1995: World Wide Web home page from Arbor Heights Elementary School

Lakeside doesn’t know how many messages each student sends, and it doesn’t know what the messages are about. Some e‑mail relates to school studies and activities, but doubtless a lot of it, including much of Lakeside’s traffic on the Internet, concerns students’ outside interests. Lakeside doesn’t view this as an abuse of the electronic mail system, but as another way to learn.

A number of secondary school students, like those at New York’s P.S. 125, are discovering how the long‑distance access afforded by computer networks can help them learn from students from other cultures, and participate in discussions all over the world. Many classrooms, in different states and countries, are already linking up in what are sometimes called “learning circles.” The purpose of most learning circles is to let students study a specific topic, in collaboration with faraway counterparts. In 1989, as the Berlin Wall was falling, West German students were able to discuss the event with their contemporaries in other countries. One learning circle that was studying the whaling industry included Alaskan Inuit students, whose Eskimo villages still depend on whales for food. Students outside the village got so interested, they invited an Inuit tribal elder to their class for a learning circle discussion.

One ambitious plan for students using computer networks is the GLOBE Project, an initiative pushed by Vice President Al Gore. GLOBE stands for GlobalLearning andObservations toBenefit theEnvironment. The hope is that it will be funded by a variety of governments as well as by private contributions. It would ask grade‑schoolers to collaborate internationally on collecting scientific information about Earth. Children would routinely collect statistics, such as temperature and rainfall, and relay them across the Internet and satellites to a central database at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Maryland, where the information would be used to create composite

pictures of the planet. The composites would be relayed back to the students, as well as to scientists and the general public. No one knows how much scientific value the data would have, especially the data collected by the very young, but gathering the facts and seeing the composite pictures would be a fine way for large numbers of children from many nations to learn about global cooperation, communication, and environmental issues.

1995: World Wide Web home page from the University of Connecticut, featuring archeological resources drawn from many sources

The highway’s educational possibilities will also be open to the world’s unofficial students. People anywhere will be able to take the best courses taught by great teachers. The highway will make adult education, including job training and career‑enhancement courses, more readily available.

A lot of parents, professionals, and community or political leaders will have the opportunity to participate in the teaching process, even if only for an hour here or there. It will be practical, inexpensive, and, I think, commonplace for knowledgeable guests to lead or join discussions, via videoconferences, from their homes or offices.

Having students connected directly to limitless information and to each other will raise policy questions for schools and for society at large. I discussed the issue of regulation of the Internet. Will students routinely be allowed to bring their portable PCs with them into every classroom? Will they be allowed to explore independently during group discussions? If so, how much freedom should they have? Should they be able to look up a word they don’t understand? Should they have access to information that their parents find objectionable on moral, social, or political grounds? Be allowed to do homework for an unrelated class? Be permitted to send notes to each other during class? Should the teacher be able to monitor what is on every student’s screen or to record it for later spot‑checking?

Whatever problems direct access to unlimited information may cause, the benefits it will bring will more than compensate. I enjoyed school but I pursued my strongest interests outside the classroom. I can only imagine how access to this much information would have changed my own school experience. The highway will alter the focus of education from the institution to the individual. The ultimate goal will be changed from getting a diploma to enjoying lifelong learning.