Evaluated the effectiveness of Italia Oggi, a videodisc-based system for intermediate and advanced students of Italian at Griffith University in Australia. Attention was focused on students' behavior in pair work, including talk at the workstation and the collaborative strategies they employed. (Author/VWL)

History teachers and their 11th-grade students rated the relative importance of sections of instructional text on which teachers would be giving a test. Multilevel analysis revealed only a moderate correspondence between teachers in importance ratings. This suggested there were large differences between task demands of individual teachers,…

This investigation explored teachers' use and effectiveness of a comparison routine to help students understand comparisons of important content information in secondary content classes containing students of diverse ability. Use of the routine led to significantly better retention and expression of information by students in the experimental…

Discusses the use of distance education in rural public schools to improve academic achievement, based on experiences with eight networked school districts in Oklahoma. Addresses problems that were overcome, including discipline, homework, community and teacher acceptance, and lack of interaction with the teacher. (LRW)

Discusses the importance of positive video game experiences and designs that can create them, including immediacy of feedback, allowing graceful recovery from mistakes, high-quality feedback, and input device mappings. Examines interface complexity. Concludes game designers must treat the interaction between human and video game as a formal…

Discusses the concept of learning communities from storytelling oral traditions to current computer environments and considers factors needed for successful learning environments. Topics include the myth of interactivity and multimedia materials; telecommunications; navigating the Internet to find useful information; and distance learning. (LRW)

This study investigates interrelationships among age, physical disability, introspectiveness, and depression. Results show that older people report less introspectiveness than do younger people. Disabled respondents experience a more positive relationship between introspectiveness and depression; however, disabled respondents' poorer global health…

Explores a user-centered approach to evaluating the Web search engine Inquirus. Inquirus was rated highly by users on various usability measures; all users experienced some level of shift/change in their information problem, information seeking, and personal knowledge due to their Inquirus interaction; and different users experienced different…

The present investigation focused on classroom discourse processes and participatory structures that grant sources of mathematical authority. In general, teachers firmly and with few exceptions positioned themselves as the sole mathematical authority in classrooms. There was, however, one significant exception in one classroom that provided a…

This study of the online communications of 10 teams of SMEs (subject-matter experts), classroom teachers, and K-12 students focused on the functions, frequency and flow of e-mail messages exchanged in the context of curriculum-based projects. Eight tables and figures present findings. Contains 35 references. (AEF)

Findings from observations of 64 8- and 9-year olds show that the use of exploratory talk, talking in which joint reasoning is made explicit, can improve group reasoning and that this exploratory talk can be taught and can transfer between educational contexts. Teaching exploratory talk also improved results on a nonverbal reasoning test. (SLD)

Investigates differences in student perceptions and performance among three distance learning sites taking the same off-campus M.B.A. course with the same instructor. Performance in the two smaller classes was better than performance in the large class. Student characteristics and site variables accounted for more than 50% of variance in…

Focuses on the development of libraries and other information institutions in a new network space created by flows of data. Discusses the active user; the need for integration; rising level of infrastructure; shared activity; new divisions of labor; managing data flows; and rights and sale. (AEF)

Reviews relevant professional literature concerning hypermedia environments and adaptive instruction for online learning for distance education and continuing education. Highlights include aptitude-treatment interaction; cognitive processes; navigational paths; log files; and intelligent tutors. Contains 125 references. (LRW)

Examines the relationship between macro and micro perspectives on the organization of participation structure, and considers how both perspectives can be useful to the ethnographer of interaction. Examples are drawn from a study of Navajo preschool and supported by a substantial body of classroom ethnography in other Native-American communities.…