Can the "Web" promote and improve learning?

There is promising indication that the Web is a viable means to increase access to education. Evidence on how it can promote and improve learning is as forthcoming.The Web is used as a tool for learning. By a learning tool, I mean use of the Web simply as a vehicle to search for and retrieve information. Clearly, a tool can make a task easier to do--and we likely can do it much more quickly with the tool. But the central question is when we no longer have the tool to use, have we taken away with us some unique skill or ability that could have been acquired only with that tool.

My purpose in raising this issue is to highlight that we cannot simply ask "Do students learn better with the Web as compared to traditional classroom instruction?" We have to realize that no medium, in and of itself, will likely improve learning in a significant way when it is used to deliver instruction. Nor is it realistic to expect the Web, when used as a tool or to develop our students' any unique skills. The key to promoting improved learning with the Web appears to lie within how effectively the medium is exploited in the teaching-learning situation.For example, employs a "conferences" of conversation technique to record and classify student and instructor on-line communication. Unlike in a live classroom where conversations disappear, this medium allows every thought to be captured for future examination, elaboration, and extension. The result is richer, more thoughtful discussions, not because of the medium, but because of the way the instructor stimulated and created the environment that can be made possible by the medium. From this perspective, the Web appears to offer some advantages that can be exploited by the instructor to promote and  improve learning.