Internetworking: coordinating technology for systemic reform

E ducators and citizens across the U. S. are reforming our educational system. Government agencies, professional societies, community groups, and industry are inw)lved in reform efforts at national, '.state, and local levels in an attempt to raise the quality and equity of education. This educational system is a decentralized collection of not only organizational entities (such as 15,400 local school districts, 83,000 public elementary and secondary schools, 26,800 private schools, 3,500 colleges and universities, 50 state education agencies and higher-education authorities, federal agencies and programs, private sector providers of products and services, professional societies) but also thousands of policies, procedures, formal and informal practices, expectations, and interrelationships. There is increasing recognition that for reforms to be effective they must address more than improvements in individual components or characteristics of curriculum, teacher development, classroom management, instructional delivery, or testing. While there is some agreement that the nature of the overall educational system needs to change, there does not exist a centralized authority that could or should engineer and deploy this total system. Even within individual school districts there are diverse initiatives for change and improvement. Different groups are motivated in these efforts by different constellations of drivers or perceived changes in society, economy, and technology. Some of these drivers include new understandings of how people learn (e.g., actively, const.ructively, collaboratively, contextual, multisensory); increasing interdependence of science and technology; demographic changes; the accelerating pace of change; new linkages between knowledge production, teaching, and learning; changing nature of the world economic system; increasing complexity of problems and interdisciplinary challenges; new opportunities afforded by technological advances, especially in computer and communications systems; and changing roles of schooling in affording equity of opportunity in a democratic society. Can a more appropriate, responsive, and effective educational system emerge from these diverse efforts at innovation and reform? How can many separate initiatives advance the quality and effectiveness of learning and teaching for all? How can individuals and groups identify, link with, contribute to, and build on each others' work? An increasing number of educators and technologists believe that computer and communications technologies can provide a vehicle, or mechanism, to help facilitate the evolution of a new system. This article focuses on two main ideas. First, new models of learning and teaching are made possible by the assumption that learners and teachers as individuals and groups can interact with geographically and institutionally distributed human and information resources. Second, application of the concepts and technology of internetworking may make it possible for separate reform efforts of diverse groups and individuals to contribute to the building of a new educational system providing more accessible, higher-quality learning opportunities for everyone.