Currents in Electronic Literacy  Spring 2000(3),  
 <http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/currents/spr00/slatin.html>  

1. This essay discusses an Internet-based project called TX2K: The Texas 2000 Living Museum, developed by the Institute for Technology and Learning at the University of Texas at Austin.  I will attempt to situate TX2K within the larger context of current ideas about what is variously called distance education or distance  learning, especially as these ideas come into play in university-based efforts to address the needs of public K-12 education.  I will suggest that we should instead be talking about distributed teaching and learning environments that draw upon the strengths and energies of teachers and students throughout the network.  Thus we can reconceptualize the distance in distance learning not simply as an obstacle to overcome but as a resource to exploit as we attempt to build the capacity of the educational system as a whole.

Editor's Note: Because of the length of this article, it has been divided into 5 sections: 

I.  Introduction: K-12 Education in Transition 
II.  The Appeal of Distance Education 
III.  TX2K: The Texas 2000 Living Museum 
IV.  Lessons So Far 
V.  Directions: Where Do We Go From Here?