This paper reports on a practitioner study of a first-year undergraduate service course that aligns a web-based, student-lecturer communication system with the mathematical curriculum. The report presents and analyses data from students' and from the lecturer and outlines the nature of the technical interface. The paper indicates how communication…

It is said that meteorology is the only profession where a person can be wrong half the time and still keep his or her job. The truth is not quite so bleak, but one can still ask, "Just how accurate are weather forecasters, anyway?" This article presents two projects for middle level students to investigate this issue in a hands-on,…

Virtual Learning Environments provide a means by which students can interact with course material outside of contact time with lecturers; they also provide the potential to stimulate depth of learning by encouraging students to engage more fully with the topics and issues. A range of 'e-tivities' delivered through a Virtual Learning Environment…

To help students understand the connection that Earth and the solar system have with the cosmic cycles of stellar evolution, and to give students an appreciation of the beauty and elegance of celestial phenomena, the Chandra X-Ray Center (CXC) educational website contains a stellar evolution module that is available free to teachers. In this…

A particularly innovative use of laptops is to enhance the music appreciation experience. Group listening and discussion, in combination with a new Web-based application, lead to deeper understanding of classical music. ["Appreciating Music: An Active Approach" was written with Joshua Austin.]

The impacts of the instructional environment (classroom vs. Web-based instructional environment--WBIE) and personality differences on students' social participation were examined among 214 university students. Students reported their attendance, willingness to participate and actual participation in each instructional environment. Students'…

This study investigates the effects of web-based assessment and practice on improving middle school students' mathematics learning attitudes. With the use of an experimental design and a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, the study compared and contrasted the attitude achievement of students, who used the web-based assessment and…

Much of Mesoamerica's rich cultural heritage is slowly eroding because of acid rain. Just as water dissolves an Alka-Seltzer tablet, acid rain erodes the limestone surfaces of Mexican archaeological sites at a rate of about one-half millimeter per century (Bravo et al. 2003). A half-millimeter may not seem like much, but at this pace, a few…

Development of Web-based learning has started a revolution in instructional design that is providing new opportunities for education. Instructional design for educational purposes is the systematic design of teaching and learning environments as well as instructional systems. Instructional design may include various facets of didactic methods…

The Wesleyan Academy and Moravian School in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, recently joined forces with Evergreen Elementary in Fort Lewis, Wash., to collaborate on a research project using My eCoach Online (http://myecoach.com) as the primary medium to share information, post ideas and findings, and develop inquiry projects on 10 topics about water.…

A national survey was used to assess the acceptability of a job applicant's qualifications that included online coursework. The questionnaire, sent to hiring committee chairpersons, described three hypothetical applicants who earned degrees through a "traditional" institution, a "virtual" institution, and "mixed" coursework. The respondents were…

Because assessment reflects course pedagogy, aims, objectives but also broader institutional and cultural expectations, traditional examination still has a role in the new media of asynchronous, distance learning. This paper recounts experiences of incorporating such examination within an Internet-delivered, GIScience programme, outlining some…

This article explores issues of scalability and sustainability in distance learning. The authors kept detailed records of time they spent teaching a course in geographic information science via the World Wide Web over a six-month period, during which class sizes averaged 49 students. The authors also surveyed students' satisfaction with the…

In this article, we describe a collaborative design initiative with three secondary school teachers to promote the use of Web-based inquiry in the context of a watershed investigation. Design interviews that focus on instructional goals and pedagogical beliefs of classroom teachers were conducted. The interview protocol used a curricular framework…

Privacy is a requirement that has not received the required attention in most e-learning platforms. Based on the results of a survey we identified weaknesses of e-learning platforms and describe improvements we made in Moodle as a proof-of-concept.