Variations in group co-construction of knowledge and the extent to which participants engaged in negotiating meaning were directly related to instruction. The authors examined social interaction resulting from controlled variation in instruction using a counter-balanced design in two professional development courses for teachers. Both courses were…

The establishment of an online community is widely held as the most important prerequisite for successful course completion and depends on an interaction between a peer group and a facilitator. Beaudoin reasoned that online students sometimes engage and learn even when not taking part in online discussions. The context of this study was an online…

Taking advantage of Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations Theory, which suggests that adoption of a specific innovation is critically influenced by the way the adopters receive it, this article aims at presenting the implementation process of such an innovation in the form of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) in an English as a Foreign…

This paper reports findings of a pilot study that examined the pedagogical potential of "Second Life" (SL), a popular three-dimensional multi-user virtual environment (3-D MUVE) developed by the Linden Lab. The study is part of a 1-year research and development project titled "Modelling of Secondlife Environments"…

For an intelligent tutoring system (ITS) to earn its "I", it must be able to (1) accurately diagnose students' knowledge structures, skills, and/or learning styles using principles, rather than pre-programmed responses, to decide what to do next; and (2) adapt instruction accordingly. While some maintain that remediation actually…

This study investigated the effect of input devices on the use of a computer program by 3- and 4-year-old handicapped (n=9) and nonhandicapped (n=9) children in a small community in northwestern Kansas. Children used a software program that taught them how to understand colors and shapes. This program was used to collect data on the user's number…

Article calls attention to some of the non-pedagogical and non-technical concerns which should be taken into account when planning the development of computer based instructional systems. (Author)

Paper discusses and presents some examples of the exploration and play mode for computer assisted learning. (Author)

Article calls attention to some of the non-pedagogical and non-technical concerns which should be taken into account when planning the development of computer based instructional systems. (Author)

This paper considers applications of decision theory to the problem of instructional decision-making in computer-based adaptive instructional systems, using the Minnesota Adaptive Instructional System (MAIS) as an example. The first section indicates how the problem of selecting the appropriate amount of instruction in MAIS can be situated within…

This guide contains a list of commercially available microcomputer software programs for instructional use in preschool through grade 12 that has been favorably reviewed by the Educational Software Evaluation Consortium, which represents 29 organizations involved in computer education throughout North America. Only commercially available software…

The number of educational software packages on today's market is growing steadily. A large percentage of them are found to be of poor quality in terms of instructional and/or technical design. Arguing that a microcomputer in the classroom is only as effective as the software used with it, the first part of this digest provides an overview of the…

This review of the literature on five learner control variables in computer-based instruction concludes that: (1) pacing left to learner control has been found ineffective because learners tend to procrastinate or to exit lessons prematurely; (2) sequence, or content flow, has been an ineffective variable left under learner control since…