A 16-week pilot program, sponsored and carried out by mental health practitioners, created a neutral setting for structured visits of biological parents, their children in placement, and the children's foster parents. Results were sufficiently promising to warrant planning for a more extensive, research-based program. (GLR)

Effective administrator preparation programs provide students with self-awareness and insight about their thought patterns and behaviors' influence on executing their leadership roles. This paper describes a current university pilot program based on these assumptions, discusses program effectiveness as perceived by student participants, and…

Discusses the Technology Enriched Schools Project (TESP) in the Netherlands that was developed to stimulate the use of computers in secondary education and describes efforts to integrate computers into all curriculum areas in two pilot schools. Inservice training is described, and results of teacher questionnaires regarding computer implementation…

A pilot study in three rural Colorado communities that focused on health service delivery problems related to cancer concentrated on perceptions of community influentials, health care providers, and patients and their families. Results indicate that qualitative methods can identify crucial problems for most people without losing sight of outlier…

Describes the experiences at Nova Southeastern University (Florida) in designing and implementing a Web-based online undergraduate program using full-time faculty and an existing course of studies. Explains the initial pilot program and provides guidelines for designing complete online programs. (LRW)

Describes a pilot project at London Guildhall University Students Union (United Kingdom) that helps students acquire an understanding of independent learning through experiential learning facilitated by student mentors via a peer support dedicated intranet Web site. Discusses learning and study skills, technical constraints, and student…

Pilot study examined efforts to promote bonding of socially disengaged youth into conventional mainstream by integrating them with conventional youth on a service project. Ninth-graders (N=42) in four schools achieved significant improvements in attendance, achievement, ratings of social-academic competence and conventionality. Findings lend…

After taking an environmental inventory of their community, seventh-graders in a Denver-area middle school decided to tackle the drinking water problem and fix it. The school is one of seven participating in Earth Force, an environmental and community-service-learning program based in Alexandria, Virginia. The program's progress and six-step…

Describes the University of Exeter (UK), Mondex, and NatWest UK smartcard-based campus card system project. Smartcards, wallet-sized plastic cards with microprocessors, interface with network terminal devices and are programmable as data, identity, and finance cards. International standard multiple operating system (MULTOS) increases current…

Describes the Instructional Technology Project (ITP) at Floyd College (Georgia), a two-year school where every student must lease a laptop computer to access CD-ROMs and the Internet. Focuses on issues such as how the laptops are used and Internet research. Argues against a total virtual education and assesses the contribution of the laptops. (CMK)

Offers a descriptive account and critical analysis of three cooperative collection development projects undertaken by the Virtual Library of Virginia (VIVA), a consortium of Virginia academic libraries. Reviews cooperative collection development processes and explains objectives that included cost effectiveness, improved access to information…

Sponsored by West Chester University and the local League of Women Voters, the Kids Around Town Program is helping some Pennsylvania elementary school children develop responsible citizenship by involving them in community service activities. Students select a public policy issue affecting them. This issue serves as a springboard for study and…

A Connecticut principal describes how his middle school explored benefits of looping for seventh and eighth graders. Results of a study evaluating the effects of a pilot project on student discipline, attitudes, and achievement were positive enough to justify expanding looping to all seventh- and eighth-grade classes. (Contains 19 references.)…

Discusses the development of a model for providing user-centered access to collections of information that uses a standard terminology to represent the information collection and a set of possibly overlapping user domains to represent a social network. Describes results of a pilot study using the Metathesaurus of the Unified Medical Language…

Presents feedback from students and teachers who participated in the pilot of Project E.L.I.T.E. (Electronic Learning and Information Technologies in Education). The purpose of the Project was to deliver curriculum-specific materials through state-of-the-art multimedia technology. Suggestions are provided for teaching the social studies curriculum…