Cost
New technologies require a number of investments. Educational providers must invest in communications infrastructure, facilities and equipment, and reallocate funds and human resources. At the personal level, expenditures must be made for equipment and software, and many new technologies entail ongoing costs such as additional phone lines or Internet service fees. Cost and use of resources are considered in light of various choices and the values underlying them, particularly in the context of reduced funding for education and human services.

The cost of new technologies has implications for quality and access. The tendency to recover higher development costs by expanding enrolment can mean reduced student support; selling programs to other providers can result in a poor fit between programs and learners' needs. Unless there are policies to maintain affordability for learners and unless educators monitor the outcomes of using new technology, learners could face higher costs and less accessibility than previously.

Questions
Basic questions to ask include "what does this cost" and "who is paying for it?" Further questions can explore costs in terms of values:

• What is the purpose of this investment? To provide better access, more successful learning outcomes (and how do we define success), or to achieve some other goal?
  
  
• What is the value returned for the expenditure?
  
  
• How can it be demonstrated that educational technologies are achieving the intended goals; for example that they provide better access than the alternatives?
  
  
• How can we be assured that the costs of the new learning technologies are "worth it", and can there be an agreed set of values to measure this worth?
  
  
• Are the costs of new technologies justified in terms of specific segments of the population who have previously been underserved?
  
  
• Is the investment in new technologies the best use of funds? For example, in comparison to subsidizing child care so that women can more readily participate in education and training?

Quality and Equality of Teaching and Learning
In this section, the quality of education is related to the process of human growth rather than to a production system of measurable results. Feminist pedagogy, adult education and distance education all stress the importance of connection, including both the social interaction with other learners and educators and the ability to link new learning to one's context, prior knowledge and life experience.

The ability to support social learning and integration of knowledge is an important comparison to make between new technologies and other approaches. Technologies have the potential to promote interaction among learners and instructors, in turn developing contact and connectedness. On the other hand, technology-related factors can threaten the learning climate. The sense of safety can be disrupted, technical support is often lacking, and the essential human aspect of teaching and learning can be overshadowed by an emphasis on perceived economies.

The direct experience of learners, instructors and facilitators in using new learning technologies is an important touchstone in exploring issues of quality and equality of learning.

Questions
Questions to ask about the quality and equality of learning are:

• Is the new technology appropriate for the learning task at hand?
  
  
• Does this technology broaden, rather than narrow, the kinds of teaching and learning approaches that can be used?
  
  
• Does it support individual learning, by permitting self-pacing, ready access, learner control?
  
  
• Does it support social learning, by enabling consultation, peer learning, mentoring?
  
  
• Is the technology transferable so that it is useful not just in the specific learning context but in other learning contexts, at work and at home?
  
  
• What advantages does it offer over other methods, for example, classroom learning or other technologies?