As someone who spends most his waking hours at a computer, I can understand Mike's enthusiasm for OLEs, but I would like to raise a few red flags.
1. If OLEs, etc., were really as potentially powerful as predicted, I would think we would also be predicting the demise of schools, but I don't see anyone brave enough to go that far yet. Why not?
Permanent Reason: Some people (mostly girls and women, but not only women and girls) don't like to interact with machines all day. The shortage of women majoring in computer science, despite recruiting efforts, is one symptom of this preference. I personally think this difference is mostly due to DNA, not "society," which is why I call it a permanent reason.
Temporary Reasons: (a.) Unreliable technology. (b.) Awkward interfaces. Virtually all online learning environments that I have seen have an impoverished discourse model. Essentially they are finite state automata (i.e., they can assume a finite number of states and they offer limited choices in each state). This is still a Skinnerian model of interaction, however much it is disguised. I would like to see a machine that "knows" me and frames situations based on that knowledge. It would also let me ask questions about questions. Not question after question.
2. The question about optimizing the utility of resources is important, but there seems to be little interest among ed tech people. The work being done in knowledge objects and ontologies is interesting and relevant. There is a professor at my university modeling knowledge objects as "films," essentially multimedia knowledge objects that "know" about themselves and therefore can be queried, combined, shared, linked, etc. This is interesting but contrary to fundamentalist constructivist theology, which is a roadblock to progress in this area.
3. "Computers-in-Education" has been greatly oversold and has probably mostly been a waste of money. American students have not gained on Japanese students, even though Japan generally doesn't use CBI. (If there is any solid evidence that students now are better educated as a result this investment, please please put me out of my misery. The only good study I know of is: Fletcher, J, D., Hawley, D. E., & Piele, P. K. (1990). Costs, effects, and utility of microcomputer assisted instruction in the classroom. American Educational Research Journal, 27, 783-806.) We have to be careful about promising too much, before we have the means of delivering it.