Presents a protocol to teach students research skills in the technology/information age developed by one Westchester County, New York, school district. The district determined that research skills must be modeled and taught, and research skills must be taught developmentally, beginning in the elementary grades. The paper breaks the district's…

Presents three Internet-based activities for teaching elementary students about the Underground Railroad. The activities include creating a freight-train of facts about the Underground Railroad, mapping the routes of the Underground Railroad, and participating in an electronic simulation of life as a fugitive slave. (SM)

Presents evaluative work based on the computer algebra system (CAS) TREEFROG which enables drill-and-practice examples to be attempted with immediate, and ultimately intelligent, feedback. Contends that by using a suitable repertoire of black and white box CAS, a full range of algebraic skills can be developed. Presents preliminary evidence based…

Describes two strategies for implementing active learning in physical chemistry, one involving supplementing the traditional lecture course with heavily computer-based active learning exercises carried out by cooperative groups, the other using cooperative learning almost exclusively supplemented by occasional mini-lectures. Both approaches seemed…

Comments on the papers in this special issue. The authors use technology in at least three senses in their discussions, conceptualizing it as technology integration, instructional strategies, and technology tools. Papers such as these are necessary if the use of various types of technology is to be supported by a sound basis in research. (SLD)

Libraries are all about facilitating the intersection of people and information. According to this author, many librarians, however, still teach information literacy in the same way that their older colleagues taught bibliographic instruction. Teaching, despite technology and educational research, has still focused on the lecture. Librarians are…

In this article, the author offers criteria for evaluating WebQuests that are intended for use by students in the elementary grades. There are two general areas that teachers should consider: (1) Pedagogy--whether a WebQuest is developmentally appropriate and educationally useful for their students; and (2) Scholarship--whether the content is…

The interest in new media for teaching and learning has highlighted the potential of innovative software and hardware for education. This has included laptops, hand-helds, wireless systems and Web-based learning environments. Most recently, however, this interest has focused on blogs and blogging. Weblogs, or blogs, are Web pages often likened to…

Today, schools are actively looking for new ways to enable their students to develop storytelling skills. These skills should empower children and young adults to practice collaborative learning on many levels, from reading and writing to painting and project management. In this framework, digital painting provides educators with innovative…

A comprehensive project in which the students use computational chemistry to investigate a larger chlorine oxide, Cl2O4 is described. The students start the project by reading a scenario and then follow a series of hyperlinks to develop, along with their colleagues, a better understanding of the implications of the presence of Cl2O4 in the…

Computers were invented to help mathematicians perform long and complicated calculations more efficiently. By the time that a computing area became a familiar space in primary and secondary schools, the initial motivation for computer use had been submerged in the many other functions that modern computers now accomplish. Not only the mathematics…

In selecting a Claude Bernard Distinguished Lecturer, the Teaching Section looks for an individual who has made major contributions to physiology education. Dr. Harold Modell has certainly earned this honor. Harold has an undergraduate degree from the University of Minnesota, a Masters in biomedical engineering from Iowa State, and, continuing the…

There has been much interest in using software tools to scaffold learners in complex tasks, that is, to provide supports that enable students to deal with more complex content and skill demands than they could otherwise handle. Many different approaches to scaffolding techniques have been presented in a broad range of software tools. I argue that…

With gym time getting squeezed out by standardized tests and extracurriculars, schools are beginning to digitize physical education. This alternative method is first being offered by Minneapolis public schools in spring of 2005. In digital physical education, students can perform physical activities like they would in a traditional PE class but…

While critics draw important attention to worrisome aspects of digital cultures, they may be missing a much larger point about how young people live in a digital world, how they create and re-create themselves and their identities in ways that are remarkably foreign to others "digital immigrants". In this article, "digital immigrants" refers to…