At the recent hui for the National Aspiring Principals Progamme (NAPP) I had an opportunity to reflect on the history of the adoption of ICTs in New Zealand schools and the significance of this for school leaders and aspiring principals. When we are in the midst of such rapid change we sometimes lose sight of the bigger picture and some of the things that have happened which in turn set the scene for where we are now. These sorts of understandings can be very important for us to be able then to chart some sort of trajectory for the future.

Over the past twelve months it’s been my pleasure to work with my CORE colleague, Dr Vince Ham, to bring together the thoughts and reflections of more than 20 New Zealand educators who have been at the fore-front of the ICT revolution in this country into an edited edition that we’ve called eLearnings: implementing a national strategy for ICT in Education, 1998–2010.

Few countries in the world have embarked on such an ambitious approach to a national ICT strategy for schools as New Zealand. This book archives the impact and implementation of the national ICT strategy in New Zealand, 1998-2010, from the perspectives of the people who effected that implementation. It is a story of both policy initiative from the ‘top down’ and local innovation ‘from the bottom up’, as seen through the eyes of some of the politicians, bureaucrats, industry partners, consultants, principals and teachers who lived the experience.

The book contains a collection of ‘personal perspectives’ from people who have been prominently and intimately involved in the implementation of the various Strategies over the last twelve years.

We officially launched the book at the recent Learning@School conference in Rotorua, however, the CHCH earthquake left the bulk of the books available sitting in our building in the central city which has been out of bounds – apart from the small window of opportunity we had to go in and rescue some essential items. I’m pleased to say that we did manage to retrieve just a few boxes and these are now available for sale via the CORE website.

I encourage anyone with an interest in understanding more of the context of change in the NZ schools and early childhood centres to read this collection of accounts that provide an excellent historical overview as well as some indications of where we might be headed in the future.