And I'm excited about synthetic environments that allow people to step outside of the real world and into a virtual universe for a while, as a way of getting some insights on the real world. If we use information infrastructures for that kind of thing, we'll see where the true power is. Access to information seems to be one of the big selling points of the information superhighway idea. You have some doubts about how useful this is to schools, though. Classrooms right now are not information-poor environments.
Many teachers feel overwhelmed by how much information they're already supposed to convey.
If anything, the curriculum is too crowded now. We teach a wide array of things very superficially through presentation, which we then have to reteach a couple of years later because students don't remember it. If the purpose of the Internet is seen as adding more information, it will make current educational problems worse rather than better. Again, the question of whether this access to information that technology affords us is a good thing depends on what model of teaching and learning we're striving for. We've found that learner investigation and collaboration and construction of knowledge are vital, and these things don't follow from teaching by telling and learning by listening.