This edition of IJET offers a new understanding of a number of educational technology areas that are rapidly developing as we enter a new era. One of these areas involves the influence of educational technologies on K-12 teachers. This issue devotes two papers to this topic, "Teachers' Beliefs About Using Educational Technology In The Classroom" and "An Analysis of Technology Use and Constructivist Behaviors in K-12 Teachers."

One of the popular notions among educators who have embraced technology during the past few years is the notion that current educational technologies can now provide access to educational instruction anytime, from anywhere, and to anyone, through distance education. Two papers in this issue are devoted to this issue, "Experiences of Students, Teachers, and Administrators in a Distance Education Course" and "Predicting Dropout from Distance Education."

During the past few years, research groups from The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) in the US have been world leaders in the development of advanced distributed learning environments. The paper in this issue, "Alliance Prototype Distributed Learning Environment: Emerging Technologies for Science, Education, and Business," evaluates one of NCSA's recent courses conducted in an advanced distributed learning environment. In another paper in this issue, "Literacy Development in Network-Based Classrooms: Innovation and Realizations," Bruce & Peyton present the results for case studies of network-based college classrooms. Through their research, they remind us that "the introduction of computer technology to promote interaction and learning in educational settings is a complex process that cannot be divorced from the users or the setting."

As in our July issue earlier this year, we invite you to contribute your comments to our interactive feature article. This issue's feature article, "Dimensions of Network-based Learning," describes five dimensions that are important for the success of educational network activities. The identification of these dimensions may be a step toward a broader theory of network-based learning.

In the past few months since our last issue, the number of visitors to our web site has continued to increase along with the number of papers submitted for publication. IJET currently has readers from forty-six countries from around the world. We are very grateful to all our new and continuing readers for their support.

Dr. Roger Hacker, University of Western Australia
Dr. James A. Levin, University of Illinois