Realizing the Internet’s Educational Potential

Internet access is increasingly widespread in primary and secondary schools around the world, just as it is in society at large. Ninety-nine percent of public schools in the United States had internet access by 2001, as did 87% of their classrooms (National Center for Education Statistics, 2001).Many other countries, including Australia, Canada, England, Finland, Iceland, New Zealand, Singapore, and Wales, also have very high levels of school internet access and numerous others, including Korea and Israel, have more modest but still substantial levels of access (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2002a; Pelgrum & Anderson, 2001). Indeed, the development of the idea of virtual schools and the growth in the availability of distance education opportunities (E-defining education, 2002; Orange & Hobbs, 2000; Trotter, 2002; Virtual Schools Forum Report, 2002; Zehr, 1997; Zucker & Kozma, with Yarnall, Marder & Associates, 2003) have begun to challenge the very notion of a school as a specific geographic place in which teachers and students congregate for the purpose of teaching and learning. Furthermore, the growing popularity of laptop computers and hand-held computing devices and the increasing presence of the internet at home, work and in other settings have also blurred the boundaries between schools and other places by facilitating rapid communication and collaboration between those who are not in the same location at the same time (Kozma & Shank, 1998).

Internet access has grown so quickly in schools because it is seen as a way of substantially, even dramatically, improving students’ education. Countries around the world have set national goals and policies reflecting the belief that the use of this information and communication technology will improve their school systems (Jones, 2003; Pelgrum & Anderson, 2001; Plomp et al., 2003). Consistent with glowing, sometimes utopian, predictions made about the impact of other earlier computer applications (Kling, 1994), expectations tend to be very high. For example, Mambretti (1999: 17) argues that “Not since the invention of movable type and the printing press has a technology held such potential for transforming the learning process… the internet is a revolutionary technology that is bound to change every aspect of society and, in particular, the education system”. Similarly, Carlitz (1991: 26) asserts that the internet “has the potential to become the foundation on which all educational programs and material are developed and distributed”.