Creating meaningful learning opportunities for school leaders (principals, teachers, peer professionals, and community members) is a central goal of educational staff developers. Describes results of one prototype collaborative effort to design and use multimedia cases to invigorate school leaders' organizational thinking and learning. (Author/AEF)

States that the fundamental challenge to Arizona's Maricopa County Community College District is how to carry out an urban-based social agenda with scarce resources, unenthusiastic support from state-level policy shapers, and the district's own internal disagreement about mission and purpose. Discusses the programs developed by Maricopa to respond…

A paradigm shift has occurred in the learning-teaching process that includes new ways of pedagogical thinking, post-modern curricula, digital learning, changed social interactions, and linear and lateral thinking. These changes require reorganization of the educational system in general and distance education in particular. Changes in the system…

Focuses on the strategies and forces that facilitated or constrained one large urban school system's efforts to acquire all necessary elements of the technology infrastructure to achieve their educational goals. Provides recommendations on how any government--city or state--can use its resources to facilitate full and effective use of technology…

Reports on the 11th Annual E-Learning Conference and Expo (Washington, DC, April 17-20, 2001). Papers presented in panel sessions included (but were not limited to) these themes: transforming traditional courses into e-learning; cost and benefits analysis; instructional design; technical issues; health hazards of wireless technologies; developing…

Explores the problems and issues involved in doing comparative historical education research (CHER) in a single society, specifically Hong Kong. Focuses on primary and secondary sources concerning education in Hong Kong. Concludes with a discussion on the links to various theories and lessons from Hong Kong. (CMK)

Examines the historical development of the term "child centered" in the discourse of early schooling in the United States. Beginning with Friedrich Froebel, who was the founder of the kindergarten and focuses on the development of the kindergarten until the 1930s. Explores how the underlying meanings of child-centerdness changed. (CMK)

Reports findings from recent studies conducted on effectiveness of school information systems (SIS) and recommends strategies for well-structured evaluations that attend to key factors (relative to system implementation and use) that affect all schools-regardless of their size and organization. (Author/AEF)

This paper offers precise definitions of distance learning and distance education, and their interrelationship. First, a single definition of learning is proposed, and then the concept of learning is broken down into three subcategories: instruction, exploration, and serendipity. Each is defined and the concepts of distance learning and distance…

Discusses the development of the Montessori Farm School in Huntsburg, Ohio, summarizing prototype activities of the Erdkinder project and discussing psychological and pedagogical outcomes. Considers areas of struggle in how the school opened and includes diagrams for linking pedagogical and work experiences. Describes community transformations…

In this article, the author profiles the Academy of the Pacific Rim Charter Public School (Hyde Park, Massachusetts) and describes the school's culture. The school's students, who are in grades 6 through 12, are surrounded by rituals, routines, and relationship-building activities. Pacific Rim's culture stems from and supports the school's…

Along with the efforts to increase the competitiveness of universities in Korea, one of the foci of higher education reforms initiated by the Korean government in 1995 was to diversify its higher education system. However, it is commonly believed that its attempts to diversify its universities system have not been successful. By examining the…

The United Nations Children's Fund has rapidly gained prominence as a UN agency promoting educational development. Detailed analysis is presented of UNICEF's transition from being a supplier of emergency goods and services, to a humanitarian role that has diversified to embrace development assistance and promoting the rights of children and women.…

The need for small human scale learning environments in which young people have the chance to learn what it means to be human, in other words to become educated, has never been more pressing. This article reviews the progress of the American small school reform movement, considers the lessons that teachers and policy makers in the UK might learn…

These excerpts from an oral history interview with the founder of the Irving B. Harris Foundation, one of the most influential early funders of the infant-family field, emphasize the importance of promoting early childhood development as a social investment and highlights the lessons from business that Harris brought to philanthropy. Harris traces…