Will Information Technologies Help Learning?

How to meet the varied learning needs of people of all ages is a burning question of public policy. In the past two decades faith in advanced technology as an answer peaked, then receded. The question remains, and so does the potential of technology. The question is worth asking only if it is granted that technology can serve learning at all. This is by no means self-evident. Our analysis shows that the manner in which technology can help learning is a far more complex question than most discussions of the subject have taken it to be. The continuing importance, in the long run, of basic research on learning will be self-evident to anyone who shares our faith in rationality and the fruitfulness of scientific search for knowledge. No-significant-difference findings, however, leave us with very little guidance from that quarter in the short term. What emerges as crucial in the short term is the question of betting on custom-tailored or on standardized learning situations. Given unfettered and economical access to the means for distributing information, varied private and public patterns of mediating learning can continue to evolve with changing preferences under whatever guidance advancing knowledge of learning can provide. Otherwise, talk of technology helping learning in a democratic society will be academic, in the most pejorative sense of the word.