Residence life programs play a key role in recruiting students, helping them make a successful transition to a new institution, and in retaining them, whether students are enrolling for the first time, transferring from another institution, or entering graduate school. Chapters in this book address theories of learning and development, new…

This article discusses the relationship between procedural and conceptual problem solving in a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment designed within the field of science education. The contribution of this article, and our understanding of this phenomenon, is anchored in our socio-cultural interpretation, and that implies…

This descriptive study investigated the benefits and costs of using electronic portfolios (EPs) in preservice teacher education. Grounded within change theory, the study examined the perspectives of faculty in six programs in which EPs have been used on a large scale for two or more years. Benefits identified include increased opportunities for…

This article features the 14 winners of the 2008 Campus Technology Innovators. This article offers an insider's view of the winners' campus technology initiatives, their project leads, and vendor partners jointly recognized for a unique ability to advance teaching, learning, administration, and operation on North American college and university…

This article describes the Internet and lists resources available to community college (CC) practitioners through the Internet. The Internet is described as an international computer network which links thousands of smaller networks. The digest suggests the following hardware for Internet access: an IBM-compatible computer capable of running…

This study investigated the use of computer mediated communication (CMC) to increase the cognitive level of student discourse by allowing students to reflect on difficult concepts on an as needed basis. The role of electronic mail (e-mail) interaction in producing a positive group feeling and closer personal relationships is also examined. Field…

This paper explores the potential of telecommunications in education. It is proposed that classrooms begin telecomputing by communicating with "electronic pen pals," where students write for a distant audience and learn about different cultures through interaction on the computer. The following three sequential stages of the process are…

Rapid development of computer-based instructional methods, combined with the rapid evolution of the Internet and the World Wide Web, have made it technologically possible to develop fully interactive self-study materials. While programmed instruction methods were developed in the 1960s and early 1970s, they were not widely used and, although…

The use of computers as a tool for learning has traditionally focused on individualized methods of instruction. Social interaction, however, is taking an increasingly important role in current learning theories and instruction prescriptions including computer-based delivery systems. Concurrent with these recommendations, global computer networks…

Community colleges should consider the advantages of providing Internet access to students, faculty, and non-teaching staff. Connecting more than 30 million users around the world, the Internet is a network of computer networks which allows people to send messages and retrieve files from users around the world. The World Wide Web, accessed via the…

This paper synthesizes current thought about the role of networking technologies in instruction and addresses the need for higher education to create affordable and flexible student-centered "distributed learning environments" employing networking technologies. First, relevant trends are identified in the areas of information volume, technology…

The Collaboratory Notebook is a networked hypermedia database that allows students to collaborate on scientific inquiries across boundaries of time and space. Developed as part of the Learning Through Collaborative Visualization (CoVis) networking testbed, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, this software expands on the idea of…

Minimal communication between school and home was found to contribute to low performance by students at McDuffie High School (South Carolina). This report describes the experience of establishing a computer-based telephone messaging system in the high school and involving parents, teachers, and students in its use. Additional strategies employed…

Research into desktop videoconferencing in 1994 indicated it could be successfully used to improve the quality of interaction between students and teachers and to improve the quality of learning concepts and processes difficult to teach in non-visual distance education. This paper describes a desktop videoconferencing project trial between…

Some of the newest methods of distance learning (DL) use the Internet and the World Wide Web. DL on the Internet usually takes one of the following forms: electronic mail; bulletin boards/newsgroups; downloading of course materials or tutorials; interactive tutorials on the Web; real-time, interactive conferencing; "intranets" (internal,…