Learning to use technology can be traumatic for adults. This study is qualitative and based on personal e-mail diaries written by adult learners. It identifies six stages adults may go through as they learn to use technology to communicate electronically. Initially, 30 teachers studying in a post-graduate university course were involved in a…

This paper reflects on a two-semester experiment using computer technologies in the university political science classroom. The instructor incorporated electronic mail (e-mail), the Internet, and an on-line conferencing program into the course requirements for an upper-division course on the Supreme Court and an introductory honors tutorial on…

Meaningful Internet activities should take advantage of the distance, multiple resources, and speed that telecommunications can offer. They should also require K-12 students to synthesize, analyze, and evaluate the information, rather than simply collecting facts. This paper focuses on basic, advanced, and original research activities of the…

As enrollments decline, many institutions rush to implement distance education programs, often with only crude or solely administrative guidelines for program development. The following seven principles of good practice can be useful to guide initial program development: (1) programs should have purpose, direction, leadership, and clearly…

The Collaborative Learning Laboratory (CCL) is a technology-enriched environment for the support of collaborative learning activities. Networking, multimedia, and other computer facilities combine to augment Problem-Based Learning, a collective and student-centered method of instruction that has been used in professional education and is being…

Many elementary and secondary schools tie with local colleges and universities and use modems to access the computing power available at these higher education facilities. To help alleviate the financial burden of long-distance phone charges, work had begun to use the airways instead of phone lines for computer communication. An interest in…

This paper describes Lake Erie College's (Ohio) economical solution to providing electronic communication for faculty on its campus. The college first assessed its existing computer capabilities to determine its needs. The college wanted to increase the total number of users on the local area network in order to better utilize the existing network…

This book guides citizens in using the Internet for community, social, and political action. Following an in-depth introduction, chapters include: Chapter 1, "Getting Connected" and Chapter 2, "Tools," explain the two Internet tools central to organizing for activism--electronic mail lists and the World Wide Web, and the hardware and software…

This paper describes the planning and implementation of a school-wide home page at California Lutheran University (CLU) (Thousand Oaks, California). A working team created a balanced web site which represents all areas of the CLU community. The Internet Task Force implemented general computing policies, standardized University home page design,…

In Computer-Supported Intentional Learning Environments (CSILE), students use a computer-database system as a tool to store and organize their curriculum-related knowledge as a means of sharing information and thoughts with peers, supporting both individual and collaborative learning. This study contrasts two conditions: face-to-face collaboration…

The Media and Technology section of this collection of conference presentations contains the following 10 papers: "Carpooling on the Information Superhighway" (Lorna Veraldi); "New Media Departure in 'The Principle of Relative Constancy': VCRs" (Ghee-Young Noh); "Why the Western Design Approach Does Not Work for Asian…

In response to the federal goal to connect all of the nation's school classrooms, libraries, hospitals, and law enforcement agencies to the information superhighway, the Department of Education commissioned a survey to obtain baseline data on the status of advanced telecommunications in public elementary and secondary schools. Data was gathered…

New information technology is rapidly becoming part of the localized education process, while offering the tools and the infrastructure for the establishment of a distance education process. At Rhodes University (South Africa), an Interactive Remote Tutorial System (IRTS) was built to support distance education. IRTS will be used as an…

Several courses taught in the School of Education at South Carolina State University utilize a variety of technologies in conjunction with cooperative learning and collaborative problem-solving to deliver content, while modeling effective strategies for using technology. Faculty and students work together to determine a methodology that is…

The purpose of this study was to examine the experiences of two university graduate students while taking an online course over the World Wide Web, in order to identify issues of design, implementation, and motivation from a user's perspective. The online course was a graduate class on the methods and techniques of training and development. Data…