The University of Minnesota's TA Web Certification program is designed to give teaching assistants (TAs) the skills needed to create course Web sites that are technically robust and pedagogically useful. Provides an overview of successes and challenges encountered by designers of and instructors in the program, highlighting salient data from…

Details the use and appeal of Web logs to enhance classroom discussion and allow for outside involvement in the classroom. Defines a Web log, addresses discussing literature in a Web log, and describes the author's first attempts at using Web-log technology. Presents considerations for using Web logs as part of classroom instruction. (SG)

Describes the development of a chemistry lecture course called CHEMnet that is available via the internet and optimizes multimedia learning environments. Investigates the use and efficiency of multimedia teaching and learning software with CHEMnet. Discusses the structure and features of CHEMnet along with numbers and characteristics of its use.…

Focuses on the use of Microsoft Excel in introductory statistics courses. Discusses the benefits of using a spreadsheet application for teaching statistics and why Excel is a good choice. Examines student reactions to Excel in introductory statistics courses using a survey method. (CMK)

Describes advantages of using learning objects for technology-supported instruction, with a focus on higher education. Explores why teachers would want to use them, and explains how to facilitate their use. Emphasizes effective implementation of existing learning objects, rather than the separate issue of designing learning objects. (AEF)

Discusses underlying mental processes for understanding volume measurement. Presents an instructional activity that promotes students' structuring of three-dimensional arrays of cubes and the electronic version of the "How Many Cubes?" activities. Includes student activity sheets. (KHR)

Discusses the use of computer software for students with special needs in the music classroom. Focuses on software programs that are appropriate for children with special needs such as: "Musicshop,""Band-in-a-Box,""Rock Rap'n Roll,""Music Mania,""Music Ace" and "Music Ace 2," and "Children's Songbook." (CMK)

Describes an art lesson that focuses on developing second-grade students' basic computer drawing skills. Explains that the students created a picture using shapes and copied their artworks onto the computer using a stylus. States that the students also wrote a story to accompany their computer pictures. (CMK)

Describes a self-instructional assignment approach to the teaching of advanced enzymology. Presents an assignment that offers a means of teaching enzymology to students that exposes them to modern computer-based techniques of analyzing protein structure and relates structure to enzyme function. (JRH)

Defines contemporary literacy and examines what skills educators and library media specialists need to learn and impart to their students. Discusses using the Big6 skills to achieve contemporary literacy; developing information literacy curricula; and addressing the challenge of contemporary literacy. (AEF)

Describes the Digital Learning Interactive textbook which allows instructors to customize an online textbook to meet the needs of the instructor and the students. Discusses the features and components aimed at engaging students in the Digital Learning Interactive text. (CMK)

Describes the project "Step Up to Geography in Distance Learning," a model distance-learning-based graduate program in geography that integrates the collaborative approach with a multi-layered system of instructional technologies, such as the Internet, video conferencing, print materials, and pre-packaged cassette tapes. (CMK)

Describes a Web site designed for undergraduate macroeconomics teaching. Includes examples of two teaching modules, an applet that features macro time series for 19 countries, dictionaries of macroeconomic terms in 12 languages, links to macroeconomic topics, and an intranet search option. (JEH)

Describes a Web site that makes use of the Comparative Statics Wizard add-in feature for Microsoft Excel. Enables students to focus on economic problems involving optimality, rate of change, and equilibrium solutions. (JEH)

Suggests two guiding principles as a framework to interpret the research findings of environmental psychology that focus on effective classroom design: effective design promotes attention in the classroom and allows for periodic shifts of learner activities. Examines these principles as they apply to the design of a computer classroom, reviewing…