Frank Voon is a medical doctor and experimental embryologist at the Faculty of Medicine in the National University of Singapore. He is currently on secondment to the Adminstration of the National University of Singapore as special Assistant to the Vice- Chancellor. He has been involved with the research and development of interactive multimedia systems since 1988. He has also been involved in courses on hypermedia programming for educators and in courseware creation for primary and secondary school subjects in both the Sciences and the Arts.

Dr Voon's work has involved the creation of interactive multimedia courseware and the development of new learning environments to prepare students who will be in managerial and leadership positions in the 21st century.

A new dimension for global human intellectual activity has been created and resulted in the paradoxical "twin cities" of a global village in real reality functioning through a virtual reality of cyberspace. Business, commerce and entertainment organisations have begun to establish a presence in this virtual universe. Educators too need to consider the colonisation of a portion of this digital realm - islands of learning which students of all ages can visit in order to learn and understand more of the natural world.

Carol MacKnight is an instructional technologist at the University of Massachusetts. She has published extensively in the areas of interface design and evaluation, managing technology resources, and electronic publishing.

Dr MacKnight is the founder and editor of the Journal of Computing in Higher Education. Her research interests include instructional theory and design, hypermedia systems, information retrieval and Internet applications.

http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~carolm/

Powerful forces lie behind the current drive to re-engineer higher education. Although economic factors are central, a digital revolution that is changing the way we think about the world is playing a significant part in the many initiatives under way. Successful transition from the present instructional model to a learner-centred model will require large-scale development of new learning materials and tools. Dr MacKnight will look at some of the issues involved and present examples of projects that promote new levels of thinking.

Lynn Zelmer is a senior lecturer in the Department of Mathematics and Computing, Central Queensland University (CQU), Rockhampton where he teaches Human Issues in Computing and CBE units, supervises the IT Practicum and various student projects (primarily in multimedia, WWW, or CBE applications) and manages the delivery of the Bachelor of Information Technology on CQU's Sydney Campus.

Dr. Zelmer is a frequent commentator on the effects of technology on National and Regional ABC radio, and a 1995 CAUT grant recipient (to develop an interactive multimedia package for diabetes education).

http://mc.cqu.edu.au/staff/lynn-zelmer/lynn-zelmer.html

The paper summarises and provides a personal reflection on the thirty plus years of involvement of an educational technologist who has developed teaching and learning materials. Dr Zelmer highlights the superficiality of the changes in media technologies, the interdependence of media specialists and users in the learning process and the absolute importance of managing change.

Professor Stephen Brown is Head of Media and Information Technology at De Montfort University, UK. He has had extensive experience of, and published widely in, the fields of distance learning design, production and evaluation. Professor Brown is also Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor in Principles of Engineering Design at the University of Ulster and Queens University, Belfast. His research interests centre around the use of public access telematics networks.

External pressures are driving universities to use new technologies for teaching and learning. Drawing on examples of innovations within De Montfort University, this presentation will suggest that the main implementation issues tend to be related to human factors, rather than technical feasibility, or even cost: the availability and willingness of individuals to get involved and promote new approaches and the capability of organisations to adapt to changing needs, opportunities and pressures. Professor Brown will review progress to date.