One of the newest Internet applications--the Weblog, or blog--is rapidly increasing in number as well as expanding in use. Blogs are used in various segments of society, including the business and educational worlds. They are a perfect fit for use in written business communication courses because of the ease with which writing examples…

The runtime creation of pedagogically coherent learning content for an individual learner's needs and preferences is a considerable challenge. By selecting and combining appropriate learning assets into a new learning object such needs and preferences may be accounted for. However, to assure coherence, these objects should be consumed within…

In most cases digital learning objects are used for individual learning (reading, looking, playing, quizzes) or by teachers in their class-room or online teaching (presentations). In PILOT project we argue that learning objects should be designed and presented in a special way in order to promote truly social constructivist learning. The project…

In this article Gary Hepburn and Jan Buley outline different approaches to implementing open source software (OSS) in schools; they also address the challenges that open source advocates should anticipate as they try to convince educational leaders to adopt OSS. With regard to OSS implementation, they note that schools have a flexible range of…

As a pioneer in education technology, Bishop Hartley High School, a Catholic high school in Columbus, Ohio, has sought to embrace change with a revolutionary computer from Hewlett-Packard known as the Compaq Tablet PC TC1000. In February 2003, Bishop Hartley became the first high school in the country to give an entire student class their own…

Colleges and public universities must stay abreast of rapid changes in the application of information technology, typically on very limited budgets. Additionally, students increasingly expect faculty to apply bleeding-edge technology in the classroom and integrate it into the curriculum. This article briefly notes prevailing literature related to…

There was a time when the chalkboard was revolutionary. Before it came along, teachers would walk from student to student, drawing problems on individual slates. Now interactive whiteboards promise to reinvent instruction again. Many teachers are now discovering the benefits of using whiteboards. This article presents several strategies on how…

We propose to use didactical theory for the design of educational software. Here we present a set of didactical conditions, and explain how they shape the software design of Cabri-Euclide, a microworld used to learn "mathematical proof" in a geometry setting. The aim is to design software that does not include a predefined knowledge of problem…

Colleges that turn to Facebook as a creative way to reach out to students may run into a roadblock. This article presents how the officials of Ursuline College found that out. Facebook is a popular online social-networking service that is created for individual profiles only. The Ursuline College used Facebook to help students find both…

Children with spelling difficulties are limited in their participation in all written school activities. We aimed to investigate the influence of word-prediction as a tool on spelling accuracy and typing speed. To this end, we selected 80 Grade 4-6 children with spelling difficulties in a school for special needs to participate in a research…

Of late, digital game-based learning has attracted game designers, researchers and educators alike. Immersion in the virtual 3D environment of a game may have positive effects on K-12 students' cultivation of self (Dodge et al., 2006). Currently, two opposing views related to game-based identity formation are presented in the literature: the…

Most educators, parents, and policymakers think of "online learning" as a subset of distance learning (where the students and teacher are geographically separate), in which content delivery and communication are achieved primarily through the use of computers connected by the Internet. However, online learning can be either distance…

Regardless of where you are in your school improvement process, here's a book that helps you make sure you have all the right elements working for you in the right way. The authors take you through the core processes that are essential for all school improvement efforts--from establishing your mission to differentiating your supervision based on…

NIER (National Institute of Educational Research, 2004) survey revealed that the most common attitude of Japanese high school students to mathematics is that "it is not useful in daily life but must be learnt for entrance examinations". It was also clarified that only 3.2 percent of mathematics teachers use computers in their classes.…

With the emergence of the Internet, e-learning has increasingly become the promising solution that continues to grow day after day. Considering students' perception toward e-learning is important in successful development of e-learning in higher education, since attitude of user towards application of information technology is one of the most…