The prediction, in brief:

Synchronous and asynchronous communication among students locally and worldwide – using combinations of speech, text, drawings, and pictures – will be commonplace. Two-way video will be expensive and less used outside business, because of the demands it makes on bandwidth and simultaneity. The most common piece of software will be client network tools descended from today’s browsers, that integrate access, authoring, and application control. The huge market for these tools will ensure interoperability between platforms and networks, creating a network as seamless and transparent as the current telephone network.

Predictor: Tinker, Bob

Prediction, in context:

In 1995, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology commissioned a series of white papers on various issues related to networking technologies. The department convened the authors for a workshop in November 1995 to discuss the implications. The following statement is taken from one of the white papers, “The Whole World in Their Hands,” by Bob Tinker, the president of Concord Consortium, he has a Ph.D. in physics from MIT and a reputation as a pioneer in constructivist uses of educational technology. Tinker writes:”Synchronous and asynchronous communication among students locally and worldwide – using combinations of speech, text, drawings, and pictures – will be commonplace. Two-way video will be expensive and less used outside business, because of the demands it makes on bandwidth and simultaneity. The most common piece of software will be client network tools descended from today’s browsers, that integrate access, authoring, and application control. The huge market for these tools will ensure interoperability between platforms and networks, creating a network as seamless and transparent as the current telephone network.”

Date of prediction: January 1, 1995

Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information

Subtopic: E-learning

Name of publication: The Future of Networking Technologies for Learning

Title, headline, chapter name: The Whole World in Their Hands

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.ed.gov/Technology/Futures/

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney