Educational policy aims are very ambitious: from pre-school to lifelong learning they demand improvements in both quantity and quality. These demands have wide-ranging effects on teaching workloads. It is difficult to achieve these aims effectively without rethinking our approach to teaching and learning. Our essentially nineteenth-century model of educational institutions does not scale up to the requirements of a twenty-first century society. Despite their potential to contribute to a rethink, digital technologies have usually been used in a technology-driven way to upgrade our existing educational models. There is an alternative: an education-driven approach to the use of digital technologies to achieve our ambitions for education.

Table of Contents:

Introduction; Education Policy Ambitions; The Learner’s Point of View; How Might Technology Help?; Examples of Technology Supporting Learner’s Needs; A Theoretical Approach to Challenging the Technology; What Does it Take to Learn?; What Can Technology Offer?; A Policy-Driven Strategy for Technology; The Role of the Teaching Profession; Teaching Professionals As Agents of Change; Teachers as Learning Technology Innovators; Concluding Points: Getting From Here to a Desirable There; References.