In this chapter and the two that follow, we discuss three broad lessons emerging from our study, lessons indicating that new technologies should be viewed as social innovations. We start with the point that educational computer use at home – or for that matter the use of any technology in any setting – requires a compatible “social envelope’ if promised outcomes such as children's mastery of academic subject matter or computer tool skills are to occur. Our findings suggest that these educational promises have not been met in part because parents and children lack a clear image of the needed social envelope. Their lack of vision is due in large measure to the neglect of these social behaviors and relations, especially by advocates of home educational computing.

Therefore, one broad lesson of our research is that creators and promoters will need to develop clearer visions or images of effective home envelopes if they want to encourage children, with the cooperation of their parents, to engage in serious educational computing.

In this chapter, we explore the social-envelope concept and relate our findings to it. We then propose ways to develop clearer images of social envelopes for effective home educational computing.