The Emperor’s new clothes? A meta-study of education technology policies in Ireland, North and South (1996–2006)

In this paper, we asked whether or not it matters if policy direction for embedding digital technology in education is aligned with the locus of control of curriculum reform and of teachers’ professional development. We created a simple control:choice framework with which to analyse and compare approaches to education technology policy and the interaction of technology with curriculum and professional development in Northern Ireland and in the south of Ireland. While we expected to find harmony between technology provision and educational change, we did not discover it. We concluded that different approaches are not necessarily at odds and their interplay is more complex.