ABSTRACT
The Education and Human Development Committee was established with the reorganisation of the then Social Science Research Council in May 1982. In 1984 the Council changed its name to the Economic and Social Research Council. Early in 1983 the Committee identified and circulated for discusion an initial listing of important topics which warranted expanded support or accelerated development. The broad area of Information Technology in Education occupied a prominent place in that list. The Committee emphasised its intention that research would be centred, not only on the effect on education of machines to help teach the existing curriculum, but on the development and adaptation of the curriculum to equip people, including those of school age, to deal with intelligent machines, and to prepare them for a life changed by their arrival. For example, there are questions concerning both cognitive and organisational factors which facilitate or inhibit the adoption of Information Technology in Education, and allied to these, questions around the nature, characteristics and development of information technology literacy. These initial topics remain central to the Committee's projected agenda.
