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5




            LOCAL VARIATIONS IN

            EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY
            PROVISION AND PRACTICE














            Introduction

            The past two chapters have depicted educational technology as a rather standardised
            ‘top-down’ affair. The totalising policy discourses of national governments and the
            grand gestures of international organisations certainly convey a confident sense of
            what educational technology should be. Yet it is important to remember that all
            of the activities, agendas, programmes and policies described in Chapters 3 and 4 bear
            little resemblance to the rather ‘messier’ realities of digital technology use in ‘real-life’
            educational settings. The persuasive discourses of ‘twenty-first-century skills’ and
            ‘intelligent islands’ should be seen as idealistic rather than realistic depictions of
            educational technology – informed by politically driven desires and produced to
            promote particular sets of values. As David Nye (2007, p.35) reflects, such policies
            and programmes “are in essence little narratives about the future. They are not
            [necessarily] full-scale narratives of utopia, but they are usually presented as stories
            about a better world to come”.
              All of the agendas, strategies and visions reviewed up to this point in the book
            provide only a partial reading of educational technology use around the world.
            It would be unwise to ascribe any particular ‘effect’ or ‘impact’ to these programmes
            and policies – especially in terms of how digital technologies are actually used ‘on
            the ground’ by individuals and institutions whose interests and experiences may be
            far removed from the interests and experiences of national policymakers or inter-
            national organisations. As was argued in Chapter 4, education technology policies
            are in many ways not intended to result in significant realignments of education
            provision or practice per se. Indeed, it could be reasoned that many education policy
            drives are little more than symbolic interventions on the part of governments – a
            means for states to maintain legitimacy in terms of their governance of national
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