Papyrus is an example of a space-binding medium, which the Romans used to command a vast empire. Papyrus could be carried easily and allowed the Romans to send orders over great distances, but it didn't last very long, and was subject to destruction by fire and other forces. Cultures that used more portable materials were able to command vast empires, but lacked the stability of stone or clay cultures.
The Internet, upon which rich media technology is dependent, may be the first instance in human history of a medium which binds both space and time equally. The ubiquity of the World Wide Web is counterbalanced by the permanence of server storage and retrieval, a combination I have called the “Memory Well.”
A school system which based its pedagogy on the Internet would have to change its notion of what knowledge is and how to communicate that knowledge to its students. Just as the handheld calculator freed students from the need to memorize the multiplication tables, the Memory Well may force a reassessment of what needs to be taught and how to teach it. This may be the crux of the dispute between the pro and con computer forces.
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