Introduction

This unit provides teacher educators with a broad perspective on educational technology, one designed to ensure that environmental education is enhanced -- not compromised -- by new information and communication tools. Focusing on two of the most promising computer-based tools, interactive multimedia and on-line learning, this unit includes background and support for the timid beginner as well as coverage of the latest trends for veterans. Resources and activity ideas are included.

• full of expensive and potentially intimidating equipment;
• where most 13-year-olds know a lot more than their teachers about technological tools;
• where few environmental educators understand the present and even fewer have a clear view of the near future;
• that perhaps offers more potential and power than ever before to create an inspired, informed, and active environmental citizenry;
• of extreme excitement and uncertainty when environ mental educators are just beginning to explore the problems and promises of computer-aided environmental education.

First, we need to provide learners with a comprehensive, critical, and yet visionary analysis of the link between EE and educational technology. This analysis reminds us that technology is only a tool -- and a tool is only as good as the craftperson who wields it. Any introduction to this field must caution the audience about the natural tendency to let the lure of new technology override our otherwise deliberate choice of effective approaches to teaching and learning.

After establishing a philosophical basis, we need to get down to the practical, nitty-gritty basics by providing the essential hands-on training teachers need in a new arena. Then we need to facilitate hassle-free access to tools educators can use now!

And perhaps the greatest challenge is to accomplish all of this in a way that will lead to more smiles and nods of understanding than glazed-over eyes and looks of intimidation.

Computer-aided EE is a field where keeping abreast of changes is a must. This document is intended as a point of departure. By the time it is in print, new computer resources will be available and some of what is described here may already be out of date. The landscape is changing daily. Will Rogers offered a bit of wisdom that applies to training in this field: "Even if you're on the right track, if you don't keep moving you'll get run over."

Computer-aided EE was unimaginable when delegates at the 1977 United Nations Intergovernmental Conference in Tbilisi, Georgia, USSR, adopted a definition of environmental education. Since that time, the concept of enhanced personal productivity, based on desktop computers, has rapidly given way to metaphors of information highways and virtual communities. The arrival of palm-sized wireless devices, multimedia-capable laptops, virtual reality headsets, and voice-driven computing - all in the last couple of years - promises continuing waves of change in how we can teach and learn.

So fasten your seat belt, turn on your hardware, dial into the Internet, double-click on a multimedia application, query your database, access that CD-ROM, hook up your fiber optics, and get ready for digital video satellite reception. The following pages provide a helpful roadmap for maneuvering your way on an environmental journey through the Communication Age.

Begin -- Problems and Promises in Perspective

Contents

Glossary