ABSTRACT
The ability of technology to make information available quickly and provide an individualized learning opportunity has long been discussed and dreamed of. These desires go back to Pressey’s teaching machines of the 1920s and Bush’s theoretical Memex information retrieval system of the 1940s. Since the beginning of the microcomputer computer revolution in the late 1970s, however, the dream has become a reality. Proponents have extolled the virtues of instruction supported, assisted, or conducted by the computer (e.g., Papert, 1977; Suppes, 1980). Others have exercised less enthusiasm about the effects of any media per se. Clark (1983), for example, said that mediated environments are merely sufficient, not necessary for the learning process. Teachers, as practitioners, will ultimately decide whether incorporation of new technologies into the classroom is worth the time and effort (Moore, Myers, & Burton, 1994).
