Contribute to the Global Picture
Information assembled from a number of locales provides a sense of the impact of particular initiatives on large numbers of people. Build connections with people in other parts of the country and other parts of the world to exchange observations. The honest exchange of information based on the experience of users can be used to analyze proposals to import technologies or systems from another country or region.

For example, people in the far north of Canada can indicate how satellite and various radio and telephone transmission systems serve their needs for communication and information, providing information about cost, reliability, appropriateness for learning and so on, to those in other countries whose governments may be considering similar systems.

In the periods before and since the Beijing Conference, there has been a significant development of connection, human and technical, among women and this can provide a basis for enabling people to contribute their reality and experience to the big picture.

Find out the True Costs
The costs of a specific application of learning technology should include initial investments, capital and operating costs and time. The costs of staff time and learners' time are not always considered yet are important factors in accessibility and usability. Another often overlooked area is what can be termed displacement: what cannot be done or paid for because the investment of time and/or money is going to a technology based program. For example, find out if staff levels will be maintained, especially in important areas like counseling and student support, after new learning technologies are introduced.

Apply Lessons of History
As John Ralston Saul notes, memory is "perhaps the first quality that differentiates us from the marketplace and from inanimate machines."¹ There are people among us, aboriginal people in particular, who value memory more than those who, in planning for the future, deny what the past may teach.

Those with memories of previous educational technologies can bring those experiences to bear on current trends. For example, those who remember when community access television (CATV) was proclaimed to be the basis of citizen participation can recognize similar claims for the Internet. Some of the lessons of CATV, such as the impact of corporate ownership and monopolization, can still be applied.²

For those with even longer memories, or an interest in the history of technology, there are historical examples of citizen participation in radio and of community broadcast uses of the telephone.³ The stories of how these choices were eliminated by commercial monopoly interests and political decisions may offer a cautionary lesson for those who believe the Internet will inevitably lead to democratization of communication and information.

Keep in Touch
Find ways to link with others who are concerned about similar issues. Form alliances and develop connections among cross sections of groups: those interested in education, learning, training, those interested in learning technologies, and advocates for users and decision makers. Exchanging information among disparate groups can itself be a form of education.