The educational potential accessible with the aid of international communications networks and computer-mediated communication was explored with Finnish secondary school students in an ethnographic study that also investigated gender differences and quality of education. Subjects were 108 students (46 males and 62 females) from six classes in three senior secondary schools with four teachers of English. Girls provided slightly more analytical comments than did boys, and more females than males appeared ready to commit themselves to a new kind of learning environment. Results suggest that when computer-mediated communication is introduced, attention should be paid to what each sex masters best in computing. Male interest in hardware could be fruitfully combined with girls' skills in word processing and their ability to exchange ideas in writing. Both sexes should have access to computing resources in their schools with electronic mail (e-mail) as a tool. An important finding is that males and females can enjoy working in a learning environment focused on computer-mediated communication. They can become deeply committed to working in an e-mail equipped cooperative and collaborative learning environment and can learn from each other and from interacting with the computer. Six charts present study findings, and four appendixes contain the two student questionnaires and their English translations. (Contains 108 references.) (SLD)