Four major trends currently exist in educational technology throughout the world: the "open university" is teaching motivated adults at a distance through several media; radio and television broadcasts are providing instruction in elementary and secondary schools; television is helping educate preschool children at home; and instruction systems design is being used as a formal methodology for developing instructional content. This paper describes the open university format as applied in Great Britain, Germany, and the South Pacific; discusses the role of radio in basic education in Asia, Africa, and Latin America; comments on the worldwide impact of television programming modeled on the efforts of the Children's Television Workshop; and outlines the major changes being effected by the adoption in other countries of the American concept of the systems design approach to instruction. The paper also describes the growing use of communications satellites and the role of the United States in producing and orbiting them. The part played by the U.S. Agency for International Development in all of these efforts to expand educational services is touched on. (Author/PGD)