Countries Pursue Different Paths to Mastering Technology

High school students in Montevideo, Uruguay, work together on a laptop computer provided by the Plan Ceibal project, a national initiative that aims to put a mobile computing device in the hands of every student. The Latin American nation has been dedicated to the program as a social initiative as much as an educational one.

—Miguel Rojo/AFP/Getty Images-File

Global lessons learned at ed-tech conference

By Ian Quillen

In Uruguay, the second phase of a national 1-to-1 laptop-computing initiative is under way, boosting the number of such computers in student hands to 520,000 in grades 1-9.

In the Netherlands, the government-funded Kennisnet Foundation has evolved from a department within the nation’s Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science into an independent organization with nearly 150 employees embedded in the school system.

And in Ireland, public-private partnerships are in vogue as the nation follows dictates from the European Union that educators stress not only how to use technology, but how...