ABSTRACT
Technology may well eliminate schools altogether. Far from being just another audio-visual aid, tele-communication has the potential for altering the underlying assumptions of education, just as the picture book of Comenius fundamentally altered the process of teaching and learning in his day. “Arthur C. Clarke”, “space”, “satellites”, and “communication” are all words that evoke each other. It was Clarke’s brilliant insight in 1945 that established the theoretical framework upon which all subsequent satellite communication has been based. The practitioners from commercial telecommunications knew little about education and the research that has been done in instructional technology. The educators were pre-occupied with public education and the formal school environment. The government people were more keenly attuned to the realities of politics. The telecommunications technologies of the communications revolution, though primarily configured for the business world, have the potential to alter the ways we educate ourselves and the ways we think about education.
