20 Years of Computers and Informatics in Austria’s Secondary Academic Schools

Abstract

The way in which Austrian schools have reacted to the needs of a growing digital society has been, all things considered, a success story. This is remarkable as schools in general are not necessarily places where excessive progress takes place. Many teachers are rather conservative and not willing to take part in every new promising development unless they are fully convinced of its benefits. This applies especially to teachers who are now confronted with introducing new technologies. Unlike the more or less established subject Informatics, the overall penetration of information technology in education is still at the beginning. We have to remember that the present situation has not appeared from nowhere, but has to be seen as a result of a comparatively short, but all the more turbulent history with roots already in the seventies. The official start for the subject Informatics in the secondary academic schools in Austria (AHS) can be dated back to 1985 when all these schools have been equipped with computers for the first time. “History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this” is a quotation from Karl Marx and can be applied very well to the development of Informatics in Austrian general educating schools. Even if the visible changes in hardware, software and curricula are remarkable enough it should be pointed out that this short history was a history of people behind these developments, enthusiastic teachers as well as responsible policy makers in that field.