Assessment provides larger amounts of feedback to students, allowing them to improve their performance continuously, rather than simply to judge performance at some arbitrary ending point. Learning is being analyzed in a more integrated fashion through increasingly larger constellations of skills and abilities. This parallels changes in curriculum and instructional techniques. In the new vision of education, technology is an integral component. Technology is used to provide basic skills support, interface with information sources outside of the school, support individual student creativity, manage information about student performance and achievement, assist teachers in their dual roles as instructors and clerks, and provide students with greater control over their own learning.
Technology is almost an icon in some school restructuring plans.
In other settings, technology is emerging as an extension of the interaction between teacher and student. Learning environments are being redefined. All the structural boundaries of the current model are being challenged. Students are staying with the same teacher or group of teachers for extended periods of time, within the day, the school year, and from year to year, in both elementary and secondary schools. Multiage groupings of varying combinations, in which learners can proceed at developmentally appropriate paces and can serve as tutors for one another, are proliferating.