To be effective, technology cannot exist in a vacuum, but must become part of the whole educational environment. New measures of evaluation are under development which would help to better define the role of technology in its wider context. This ERIC digest summarizes the observed benefits of technology implementation and addresses the importance…

Peakview is a new school that is implementing a number of organizational and teaching strategies advocated by the school restructuring reform movement. Among those strategies is the infusion of more than 80 networked microcomputers and related technology and software. This evaluation study examined the impact of the technology on the school…

This ERIC Digest asserts that parent involvement is critical in facilitating children's development and achievement and in preventing and remedying educational and developmental problems. Topics briefly discussed are benefits to children and to parents of parent involvement, effective approaches to parent involvement, problems in involving…

School volunteers come from many sources and provide a wide range of services at both the elementary and secondary levels. Senior citizens have discovered that volunteering offers an avenue for exercising skills and talents gained through a lifetime of experience. In schools across the country, older adults are being brought into classrooms, to…

Two-way bilingual education has taken root in many schools across the United Sates. In these programs, students develop dual language proficiency by receiving instruction in English and another language in a classroom that is usually comprised of half native speakers of English and half native speakers of the target language. Two-way programs work…

Merit pay programs are based on the simple idea that educators should be paid what they are worth; yet these programs face a host of practical problems, mostly centering on the difficulties of developing and administering such systems. A review of research shows that money may not be the best way to motivate teachers, who are more influenced by…

This digest, based on a full report of the same title, provides an examination of the improvement of college teaching and argues for the central involvement of faculty themselves in collaborative peer review and looks at some central issues and challenges to implementation. Since summative evaluation involved in tenure and promotion decisions…

This monograph consists of seven papers that discuss issues related to the teaching approach used in the preschools of Reggio Emilia, Italy. The papers are: (1) "Images from the World: Study Seminar on the Experience of the Municipal Infant-Toddler Centers and the Preprimary Schools of Reggio Emilia, Italy" (Lilian G. Katz), which…

Short-term travel study programs for high school students offer international interpersonal encounters, exposure to foreign languages, and opportunities for students to develop a sense of global citizenship and international responsibility. There appears to be a growing interest among educators in involving students in foreign travel and study. A…

This guide presents nine tasks to be performed in planning organizational career development programs. Following an introduction that briefly discusses the guidebook's purposes, the state of career development programs in the work place, and uses of the guide, the nine tasks are discussed in two main sections. Part 1, Leadership Tasks, covers…

This booklet examines the unique difficulties of delivering education services to at-risk children and youth with exceptionalities who live in rural areas. An introductory chapter considers the extent of the problem and identifies such strategies as providing self-esteem education, appropriate preservice and inservice training,…

This report argues for the central involvement of faculty themselves in collaborative peer review for the improvement of college teaching. An early section makes the case for formative evaluation to improve teaching and argues that collaborative peer review is well suited to the formative evaluation task. The next section examines faculty roles in…

Designed to assist program planners and administrators at community colleges in initiating a Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) program or determining the future direction of one already in existence, this sourcebook provides 15 articles on various aspects of WAC theory and practice. The following articles are included: (1) "History of WAC and…

The state of the art of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) in instruction of English as a second language (ESL) is examined. An overview of computer applications in the field discusses computer roles in language learning, computers and the standard curriculum, computer requirements for different types of CALL (instructional, collaborative,…

Included in this summary analysis of three journal articles and two documents on teacher evaluation are reports that touch on difficulties facing school officials in developing a teacher evaluation system and suggestions for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of an evaluation system. The first article, by Susan S. Stodolsky, challenges…