Teachers at Irvington High School in Fremont, California are looking for meaningful and relevant connections between what students are learning in the classroom and the job skills companies are looking for in the years to come. For Irvington, a Bay Area public high school serving about 2,000 students, that pursuit of a "logical link" led…

The emergence of multimedia software in the classroom challenges the traditional use of single media as the medium for student communication. Educators need to know how to use this new technology as an effective tool in their students' learning. The purpose of this study was to observe how 18 students in a fourth grade class manipulate a…

This study describes and analyzes the use of CD-ROM talking books in a third grade classroom over a 4-month period. One area of interest was in how the teacher used the storybooks in day-to-day efforts to foster learning, especially in the area of language arts. Also examined was the sense children made of these media and the overall impact the…

This second phase of a project to promote adoption of new educational technology by special education administrators includes three case studies conducted in eastern U.S. school districts. Information was gathered on activities and perspectives of special education administrators concerning technology, technology implementation in the district,…

Beginning in the 1960s the interactive capabilities of computers were recognized as providing unprecedented opportunities for the development of computerized career guidance systems. Such systems offered individualized assistance in career decision making to large numbers of people at low cost. Recognizing that each user may present a unique…

The complementary, but distinct, approaches of computer assisted instruction (CAI) and intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) are first summarized, then followed by a collection of papers discussing shared issues toward which these complementary approaches are directed. The purpose of this book is to foster a mutual understanding of shared issues and…

Gettysburg College (Pennsylvania) developed a program which centered on NCSA Mosaic as a vehicle for collaborative learning. The project involved a select number of incoming freshmen who lived together in the then-experimental residential college program. Goals included mastery of basic library and computer skills, gaining familiarity with…

Each new media revolution forces adjustments for both the producers of messages and the receivers of those messages. Integral to the communication process is an understanding of what it means to be literate in an eclectic communication environment and of how the new media may enhance or impede literacy. An important premise for this discussion is…

A suite of networked computer tools within a pedagogical framework was designed to enhance earth science education at the high school level. These tools give students access to live satellite images, weather maps, and other scientific data dealing with the weather, and make it easy for students to make their own weather forecasts by creating…

In Iowa, the practice of two-way interactive full motion video instruction is embodied in the use of the Iowa Communication Network (ICN). To facilitate innovative practices in distance education, the preservice component of the Iowa Distance Education Alliance's (IDEA) Teacher Education Alliance provided support for pilot projects which had the…

A study examined the results of the use of the "Assessing Motivation To Communicate" (AMTC) computerized program with high school students in Anchorage, Alaska, during the 1995-96 school year. The AMTC consists of two self-assessment instruments: the Personal Report of Communication (PRCA-24) and the Willingness to Communicate (WTC).…

Dropout rates at the college and university level are much higher for students of minority cultures than for their majority culture peers. This paper suggests that the "revolving door" scenario of minority-culture college students can be stemmed by the proper use of mentoring. A combination of successful peers (interpreters), university…

Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) began offering courses by Desktop Videoconferencing (DVC) in fall 1995 and continues to experiment with ways to use this new and flexible teaching tool. This paper describes the MTSU DVC system in an attempt to expose educators to this new technology and its many possibilities, and to stimulate discussion…

Discussion abounds about the quality of rhetoric on computer bulletin boards, chat lines and e-mail. Within the past year the CEDA-L, a bulletin board dedicated to the communication of the Cross Examination Debate Association community, has become one of the most popular avenues for information dissemination. A study examined 1000 messages posted…

This study explores the way music operates in the mental processing of computer-supported instructional messages, whose other modes are text and graphics. The experiment examined the effect of music on the immediate recall and understanding of three equivalent science lessons delivered by a computer. The objective properties of the music were…