Through ongoing rapid-fire changes in the nature of communications, the social, professional, and political landscapes of our time are rapidly transforming. But the prevailing paradigm in most schools and school systems is a relic of the industrial revolution. Schools and school systems must adopt a new paradigm for learning if they are to remain…

The author traces the growth of K-12 online learning in the United States from its modest genesis in the mid-1990s with 50,000 students to the more than 4 million enrollments today, the fastest scaling ever of any innovation in K-12 education. The evolution from one-size-fits-all online courses to innovative, blended instructional models that are…

China is a huge country with a large population. Providing equitable and quality "e-education" or use of ICT (information and communications technologies) for teaching and learning in elementary and secondary schools across the country is a national priority. This article briefly sketches the context in China and the challenges relating…

Advocates a new form of long-range educational technology planning and presents as an example the North Rockland (Garnerville, New York) Central School District Technology Planning Grid. Describes infrastructure and hardware, and discusses team planning, staff development, and resources. (AEF)

Discussion of inquiry and technology within elementary and secondary school science curriculum focuses on WISE (Web-Based Inquiry Science Environment) that was developed to provide effective designs for inquiry activities and assessments, technology supports for students and teachers, authoring partnerships to create a library of inquiry projects,…

Reviews reasons for the decision to change from a timeshare minicomputer to microcomputers, financial considerations involved, the purchase of hardware, the problem posed by the lack of compatible software for the microcomputers, and the development of the Assisted Instructional Development System (AIDS) for adapting minicomputer software and…

Advocates a systems approach to designing educational systems in a changing world. The intellectual technology of systems design is outlined; and a design architecture is described that addresses definition of the new system, system specifications, key functions, organizational issues, and the systemic environment. Organizing perspectives for…

This overview of computer based education (CBE) in China mentions pioneering work before describing recent activities in university-based research and development and the expansion of CBE into primary and secondary education. Developments in authoring and word processing systems in Chinese characters and problems to be faced are also discussed.…

Discusses a new history and geography-centered curriculum for elementary and secondary school students that was developed in California and describes efforts to adopt instructional materials that include new technology and formats. Three specific technology developments in the history-social science curriculum are described. (LRW)

The K-12 and higher education communities have already voiced the need for technologically literate teachers. Standards movements and licensing agencies are stressing the importance of technology skills for beginning teachers and legislation is being passed which provides the impetus for change. Teacher preparation programs must have goals for…

Discusses categories of common approaches K-12 and higher education faculty members take to adapt their courses for distance delivery. Describes the "dive-in technique," the "chunking approach," and the "start-from-scratch" approach. These different approaches to the problem of distance education illustrate that there are a variety of ways to be…

Presents an overview of various efforts toward developing online education in China, and describes the progress that has been made both in the areas of higher education and basic education in recent years. Introduces some ongoing national projects related to online education. Discusses issues pertinent to online education and provides…

In an effort to connect current research findings on teacher thinking with components of instructional design models and principles, this article discusses a new contextual model for thinking about teaching and considers the implications of the model for instructional development of research in instructional design and teacher thinking. (Author)

Describes the Taliesin Project, a current curriculum materials research and development effort whose main goals are (1) the development of a computer-aided classroom instructional tool for grades six through eight based on hypermedia technology, and (2) the development of a multidisciplinary curriculum to help develop stronger interests in…

The goal of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Learning and Intelligent Systems (LIS) program is to focus research attention on the learning aspects of cognition, neuroscience, information technologies, and related disciplines. Goal-oriented descriptions of the three Collaborative Research on Learning Technology Centers funded under LIS are…