An Overview of the Issues
The issues that emerged from the study fall into these general categories, all closely interlinked: access, costs and use of resources, quality and equality of learning, new opportunities for learning, and tools and strategies that can be used to track questions related to new learning technologies. Following are summaries of these issues which are covered in separate sections of the paper.

Access
Access is explored on a number of levels:

• national and regional infrastructures that support the use of communications technologies
• institutional or organizational systems to support learning using new technologies
• local or community based facilities that enable residents to participate in activities using new technologies
• individual learners' circumstances that determine the extent to which they have access new technologies

This section provides an overview of the communications infrastructure in Canada. Examples of institutional arrangements and community situations are considered, as are factors that affect an individual learner's ability to take advantage of what is offered via new technologies. Questions are raised about what resources are available to whom and how decisions affecting access are made.

Cost and use of resources
The question of costs and use of resources is considered on levels parallel to those used for access:

• national and regional investments in infrastructure
• institutional or organizational decisions about technologies, programs, and categories of learners
• local or community decisions about facilities such as computer access in libraries or a videoconference site, and about programs to support the use of technologies for learning
• individual learners' investment in technologies and the cost issues that arise at the personal and family level

This section also considers choices about the use of resources. For example, how people's time is allocated or reallocated when learning technologies are used, and where resources come from in terms of external funding sources or other programs that may face cuts because of investment in learning technologies.

Equality and Quality of Learning
The following questions are raised in this section:

• Do technologies enable learning to take place more effectively, accessibly and appropriately, and do they do this better than available alternatives including other technologies and face to face learning?
• Do new technologies lend themselves to approaches that support egalitarian learning, such as feminist pedagogies, participatory learning, and adult education practice?
• Do new technologies support a range of learning, including cognitive and affective learning and skills development, and how well do they meet the needs of learners' individual learning styles?

This section does not undertake an assessment of particular technologies or their potential applications because this type of analysis, to be meaningful, must consider the particular context, content and learning strategies. Instead, we suggest ways of evaluating technologies for learning tasks and of adapting the broader questions to specific situations.