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ABSTRACT The aim of the British Government's National Grid for Learning policy is to harness the power of information and communications technology (ICT) in order to create a `curriculum without walls; where the riches of the world's intellectual, cultural and scientific heritage are available to all. Central to this vision are the assumptions that: all pupils will in the future have appropriate access to computers at home and at school; that there is a common conception between home and school as to what actually constitutes learning. In this paper the authors draw on preliminary findings from a 2 year study of how young people actually utilise ICT at home and at school to raise important questions about the realisation of the Government's policy objectives.
INTRODUCTION
Because information can be distributed virtually free over the Internet, the Grid will open up learning to the individual and take it beyond the confines of institutional walls... . In this way the Grid will make available to all learners the riches of the world's intellectual, cultural and scientific heritage. (Department for Education and Employment (DfEE), 1997, p. 5)
Predicting the future, in education or any other field, is always a dangerous game. More often than not, those who speak out most confidently are those who end up with the greatest amount of egg on their faces. Yet even the most cautious amongst us would probably agree that whatever shape the curriculum of the future takes, information and communications technologies (ICT) will be central. As a result, harnessing the potential of ICT for learning is seen as a key policy issue by numerous governments around the world (see for example US Department of Education, 1996; Korea Multimedia Education Centre, 1997;
Malaysian Ministry of Education, 1997; Singapore Ministry of Education, 1998; Ruttgers, 1996).
The National Grid for Learning (NGfL) is the UK Government's particular version of this `future visioning'. Conceived and launched in a consultation paper by the Labour government within months of coming into office in 1997, the new policy was designed to capture the popular imagination with its democratic vision of using the Internet to open up a new curriculum where the `riches of the world' would be available to everyone.
In its various policy documents (DfEE, 1997,...