ABSTRACT
At the NIOC, the Dutch national conference on informatics and education, held in Maastricht in May 1990, a 17-year-old schoolboy was awarded an important essay prize for his vision on IT education in the year 2000. The jury was amazed by the outstanding quality of the teenager's science-fiction story. It was the only entry that had prize-winning qualities. And this among all the other entries written by academics and teachers! Was the lack of vision on the role of IT in our future education observed by the jury just a mischance? Or is it an indication of a more serious lack of ideas on the future possibilities of educational technology among educators? To those expecting a straightforward optimistic story about results achieved and positive prospects, this opening story with its possibly gloomy implications will be surprising. However, I believe that there are exciting possibilities ahead and ways in which we can build on what has already been achieved. In this chapter I will analyse the past development of History CAL and suggest ways in which it might develop in the 1990s and beyond.
