Explores roles of computer technology and real world experiences in the learning process. Encourages teaching of critical viewing skills and other aspects of visual fluency. Forecasts changes in the educational system to accommodate emerging technologies and new ways of thinking and interacting with the world. (LFL)

A South Carolina high school band director describes his experience with the Springfield Simulation, a role-playing seminar/workshop where individuals are assigned roles and situations that will aid them in developing administrative skills. (TE)

A migrant education resource teacher from California describes the personal and professional benefits she obtained from her participation in the Springfield project, a role-playing seminar/workshop for administrators. (TE)

Hardware for computer-assisted learning is discussed in three papers. Two papers report on projects using computer graphics, one for teaching structural analysis to university students and the other to teach graph concepts at the secondary level. Guidelines for selecting microcomputers focus on analyzing applications and matching them with…

Over the last 20 years, a small independent college and conservatory of music has experienced outstanding results in the use of a minicomputer system with local area networking for students in nontechnological disciplines. A descripton of these activities (including faculty development) is provided. (JN)

Many different kinds of incentives and support structures must be established in order to provide a campus environment in which instructional computing can flourish. Innovative academic computing programs at six liberal arts colleges (Colby, Hamline, Marymount, Smith, Swarthmore, and Wells) are reported. (Author/MLW)

Suggests use of simulation as an educational strategy has promise for the school of the future; discusses specific advantages of simulations over alternative educational methods, role of microcomputers in educational simulation, and past obstacles and future promise of microcomputer simulations; and presents a literature review on effectiveness of…

Discussion of capabilities of interactive videodisc, which combines video images recorded on disc and random-access, highlights interactivity; teaching techniques with videodiscs (including masking, disassembly, movie maps, tactical maps, action code, and simulation); costs; and games. Illustrative material is provided. (High Technology, P. O. Box…

Describes computer measurement of capacitor charge decay, change of fringe width with color, computer simulation of color mixing, Doppler effect/carrier waves, gravitational waves, microwave apparatus, computer simulation of Brownian motion, search coils and problems with the teaching of the relationships of velocity, frequency, and wavelength in…

Research during the past decade suggests that integrating computing technology in general, and mobile computers in particular, into the educational environment has positive effects. This is the first long-term study of high school Personal Digital Assistant use. It involved three-parts, 146 students during four years. Part one found that PDA use…

The purpose of this study was to compare and evaluate three online pretest item calibration/scaling methods in terms of item parameter recovery when the item responses to the pretest items in the pool would be sparse. The three methods considered were the marginal maximum likelihood estimate with one EM cycle (OEM) method, the marginal maximum…

This report presents the results of qualitative and quantitative analyses of how well the higher education system in Nevada will meet the challenges of the future of current trends and patterns continue. The report contains three parts that present the data analysis, the key issues the Nevada Board of Regents confronts, with possible responses to…

In a previous study (1998), how to evaluate whether adaptive testing data used for online calibration sufficiently fit the item response model used by C. Glas was studied. Three approaches were suggested, based on a Lagrange multiplier (LM) statistic, a Wald statistic, and a cumulative sum (CUMSUM) statistic respectively. For all these methods,…

A simulation study was conducted to explore the potential of state assessment scores to improve adjustments for nonparticipation (McLaughlin, Gallagher, and Stancavage, 2004). That study found that state assessment scores could potentially be more effective than demographic information in removing the bias related to absences. The present study…

This report describes a multidisciplinary project by members of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University's Departments of Geography and Computer Science, and College of Education, to develop computer-aided education software for introductory geography at the college and high school levels. GeoSim's goal was to produce major changes in…