Over the past decade postsecondary education has been moving increasingly from the classroom to online. During the fall 2010 term 31 percent of U.S. college students took at least one online course. The primary reasons for the growth of e-learning in the nation's colleges and universities include the desire of those institutions to generate…

Hybrid courses--which replace 20%-80% of class meetings with online activities--are predicted to increase as educators embrace the benefits of blending online technologies with face-to-face class meetings. Also expected to increase are enrollments of ESL/EFL students. As these growth trends intersect, an increased number of ESL/EFL students are…

The article describes "Simu-Teach," an interactive video training program for personnel training in early intervention curricula for disabled young children. Results of pilot testing indicate the feasibility of a simulated teaching experience through interactive video technology and enthusiasm of its users. (Author/DB)

A review of 287 references describing computer applications with deaf children found 74 percent concerned academic applications, 7 percent were psychological investigations, and 19 percent were about general education. Analysis of the academic instruction references found only 9 percent reported efficacy data with degree of computer-assisted…

Case studies of two children (ages 7 and 9) with autism investigated whether they would tolerate virtual reality (VR) equipment and respond to the computer-generated world in a meaningful way. The children accepted the VR helmet, identified objects and their qualities, and located and moved toward objects. (CR)

Comparison of 8 toddlers and 14 preschool special needs children who participated in teacher-facilitated computer play activities and 15 similar children whose curriculum did not incorporate computer activities found statistically significant differences favoring the experimental group for amount of simple and cooperative social play and positive…

Summarizes the sources, statistical methods, and general findings from the review. Poses findings on specific questions of research. Gives implications of past research for the future. (MVL)

Summarizes three experiments examining the ways that various forms of feedback influence children's progress in learning to tell time through computer-based training. The experiments compared different forms of feedback as well as delays in their presentations. Reviews related literature and includes statistical and tabular data. (MJP)

Provides some cursory guidance on the mechanics of establishing and instructing in a virtual classroom. Briefly discusses the history and central issues of distance education, describes how to teach an online virtual seminar, and offers recommendations for future courses. Discusses such issues as instructor availability, directing discussions,…

Design research has grown in importance since it was first conceptualized in the early 90s, but it has not been adopted for research in instructional technology in higher education to any great extent. Many researchers continue to conduct studies that principally seek to determine the effectiveness of the delivery medium, rather than the…

The purpose of the research was to manipulate two aspects of genetics instruction in order to measure their effects on college, introductory biology students' achievement in genetics. One instructional sequence that was used dealt first with monohybrid autosomal inheritance patterns, then sex-linkage. The alternate sequence was the reverse.…

Reports on the effects of expressive variation in dynamics on the musical preferences of 45 middle school students. Finds that students preferred the expressive version of 10 folk songs. Concludes that expressive interpretation and performance may stimulate a wide range of positive student responses. (CFR)

This paper is a summary of much of the available research on college science laboratory instruction of the past decade with a focus on the effects of specific laboratory teaching strategies upon student learning outcomes. Some tentative interpretations from a review of the literature found are: (1) inquiry or investigative approaches in college…

Compares academic performance between two groups of students in a statistics course. One group was given homework generated by computer software that provided feedback concerning incorrect answers. The other relied on the textbook without benefit of the feedback. The group using the software performed better on homework and tests. (MJP)

Describes a pilot project incorporating extensive use of computers in mathematics instruction. Test scores and homework from this group were compared with a group that did not use computers. Results were inconclusive and only revealed a shortage of appropriate instructional software. (MJP)