A breakthrough has come in the form of the Internet and networking technologies. The Internet, particularly the World-Wide Web, has become more than a source for retrieving archived information; it has become the medium that connects scattered people and resources together.
In many ways, the Internet's strength lies in its decentralized nature. The Internet is the ultimate distributed network, linking users and institutions of all kinds’ together, allowing interactions of all kinds to occur. Thus just as computer lessons can provide individualized instruction and feedback, the Internet can become the communications vehicle that both liberates and ties learners together, including students and teachers, into coherent learning communities.
Through its powerful communications and information-access capabilities, the Internet can be part of the glue that keeps people connected-talking with each other, noticing and appreciating differences, working out divergent views, and serving as role models and audiences for one another. The education future portended by the Internet, therefore, is not isolated, individually tailored to each child; rather, it is a community-centered future that accommodates the individual through the workings of the larger community.
Access to multiple sources of information becomes critical for the success of a learning community. Students look to teachers as role models for reasoning more than as information dispensers; thus students can come to respect the teacher's opinion without depending exclusively upon it. In many ways, the vitality of a learning community depends upon the quality of the information available to it.
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