3 Educational Contexts
This section will portray the ways in which educational concerns were manifest in five forefront
educational computing courseware initiatives. Because the courseware efforts studied during this
research project were educational, their participants were first and foremost concerned with the
educational nature of their endeavor and the educational context in which the courseware was to be delivered.
Evidence was found that successful projects tried to provide a significantly different experience than could
be provided through more traditional means. Participants in this study of successful courseware endeavors
developed explicit rationales describing how the computer based tools met their educational goals in ways
that could not be done in any other way as effectively, efficiently or cheaply.
An orientation towards thoughtful implementation of technology based on its ability to serve broader,
preexisting educational goals was a predominant theme throughout the projects studied. The other sections
of this study are an analysis of the many ways in which careful attention to the "educational" nature of
computing projects exerted both a subtle and a powerful influence upon technical and organizational decisions.