Computer information technology is creating a revolution in today's schools. The typical classroom in the early 21st century will be linked to the information superhighway, which facilitates access to educational resources around the globe. Social interaction between and among students, teachers, parents, schools, and communities will undergo significant changes. As a result, the educational profession is finding itself challenged as never before to meet the demands of the information age.
Connecting all of America's public elementary and secondary schools to the information superhighway requires strong leadership, foresight, and perseverance. The technology and infrastructure exist for this goal and cost is not a significant factor in its achievement. Evans et al. (1996) estimate that about 1.3 percent of the nation's K-12 public school budget is currently spent on computing resources and that connecting schools to the information superhighway would represent less than 4 percent of future budgets, even during peak years of spending (p. 1). The challenge comes in setting priorities, sharing visions, ensuring that the teaching staff has the appropriate training and confidence, and obtaining quality computer-related curriculum materials. Time is a significant factor in this respect. Bringing all the nation's schools online is a multiyear process that will take perhaps as long as a decade to complete. Enough flexibility must be instilled in the process so that individual schools and districts can address their own unique needs and priorities.
Schools across the nation are embracing computer information technology, but at an uneven pace. For instance, about 50 percent of all public schools have already installed local area networks and there exist, on average, 14 multimedia-capable computers per K-12 school (Evans et al., 1996, p. 4). The computing resources of most schools, however, consist of stand-alone computers as ...