This report introduces educators to Moodle, an open-source software program for managing courses online. It briefly defines what Moodle is, what it can do, and gives specific examples of how it is being implemented. An appendix contains brief profiles of five school organizations that are using Moodle.

In the present day in national and international perspectives, quality is the top of most agendas. Quality of education has significant impact and invaluable contribution to the area of development. Recently, the SSC & HSC program of BOU [Open School of Bangladesh Open University] have earned recognition of equivalency with the formal…

This study examines the effects of using historical microworlds on conceptual change in mechanics. Historical microworlds combine history of science and microworld through a computer based interactive learning environment that respects and represents historic conceptions or theories. Six grade 5 elementary students participated individually to…

Faculty learning communities (FLCs) provide their members with both information and support as they move toward utilizing digital technology tools, learn new skills, and share meaningful instructional practices. This paper emerges from the initial year of an FLC established in a large urban research university with a focus on integrating digital…

The purposes of this paper are to explore emerging technologies, engaged learning, and features and students of the Interaction Age and to identify connections across these three realms for future research and practice. We begin by highlighting those elements of the Interaction Age that suggest a shift in the affordances and applications of…

A review of the literature about student use of ICT and the impact of ICT use on learning reveals a complexity of rationales and terminology that underwrite ICT initiatives; various dimensions and stages of integration; inherent methodological difficulties; obstacles to integration such as teacher ICT confidence, expertise and beliefs about the…

The angular speed of a spinning object is commonly measured using a stroboscope or a mechanically or optically coupled tachometer. We present here an alternate, simple, and instructive method to measure it using a microphone and a computer.

Designers of technology-based instruction wrestle with the possibility that their product will seem cold or mechanical to the user. Given the current understanding of learning as a social process, it is no longer reasonable to restrict the learner's participation in the process of instruction to trivial interactions. We believe that designs will…

There is no doubt that Google is great for finding images. Simply head to its home page, click the "Images" link, enter criteria in the search box, and--voila! In this article, the authors share some of their other favorite search engines for finding images. To make sure the desired images are available for educational use, consider searching for…

In 1983, when "A Nation at Risk" appeared, it offered recommendations in the areas of content, standards and expectations, time, teaching, and leadership and fiscal support. The growing use of technology was addressed briefly in the section dealing with "indicators of risk," which listed examples of deficiencies in education as compared to the…

The focus of this paper is access problems distance students encounter when required to use the Internet for their studies, and how such problems influence the students' ability to gain access to higher education. Empirically, the paper is informed by a qualitative case study of a Master's programme in public administration offered to a group of…

This article presents an interview with John Seely Brown, a visiting scholar at the University of Southern California and a former chief scientist of Xerox Corporation and director of its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)--a position he held for nearly two decades. While head of PARC, Brown expanded the role of corporate research to include such…

Online learning is increasingly being used in Higher Education, with a number of advantages to online learning being identified. One of these advantages is the suggestion that online learning provides for equality of opportunity. This article reports on students' evaluations of the use of e-learning in a collaborative project between two South…

Virtual worlds enable students to learn through seeing, knowing, and doing within visually rich and mentally engaging spaces. Rather than reading about events, students become part of the events through the adoption of a pre-set persona. Along with visual feedback that guides the players' activities and the development of visual skills, visual…

A computer-interfaced drop counter is described that serves as an inexpensive alternative to a fraction collector for column chromatography experiments. Undergraduate biochemistry laboratories frequently do not have the budget to purchase fraction collectors. Protocols that call for the manual measurement of fraction volumes as well as the manual…