Virtual Exchanges (VEs) are flourishing yet there are still few courses in higher education that offer in-service teachers the fundamental theoretical and practical knowledge necessary to organize and conduct a telecollaborative project in their own educational settings. This paper aims to provide a resource to teacher educators and course…

The purpose of this paper is to describe the processes utilised to develop an online learning module within the Opening Real Science (ORS) project--"Modelling the present: Predicting the future." The module was realised through an interdisciplinary collaboration, among mathematicians, scientists and mathematics and science educators that…

In a design experiment, the feedback from the teacher-implementer is crucial to the success of the innovation simply because the teacher is finally the one that brings the innovation to life in front of the students. We describe in this paper the feedback made by the teacher-implementer after teaching one cycle of the problem solving module in a…

In accelerating fast changing knowledge-based and information societies such like the European Union technology dominates most facets of our everyday lives, and learning activities as well. Unfortunately, particularly seniors and elderly people suffer the risk to be left behind, and that the digital divide becomes bigger. This is problematic…

Technology facilitated teaching and learning can now influence the way both lecturers and students collaborate. The problem is that many of these interventions are conducted in a non-systematic ad-hoc way. There are concerns that merely adopting a traditional lecturing approach to a technology based environment provides little if any advantage to…

Education has long been regarded as the foundation stone of national growth and international competitiveness. In the last three decades national educational reforms to improve access to higher education qualifications, individual higher education institutions' aggressive national and international marketing initiatives and improved information…

This paper focuses on the development of the Learning Activity Package (LAP). The first part of the paper discusses the structure of the LAP, including its components (i.e., title, rationale, objectives, content, learning activities, student review, post-evaluation, pretest, alternate activities, management directions, and teacher supplement) and…

An effort was made to operate a computer simulation of individualized self-paced instruction concurrently and in parallel with an actual conventional course. The simulation was in effect a management information system for instructors and students, with modifications as they were made by participants. A pilot program was run at Catholic University…

This document contains teacher's materials for an instructional module on how to conduct a visual screening that was developed through use of the Dick and Carey model of instructional design. More than a third of the document consists of a description of the model's use and adaptation in the development of the module. Section headings are as…

This paper focuses on individualizing instruction as it relates to the diagnosis of the needs of individual learners and the development of appropriate instructional activities to meet these needs. A format is presented for assisting teachers in the process of personalizing instruction in an effort to optimize the learning environment for each…

This third in a series of edited transcripts based on a conference at Utah State University describes Merrill's Component Design Theory (CDT) and compares it to his earlier Component Display Theory. Topics discussed include concept structures, knowledge acquisition, components of an instructional design system, and a new CDT matrix. (10…

Developing standards for e-learning will have important implications for instructional designers. The most obvious change is that designers will not be designing courses any more; they will be designing small, stand-alone units of instruction called learning objects. This will create a learning object economy that will bring new challenges as well…

A discussion of the use of thematic modules in content-based second language instruction argues that the approach has a number of advantages over others. Thematic modules are defined as longer than lessons and shorter than a course, and it is suggested that in a content-based approach, the module constitutes the basic unit of study. Content-based…

To make training cost-effective for its small systems customers, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) is providing self-instructional packages that can be used by customers on-site for training people to run their systems. To control the quality of this training, Computer Managed Instruction (CMI) is now incorporated into some of these packages.…

This study deals with three critical decision areas in individualizing instruction: (1) the decision whether or not to use commercially available materials; (2) the programmatic impact assigned to cognitive and affective consequences; and (3) the extent of formal structuring. Using a six-year research and development cycle for the development of…