Joel seemed blessed with remarkable talents, but they did not reveal themselves in any obvious way in a school or class setting. Although he had been given an IQ test, his exact score could not be calculated--but it was well over 160. On a test of musical ability, Joel had attained a perfect score on all four musical attributes--a first for the…

This paper contributes to an understanding of the variation in approaches that information system analysts/designers use to do analysis and design. A qualitative, phenomenographic research method was used. Four categories were constituted from the data: an "ad hoc" strategy with the intention of solving the problem as quickly as…

The early eighties saw a period of rapid change in computing and teachers lost control of how they used computers in their classrooms. Software companies produced computer tools that looked so good that teachers forgot about writing their own classroom materials and happily purchased software--that offered much more than teachers needed--from…

A computer model of the decay of a radioactive series, written in Visual Basic in Excel[TM], is presented. The model is based on the random selection of cells in an array. The results compare well with the theoretical equations. The model is a useful tool in teaching this aspect of radioactivity. (Contains 4 figures.)

We describe two short group projects for finite mathematics students that incorporate matrices and linear programming into fictional consulting requests presented as a letter to the students. The students are required to use mathematics to decrypt secret messages in one project involving matrix multiplication and inversion. The second project…

This study investigated vocabulary coverage and the number of encounters of low-frequency vocabulary in television programs. Eighty-eight television programs consisting of 264,384 running words were categorized according to genre. Television shows were classified as either British or American and then put into the following genres: news, drama,…

Traditionally, learning resources are created by an instructor and distributed to their students. A contributing-student pedagogy (CSP) is one in which this responsibility shifts, placing students in control of creating the resources and sharing them with their peers. Technology plays a central role in supporting the collection and distribution of…

Students' collaboration while learning could provide better learning environments. Collaboration assumes social interactions which occur in student groups. Social theories emphasize positive influence of such interactions on learning. In order to create an appropriate learning environment that enables social interactions, it is important to…

This study examined the average effects of schools' third through fifth grade gifted programming policy in mathematics and reading on overall school achievement, on gifted students' achievement and academic attitudes and on nongifted students' achievement and academic attitudes. Data and results represent a broad, national look at school…

Electronic Blocks are a new programming environment designed specifically for children aged between 3 and 8 years. These physical, stackable blocks include sensor blocks, action blocks, and logic blocks. By connecting these blocks, children can program a wide variety of structures that interact with one another and the environment. Electronic…

Teaching programming concepts in a more object-oriented way is a growing trend in Computer Science education. This paper takes the idea of abstraction-first teaching a step further, by using Bloom's Taxonomy to design a course to present factual content early, followed by higher-level cognitive skills. In the course described here, factual content…

There are many different approaches to teaching Information Systems courses. Studies have shown that if the student is interested in the topic, they just may have a more productive classroom experience. This paper documents the practice of structuring assignments around topics that are of interest to each individual student. This method has been…

If it is true that bullying begins in elementary school and peaks in middle school, schools are obvious laboratories of research, undeniable arenas of investigation. With a reality of physical, social, and emotional undoing, and a result of serious short and long term repercussions, this phenomenon not only affects the social environments, but the…

An interoperability gap exists between Learning Management Systems (LMSs) and Learning Object Repositories (LORs). Learning Objects (LOs) and the associated Learning Object Metadata (LOM) that is stored within LORs adhere to a variety of LOM standards. A common LOM standard found in LORs is the Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM)…

This paper presents the results of a project on generating diagnostic feedback for guided learning in a first-year course on programming and a Master's course on software quality. An online multiple-choice questions (MCQs) system is integrated with neural network-based data analysis. Findings about how students use the system suggest that the…