Benchmarking information technology services has become a vital activity for colleges and universities. The COSTS Project (http://www.costsproject.org/) is an ongoing quantitative effort to benchmark the costs of providing IT services in higher education; the project helps institutions understand their IT budgets and staffing relative to peer…

Researchers and educators have expressed many concerns regarding cyberspace curricula. In this review of the literature, it was found that articles dealing with educator concerns regarding cyberspace curricula reported five major categorical concerns: insufficient teacher training, insufficient educator involvement in the technology development…

Including the arts in the curriculum is a tough sell these days. In many districts, budgets have been cut, enrollment has increased, and there are tests to pass--forget about teaching Johnny to paint. But the discipline that many refer to as "the fourth R" may never have been more relevant to students' futures than today. That is because an…

This article represents the second part of a two part article. It begins with a summary of part one of the article published in the September issue of "T.H.E. Journal." This second part of the discussion presents vignettes that demonstrate how many current approaches to teacher preparation, new teacher induction and continuing professional…

The University of Southern Queensland (USQ), Australia, has more than 25 years experience in distributed education. More recently, USQ has embraced information and communication technologies to delivery learning resources in a more integrated and interactive environment to on-campus and external students. To understand the complex reactions of…

Digital cameras are easy to find, easy to use, and offer great potential for incorporating technology into lessons. Project ideas can range from creating collections of objects to identify (e.g., insects, plants, rocks/minerals, and so on) to documenting the signs of the seasons or recording the progress of an investigation. Even stages of the…

When a computer-based tool or application is used to carry out a specific task in a learning situation--that is, it is used for learning--more effectively or efficiently one speaks of learning "with" the tool or application. When, possibly, that same tool or application is used to enhance the way a learner works and thinks, and as such has effects…

This paper reports on teachers' perceptions of the educational affordances of a handheld application called Participatory Simulations. It presents evidence from five cases representing each of the populations who work with these computational tools. Evidence across multiple data sources yield similar results to previous research evaluations of…

Teaching for understanding is a traditional goal in education that is enhanced through what curriculum theorists Wiggins and McTighe (1998) called "uncovering." In this article the authors describe the ways that interactive computer technology--hypertext--facilitates this act of "uncovering" as students try out ideas, formulate questions, and…

In a future that is likely to be increasingly dominated by new technology, it is important to consider what mathematics is and how it might be taught. This article discusses these and related issues in the context of both universities and schools.

The goal of this exploratory research study was to use the self-directed learning framework in a nonformal learning environment to determine how an underserved community would use technology. The factors that support self-directed learning in a nonformal learning environment were the ability to communicate, access information, and acquire…

One definition of design is "creating something new that fits with reality" (Stults, 1985). This article describes a project in which the researchers started with the intuition that new handheld-based wireless technologies held the promise of creating something new and highly desirable for K-12 education. We saw the potential for handheld-based…

Teacher education programs in the United States are trying to equip tomorrow's teachers with the technology skills needed to impact learning in the classroom. During the past decade there has been a realization that teaching technology skills alone is not adequate-- pre-service teachers must also learn how to integrate the use of technology into…

To better prepare pre-service candidates for teaching in the information age, the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) has defined National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) to guide technology integration into teacher education programs. Based on these standards, Brigham Young University (BYU) has implemented strategies…

In an era of digital technologies, school districts find themselves on a cutting edge, one that slices both ways. Technological tools like the Internet, e-mail, networked computers and such have revolutionized the way children are taught and schools are run, but they also have created new management challenges and ethical issues that many school…