Upon researching and evaluating the significance of e-mail several realizations have presented themselves to me. Obviously the first point one realizes about e-mail is the speed with which it is able to transmit memos and letters. A feat which can never be achieved with the traditional postal service. So true is this fact that some people affectionately refer to traditional postal services as "snail mail". By comparison, e-mail is without question the more immediate medium. Another unique and beneficial feature of e-mail is that there is no chance of losing a correspondence due to human error during the transfer of data. Also, resubmitting e-mail messages is as easy as you might imagine, due to the fact that all previous e-mails can be saved in memory. This allows an individual to generate as many multiple messages as desired or until a response is recieved. One quite significant use of e-mail which I discovered through my research is, e-mail as the link between classroom teachers and their students with Subject Matter Experts (SME's). In particular the Electrones Emissary Project at the University of Texas, Austin at http://www.tapr.org/emissary. Participants volunteer to be a telementor by applying on line, completing the necessary forms and under going a thorough investigation. If the field of expertise is required for a particular project being worked on by a class and teacher, a facilitator will contact the volunteer to schedule project periods or times of mutual availability as well as detail project planning. The role of the facilitator is to provide support and scaffolding to SME's in the field. One first time facilitator of the Electronic Emissary Project was really surprised at the almost immediate responses she received through her e-mails. She believed that e-mail is much more agreeable than an answering machine or telephone because it dosen't require that you divert your immediate attention or interrupt your work process in order to deal with the messages. She also believed that the medium was very powerful for instructional purposes and the messages were much more personal and, often, more informative than those left on answering machines.