This paper describes the results of our efforts with regard to the design and implementation of an educational digital video library using MPEG-4 and the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL). The aim of our work is to integrate MPEG-4 encoding, full text indexing, high-resolution streaming, and SMIL, not only for delivering on-line…

Any discussions about specialized helping environments for children or young people would be incomplete without reference to the relationships found between practices in group care centers and schools. This involves thinking of a child's total environment as a curriculum for teaching competencies and learning outcomes important to daily living.…

PACT: Helping Children with Special Needs, an affiliate of the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, operates a therapeutic nursery that serves families who have at least one child from birth to 3 years of age, and who are living in a Baltimore City homeless shelter. In partnership with the Martin Luther King Early Head Start Program…

Research suggests the importance of professional development for teachers of at-risk children, and while educational technologies can be harnessed to help support teaching practice in innovative ways, such programs are often limited in scale. "My Teaching Partner (MTP)" was designed to deliver a targeted program of professional…

The problems commonly associated with inner-city schools were not nearly as pervasive a century ago, when black children in most northern cities attended school alongside white children. In "Schools Betrayed", her innovative history of race and urban education, Kathryn M. Neckerman tells the story of how and why these schools came to…

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) "Chance Favors the Prepared Mind": Report Finds that Students in the Highest-Achieving States Score As Well…

As part of its mission, the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) is committed to the development of the community of researchers who work in the area of assessment both nationally and internationally. The association also has a commitment to provide policymakers with the types of data and analyses that will…

This DVD contains interviews with Black students, White and Black teachers, educational experts and school administrators that poignantly bring to life the issues, strategies and competencies that teachers need to engage with--if they are to create the conditions that will enable their students of color to succeed and excel. From these candid,…

Middle school transitions can cause a decline in academic achievement and motivation in learning for many students. Low income underrepresented students are especially vulnerable to this transition. Parental involvement also tends to decrease during the middle school years. This qualitative study examined the elementary to middle school transition…

This report presents findings about accountability from two longitudinal studies, the National Longitudinal Study of "No Child Left Behind" (NLS-"NCLB"), and the Study of State Implementation of Accountability and Teacher Quality Under "No Child Left Behind" (SSI-"NCLB"). The research teams for these two…

Children with autism spectrum disorders are increasingly being educated in inclusive general education classrooms. For optimal results, teachers need to know as much as possible about autism and the teaching methods and modifications that work best for these students. This is a huge undertaking for time-crunched general education teachers, many of…

As members of the faculty of the same college, the State University of New York at Potsdam, the fifteen contributors to this book have the unique experience of working from the same pool of students in order to explore how to improve teaching, enhance learning, and make the classroom more interesting. Together professors from thirteen different…

The purpose of this study was to compare traditional classification training for a set of abstract concepts with multiple-relations training consisting of inference practice and the use of a content diagram. To examine this, 200 undergraduate and graduate psychology students completed a Web-based tutorial covering the abstract concepts of a…

This document contains 123 papers from an international conference on vocational education and training (VET) for lifelong learning in the information era. The papers focus on the following themes: (1) societal and ethical issues; (2) human resource development and personnel training; (3) international issues; (4) information technology in VET;…

Drawing from a five-site multicase study, this paper examines three middle school students' perspectives on weekly classroom discussions that took place over a 6-month period in order to analyze the dynamics of classroom talk and how discussions can be affected by the teacher's interaction with the students. The three students were members of an…