This study compared preservice teachers' confidence to transfer computer applications into their classroom instruction depending on whether they were taught computer literacy from a theory perspective focusing on skills alone or from a theory and application perspective where their computer skills were learned simultaneously as they completed…

Discusses answers to four questions school districts should consider in assessing technology's contributions to education: How should students learn technology skills? Should technology-enhanced learning replace paper-and-pencil knowledge? Will appropriate student use of technology lead to higher test scores? How do we obtain or produce teachers…

Most schools are unwilling to consider decreasing computer use at school because they fear that without screen time, students will not be prepared for the demands of a high-tech 21st century. Monke argues that having young children spend a significant amount of time on computers in school is harmful, particularly when children spend so much…

Although instructional technology has made large gains in the last 15 years in terms of the quantity and quality of computers available in schools, major questions remain about the effects of all this technology on student achievement. The author has conducted a series of studies to address these questions. By analyzing test score and…

The aim of the study was to explore characteristics of 5- to 6-year-old kindergartners' peer dynamics during a seven week learning experience in a computer-based technology-rich classroom in the US. The children (9 boys and 9 girls) were placed in pairs by the classroom teacher, based on her perception of the their friendships. Measures of each…

Today's technology standards (International Society for Technology in Education, 2000) challenge teacher education programs across the nation to address the need to produce computer literate teachers who are confident in their ability to choose and incorporate instructional technology into their classroom teaching. The purpose of this paper is to…

This article reviews the research evidence that relates to the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in pre-school settings. While there is widespread agreement that children should be helped to become confident users of ICTs, the literature presents a more qualified picture of potential benefits and barriers. The review…

This paper analyses the role of computers within the nursery sector and what are viewed as the potential benefits and concerns of introducing young children to computers. It also examines how the computer is introduced and presented to young children and the form it takes. Data collection comprises a number of methods: questionnaires,…

In order to identify differences in determinants of supportive and class use of computers, path modelling was applied in a sample of 468 primary school teachers. Independent variables were categorised in three levels: demographics (age and gender), computer experience (computer training, computer experience expressed over time, intensity of…

This article reports on a study into the impact of students' use of the Internet and the computer at home on digital skills they need for school. The study was conducted in the lower grades of Dutch secondary education (students aged 13-15). More than 2500 students, distributed over 116 classes in 68 schools, participated in the study. Internet…

This paper is a preliminary report on a grant-funded project to use multimedia technology to create teacher portfolios. The workshop was the first step for testing the feasibility of multimedia for portfolio development for preservice and inservice professional development. The goals for the participants in the workshop were to begin learning…

This study is an interim follow-up to an investigation of how computer use influences the writing process used by high school students on a direct writing assessment (Wolfe and others, 1994). Whether students with less comfort and experience with word processors would receive lower scores on word-processed essays than those with more comfort and…

The Educational Technology Center and the Teacher Education Program at the SUNY College at Old Westbury (New York) used a cooperative approach to integrate computer technology into the teacher education curriculum and to train pre-service teachers how to use this technology successfully in the classroom. In 1989, the Teacher Education Program felt…

A survey of elementary, middle/junior high, and high school principals in central Appalachia examined their use of e-mail and factors influencing that use. The survey was sent to a stratified random sample of 620 principals in Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia; 375 usable responses were received. Respondents provided data on…

This paper traces an educator's experiences with computers over a span of 20 years, and describes the computerization of and concomitant obstacles faced by the Humanities department at the American University in Cairo, Egypt (AUC). The computerization of AUC began in the 1980s, with workstations mainly in the science, math, engineering, and…