Virtual libraries are becoming more and more common. Most states have a virtual library. A growing number of public libraries have a virtual presence on the Web. Virtual libraries are a growing addition to school library media collections. The next logical step would be personal virtual libraries. A personal virtual library (PVL) is a collection…

Microsoft has introduced a new search tool to help people find scholarly articles online. The service, which includes journal articles from prominent academic societies and publishers, puts Microsoft in direct competition with Google Scholar. The new free search tool, which should work on most Web browsers, is called Windows Live Academic Search…

This article presents several teachers and school Web sites that offer teaching strategies in using the Internet to teach social sciences. These Web sites include: (1) Mrs. Cori Culp's Website (www.bv229.k12.ks.us/bvw_culp); (2) Mr. Williams's 5th Grade(teachers.santee.k12.ca.us/cwilliams/index.htm); (3) Ms. Stewart's Classroom Page…

In a survey of a representative sample of over 3300 online information consumers and their information-seeking behavior, survey findings indicate that 84 percent of information searches begin with a search engine. Library web sites were selected by just one percent of respondents as the source used to begin an information search and 72 percent had…

If librarians want to improve their visibility and value in the increasingly crowded digital information spaces, where users expect good results without expending much time or effort, they must learn to repurpose data to create added value. Since librarians already possess valuable data sources, like circulation statistics, reference transactions,…

Institute for the Future of the Book, based in Brooklyn, aims to combine new ways of thinking with new media to forge a new path for expression. The institute, which was founded in 2004, is on its way to releasing the first version of Sophie, an "all-purpose tool" for creating multimedia texts. Like the institute itself, Sophie's mission…

A freeze on $3.28 billion in requests for aid under the federal E-rate program has left hundreds of school districts scrambling to pay for their technology needs--and, in some cases, crippled classroom instruction. The E-rate program, which has disbursed more than $8 billion since its inception in 1997, helps link public and private schools as…

This research explored the issues of access to the internet and use of the web for instructional purposes between full-time and part-time community college faculty. The findings that 40% of part-time faculty do not have Internet access at work would seem to indicate that part-time faculty are poorly integrated into the technology infrastructure of…

The soil science and soil chemistry is incorporated into teaching materials for earth day and beyond. It revealed some of the chemical properties of the soil through color and texture and the chemical processes relevant to soils abound, including the carbon and nitrogen cycles in the soil, acidification of soils through acid deposition, leaching…

In this article, the author talks about an internal content management system that they have created at Calvin College. It is a hybrid of CMS and intranet that organizes Web site content and a variety of internal tools to help librarians complete their daily tasks. Hobbes is a Web-based tool that uses Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts written…

This book provides classroom-tested methods for engaging struggling middle grade readers--even those who appear to have given up--and fostering their success. The emphasis is on constructing respectful, encouraging learning environments that incorporate students' diverse literacies, cultural interests, and prior knowledge and skills into…

A discernible difference, attributed to the digital divide, is evident between the adoption and implementation of distance education technologies in institutions of higher learning in low-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa and in high-income countries in America and Europe. A review of the literature revealed a rural-urban digital divide…

In the present study we call attention to the close connection between languages and globalization, and we also emphasize the importance of the Internet and online websites in foreign language teaching and learning as unavoidable elements of computer assisted language learning (CALL). We prepared a checklist by which we investigated 28 foreign…

This paper reports on the students' experiments of using blogs to encourage themselves to do pre-class reading assignment and reflections after class. The sample in the study included five ESL (English as a Second Language) graduate students in a course of teaching methods, and 90 software engineering students in an undergraduate information…

Research findings in recent years provide compelling evidence of the importance of encouraging student control over the learning process as a whole. The socially based tools and technologies of the Web 2.0 movement are capable of supporting informal conversation, reflexive dialogue and collaborative content generation, enabling access to a wide…