As soon as the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) announced last May that it would be giving all 400 incoming freshmen Apple iPads, a lively debate broke out online at TUAW.com (The Unofficial Apple Weblog) between people who saw it as a marketing gimmick to attract students and others who believed it was an honest attempt to implement a new…

An approach is presented that utilizes a spreadsheet to allow students to explore different means of calculating and visualizing how the charge on peptides and proteins varies as a function of pH. In particular, the concept of isoelectric point is developed to allow students to compare the results of their spreadsheet calculations with those of…

Although the Internet has revolutionized communication and provided a new educational tools for student learning, it has also created risks and raised ethical issues for students of all grades, as it has created many opportunities for illegal, inappropriate and unsafe behavior among all participants. Increasingly, K12 educators are seeing the need…

Before the advent of microcomputer-based labware (MBL), "time-of-flight" measurements for the speed of a transverse pulse on a string required elegant apparatus. This paper describes how to use an off-the-shelf MBL force sensor and a computer to perform the measurement. The data shown in this paper were collected using Vernier Software's wireless…

Exhibition is an important part of the artistic process for students as well as professional artists, but finding enough good places to exhibit can be as difficult for student artists as for adult artists. Venues that are accessible, display art attractively, and provide adequate space for many artists are usually in short supply. There is an…

Many classes of differential equations are shown to be open to solution through a method involving a combination of a direct integration approach with suitably modified Picard iterative procedures. The classes of differential equations considered include typical initial value, boundary value and eigenvalue problems arising in physics and…

WebQuests and the 5E learning cycle are titans of the science classroom. These popular inquiry-based strategies are most often used as separate entities, but the author has discovered that using a combined WebQuest and 5E learning cycle format taps into the inherent power and potential of both strategies. In the lesson, "Clash of the Titans,"…

Decades of research into which instructional strategies are successful in K-12 history and social studies conclude that having students write is extremely important. Effective writing assignments--whether a 3- to 5-paragraph essay, a longer term-paper-style assignment, or even a fictional short story based on a historical period or event--require…

For several years we have included discussions about insect vision in the optics units of our introductory physics courses. This topic is a natural extension of demonstrations involving Brewster's reflection and Rayleigh scattering of polarized light because many insects heavily rely on optical polarization for navigation and communication.…

The provision of Open Educational Resources (OER) means that learning horizons are no longer restricted by time and space. However, if the learning potential of OER is to be fully realised, educators and students must have the media literacy skills to select, use and produce information in a judicious and useful way. A consideration of the…

Professional learning communities (PLCs)--teams of educators who get together regularly to exchange ideas--have sprung up to meet school districts' growing interest in promoting professional development that engages teachers and administrators. PLCs meet to develop lesson plans, monitor student progress, assess instructional effectiveness, and…

The education system in the United States continues to grapple with adapting to change, especially when it comes to integrating technology in the curriculum. The United States needs to use its resources to stay competitive in the increasingly technological world, particularly in the classroom. Lefebvre, Deaudelin, and Loiselle (2006) posit that…

Alumni relations professionals need a method of measuring alumni engagement, including giving, that goes beyond counting event attendees and the number of Twitter followers. Social media are changing the way things have been done within the alumni relations profession, but that does not mean that people throw out everything they have done in the…

Some schools in South Dakota have gone one-to-one, and other schools have one computer cart for two grade levels. Some teachers refuse to use their computers for anything but email, and others are incorporating web 2.0 tools into their project-based learning curricula. But one thing that is consistent across the board is the need for…

Many educators know that web 2.0 tools can transform learning and teaching, but teachers need support to make this happen. This article discusses how principals can encourage teachers to learn how to use these powerful tools. Over the past decade, Intel has provided the Center for Children & Technology with funding to conduct numerous studies…