Students of biology must learn the scientific method for generating information in the field. Concurrently, they should learn how information is reported and accessed. We developed a progressive set of exercises for the undergraduate introductory biology laboratory that combine these objectives. Pre- and postassessments of approximately 100…

Background: Many of the agent-based products available to education today have been largely confined to games and instructional media that are often produced commercially by non-instructional professionals. Most of them lack customizability and are difficult to integrate into individual subject curriculum. With more agent authoring tools available…

The transition from paper-based to computer-based assessment raises a number of important issues about how mode might affect children's performance and question answering strategies. In this project 104 eleven-year-olds were given two sets of matched mathematics questions, one set on-line and the other on paper. Facility values were analyzed to…

Designer support is critical for facilitating collaboration and knowledge construction in an online learning environment. Designer support in this paper refers to the mechanisms that a designer builds in a technology-mediated environment to facilitate online learning. This paper focuses on two aspects of designer support: 1) creating a shared…

Purpose: This paper reports on the development of a workplace-based e-learning programme for small and medium enterprise (SME) managers in five European countries. The course is designed to address the specific needs of SME managers who, it has been noted, represent a significant proportion of the EU workforce but often experience difficulty in…

Faced with reduced numbers choosing to study foreign languages (as in England and Wales), strategies to create and maintain student interest need to be explored. One such strategy is to create "taster" courses in languages, for potential university applicants. The findings presented arise from exploratory research, undertaken to inform…

CALL evaluation might ideally draw on principles from fields such as second language acquisition, language pedagogy, instructional design, and testing and measurement in order to make judgments about criteria such as elaborated input, feedback, collaborative learning, authentic tasks, navigation, screen design, reliability, validity, impact, and…

Whilst the potential of online Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) in terms of access, immediacy and exposure is widely acknowledged, as yet remarkably little is known about its impact on the user population, be they language teachers or learners. Indeed, beyond its technological development, online CALL design is still affected by a dearth…

The increasing use of technology to meet the vast educational needs of our expanding world has led to heightened concerns about learning experiences within educational environments that are removed from the immediate purview of instructors (Duffy & Kirkley, 2004). Recent calls for use of more collaborative environments in which students interact…

The paper describes a qualitative study concerning the experiences of nine Thai transnational distance learners enrolled in doctoral programs in Australian universities while working in higher educational contexts in their own country. Data were collected from participant journals, an open questionnaire and dialogic email communications. The study…

Four integrated learning management packages were reviewed: "CentraOne", "IntraLearn", "Lyceum", and "Silicon Chalk". These products provide different combinations of synchronous and asynchronous tools. The current report examines the products in relation to their specific value for distance educators and students.

Prospective teachers spending a year in classrooms... Teachers and professors studying problems that teachers face every day... Teachers co-teaching methods courses with university professors... These are some of the exciting outcomes of university-school teacher education partnerships in North Carolina. Current interest in university-school…

The national focus on excellence in education is commendable, Leave No Child Behind and the possibilities for classrooms of tomorrow. The National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) for Teachers-Students and developed by the NETS Team-National Educational Technology Standards Writing Team and the Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers U.S. Department…

This qualitative case study examined web-based portfolio development in the service of supporting reflective thinking and learning within the innovative context of Professional Development Schools. Specifically, this study investigated the nature of the evidence-based philosophies developed by prospective teachers as the central part of the…

This study aimed to comprehensively investigate the impact of a word-processor on an ESL writing assessment, covering comparison of inter-rater reliability, the quality of written products, the writing process across different testing occasions using different writing media, and students' perception of a computer-delivered test. Writing samples of…