In order to establish a distant education system, it is first required to create a virtual learning system environment. A detailed literature search has revealed the existence of some "Open-Source" systems such as "Claroline, Moodle etc." Each system has been investigated in detail and it was found that "Moodle" is…

Corpora of present-day Dutch developed by the Institute for Dutch Lexicology include two linguistically annotated corpora that can be accessed via Internet: a 5-million word corpus covering a variety of topics and text types, and a 27-million word newspaper corpus. The texts of both were acquired in machine-readable form and have been lemmatized…

This study examines a 3-month software design activity in which mixed teams of girls and boys designed and implemented multimedia resources. Mixed-gender teams of fifth and sixth graders used Logo MicroWorlds in their classroom to design multimedia encyclopedias about their astronomy unit for use by younger children. In this context, students'…

This paper presents the Virtual Reference Desk project, its current activities, and a proposed information system architecture to build a human intermediated network of expertise and experience for the K-12 community. The Virtual Reference Desk is a project headed by the ERIC Clearinghouse on Information & Technology and funded by the U.S.…

This paper describes an educational package to help the learning process. A case study is presented of an energy distribution course in the Electrical Engineering Department at the Federal University of Espirito Santo (UFES). The advantages of the developed package are shown by comparing it with the traditional academic book. This package presents…

New Hampshire has adopted a standards-based statewide assessment, the New Hampshire Educational Improvement and Assessment Program (NHEIAP), which is designed to measure students' learning against proficiency standards at grades 3, 6, and 10. Because of the difficulty teachers had in interpreting the NHEIAP results, a custom-designed software…

Digital library systems focus principally on the reader: the consumer of the material that constitutes the library. In contrast, this paper describes an interface that makes it easy for people to build their own library collections. Collections may be built and served locally from the user's own Web server, or (given appropriate permissions)…

The University of Central Florida (UCF) has developed an award winning faculty development program providing experiential, collaborative learning for instructors to build online programs. A project is now underway to extend training throughout the state of Florida. Supporting students is also essential to the success of teaching online. The…

Casual encounters in a learning environment are very useful in reinforcing previous knowledge and acquiring new knowledge. Such encounters are very common in traditional learning environments and can be used successfully in social environments in which students can discover and construct knowledge through a process of dialogue, negotiation, or…

The Database Advisor (DBA) is a tool designed to guide users to the most appropriate World Wide Web-based databases for their research. Developed in 1997 by the Science Libraries at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), DBA is a Web-based front-end to bibliographic and full-text databases to which UCSD has remote access. DBA allows the…

Research shows that assistive technology (AT) can help young children with disabilities to learn developmental skills. Its use may help infants and toddlers to improve in many areas: (1) social skills including sharing and taking turns; (2) communication skills; (3) attention span; (4) fine and gross motor skills; and (5) self confidence and…

Concern is expressed that computer-assisted instruction may quickly become obsolete unless courseware reflects current trends in language learning. Current courseware is criticized as structure-bound and reflecting the 1960s audiolingual approach and for using computer-generated enhancements to cover up essentially trivial exercises. Work done at…

A Johns Hopkins University (Maryland) engineering professor has developed eight computer programs that simulate laboratory experiments, creating a "virtual laboratory" for his introductory engineering class. Experiments are fully interactive, giving students the opportunity to try eight different problem-solving strategies. Students can…

The School of Post-Compulsory Education and Training (PCET) of the University of Greenwich (London), whose main purpose is to provide initial training and professional development for teachers, trainers, and lectures, provides a distance-learning program. This article discusses the program and the piloting of a groupware product that permits…

Describes the development of special software and course materials that is designed to teach a variety of educational objectives by giving students access to a range of information and educational services available through the World Wide Web. Focuses on collaborative activities that support student/teacher and student/student interactions.…