A very interesting and provocative article, which raises a number of significant issues for the use of technology in education.
First, in response to Jonassen's question as to the future of instructional designers, its a pity you missed the ISD ON TRIAL session at ADCIS'92, where ISD was sentenced to ten years drill and practice! In my work and development of interactive materials, the basic features of instructional design are losing any meaning for the creation of interactive instructional materials. The whole method of production, from conceptualization to implementation, tends to represent successive approximations and prototyping, and not sequential, approved steps.
Second, I think commentaries such as yours are often taken to represent the whole of education and training rather than that component with which technology can (or might) have an influence. That said, I think it critical that we address the ways in which technology can best be used for supporting education and training. As I identified in a draft article which I sent to you last year, there have been many assumptions made about technology and education which essentially support the notion that you can replace the traditional teaching activity with a computer and related technology. I have maintained for some time that we have yet to realize the potential of technology as a training tool because we have not yet come to understand how best it can be used. What is clear is that most successful applications of technology are those in which the computer does something which cannot be done by existing means. Your premise that the technology can be used as a learning tool is critical to a better understanding of technology for education.
Third, I wish to raise the issue of the novelty of your ideas. I believe that the real enlightened people in the field have been using technology to support learning for many years, and the successful products in Australia tend to be those which provide a learning environment for the student. There are a number of articles which have undertaken this approach, although they may not have described the issues as succinctly as your paper.
As a developer of interactive multimedia and computer assisted learning, it is clear to me that the traditional application of technology has been misguided. With foresight and creativity, the successful application of technology to learning will be realized with those applications which provide an environment in which learners are able to develop their own constructs of their reality.