Discusses the relevance of computer games to the design of computer-based training materials. Highlights include intrinsic motivation and computer-based games; the cultural distinction between work and recreation; the transient motivational effect of games; the differences in use of computer systems; hypermedia authoring systems; and virtual…

Discusses the possibilities for improving courseware and the courseware engineering process using visualization. Advantages and disadvantages of visualization are considered, including psychological, instructional, motivational, cross-cultural, and technical aspects; visual programming systems are described; adaptation and rapid prototyping are…

Describes MARC bibliographic records and presents conversion procedures for microcomputer database programs. Highlights include database design in dBase; format translation programs in BASIC; translating MARC into a delimited record; and writing records from dBase to a delimited file. Five programs are appended. (Contains nine references.) (LRW)

Discusses the state of children's television in Australia and considers possibilities for the future. Topics include regulatory frameworks and requirements for children's programs; imported programming, including animated material; the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child; and values promoted to children. (LRW)

Examines mobile agent coordination and presents TuCSoN, a coordination model for Internet applications based on mobile information agents that uses a tuple centre, a tuple space enhanced with the capability of programming its behavior in response to communication events. Discusses the effectiveness of the TuCSoN model in the contexts of Internet…

Teachers who want to show their students how to use multimedia in their projects should consider using HyperStudio. Four sites listed show HyperStudio's capabilities. Discussion includes publishing HyperStudio stacks on the Internet. Sites for more information are also listed. (AEF)

Explains what XML (Extensible Markup Language) is; where to find it in a few years (everywhere from Web pages, to database management systems, to common campus applications); issues that will make XML somewhat of an experimental strategy in the near term; and the importance of decision-makers being abreast of XML trends in standards, tools…

Examines trends in Web searching, including the proposed AOL and Time Warner merger; minibrowsers; micropayments for information; inability of search engines to keep up with Web growth; distributed search engines; human-compiled directories; increasing relevance to meet user needs; browser-free searching; whole document queries; and introducing…

Performance Centered Design (PCD) offers an alternative to the old methodology of software development. The author suggests one design possibility that could be used to create a more universally satisfying interface for existing applications, an adaptive mini-program that "sits" between the larger application and the user. Potential…

Pair-programming has been found to be very beneficial in educational settings. Students who pair in their introductory programming course are more confident, have greater course completion and pass rates, and are more likely to persist in computer-related majors. Although pairing helps all students, we believe that it is particularly beneficial…

The need for e-learning systems that support a diverse set of pedagogical requirements has been identified as an important issue in web-based education. Until now, significant research and development effort has been devoted to aiming towards web-based educational systems tailored to specific pedagogical approaches. The most advanced of them are…

In order to capture current educational practices in eLearning courses, more advanced "learning design" capabilities are needed than are provided by the open eLearning specifications hitherto available. Specifically, these fall short in terms of multi-role workflows, collaborative peer-interaction, personalization and support for learning…

The main contribution of this paper is a proposal for a universal pedagogical pattern categorization based on teaching values and activities. This categorization would be more sustainable than the arbitrary categorization implied by pedagogical pattern language themes. Pedagogical patterns from two central patterns languages are analyzed and…

Computer operations involving complex numbers, essential in such applications as Fourier transforms or image processing, are normally performed in a "divide-and-conquer" approach dealing separately with real and imaginary parts. A number of proposals have treated complex numbers as a single unit but all have foundered on the problem of the…

This article reports on the growth of blogs in popular culture, and the fact that they are becoming more widely accepted in the media industry. The rise and popularity of blogs--short for "Web logs"--are causing journalism educators to overhaul their teachings. In fact, blogging's influence varies from one university program to the next, just like…