After all, our business leaders have all been through the system and hold opinions based on direct experience. Given opportunity and encouragement, they participate fully in the intellectual debate concerning the role of education in our culture. The tragedy is that we have not found the means to bring their collective knowledge and expertise to bear on the educational problems confronting our society. The issue of timing involves educators, publishers and technologists in an intricate dance of mutual dependence. We shall return to these interconnections in the course of this series, but it will suffice at this time to point out that qualitative issues may render quantitative measures of the value of educational technology relatively meaningless.
Quality depends on timing.
For example, if the economy requires consolidation, innovation can be extremely disruptive. The focus must be on what reform is needed and how productive change will take place. The role of information technology as change agent is complex and far-reaching. The digital medium solves certain problems brought on by the information age, but it also introduces new ones. We must, of course, be alert to the consequences of unintended side-effects as the learning environment is transformed.