A Response to commentaries by Alexander, Law, Miyake, and Young

We want to thank the authors for responding to our paper and for apprising readers as to the effects of the new information technologies in Asian educational settings. We think Miyake has characterized our argument very accurately and succinctly. As she points out the equity issues we raise are exacerbated in Asia because the resources available through new technologies are mostly in English. But we would add that information technologies offer many opportunities for enhanced learning, as well as raising concerns about the possibility of greater inequities in education. Because the respondents focus on the effect of information technologies on schools, we want to emphasize that we think there are several deep incompatibilities between school and the new technologies that are coming to dominate the information age: