This web page is presented from the perspective of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ,an organization that exists to explore, preserve and protect the rights of the newly emerging territory of Cyberspace. The topics of the following pages include the most important and wide ranging of the issues that affect the future of the National Information Infrastructure.
However, the following discussion contains the views of the EFF as interpreted by the NII study group of TU 5020 (Computer Mediated Communication) from the point of view of education. It is inarguable that the future of this society globally and locally will be profoundly affected by the education that people, young and old, receive today and in the future. It is also inarguable that the system as it currently exists is in deep crises with attendant results that are both deplorable and predictable: high school graduates who cannot read or write at the most basic literacy levels, widespread dropouts, and the general lowering of educational standards. Regardless of individual views on the root cause and political blame, if any, that is to be borne, virtually all agree that reform is overdue and sorely needed. There is also widespread concurrence that new technology has the potential to play a constructive role in the reform of the educational system. Whether this potential is to be relaxed will be at least partly determined by the nature, form and policies of the reform. The following is a discussion of several aspects of the NII that will have profound effects on the field of education and the role that technology will have, both positive and negative.
