With more and more students--especially those taking online courses--demanding access to technology help at all hours of the day and night, colleges are responding by extending help-desk hours. More than half are open late into the evening, according to a recent survey by Educause, the educational technology consortium, and a few are available…

This article reports on an experiment undertaken in order to evaluate the effect of a program visualization tool for helping students to better understand the dynamics of object-oriented programs. The concrete tool used was BlueJ's debugger and object inspector. The study was done as a control-group experiment in an introductory programming…

When it comes to anti-malware protection, today's university IT departments have their work cut out for them. Network managers must walk the fine line between enabling a highly collaborative, non-restrictive environment, and ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data and computing resources. This is no easy task, especially…

Data loss from life's little power calamities may be the most common form of IT disaster any campus can face. According to a 2007 industry association survey(www.connect.educause.edu/library/ecar/shelterfromthestormitandb/41174), 82 percent of higher education institutions reporting a disruptive occurrence in the five years prior to the study…

If you have worked with computers for any length of time, you have undoubtedly heard the warnings and the recommendations. Data stored on PCs can disappear in a nanosecond. You need to back up any crucial data you cannot risk losing. Ideally, you should store at least one set of crucial back-up data off-site in case of a fire, flood or other…

According to most surveys, computer manufacturers such as HP puts out reliable products, and computers in general are less troublesome than in the past. But personal computers are still prone to bugs, conflicts, viruses, spyware infestations, hacker and phishing attacks, and--most of all--user error. Unfortunately, technical support from computer…

When it comes to dealing with cyber attacks, there's no silver bullet. Ironically, however, college educators are already accustomed to wielding what may be the best weapon of all--education. Assaulted by the myriad species of spam, worms, Trojan horses, spyware, viruses, and other diseases that so easily infect and sometimes devastate campus…

New teachers are eager to begin their careers with the information learned from their teacher preparation programs. Too many times, the classroom library is a second thought to the establishment of classroom rules and the implementation of curriculum. Rather than an instructional tool for literacy and classroom community, the library can become a…

The present study aimed at investigating Turkish high school students' metacognition and its relation to achievement goals (mastery approach goals, mastery avoidance goals, performance approach goals, performance avoidance goals), perceived competence, and perceived classroom environment (challenge and threat). Metacognition was examined in terms…

Embedded systems are increasingly pervasive, and the creation of reliable controlling software offers unique challenges. Embedded software must interact directly with hardware, it must respond to events in a time-critical fashion, and it typically employs concurrency to meet response time requirements. This paper describes an innovative course…

This study investigates how community college students' current levels of computer technology competence, confidence and attitudes toward technology in learning at a community college are affected by current access to technology and by demographic characteristics as well as by past experiences with computer technology. The research questions…

We studied students' conceptions of correctness and their influence on students' correctness-related practices by examining how 159 students had analyzed the correctness of error-free and erroneous algorithms and by interviewing seven students regarding their work. We found that students conceptualized program correctness as the sum of the…

Printers represent a big chunk of school districts' IT budgets. Unlike computers, however, most of the money schools spend on printers is not on the machines themselves but on keeping them serviced and filled with toner, drums, and paper. In this article, the author discusses five critical questions to ask before buying a printer.

Examines the potential impact of computer system shutdowns as a result of the millennium date change and explores one school district's solution. Suggestions are offered to help districts deal with the "millennium bug" including a Web resource site to receive updates. (GR)

Outlines minor repairs and maintenance that can be done to minimize problems and to lower service costs for computers. Highlights include: components of a repair tool kit; benefits of familiarity with equipment; preventative measures to cut down on repairs; installation of RAM, DIP, and SIMM chips; board configurations; installation of a drive;…