64. Tondeur, J., van Braak, J. & Valcke, M. (2007). Curricula and the use of ICT in education, British Journal of Educational Technology, 38(6), 962–976.