To meet the nation's need for a well-educated workforce in the 21st century, President Clinton and Vice President Gore have challenged the nation's educators and high technology industry leaders to work together on new ways to accelerate student learning with technology. The Technology Innovation Challenge Grants represented in this publication…

This paper describes the development process of multimedia software designed to educate and provide awareness of ecotourism in Costa Rica. Ecotourism is a form of nature-based travel and recreational experience combining a respect for nature and local cultures with economic development incentives. The software intends to pursue the goals of…

This article presents an overview of an ongoing initiative to develop, integrate, and evaluate multimedia lessons to enhance listening comprehension in Spanish language classes at the Catholic University of America (District of Columbia). Focusing on the process involved, the two phases of the project that have been completed are examined,…

Based on the premise that technology can assist teachers in bringing about student learning about the past, this paper contends that technology must be integrated into the curriculum (in this case, the history curriculum) as a whole and it must complement the philosophy and the practice of the teacher. The paper is divided into sections: (1)…

The Mississippi State Department of Education is conducting statewide technological upgrading of schools to allow for extensive student involvement. Teachers need professional development in this area, since they must be proficient in teaching problem-solving techniques and assessing student achievement using computer technology. One of the…

This paper investigates the role of environmental education in promoting activism or social action on behalf of the environment. The connection between between environmental education and social studies in school curricula is weak. Fields within social studies such as civics, history, law-related education, government, and problems of democracy…

Technology utilization in the schools of North Carolina was the focus of a research collaboration between the Rural Economic Development Center and the Public School Forum of North Carolina. The study was broke in to two phases. The first was to design and send out an instrument to assess how much technology is utilized in North Carolina schools,…

This resource book is designed to help educators use the Internet as a tool in the instruction of all students, including students with disabilities, auditory and visual learners, students from rural areas, and those who do not speak English as their first language. The handbook begins by identifying some common access strategies and multiple ways…

This paper suggests that many children from low-income and minority communities are not taught the skills and knowledge necessary to fully participate in the economic, social, and political life of the United States and that schools need to start early, to recognize the unique nature of how young children learn, and to design software that will…

This book contains a collection of examples of new and effective uses of the World Wide Web in education from the Knowledge Media Institute (KMi) at the Open University (Great Britain). The publication is organized in three main sections--"Learning Media,""Collaboration and Presence," and "Knowledge Systems on the…

This paper describes the design and features of LEA (Learning Environment with Agent), an educational system which has the features of both synchronous and asynchronous group learning environments. The first section discusses group learning environments, including differences between individual learning and group learning, and the classification…

Evolution of communication technology has enabled the educational community to interact synchronously or asynchronously with almost equal ease. Many instructors feel that synchronous interaction is the epitome of learning, while others feel that asynchronous interaction offers better learning opportunities. This paper uses the Delphi Technique in…

This paper presents "Campus," an environment that allows University of Hagen (Germany) students to connect briefly to the Internet but remain represented by personalized, autonomous agents that can fulfill a variety of information, communication, planning, and cooperation tasks. A brief survey is presented of existing mobile agent system…

This article focuses on the effectiveness of computer-based instruction (CBI) screen designs, including their benefits and limitations, as well as human constraints in designing effective CBI. The paper begins with an overview of what comprises an effective CBI screen design, including characteristics of human factors, how information must be…

The large number of teachers not using computers in the classroom for administrative or instructional purposes was addressed by the implementation of a computer inservice workshop. The program described in this report was aimed at 18 teachers in a junior high school who reported that they did not feel comfortable using computers, or did not know…