The use of tablet PCs in teaching is a relatively new phenomenon. A cross between a notebook computer and a personal digital assistant (PDA), the tablet PC has all of the features of a notebook with the additional capability that the screen can also be used for input. Tablet PCs are usually equipped with a stylus that allows the user to write on…

Wireless networks are fast becoming ubiquitous in all aspects of society and the world economy. We describe a method for studying the impacts of combining such technology with dynamic, representationally-rich mathematics software, particularly on participation, expression and projection of identity from a local to a public, shared workspace. We…

When Loren Siebert struggled to learn vocabulary for his introductory Arabic class three years ago, he figured he would buy tapes or a software package. Those kinds of aids had helped him learn French in high school and, more recently, conversational Indonesian. What he was disappointed to discover was a scarcity in offerings for Arabic, despite…

Imagine school district staff inputting school data and sharing it in real time, managing teacher absences and arranging substitutes from the comfort of home, or deploying IT personnel to the right site at the right time to tackle the highest-priority jobs first. The concept of managing applications from anywhere with a network connection, known…

Few districts have more miles on their 1-to-1 computing initiatives than Texas' Irving Independent School District, where the teachers have had laptops since 1996 and the current student program began with a pilot launched in 2001. Today, the Irving 1-to-1 program puts close to 12,000 laptops in the hands of students and teachers throughout the…

Discusses extraction programs needed to postprocess software downloaded from the Internet that has been archived and compressed for the purposes of storage and file transfer. Archiving formats for DOS, Macintosh, and UNIX operating systems are described; and cross-platform compression utilities are explained. (LRW)

Discussion of spreadsheet programs focuses on a more user-supportive and less error-producing way of constructing spreadsheet applications and learning spreadsheet calculation. Topics include traditional versus structured spreadsheet calculation (SSC), the ASSET SSC system, and an example of ASSET's usage. (Author/LRW)

The "joy" of computer maintenance takes many forms. These days, automation is the byword. Operating systems such as Microsoft Windows and utility suites such as Symantec's Norton Internet Security let you automatically keep crucial parts of your computer system up to date. It's fun to watch the technology keep tabs on itself. This document offers…

File compression enables data to be squeezed together, greatly reducing file size. Why would someone want to do this? Reducing file size enables the sending and receiving of files over the Internet more quickly, the ability to store more files on the hard drive, and the ability pack many related files into one archive (for example, all files…

The increasing adoption of e-Learning technology is facing new challenges, such as how to produce student-centered systems that can be adapted to each student's needs. In this context, educational video games are proposed as an ideal medium to facilitate adaptation and tracking of students' performance for assessment purposes, but integrating the…

In order to develop potentially transformative Web 2.0 tools in higher education, the complexity of existing academic practices, including current patterns of technology use, must be recognised. This paper describes how a series of participatory design activities allowed postgraduate students in education, social sciences and computer sciences to…

This article reports methodological aspects of a research study on the reasoning of teachers. The aim is to describe and evaluate the use of the stimulated recall method (STR) when information and communication technologies (ICTs) are involved in terms of educational settings and therefore in the research setting as well. First, we introduce the…

A few school administrators in Clovis, California, began a quest to introduce online high school courses in their school district, believing it might cost less to teach classes online than it would to teach students face to face in a classroom. They figured instead of having one teacher fielding a load of 150 students per course, an online course…

At Adam Scott Collegiate and Vocational Institute (CVI) in Peterborough, Canada, the Learning Commons is the school's central place for introducing new technology to students and teachers. This includes collaborative projects with teachers to develop curriculum that uses new technologies. Over the last few years podcasting as well as other online…

The purpose of this article is to extend the published knowledge and practices of distance learning in music to include constructivism. Dan Keast describes his techniques for the implementation of constructivism to an online two-course series of Music History. The courses' structure, activities, assessments, and other key functionality components…