Interactive fiction has great potential for use in schools, providing engaging and empowering opportunities for learning and literacy. Experiences with interactive fiction provide two key components lacking in contemporary storytelling mediums: autonomy (the ability to act and change on its own) and interactivity (or the ability to think and react…

Hybrid courses offer students a chance to know each other in both structured and unstructured situations, which is often difficult in a totally online distance course. The hybrid method also allows for elasticity in scheduling that is not possible in a strictly on-campus course. The on-campus sessions and face-to-face meeting features of hybrid…

To help mathematics educators realise the power of computer-based applications and modelling, this paper deals with four questions: (a) What implications does technology have for the range of applications and modelling problems that can be introduced? (b) In what cases does technology facilitate the learning of applications and modelling? (c) When…

Gender disparity exists in many educational environments despite conscientious attempts to equalize opportunities and outcomes. Research studies indicate females are less likely to effectively engage in the use of technology for problem solving. However, in a two-year study of a Midwest elementary multi-age classroom, researchers studied…

Investment in educational technology has increased rapidly in recent years and many observers have begun to question whether, and how technology is being used as a teaching and learning tool. In order to address this issue, this research used survey data collected from 1,404 "middle and high school teachers" in 52 schools across 22…

In this article, the author reports how Maine has started to put laptops in the hands of all its middle school students. Today, more than half of Yarmouth, Maine's 435 students and all of its teachers have their own Apple iBooks as part of a statewide effort that has put laptops into the hands of every 7th and 8th grader in Maine. As computers…

The use of the Web in K-12 education has increased substantially in recent years. The Web, however, does not support the learning processes of students as a matter of course. In this review, the authors analyze what research says about the demands that the use of the Web as an information resource in education makes on the support and supervision…

This article addresses three emerging problems in special education: (a) new learning environments with different teaching styles, (b) equity in access to assistive technology (AT), and (c) an on-going infusion of new AT opportunities within special educational environments. Instructions for designing and creating concept maps are presented as a…

Singapore has many large and educationally valuable digital collections and is planning the development of many more. These digital collections contain historical, cultural and scientific multimedia objects, along with learning objects. At present, school teachers and pupils find it hard to locate many of these resources using traditional search…

This article discusses the use of IEP software applications from the perspectives of form (i.e., legally correct documents) and function (i.e., educationally appropriate individualized programs). The article provides an overview of the basic components of two fairly comprehensive IEP software programs and discusses the general strengths and…

Colleges and universities must seek or develop the most competitive enrollment management tools in order to reach and admit qualified students. However, institutions that utilize transactional Web features are more effective if they can personalize services by providing useful customized information in real time for the prospect. Well crafted high…

The innovation of education seems to be self-evident. Boosted by a wide range of new technologies, educational institutes all over the world are innovating their educational systems, in order to extend their services, to improve their performances or to reduce costs. The apparent self-evidence of educational innovation hardly prompts the…

Education is a social practice and the ability to interact socially is important to social cognitive learning and social learning. Online education is frequently criticized because it lacks social interaction, a sense of social engagement, and the benefits of learning with others. Social ability with computer-mediated social mechanisms is key to…

Angela Jacklin is a senior lecturer in education and director of student support at the University of Sussex. William Farr is a teacher at a primary school in Sussex, and a former MA student at Sussex University. In the project reported in this article, they worked together to consider how valuable the computer may be as a medium to enhance social…

Based on existing Learning Object taxonomies, this article suggests an alternative Learning Object taxonomy, combined with a general Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) framework, aiming to transfer the modularized concept of Learning Objects to modularized Virtual Learning Environments. The taxonomy and SOA-framework exposes a need for a clearer…