Slide 4 of 24

JAN: The spirit may be generous - but fear may make me stingy. We all hear the talk - the hype about the learning revolution...a connected global village ....reciprocity.....shared minds.... access and success for the less fortunate. But...we see America with vibrant individual community participation but institutions in shambles....we hear a Madison Avenue hype as though obese and over priced computing systems, were the "real stuff" of teaching and learning. We are confused by meaningless product differentiation and obfuscation that's simply about getting more money for delivering digits. We are lured by the proprietary, the monopoly, the easy money forces. Witness the recent incredible spectrum giveaway for digital conversion. Will HDTV--pretty pictures, pretty sound--make a real difference in the lives of our learners? Not likely! Will broadcasters use this new spectrum grant in the public interest--maybe, if we give voice to the need for content. The Telecom Bill...is it about competition or consolidation. We must wait and see. A lot of the talk and hype convinces me this is more like selling kitchen appliances--selling dreams of inexpensive gourmet dining to our table and romance to our increasingly complex lives. We know what happened...our counters filled up ...along came the inexpensive microwave and food processor and that was that.