The relative worth of any evaluation instrument depends on user needs and the material being evaluated. Potential users of a good computer assisted instruction (CAI) instrument include purchasers, authors, reviewers, and publishers of CAI materials. Although each user has unique needs, a good instrument will serve both to educate and discriminate,…

Instructional design considerations involved in using level four videodisc systems when designing simulations are explored. Discussion of the hardware and software system characteristics notes that computer based training offers the features of text, graphics, color, animation, and highlighting techniques, while a videodisc player offers all of…

The Alberta goverment has attempted to systematically address educational computing issues through programs of the provincial (K-12) education department (Alberta Education), which have included the development of computer literacy curricula for elementary, junior, and senior high schools; the Computer Technology Project (CTP); evaluation studies;…

As a basis for developing guidelines for educational courseware development and for teacher education in the instructional uses of microcomputers, this study was planned to examine relationships among 60 successful computer-using teachers' attitudes toward computers, their knowledge of the subject matter taught, and their uses of microcomputers…

Factors contributing to the uniqueness of educational software are analyzed from contextual and textual perspectives. Contextual (or external) technological, economic, and social factors are examined briefly, and are identified as the dominant factors in the future evolution of educational software. Feedback and interactiveness, two significant…

Discusses the evaluation of educational software designed for use with microcomputers, and emphasizes the need for criteria based on learning theories rather than technological considerations. A review of the literature highlights teacher training in software selection and predictive evaluation, and 49 references are included. (Author/LRW)

Focusing on university programs for adult learners, this discussion of distance education reviews existing programs, including the British Open University and the Annenberg/CPB Project; discusses course design; and describes the integration of a variety of media including television, video cassettes, audio, computer assisted instruction, radio,…

Reviews of 2,554 educational software programs by thirty reviewing sources were examined to compare the tendency of different review sources to give generally positive, negative, or neutral ratings. The reliability of language arts and reading software reviews was studied. Thirty-eight percent of the software programs were reviewed by two or more…

This paper examines the search and selection strategies of teachers when retrieving information on computer assisted learning programs from an online database. A literature review covers cognitive factors in human computer interactions, database query and manipulation, cognitive style, and information searching. Several experiments are reported…

The Center for the Study of Evaluation of the Graduate School of Education at the University of California at Los Angeles hosted a two-day conference on "Paths to Excellence: Testing and Technology" on July 14-15, 1983. Attended by over 100 educational researchers, practitioners, and policymakers, day one of the conference focused on issues in…

Intended for language teachers at all levels, administrators, and researchers, this book presents essays on the use of educational technology in language teaching, focusing on the use of computer-assisted language learning (CALL). The writings suggest the principles that should guide CALL in curriculum, methodology, and research efforts; in the…