The development of both the materials for an intermediate-level hybrid German writing course and the software in a virtual learning environment for the course may be viewed as activity systems. Viewing the individual components of each system as interrelated enables us to conceptualize the complexities of the development process, which goes well…

English teachers developed several activities for their ninth- and tenth-grade students using basic word processing capabilities. The materials described include guided writing (a job application form); passages involving cloze and pair work; relating details from a story; and work with a song and its written text. (CNP)

Informed opinion suggests that problems of underachievement in school relate to the lack of particular kinds of experience, discontinuity between school and home, and linguistic and cultural diversity. If a literacy program were based on up-to-date knowledge of the processes involved in reading and writing, and what is known of early literacy…

Ways in which culture in general and cultural change in particular affect approaches to and attitudes toward learning are examined, drawing on both published evidence and personal experience to support the position that changes in underlying technological and economic conditions create differing cultural behaviors, customs, values, beliefs,…