No abstract

The European e-Learning Forum for Education (ELFE) is a project initiated by the ETUCE (European Trade Union Committee on Education). An important objective of the project has been to study good experiences with implementing the use of ICT in schools. This objective has been broken down in seven operational research questions. Three of these questions will be discussed in this article: (1) What difference does the use of ICT make in schools where ICT is intensively used for instructional/pedagogical purposes? (2) How are the students influenced by this different way of teaching as compared to the traditional classroom education, both individually and as a collective? 3) What factors influence the intensive pedagogical use of ICT? The ELFE study applied a case study approach. Three innovative schools in each of five European countries (Denmark, England, Germany, Norway and Portugal) were purposively selected. Data were collected via questionnaires, interviews, observations and school documents. The findings resulting from the ELFE schools case studies illustrate that the implementation of ICT for teaching and learning may influence the functioning of schools in a number of ways. One can also conclude that students like working with computers and that they have no 'instrumental' problems. A number of factors seem to influence the successful implementation of ICT at school level such as a good infrastructure, a clear vision, policy and strategy. A crucial factor is support from national, regional and local authorities, as well as from the school leadership and parents.

For over twenty years government initiatives have promoted the use of computer/ICT in Swedish schools. This paper, based on national evaluations, briefly describes experiences about these processes, from 1984 to 2004. Discussed are the actors, from outside the school arena, who sat in motion the campaigns and processes at both macro and micro levels. It is concluded that the involvement of teachers at an early stage and a combination of time, technology and the culture of schools are basic conditions for a successful innovation of ICT in school.

This article is focused on Swedish folk high schools and study associations as organisational settings (and not explicitly at teaching efforts and educational activities). It concerns results from a research project about introducing and implementing information and communication technology (ICT) in these value based organisations. Our research has mainly been conducted through interviews with people engaged on different organisational levels. In this article empirical results are analysed in relation to actor-network theory (ANT). Human and non-human actors are linked together in a web of relationships referred to as an actor-network. Interaction among actors, contradictory roles of ICT and relations to essential values in these organisations are discussed.