This volume presents a variety of overall assessments of technology and individual descriptions of work-in-progress. Supported by private funders, non-profit organizations, government agencies, and a variety of other sources, these efforts address education programs focused on specific subject matter such as mathematics or troubleshooting of school-based learning using computers. They also focus on classes of technology such as intelligent systems, distance learning, and hypertext. Taken together, they portray the range of strategies through which we can begin to understand the impact of educational technology in the future. In addition, they illustrate different approaches currently adopted by technology designers to place and explain their work in a larger context.

Each of the chapters presents a different point of entry on the technology assessment problem. Even those nominally focused on a single implementation, such as testing or teacher observation, demonstrate the clear interest by their authors in the larger implications of their work.

This volume presents a variety of overall assessments of technology. The contributors address education programmes focused on specific subject matter, such as mathematics. They also examine classes of technology, such as intelligent systems, distance learning and hypertext.

"...this is an action-oriented volume that attempts to point out explicitly the places where research and practice meet."—College, Composition and Communication"We hope [these volumes] will encourage reflection on technology design and result in greater payoff for students. We look forward to the creation of different approaches to the assessment of technology and a growing acceptance of a need to plan as much of our educational future as rationally as we can."—Eva L. Baker and Harold F. O'Neil, Jr.From the Introduction