Alternative Learning Networks

This is a visionary paper, not a wiring diagram for the creation of learning networks. Recognizing that families and schools can no longer provide children with the learning experiences they need without help from the surrounding community, it presents visions for how underutilized assets, both human and material, might be joined together through new social arrangements that can expand opportunities for learning. But these arguments are not entirely utopian either. Many examples are cited in which new ideas about teaching and learning are re-shaping old institutions and spurring the growth of new ones that welcome network arrangements. Such networks can operate as "virtual" schools, providing easy access to a varied, but coherent, ecology of learning experiences. And they can provide the social support needed to enliven learning with the meaning and promise it must have to transform children's lives.