Radical constructivists advocate discovery-based pedagogical regimes that enable students to incrementally and continuously adapt their cognitive structures to the instrumented cultural environment. Some sociocultural theorists, however, maintain that learning implies discontinuity in conceptual development, because novices must appropriate expert…

We explore how small-format laptops ("netbooks") have been used within evidence-based investigations undertaken by secondary school students, to what extent these are suitable for effectively supporting learners across different locations and contexts, and their implications for open learning. Over the course of seven trials with 300…

This article describes a study into the role of heuristic support in facilitating discovery learning through simulation-based learning. The study compares the use of two such learning environments in the physics domain of collisions. In one learning environment (implicit heuristics) heuristics are only used to provide the learner with guidance…

This study seeks to establish which scientific reasoning skills are primarily domain-general and which appear to be domain-specific. The subjects, 12 university undergraduates, each participated in self-directed experimentation with three different content domains. The experimentation contexts were computer-based laboratories in d.c. circuits…

This paper discusses a range of teaching styles possible for use in Intelligent Computer Aided Instruction (ICAI) and suggests that they may usefully be thought of as points within a framework of guided discovery teaching methods. The nature of guidance in tutoring and possible ways of providing guidance are discussed in the context of…

Describes a series of programs written in Logo that have been used successfully to support young children's programing efforts. These programs remove the mechanical obstacles of typing, spelling, and estimating distances; remove the demands of abstract planning and ordering instruction; and provide a set of programing procedures. (MBR)

About 21% of all U.S. public school students attend schools equipped with multimedia computers, videodisc players, and other software designed to combine text, graphics, and sound in interactive applications. Multimedia software products can nurture the seven multiple intelligences identified by Howard Gardner, if properly implemented.…

This paper focuses on issues of representation and interaction styles that are relevant considerations in the design and analysis of hypermedia learning environments. Analysis is supported by examples from the "HUGH" series of studies involving learners in reasoning about formal hypermedia representations. The representational issues include…

Research was conducted to compare the effects of three different methods of teaching LOGO to fifth graders with a broad range of academic ability. The first method, based on Papert's idea of discovery learning, involved teacher presentation of LOGO instruction and student control of pace of learning. The second method involved the use of…

A technique designed to make the classroom use of videotapes for second language teaching for specific purposes more efficient is described. The technique begins with a classroom review of basic vocabulary and structures, which is then tested with a computer exercise. A second stage requires discussion and memorization of vocabulary and phrases…