One of the conclusions was that indeed, large reforms (e.g., “Het nieuwe leren”, or the new learning) were imposed without scientific support. Another that political prejudices, not any kind of data, were the main motivating factor in the reforms.
Sadly, I think this is true of most educational reforms - ICT or not.
The alternative, assessing educational reforms well before introduction, is a form of social engineering. Social engineering seems to always be more difficult than you think. And I think history has shown that education is no exception in this respect.
whose tests? and what is being tested? and why do tests have to be the only metric of success?
The curriculum is obsessed with jargon and nomenclature, seemingly for no other purpose than to provide teachers with something to test the students on.
I would probably argue that having tests which match the curriculum is a GOOD thing. However, in this case it seems that the problem is the curriculum. So reform does not always begin with the assessment, or with the ICT.
If we want to test whether changes in education really improve learning, we do have other tools. They are called aptitude tests.
A YouGov poll has suggested that computer games can damage children's ability to communicate, but Tom Chatfield argues that gaming imparts a range of new, vitally important skills
Having just gone through one of those start-of-the-year induction programs at school this article was particularly relevant. If I see another YouTube video telling me that the jobs students are going to have haven't been created yet I'm going to scream!