Cyberspace Education and Lifelong Learning for Professionals: Dangerous Opportunities.

Rapidly advancing technology presents challenges in the education of helping professionals. With these challenges come limitless opportunities. Using technology, professionals reach more people, individualize therapeutic approaches, access more resources, and support different learning styles. And they become lifelong learners themselves as they develop new skills and methods of interacting with clients and colleagues alike. But dangers abound, the biggest being missed opportunities. Competent professionals must take the lead in implementing technologies that save time and make work more productive. They can use roadmaps created by a variety of professions. This chapter supplies illustrations incorporating technology in instruction and development with examples drawn from medicine, business, psychology, education, and counseling. Specific recommendations, based on sound theoretical practice, case studies, and actual experiences in counseling, are examined. Action strategies revolve around critical issues of time, funding, ownership, recognition, promotion, accreditation and profession development needs. Specifically they include utilizing available resources, adapting existing on-line and distance learning resources, focusing on the individual learner, and utilizing the technology continuum. (Contains 52 references.) (MKA)