Evaluating Cultural and Technical Obstacles in School-Based ICT Programs: An Analysis of Two Case Studies

The emergence of a knowledge-based economy has been identified as a central trend in modern econo-mies as a result of the increasingly important role of information technology and learning in economic performance. In recognition of this most governments throughout the developed world have responded with a series of policy initiatives since the late 1990’s to either introduce or significantly increase infor-mation technology provision in schools to prepare students for life in the twenty first century. Ireland, with its growing reliance on the knowledge economy sector for employment and continued economic prosperity, developed its own policy initiative for computerizing the nations ’ schools known as “Schools IT 2000: A Policy Framework for the New Millennium”. It was an ambitious programme with high ex-pectations for the integration of ICT (Information and Communications Technology) in education. This paper examines two longitudinal educational ICT projects in Ireland in the first decade of the new millen-nium to query how far schools have travelled along the information superhighway and to ponder how well the catalytic capabilities of ICT have become embedded in the realities of classroom life and teachers pe-dagogic practices, with attendant implications for Ireland’s economic development