Discusses cognitive apprenticeship, an educational practice that focuses on students actively engaged in activities with a variety of supports, or scaffolding. Presents a model of scaffolding that was implemented in courseware for learning computer graphics on the World Wide Web. An evaluation on the use of the courseware at Georgia Institute of…

Computer simulations in clinical pharmacy education help expose students to clinical patient management earlier and enable training of large numbers of students outside conventional clinical practice sites. Multimedia instruction and its application to pharmacy training are described, the general process for developing multimedia presentations is…

Presents a framework for teaching elementary school students to use the Internet in a one-computer classroom. Levels of activities include a class lesson with a functional Web site; class surfing, e-mail, and search engines; group researching; collecting data; and independent research. (LRW)

Explores teachers' perceptions about computer use in writing instruction. Topics include emerging computer technology, including telecommunications and hypermedia; evolution of software, including word processing, desktop publishing, and multimedia; issues related to implementing technology, including the teacher's role; and suggested learning…

Since 1993, all principals and 80% of the teachers in the Cincinnati Public Schools (Ohio) have taken inservice courses at the Mayerson Academy for Human Resource Development. Provides an overview of the academy, a nonprofit organization founded to give results-oriented instruction to educators. Examines the role of technology, distance learning,…

Presents a small group activity that helps elementary students explore volume as part of the math curriculum. Collecting data through hands-on experimentation; analyzing the data; and using graphs and graphing software to further understanding are discussed. (LRW)

Discusses summative and formative evaluation methods used and problems encountered in the study of LOGICLANDIA, a courseware package for the teaching and learning of predicate logic in Italian secondary schools. The evaluation process had three phases: subjective, in-house prototypes, and field testing. Results produced revisions in courseware…

Describes CAPA, a software tool to implement a computer-assisted personalized approach for homework assignments and examinations in a large introductory physics class at Michigan State University. Highlights include increased individual attention for students; correlation between homework performance and results of the final exam; feedback for…

Describes evaluations of CAL (computer-assisted learning) at the Open University (Great Britain). Highlights include evaluation of science teaching; evaluation of the Home Computing Policy; CAL evaluation in the literature; and a framework for a principled approach to evaluation, including interactions with software, outcomes, and a case study.…

While the World Wide Web offers a unique opportunity to introduce computer-assisted instruction (CAI) into the medical school curriculum, efforts to exploit this potential may fail because CAI is not fully integrated into the system, logistical and equipment problems raise barriers, students are not tested appropriately, network response time is…

A study compared student perceptions of the effectiveness of computer-assisted simulation and computer graphics with that of laboratory classes in teaching organ-bath techniques in pharmacology. Students found definite benefits in computer-assisted instruction to supplement laboratory practicals, with noticeable increase in understanding of…

Describes how beginning language learners generated electronic mail in a foreign language, Spanish, and what the resulting texts looked like. The study uncovered different, contrastive writing behaviors and a diversity of texts and suggests that communicative activities in the language classroom pose dilemmas for students. (39 references)…

Reports on a use of computer-aided instruction and multimedia technology in an outpatient library to meet the information needs of people who have severe and persistent mental illnesses. Topics include funding, special needs related to schizophrenia, computers in mental health rehabilitation, collection development, and library usage. (Author/LRW)

Explores mind/media relationships and discusses how culture's symbolic forms affect learning and thinking. The socially held and communicated views of various media appear to affect the way children handle them, the depth of their information processing, and what they actually learn from them. Media's symbolic forms of representation have both…

Reviews empirical studies from a wide variety of fields to show that computer-based multimedia instruction may be able to help people learn more information more quickly compared to traditional classroom lecture. Topics include interactivity; control of learning pace; novelty; and learners with low prior knowledge or aptitude. (103 references)…