This article explores some of the complexities of the question as to whether or not American Sign Language (ASL) is a foreign language. It reviews the historical oppression of the deaf, the development of ASL and its defining value to proponents of deaf culture, mentions other language systems (including foreign sign systems) used by the…

Educational Testing Service (ETS) research highlights more similarities than variations in gender differences among student racial/groups, though variations exist in how the differences are manifested. This digest presents highlights from Richard Coley's findings in "Differences in the Gender Gap: Comparisons across Racial/Ethnic Groups in…

This document explores problems described by learners of second languages at the university level. It reports on three case studies drawn from a language advisory service at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. An understanding of the range of experiences learners report in a given learning context is likely to shed light on ways in…

This paper provides teacher organizations with an overview of online education issues and research. The first section defines online education. The second section summarizes reasons for the expansion of online education. The third section looks at the nature and extent of online education in Canada and the United States. The fourth section…

At Del Norte Independent School District (DNISD) (El Paso, Texas), Mexican American students are the majority ethnic group, but their history and culture have not been incorporated into the high school curriculum. Hence a goal of citizenship education, to increase student understanding of their own ethnic heritage and its part in U.S. history, is…

This document contains the following full and short papers on concepts and procedures from the SITE (Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education) 2002 conference: "Exploring Minds Network" (Marino C. Alvarez and others); "Learning Communities: A Kaleidoscope of Ecological Designs" (Alain Breuleux and others);…

This document contains the following papers on the educational computing course from the SITE (Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education) 2002 conference: (1) "Integrating Media Literacy into a Technology Course for Preservice Secondary Teachers" (Gregg Brownell and Nancy Brownell); (2) "From Video Tutors to Electronic Portfolios:…

Universities are under increasing pressure to develop a virtual presence in the face of widespread global competition. Online courseware development and delivery presents many exciting opportunities, and brings with it a number of challenges to be overcome. This case study describes some of the experiences of the European Union-funded TISCAM…

Since 1999, and as part of an Ameritech grant, the author has systematically investigated use of streaming media to enhance face-to-face classes. Technology invites experimentation but raises questions about such things as student acceptance, student use, academic performance, and what to do with class time when lectures are put online. Students…

The University of North Dakota's Global Rural Autism Asperger Information Network (GRAAIN) provides a special graduate certificate program in Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) consisting of six online courses. The program started over 4 years ago as a pilot program to provide specialized ASD training to educators and personnel serving children with…

In 2001, around 1,200 of 6,700 providers in the Australian public vocational education and training (VET) system delivered adult and community education (ACE) programs, which attracted 497,500 people. ACE programs accounted for 20.7 million hours of training and 972,500 subject enrolments. Vocational ACE programs accounted for 238,700 students,…

This document focuses on Web-based courses for high school students. First discussed is the use of technology as a potential solution to address two needs: the need to increase the number of Advanced Placement courses and core mathematics and sciences courses; and the need to improve instruction. Efforts by universities and private, for-profit…

An instructional module designed to help prepare college-level teaching assistants (TAs) for their duties in second language instruction is presented. The module's focus is on second language writing instruction. It first considers the role that writing plays in the teacher's life and the lives of the students, the teacher's attitudes toward…

This paper describes efforts at East Carolina University (North Carolina) to develop a survey instrument and related procedures to assess distance learning courses. The survey was conducted during the 1998-99 academic year via the World Wide Web and combined the Student Opinion of Instruction Survey (SOIS) with additional questions that assessed…

This paper reports on the results of a preliminary investigation of the extent to which first-year students entering a university during the summer, who enroll in the introductory information systems course in a college of business, meet the requirements for the course upon entrance. A second objective is to recommend a course of action to be…