I agree with the comments made by Mark about the structure, government funding and evaluation models. The social, political and economic factors will have a grave impact on the trends and directions in technology as pointed by Nancy and George too.

In Singapore, most if not all the educational institutions are under the Ministry of Education. The policies are set by them and what can be done is also governed by the funding that the government allocates from the whole budget for the country.
If there is no money, as mentioned by Mark about the United States suffering budget cuts, then schools will examine their cost and benefit analysis as to whether the cost of teachers, or online courseware will be used in the delivery of classes.
Further, if the country is in a debt crisis, it cannot invest in the information communication infrastructure to allow such technology to be delivered. This can be seen in the underdeveloped countries where we see a digital divide. They are concerned about their next meal and staying alive. No handphones or computers in possession to communicate.
Fortunately, our government values education and technology in keeping us ahead of the competition and has drawn up policies like IN2015 and provided a big budget for information communication technology development. We have the Future Schools project for selected Primary and Secondary Schools to try out the technology for education. The tertiary institutions are also heavily invested in information technology for research and development for educational purposes.
For instance, when we had the SARs incident, all schools were closed for 3 days. Therefore, classes via the information technology was a great help.
Singapore is a very small country with a population of about 4-6 million and having all households fitted with broadband width becomes more manageable. However, due to our small size and proximity for students to schools, it makes it less palatable for students to receive lessons through e-learning. A big investment has been made in building schools and technology to make teaching and learning more interesting, efficient and effective.
In Singapore, the number of handphones and sms have been increasing tremendously because of the decreasing costs of owning and using a handphone. Places where it is costly to sms e.g. USA, the rate of sms use is much less.
Some of the trends that we discussed are also driven by external forces and we are therefore pulled along to stay ahead.
It will take some time, innovation and ease of use of technology and costs, for some of the trends to be realised. Although most of it as mentioned above are becoming quite visible as information technology devises and applications become much more user friendly and affordable.

People of different ages also adapt to information communication technology take on to it at different rates.
Our government plays a critical role in tapping on technology to advance the country’s progress. They are serious about it and does provide funding and measures to achieve the policies stated in the Future of Singapore in 2015.

Best regards,

Dorene