Information Technology in the Netherlands: From Project Initiation to Total School Commitment

In this session we will examine the process of implementation of technologies into school practice in The Netherlands. Inparticular, we focus on the progression from treating technology as a "special project" to the position in which technology becomesintegrated into the everyday life of the school and teacher. We examine this progression from different perspectives: that of thenational leadership to stimulate new technologies in education, that of the educational software developer, that of the teachertrainer, that of the curriculum developer, and a perspective involving one of the new technologies itself telecommunications. Ineach case we see an evolution from well-planned central support of a "special project" toward systemwide integration and school-based initiatives. The examples we consider include those mentioned briefly in the Spotlight Session, "Going Dutch, By Satellite." In that session, the intention was simply to give an overview of activities in The Netherlands. The purpose of this session is to lookmore reflectively on the evolution of our experiences