ABSTRACT
Over the last thirty years, it has been argued regularly that the introduction of computers and information technology into schools would lead to developments and changes in the world of education as least as dramatic as the impact which had occurred in the world of work. For the last twenty years, the UK has been in the vanguard of the technological revolution in educational computing, but few would argue that the early utopian claims have been realised. Rather, most commentators agree that the computer has failed to permeate effectively into the school setting: ‘The UK has a higher ratio of computers per schoolchild than almost any other country, including the US. Yet despite this lead and the fact that Information Technology has been on the agenda for almost thirty years, it is not clear that IT has made a significant impact on educational standards . . .’ (Lovegrove and Wilshire 1997: 1). In recent years, computers have become a familiar feature of many UK homes and 5 million home computers were purchased between 1989 and 1997 representing 22 per cent of UK households (Lovegrove and Wilshire 1997: 1-2). This represents a significant foundation of technology from which to build.
