In spite of new means for accessing and sharing information, today’s classrooms still reflect 19th century approaches to teaching and learning. For the most part, with the exception of early childhood education, teachers lecture and write lessons on blackboards while students memorize information and fill in multiple-choice bubbles on tests.

The ascendance of the computer and the appearance of global information networks, however, are likely to bring about educational change in many parts of the world and may even force change in the test-crazed United States. The rise of information economies and concomitant changes in the nature of work call for a different set of skills than was previously acceptable. Just-the-facts educational agendas that stress memorization are no longer viable. Schools need to teach students how to learn, ask good questions and make judgments in complex and often ambiguous cases.

Quality educational software, properly implemented, can help students grasp difficult-to-learn concepts, redefining our expectations of what children can do. Software provides learners of all styles and needs with a virtual toolkit for accessing information with much greater efficacy than predigital resources. For example, secondary school students can readily graph mathematical equations and manipulate variables to observe how they behave. Younger children can play with geometrical figures, rotating and transforming them to discover unexpected patterns that they can then try to describe and explain. With multimedia and hypermedia software, students and teachers can create exciting, interactive presentations that engage a learner through multiple senses.

Textbooks will be supplemented or even replaced by virtual reality and computer simulations that will allow for even more hands-on explorations of concepts. Children will be able to explore ideas and test out hypotheses on anything from plate tectonics and evolutionary theory to the spread of viruses, the fall of markets and the onset of political revolutions. In the future, commerce in ideas—at school, in business and in the professions—will no doubt require such facility with manipulating and conveying information through different forms of representation.

The Internet also promises to redefine the very nature of the classroom. Distance learning already offers sufficiently motivated students flexibility and control in advancing their skills and credentials, breaking the mold of the traditional schoolhouse. In the future, even mainstream classrooms will incorporate large portions of online instruction. In the class "Cognitive Development, Education and the Brain," which we teach at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, we have replaced our live "talking heads" with several dozen online video lectures that students can access and watch at their leisure. Students pause during lectures to take notes, repeat important or challenging sections, and return for viewing as often as they like. This opportunity is especially valuable for our international students for whom English is a second language, and those with learning problems. These lectures run the gamut: from visiting experts and interviews with noted scholars to introductions to the nervous system, learning pathologies and major theoretical ideas. Future generations will be able to listen to the great thinkers, leaders and creators of our time. Imagine being able to watch Einstein lecture on physics or Socrates discuss philosophy. These electronic archives don’t have to be hoarded by the wealthiest universities but can be shared with even the least affluent institutions in our country and abroad.