An online homework system created for use by beginning calculus students is described. This system was designed with the specific goal of supporting student engagement outside of class by replicating the attempt-feedback-reattempt sequence of events which often occurs in a teacher's presence. Evidence is presented which indicates that this goal…

This essay examines three issues that emerge from the literature on computer-mediated instruction and from the experience of teaching online oral communication courses: (1) To what extent can online courses realize economies of scale to reduce cost and increase enrollment? (2) What productive potential does tracking and monitoring online…

Online systems have come to be heavily used in education, particularly for online learning and collecting information not otherwise readily available. Most e-learning systems, including interactive learning systems, have been designed to "push" course materials to students but rarely to "collect" or "pull" ideas from them. The interactive…

The Accelerated Reader/Reading Renaissance program (now called Accelerated Reader Best Classroom Practices) is a guided reading intervention in which teachers direct student reading of text. It involves two components. Reading Renaissance, the first component, is a set of recommended principles on guided reading (or teachers' direction of…

This work describes a framework that combines techniques from Adaptive Hypermedia and Natural Language processing in order to create, in a fully automated way, on-line information systems from linear texts in electronic format, such as textbooks. The process is divided into two steps: an "off-line" processing step, which analyses the source text,…

Meaningful educational activities and cognitive tools might improve students' active involvements in the teaching-learning process and encourage their reflections on the concepts and relations to be investigated. It is claimed that usage of manipulatives not only increase students' conceptual understanding and problem solving skills but also…

This article discusses design and usability issues pertaining to context-sensitive "help" in computer-assisted language learning (CALL). As part of the discussion, we present a study in which we examined the effects of three independent factors on student usage of context-sensitive "help": feedback, exercise type, and language proficiency. Forty…

The STARDUST project developed robust computer speech recognizers for use by eight people with severe dysarthria and concomitant physical disability to access assistive technologies. Independent computer speech recognizers trained with normal speech are of limited functional use by those with severe dysarthria due to limited and inconsistent…

Zo eplicates in a synchronous learning environment a study that looked at the effectiveness of providing two types of corrective feedback to students in the classroom. Elementary learners of L2 English (N = 31) completed two communicative tasks, during which time they received either recasts (implicit feedback) or metalinguistic information…

We report on the use of email lists as a supplement to teaching. We argue that email lists can provide a valuable students-instructor communication channel and describe the process of setting up and managing such lists. A case study of email messages exchanged in an introductory operations research course is also included. The case illustrates how…

The invention of computer-based writing program has revolutionized the way of teaching second language writing. Embedded with artificial intelligence scoring engine, it can provide students with both immediate score and diagnostic feedback on their essays. In addition, some of such programs offer convenient writing and editing tools to facilitate…

Framed by current concerns about boys' attainment in literacy, this paper investigates the potential of talking books software to support the literacy development of male beginning readers. The study primarily considered whether typically developing boys who showed lower levels of attainment in phonological awareness would show a greater degree of…

Most studies on feedback compare elaborated feedback types presenting knowledge on the correct response (KCR) immediately together with further information to simple feedback types providing knowledge of result (KR) or KCR. This study uses bug-related tutoring feedback (BRT-feedback) offering strategic information for error correction, but no…

The paper focuses on the question of how to advance collaboration through the Web and support lifelong learning. First, the theoretical framework and architecture of a new web-based tool, the "IQ Team," is introduced. IQ Team is an interactive online assessment and support system to learn social skills needed in cooperative work, and…

Purpose: The on-line tutor or e-moderator faces a diversity of new challenges, including instructional design, organisation, direct instruction and facilitating discourse. This study aims to contrast the views of students and tutors regarding what factors constitute effective e-moderation in order to identify key attributes of an on-line tutor.…