American studies and the new technologies: New paradigms for teaching and learning

Despite a great deal of rhetoric about the transformational power of the new technologies in education, very little has emerged that points towards deep, substantive and significant change in the ways we teach and learn. Four projects at the University of Virginia, however, are exceptions: as they alter the ways in which we create and disseminate knowledge, they are beginning to show what that transformation might look like. In combination, they suggest a new and extremely promising paradigm for using the new technologies. They are large, complex, aggregative and synthesizing virtual spaces that both require and enable a new kind of collaborative culture for research, teaching and learning. They are also suggestive of the kinds of learning organizations that will be needed in the traditional academic disciplines as they attempt to adjust to new global realities.