Some of these changes are already underway. The ability to retrieve information from anywhere or to communicate with anyone on the Internet amplifies the information, interactions, and computing power available to teachers and students. This phenomenon makes computers especially useful for research. Previously, students would go to the library to find out about what crops are grown in a particular foreign country. Now, they can get those facts and many more in the same amount of time on the Internet.
Computers are more than just information retrieval devices.
They are also tools to help us communicate and think more effectively. Harnessing this power calls for new ways of examining how computers can help us learn. Classroom software today has not yet reached its potential to fill these needs. Today's computers can offer exercises that teachers cannot provide, or that would be prohibitively expensive to make available on an individual basis. This approach was developed by research groups headed by Dr. Paula Tallal at Rutgers University and Dr. Michael Merzenich at the University of California at San Francisco.