In recent years, educators and students are increasingly employing online collaboration applications such as Google Docs[TM] and PBWorks[TM] for group projects and assignments. Yet, the effectiveness of these emerging technologies has not been rigorously examined. Anchoring upon and informed by the existing literature, two design…

Discusses a new paradigm for choosing educational software, based on the perspectives of the teacher, student, and designer; describes a study of the use of this paradigm by a group of teachers. Results indicated the paradigm helped assessors to articulate a holistic awareness of educational issues, enabling a coherent review of pedagogical,…

Explains how modern programming systems empower beginning college students taking computer literacy courses; provides suggestions for designing courses and on the selection of appropriate software; and gives examples of course content and of approaches to course development using the Visual Basic programming environment. (22 references) (LRW)