With the implementation of the inclusion concept in public school classes, the ability of the general physical educator to effectively teach all of his or her students has been tested. This is particularly true with some students who have a receptive language disability (e.g., deaf, traumatic brain injury), an expressive language disability (e.g.,…

A teacher has to keep going to school just to keep his or her job, so it pays to know the most interesting and convenient programs available. This article presents 11 professional development options that "work" for teachers' real-life schedules: (1) Best for Children's Literature: Penn State University; (2) Best for Science & Technology: PBS…

Lifelike, interactive digital characters, serving as mentors and role-playing actors, have been shown to significantly improve learner motivation and retention. However, the cost of modeling such characters, authoring and editing their interactions, and delivering them over limited-bandwidth connections can be prohibitive. This paper describes a…

The Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) field continues to experience increased valuing of experiential practitioner knowledge. A welcome result of this evolution has been the broadening of research perspectives. The 16 practitioner narratives in "Insights on Teaching Speaking in TESOL" are written by…

Secondary vocational-technical education programs in Mississippi are faced with many challenges resulting from sweeping educational reforms at the national and state levels. Schools and teachers are increasingly being held accountable for providing true learning activities to every student in the classroom. This accountability is measured through…

The cost of health and safety (H&S) failures to the UK industry is currently estimated at up to 6.5 billion British Pounds per annum, with the construction sector suffering unacceptably high levels of work-related incidents. Better H&S education across all skill levels in the industry is seen as an integral part of any solution.…

The report documents some of the uses of computers and computer software in North Carolina adult basic skills and literacy education programs. It includes articles on: the role and activities of the North Carolina Literacy Resource Center; a hosiery industry initiative to provide computer-assisted vocational English-as-a-Second-Language training;…

LABLIB, a recently-developed Finnish databank for cataloging video, audio, and computer materials for second language instruction, is described. The objective was a computer-based program that would require little or no specialized computer knowledge of the user. The user has 14 search variables (bibliographic, content, format) by which to search…

This paper discusses some of the common threads shared by three dissimilar cases of multimedia authoring: multimedia conference proceedings, multimedia courseware development, and multimedia information kiosks. The benefits and pitfalls of academic development are reviewed and points of wisdom are shared. The paper draws on the experiences from…

This paper describes research and development concerning the use of electronic performance support systems (EPSS) in interactive multimedia (IMM) classes at Edith Cowan University (ECU), Australia. EPSS are a special type of computerized support systems that integrate a knowledge base with practical tools required for a specific type of job. The…

One recent goal of the British Higher Education Funding Council has been to find ways to use technology to cope with the increasing size and diversity of the student population. A development team at the University of Edinburgh (Scotland) received a grant to investigate how technology might be used to identify and help students put at risk by…

A study investigated technical methods for simplifying and improving the creation of software for teaching uncommonly taught languages such as Chinese. Research consisted of assessment of existing authoring systems, domestic and overseas, available hardware, peripherals, and software packages that could be integrated into this project. Then some…

Hypermedia is not a single technology; it is an integrated electronic environment that combines text, audio, and video into one large file. Users can explore information about a subject using several technologies at the same time. Although the technical foundation for hypermedia was established in the early 1970s, it was not until the late 1980s…

An "intelligent" system for constructing computer-assisted pattern drills to be used in second language instruction is proposed. First, some of the difficulties in designing intelligent error analysis are discussed briefly. Two major approaches to error analysis in computer-assisted instruction, pattern matching and parsing, are described, and…

Hypermedia computing now makes it possible to integrate media into interactive programs with the potential to expand the use of visualization in science, art, and other professional disciplines. After an overview of some visualization issues in hypermedia, a research project called "HyperGlyphs" at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in…