This submission is based on research with a multi-sited design that targets and compares learning, interaction and outcomes. In it we discuss the challenges of doing research based evaluation of digitally innovative online learning. Empirically the article takes its point of departure from the main findings from research in four upper secondary schools in a 1:1 project (one laptop per student) and four classrooms that are part of the empirical study. Bernstein’s theoretical concept of the pedagogic discourse is used to make visible how the main incentive for teaching methods is the assessment system that recontextualises traditional discourses about teaching and learning. The conclusion is that fundamental transformations of education is less about technology and more about the changing of the structures and discourses about teaching, learning and education.