Students believe that they are computer literate. When asked, students perceive themselves as skilled in a variety of computer applications. This research compares students' perceptions with their reality. Students did not perform well on pretests of Microsoft Office, but improved their posttests scores with instruction. The study also examined…

Most science teachers are amazed when grading tests and quizzes, often wondering how and why students have reached a conclusion, particularly when students fail to provide a detailed account of their logic. Ideally, a variety of assessments should be used to identify alternate student conceptions or gaps in understanding, particularly when…

The Virtual Math Teams Project is exploring how to create, structure, support, and assess an online chat-based collaborative community devoted to mathematics discourse. It is analyzing the forms of group cognition that emerge from the use of shared cognitive tools with specific functionalities. Centered on a case study of a synchronous online…

The author reviews the evolution of Web services--from information sharing to transactional to relationship building--and the progression from first-generation to fourth-generation Web sites. (Contains 3 figures.)

Eye-tracking technology allows for the determination of the exact location of the point of gaze of a subject's eye. This study sought to take advantage of this ability to determine how students attend to science related photographs. Pre-service science teachers were shown a PowerPoint[TM] Presentation with embedded photographs. The photographs…

Sociocultural theories of learning such as Wenger and Lave's situated learning have been suggested as alternatives to cognitive theories of learning like constructivism. This article examines situated learning within the context of computer science (CS) education. Situated learning accurately describes some CS communities like open-source software…

Three-dimensional spatial skills have been shown to be critical to success in engineering and other technological fields. Well-developed 3D spatial skills are particularly important for success in engineering graphics courses. Further, 3D spatial skills of women lag significantly behind those of their male counterparts, which could hinder their…

T-algebra is a project for creating an interactive learning environment for expression manipulation tasks of elementary algebra. Our main didactical principle has been that all the necessary decisions and calculations at each solution step should be made by the student, and the program should be able to understand the mistakes. This paper…

Within this paper I report on aspects of a study aimed at not only discovering how and when students use a graphical calculator within an Advanced-Level (pre-University) Mathematics course, and what operations and calculations they perform with such calculators, but also the depth and type of learning that takes place when students use graphical…

The purpose of this study was to examine the use of word prediction software to increase typing speed and decrease spelling errors for students who have physical disabilities that affect hand use. Student perceptions regarding the effectiveness of word prediction was examined as well as their typing rates and spelling accuracy. Four students with…

Laboratory exercises, field observations and field trips are a fundamental part of many earth science and environmental science courses. Field observations and field trips can be constrained because of distance, time, expense, scale, safety, or complexity of real-world environments. Our objectives were to develop an environmental virtual field…

One of the issues that has been debated in the context of fairly open learning partnerships such as tandem learning has been whether and, if so, how much pedagogical support should be provided. Another issue is how do language learners who have grown accustomed to maximising their learning through comprehensible input and output make the…

Online learning environments offer efficient ways of interconnecting group members and satisfying their communicative needs. However, learning does not proceed through shared communication alone; all groups imply social processes and learning groups demand an additional pedagogical intention. Popular online learning systems satisfactorily enable…

The average age of students at Lake Michigan College (LMC) is twenty-eight years old. In the current study, the application of customized internet assessment for Chemistry 101, Introductory College Chemistry, from 2001 to 2005 is compared with traditional assessment from 1996 to 2000. The authors describe the ways in which computerized assessment…

A computerized program, Headsprout, was investigated as an intervention for beginning reading instruction with 3 students identified with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). A multiple-baseline design, across subjects, was implemented to investigate the program's effects on oral reading fluency and task engagement. Results of the…