The purpose of this content analysis was to examine in detail the nature and extent of messages about sex that are presented in the "family hour" on broadcast network television. The research sought to identify any patterns that exist in portrayals of sexual behavior as well as characters' talk about sex, using a sample of programming…

A system with which a CAI courseware author can quickly create instructional courseware in any of a number of computer languages. (Author)

Television includes a substantial amount of sexual content, and TV's sexual messages are clearly an important part of adolescent sexual socialization. At a time when the nation is facing a sexual health crisis among young people, special attention needs to be paid to those media depictions that could influence how young people develop their…

Examines a census of 1,757 major characters added to broadcast network lineups through new season programming from 1966 to 1992. New characters are examined in terms of gender, age, race/ethnicity, and occupational patterns occurring across 27 years of network program activity. (Author/AEF)

Discusses advantages and limitations of online exams, describes available software tools for creating computer-based tests (CGI, JavaScript, commercial programs, course authoring tools), and offers suggestions for implementation. (JOW)

Examined instructors' satisfaction with and use of intelligent agent toolkits in the classroom. Found that no single uniform toolkit satisfied the needs of instructors. Moreover, satisfaction levels were influenced primarily by user interactions with the toolkit, followed to a lesser extent by toolkit performance and functionality. (EV)

Proposes a conceptual framework for analyzing students' knowledge of programming. The idea is to integrate three types of programming knowledge from educational computing literature with three forms of knowledge from cognitive psychology literature. A study is described that determined types of knowledge required to answer exam questions, and…

Describes Chomp, an educational strategy game for use in high school programming courses that can encourage cooperative learning. Discusses rules of the game; Chomp players; Chomp board programs; Chomp tournaments; Chomp strategies; and extensions of the activity that can involve more advanced mathematics. (LRW)

Discussion of tutorial interactions in intelligent tutoring systems focuses on an empirical study of university students that identified five considerations human tutors take into account when they plan tutorial interventions to correct student bugs, or errors, in computer programming. Tutorial goals and strategies are described, and future…

Discusses the integration and use of video technology in five schools where student involvement in all planning and production processes is stressed. Projects include daily news programs, orientation videos for parents, video versions of school newsletters, entertainment news programs, video yearbooks, monthly local business programs, and cultural…

Describes Photo CD Portfolio, an Eastman Kodak product that provides interactive multimedia CD-ROM production capability. The article focuses on the capabilities of the tool's simplest authoring system, Create It, which allows users to work with Photo CD, PICT, or TIFF images, add graphics, text and audio, and create menus with branching. (KRN)

Describes Extensible Markup Language (XML), a subset of the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) that is designed to make it easy to interchange structured documents over the Internet. Topics include Document Type Definition (DTD), components of XML, the use of XML, text and non-text elements, and uses for XML-coded files. (LRW)

Considers a "hybrid" approach to the modeling of uncertainty in deductive databases. The model, deductive IST (DIST) is based on an extension of the "Information Source Tracking" (IST) model for relational databases. Proves that the complexity of testing containment of conjunctive DIST queries remains the same as in the…

Explores elements of folkloristics that are applicable to the understanding and construction of computer software systems and programs. Discusses a similar tension between structuralism and contextualism in the study of folkways and by examining software pattern languages in comparison with narrative functions. (Author/LRW)

Describes the satirical cartoon television series called "South Park." Discusses who watches this program, noting its immense popularity and the way it has entered the everyday lives of school children the world over. Looks at its cult appeal, and speculates as to reasons why some children might enjoy watching the program. (SR)