Unfortunately the quality of education is often dependent upon the wealth of the student's family. Mass universal education has been a success in many developed countries, but even under the best circumstances far too many children fall through the cracks. As the globe becomes more crowded in terms of population and as a society requires more cognitive knowledge workers the education system is leaving more and more children behind. This is in spite of the fact that the United Nations in 1990 called for education for all children and 161 nations agreed to at least six years of education for every child. The Bush Administration's massive "No Child Left Behind" legislation while it holds a great promise has just begun to influence education in the United States. Around the world we have not significantly changed our model of education since the early 1700s when cheap paper and the printing press enabled us to have inexpensive books. Books and libraries were and remain the foundations of our

modern model of education. The key here is the storage of information and experiences in print formats that allow for self-instruction and or for teacher based education based upon the printed word. We have long known that the Socratic tutorial model is perhaps the most efficient model for learning. In the digital age we have learned to store and retrieve information and experience in new and more accessible ways. Therefore, if we are to meet the goal of Education for All we must develop a new commputer based model for learning. Such a model will be cost effective and universal. The cognitive human resource will be in the design components of the system. It will take advantage of learning research knowledge. It will provide small group 1-4 students learning experiences. It will be adaptable and usable in many environments. The home will be a central place of use for the new technologies of learning.

The school and school staff will confirm and certify learning. It will reinforce the natural curiosity of the learner. It will have self assessment elements built into the program. Assessment will be performance based. Input and output will be voice activated natural language. It will have a continuous staff development program. National digital libraries of high quality curriculum materals will be accessible at home and in the classroom. It is possible that eventually every child in the world will have access to this system in his or her own natural language. Frank Withrow, Ph.D

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