As teachers become more informed about the affordances of information and communication technologies and take up the new tools in their classrooms, these same technologies are always already informing and reshaping their perceptions and actions in the world. In seizing hold of PowerPoint, a teacher is not only aided, enmeshed, and constrained by…

Considers the question of whether instructional methods are replaceable or interchangeable. Topics discussed include the influence of external events on learning and cognitive processes, media variables, linking instructional design to research on learning from instruction, construct validity, and an example of adequate instructional design and…

The role of video as a foreign language textbook of the future is discussed. The flexibility of the video format accommodates a wide variety of learning style characteristics. It is maintained that the ideal textbook: (1) empowers the teacher by matching the teacher's objectives, by being under the teacher's control, by condensing time, by…

This response to a previously published article on the replaceability of media and instructional methods focuses on a study that uses a chemistry multimedia software package to examine cognitive processes in which learners interact with instructional designs and use media and methods to construct understanding. (nine references) (LRW)

The new interactive videodisk systems with augmented audio capabilities have great potential for improving the teaching of foreign languages. At present that potential is unfulfilled because the profession is following a "rear view mirror" approach to media use: first, to fixate current practice; second, to distribute it broadly; and last, to…

Presents a four-stage model for dioceses wishing to integrate media literacy into elementary and secondary religious studies and parish youth programs. Describes the Vatican's 1992 Aetatis Novae: Pastoral Instruction on Social Communications, and its effect on Catholic curricula. (VWC)

Asserts that scientific details presented informally in newspapers can be of educational value within school science instruction when used carefully and critically. Suggests that one of the aims of the science curriculum should be the development of students' willingness and ability to study newspaper science with understanding and healthy…