Box 1.1 Views of the Web-based Education Commission on the Internet and K-12 Education The following excerpts are reproduced, respectively, from the Foreword and from Section 1 of The Power of the Internet for Learning. For education, the Internet is making it possible for more individuals than ever to access knowledge and to learn in new and different ways. At the dawn of the 21st Century, the education landscape is changing. Elementary and secondary schools are experiencing growing enrollments, coping with critical shortages of teachers, facing overcrowded and decaying buildings, and responding to demands for higher standards. . . . The Internet is enabling us to address these educational challenges, bringing learning to students instead of bringing students to learning. It is allowing for the creation of learning communities that defy the constraints of time and distance as it provides access to knowledge that was once difficult to obtain. The Internet is perhaps the most transformative technology in history, reshaping business, media, entertainment, and society in astonishing ways. But for all its power, it is just now being tapped to transform education. . . . The Internet is bringing us closer than we ever thought possible to make learning--of all kinds, at all levels, any time, any place, any pace--a practical reality for every man, woman, and child. The World Wide Web is a tool that empowers society to school the illiterate, bring job training to the unskilled, open a universe of wondrous images and knowledge to all students, and enrich the understanding of the lifelong learner. . . . Web-based education is just beginning, with something of far greater promise emerging in the middle distance. Yet technology, even in its current stage of development, can already allow us to realistically dream of achieving age-old goals in education: to center learning around the student instead of the classroom, to focus on the strengths and needs of individual learners, [and] to make lifelong learning a reality. . . . The Internet is a tool that can help us empower every student and elevate each individual to new levels of intellectual capacity and skill. SOURCE: The Power of the Internet for Learning: Moving from Promise to Practice. 2001. Report of the Web-based Education Commission to the President and Congress of the United States. March. Available online at <http://interact.hpcnet.org/Webcommission/index.htm>.