About the CRLT The CRLT has as its mission to promote and support a community of scholars dedicated to research on the design, use, and implementation of technology to improve learning. Three primary themes underlie the work at the Center: • research that contributes to the development of new pedagogical models for continuing professional development in the 21st century; • research on and evaluation of interactive distance learning environments that inform our understanding of student learning; and • research on teaching strategies for using current and emerging technologies to support student interaction, collaboration, and engagement in the issues being studied. This report is one of a series from our on-going research on learning and technology. If you have any questions or comments on this report, or if you would like to find out more about the activities of the CRLT, contact:

Administrators in higher education face decisions about what resources, activities, tools, partners, and markets are important to Web-based courses. Decisions in these areas can dramatically impact the effectiveness of Web-based instruction. It is our premise here that, before forging ahead with new partnerships and marketing

Telecommunication exchange projects are currently marketed as cur-riculum supplements that conveniently satisfy three key K-12 educa-tional reform objectives: better writing skills, enhanced multicultural awareness, and better job preparation for a rapidly expanding global economy. This paper analyzes the educational discourse surrounding telecommunication exchanges, and argues that much of the current research is contradictory, inconclusive, and possibly misleading. The paper also illustrates how the often overly optimistic claims about technology-based projects are problematic in light of the larger, ex-ceedingly complex role of technology in society. As more and more schools achieve Internet capabilities and as educational technology discourse increasingly promotes the necessity of technological com-petence and celebrates the promise of global connectivity, educators have been exploring ways to use--and rationalize the use of--the Internet in their class-rooms. A growing trend during the past decade, beginning with the advent of e-mail, has been the practice of global telecommunication exchange projects that encourage classroom connections between distant schools, oftentimes in differ-ent countries. As Berenfeld (1996) writes, "the ability for one class to easily and cheaply communicate with either another or many throughout the world was so powerful that educators developed a number of successful learning projects around email " (p. 76). Telecommunication exchange projects are often coordi-nated by individual teachers who locate distant partners on a number of educa-tion-oriented Internet sites. The majority of these projects occur in the public domain, where teachers are the sole organizers, but telecommunication exchanges are also sold to schools as hassle-free educational services provided by well-known corporations such as AT&T. Those who herald distant e-mail exchanges see them as an optimum way to satisfy three critical educational objectives in The authors gratefully acknowledge the invaluable suggestions and com-ments from Jim Marshall, Cynthia Lewis, and three anonymous reviewers.

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