Provides an overview of the articles in this issue that address the role of teachers and instructional technology; preservice teacher training in telecommunications; voice mail; courses using computer conferencing; and various aspects of software and courseware development and usage, including the portability of courseware to China. (LRW)

A review of current elementary mathematics software found that 41.7% of the programs had main characters that were gender identifiable; of these, 12.5% were female. The female characters all represented traditional female roles. Recommends further research to determine the effects of gender bias on attitudes and achievement in instructional…

As part of an ongoing research program, the authors investigated the use of single-voiced narration and multi-voiced characterizations/monologues in a formative evaluation study of an instructional lesson on information processing. That lesson employed a design based on the use of content-related metaphors and a metaphorical graphical user…

Computers running appropriate software hold great promise for teaching and learning mathematics. To this end, SRI International developed an integrated, computer-based problem solving environment called "Math Insight" that included interactive tools, such as a spreadsheet and dynamic geometric sketches, and professionally produced videos used to…