Research and practice have shown that there are both technical as well as cognitive barriers that have to be overcome in order to guarantee effective use of ICT in education. ICTs demand a fundamental rethinking of the learning-teaching process; however, they cannot be regarded as substitutes for conventional education. Synergy effects and absolute advantages over traditional teaching methods can only be created if ICTs are used in a professional way. The following key factors to successful use have been extracted from Newer Technologies for the Learning Society (C.Villanueva, 2000):

1. Several technical factors can have a negative impact on the interactivity in learning. Virtual education might not flourish as expected because of disparities in bandwidth, cost of network access, presence of dedicated facilities, and limits on learners' access to necessary equipment including hardware and software; lack of system support to fast learners and slow learners; limitations on the current system of course credits transfer among institutions.

2. For e-learning programmes to work there is a need to take into account the complexity of platforms, ISPs, firewalls, media selection, and portals not to mention performance tracking and coordination with other curricula. This implies the need for a sophisticated management system to coordinate, integrate, and manage all the pieces that make up the learning system.

3. Virtual collaboration and web-based distance education are best suited for certain groups of people such as a group of individuals who have an established history of sharing and working together prior to having been introduced to computer-mediated communication tools. A distributed learning network depends far more on the people involved than on the organisation structure or the technology used. Similarly, teachers who are not able to work in teams will not succeed in distance education.

4. Teachers with only moderate skills in word processing, e-mailing and Internet surfing should avoid web-based education until they have gained a certain comfort level in the use of technology.

5. Successful use of ICT in learning is to a large extent dependent on teachers who used computers mostly for simulations and applications generally associated with higher-order thinking.

6. Any project which introduces ICT use should include basic training in ICT literacy. Training should not only be limited to the basic use of computers but, more importantly, instruct on how to integrate ICT into teaching and curriculum development.

As teachers and learners are gaining capacity to interact online in asynchronous and synchronous modes, teachers should master more advanced pedagogies when meeting face-to-face with learners.

7. Success in the use of ICT can be measured if performance indicators are developed to monitor the use and outcomes of technologies and to demonstrate accountability to funding sources and the public.

8. Educational community building in cyberspace is not easy; groups have to meet physically at the beginning of the endeavour if it is to work. If this is not possible, provision of an opportunity for social interaction among participants during synchronous meetings is recommendable. In some contexts, face-to-face contact with web learners is still indispensable.

9. Collaborative learning is promoted if ICT makes use of groupware or multi-user software. Many learning software are designed for single users. Most hardware and software do not support the use of one computer by multi-users. In particular, common tools for collaboration such as email and video conferencing packages assume that only a single user will be logging in at a given computer. Collaborative activities also require a good management of locally stored data as students move from one computer to another.

10. Time constraints of classroom activities magnify problems with software configuration and similar start-up tasks. Students will often be limited to 30-40 minutes of computer access in a given class period. When students from different schools are working together, differences in class scheduling can diminish overlap and result in even smaller windows of opportunity for synchronous interaction.

11. The pressure of examinations distorts the open style of teaching and learning. It was found in country studies that teachers failed to implement student-centred teaching strategies because of high-stakes examinations. Pressure prevents teachers and students from feeling relaxed and happy to experiment and explore which is necessary in an interactive, flexible web-based teaching process.

12. Authoring of web content is still a single-user activity. When a collaborator opens a word processor on their machine the application sharing software broadcasts a live image of the application to other collaborators. But at the end of the session, any saved files are available only to the user who started the applications or content.

It is difficult to determine who has copies of the document, who is currently editing a document and which changes various authors have made. File transfer methods that do not store the shared document on a widely accessible server can cause problems when collaborators work in different locations since document versions may be stranded on remote computers.

13. One of the most important keys to sustainable technological innovation is to follow a thorough systematic approach, supported by a clear policy. A well elaborated national policy is seen as a prerequisite for countries to compete in the new global economy and knowledge-based society.

14. Elements of advocacy and promotion should be included in ICT programmes in order to encourage more participation and audience involvement. The TaniNet project in Malaysia, an Internet-based system for agricultural community, introduced a concept that chooses a "family of the month" among the local farming community to motivate others to strive for excellence.