NEW TECHNOLOGIES: MIRAGE OR MIRACLE?
	The arrival of new information and communications technologies (ICTs) was heralded as a revolution for the world of learning and fired the hopes of many. But have ICTs fulfilled their promise of better and cheaper education for more students? Focus, a four-page dossier, reports.

Edito - I once found a series of quotations about the impact of technology on education that I still find illuminating. The claims began in 1841 with the statement that “the inventor or introducer of the blackboard deserves to be ranked among the best contributors to learning and science, if not among the greatest benefactors of mankind”. Next came the statement in 1940 that “the motion picture is the most revolutionary instrument introduced into education since the printing press”. By 1957, however, another author could write that “it now seems clear, however, that television offers the greatest opportunity for the advancement of education since the introduction of printing by moveable type”.

The next pundit ignored all that, claiming in 1962 that “programmed learning is the first major technological innovation in education since the invention of printing”. By then computers had arrived on the scene, giving rise to the comment, in 1967, that “the impact of computers on society, and hence on education, has been compared to that of moveable type and the printing press since Gutenberg”. Finally – although I expect that the future will see plenty more hype as newer technologies appear – a conference in 2000 made the observation that “Internet and communication technologies are revolutionizing the format and delivery of education”.

Juxtaposing these claims with the development of education over the past century inspires three comments.

First, it is clearly not easy to create an educational revolution. Despite all these supposedly revolutionary innovations we see evolution, not revolution.

Second, it is significant that four of these six quotations do not refer back to the previous innovation but to the invention of printing. It seems that the development of printing did stimulate a real revolution in education, although its effects operated over many centuries.

Third, whilst expecting any single technology magically to transform education is a chimera, we should not despair of the general potential of technology to improve education. The example of the large multi-media distance-teaching universities – the mega-universities that now exist in many countries shows that the judicious use and blending of technologies can simultaneously broaden access to education, improve its quality and lower the cost.Indeed, some might actually call that a revolution!

John Daniel
Assistant Director-General for Education