ABSTRACT
This chapter is a thinking piece about the potential role of networking technology as an agent of change in what Tyack and Tobin (1994) call the “grammar of schooling.” 1 The field is complex, rapidly changing, defiant of analysis, and a death bog for prognosticators. Since we began working on this piece more than 3 years ago, we have been surprised by the burgeoning interest in CD-ROM-based multimedia, the emergence of the World Wide Web as a potent force in K–12 networking, and the rise and (apparent) decline of the national standards movement. As members of Co-NECT, one of seven national school design teams funded by the New American Schools Development Corporation, we have been privileged to work closely with teachers in schools around the country. In the process, we have learned to be even more skeptical that the sort of armchair philosophizing we indulge in here will ever be of much practical use to the trench fighters, to whom we dedicate this chapter.
