This article presents research findings investigating the fundamental characteristics in online Spanish instruction (at the university level in the United States) designed to maximize learning outcomes. The researcher collected data to develop a rubric of the fundamental characteristic in online Spanish instruction and then to determine whether…

Assessment is one of the key elements of the teaching and learning process. It provides teachers with a means of evaluating the quality of their instruction. Students also use it to drive and direct their learning. Online teaching and learning will continue to become more important to Australian universities in order for them to remain competitive…

An old adage--the truly educated never graduate--has come to exemplify the rationale for the growth and expansion of professional continuing education (PCE) programs in the United States. This monograph is about the trends and best practices in professional continuing education. It explores how this area of higher and adult education, once the…

This article discusses the role of a multimedia learning environment in teaching foreign languages to engineering students. Arguing for a subject-specific and skills-oriented approach in teaching Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP) in the university, it outlines possible targets and skills for a language course for engineers. The paper goes on…

This study examines the sociocultural trajectories of children's conceptual thinking in a technology-enriched early years science classroom (N=22). Of specific analytic interest is the intertextuality of children's science-related explanations constructed during adult-child dialogic interviews and peer-centred inquiry around a multimedia…

Purpose: To distinguish sustainable development education from environmental education and stress the importance of problem-based interdisciplinary learning to sustainable development education. Design/methodology/approach: A range of published works relating to sustainable development education are critiqued, an introduction to complexity theory…

John Shank and Steven Bell describe A_FLIP (Administrators, Faculty, Librarians Instructional Partnership), a model of professional collaboration that promotes the fuller integration of appropriate library resources into the overall structure of course management systems as well as the online design of specific courses. As they outline their…

Many administrators are moving toward using online student evaluations to assess courses and instructors, but critics of the practice fear that the online format will only result in lower levels of student participation. Joan Anderson, Gary Brown, and Stephen Spaeth claim that such a concern often fails to acknowledge how the evaluation process…

A system for "anchored discussion" is compared with a system for traditional forum discussion (Blackboard), and their collaborative and communicative affordances for the collaborative processing of academic texts are investigated. Results show that discussion in the system for anchored discussion is more directed at processing the meaning of texts…

Future CSCL technologies are described by the community as flexible, tailorable, negotiable, and appropriate for various collaborative settings, conditions and contexts. This paper describes the key design issues of a generic synchronous collaborative learning environment, called Omega+. In this approach, model-based genericity is applied to the…

This paper provides a reflective overview of the eight papers collected in this special issue of "Educational, Technology and Society" that is based on ICALT-2003. We provide a very brief description of the conference and then discuss the eight papers in the context of a focus on learning and a focus on systems. In the conclusion, we offer our…

Analysts predict that the knowledge economy of the near future will require people to be both computer literate and print literate. However, some of the reading and thinking habits of current college students suggest that electronic media such as web browsers may be limiting the new generation's ability to absorb and process what they read. Their…

This paper will explore emerging benefits of telecollaboration and telementoring through an examination of the literature, a reflection on current practices at the University of Virginia and the University of South Florida, and a forecast proposal for potential seamless integration of technology with teacher preparation and training in schools of…

The measure of performance improvement potential (Gilbert, 1978) in human performance technology uses an exemplary performance as a criterion against which to measure the potential improvement in the performance of a workforce. The measure is calculated based on the performance efficiency which compares expended resources to productivity. The same…

Purpose: This study seeks to explore the utilization of mobile phone services in the educational environment, explore the nature of mobile phone use among university students, and investigate the perception of university students on mobile phone uses in library and information services. Design/methodology/approach: The study used a review of…