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514 Annals Am. Acad. Pol. & Soc. Sci. 9 (1991)

handle is hein.cow/anamacp0514 and id is 1 raw text is: PREFACE Exploiting our technological capabilities to improve access to and opportu- nities for learning involves many players: educational practitioners and institutions, cognitive and social scientists, technology developers and pro- viders, and policymakers, to name a few. A number of such players are represented in this volume on teledistant learning. Earlier discussions and debate about telecommunications and education tended to focus on questions like: Can it work? Is distance learning better than traditional learning? Today's questions have gone well beyond these. Current discussions about the merits, or lack thereof, of telecommunica- tions in education are moot. Telecommunications is a fact of life, and educa- tion needs all the help it can get. Electronically mediated experiences per- meate the lives of all Americans, whether it is the telephone, the radio, the television set, the Walkman, the fax machine, the word processor, or the calculator. Electronically mediated learning experiences are, and increas- ingly will be, a regular feature of our youngsters' world. The question we face in educating is not whether these experiences should be part of the process but, rather, how to make intelligent use of them to best serve the needs of our youngsters and our society. As Carey points out in the opening article, the important emphasis must be on the service to be provided, not on the tech- nology that provides it. The message from the trenches is clear: people can create electronically mediated learning environments and make them work. Not only are systems working, but with experience and fine tuning, they are getting better and better. Some of the beneficiaries are identified in the articles in this volume: Wohlert describes high school students learning a foreign language; Moses et al. detail an Indonesian program to update professional skills for teachers. Scientists and engineers complete master's-degree programs in a longstand- ing and highly effective collaboration described by Baldwin; Bruce et al. illustrate approaches to providing necessary training to employees in high- tech industries. What we see today could expand greatly. The same technological highways that offer courses to students can offer in-service and professional develop- ment for teachers and training for business and industry. We can use these resources to address some of our most pressing national needs, such as improved math, science, literacy, and foreign language skills. As Lambert points out, distance learning provides a natural environment for experimen- tation in each curricular area that carries a national priority. Technology- mediated environments could support many different kinds of learner, what Ohler calls the many faces of Becky. 9