The report describes a project assessing the organizational issues surrounding microcomputers in special education, with special emphasis on software selection and use. Twelve districts were visited, and both administrative and instructional applications of microcomputers were observed. Two major types of software--applications and systems…

Word processing programs offer five capabilities that can help students over the physical and psychological constraints associated with writing. First, producing text on a word processor is more tentative and more noncommital than producing text on paper. This reassures the writer that it is all right to experiment with words. Second, the blinking…

Following a brief description of types of computer assisted instruction (tutorial, drill and practice, and simulation/games), this document provides the following BASIC programming routines: variable typing, range error maskings, default entries, having user check input, allowing users to change input, response checker for numbers, response…

This article describes how students have made use of technology tools in several critical literacy activities that help to achieve the paramount goals of language and literacy education to enable students to develop critical consciousness and community agency through literacy. The technologies helped students define intertextual connections, pose…

One of the important underlying assumptions of all item response theory (IRT) models is that of local independence. This assumption requires that the response to an item on a test not be influenced by the response to any other items. This assumption is often taken for granted, with little or no scrutiny of the response process required to answer…

Summaries of research performed by the Information Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California for the U.S. Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in 17 areas are provided in this report: (1) Common LISP framework, an exportable version of the Formalized Software Development (FSD) testbed; (2) Explainable Expert…

A team project was conducted to develop software designed to help undergraduate and graduate students play both the roles of interviewer and interviewee. The project was designed to determine how students with various degrees of experience of employment interviewing felt about the software. Students from three sections of a graduate level course…

This study investigated the effects of a minimal manual version versus a cards version of documentation on students' computing behaviors while learning to use a telecommunication system (Appleshare), students' attitudes toward the documentation, and students' later use of the system. Guidelines from the work of Carroll and colleagues at the IBM…

Item banks, large sets of test items, can be used for the construction of achievement tests. Mathematical programming models have been proposed for the selection of items from an item bank for a test. These models make automated test construction possible. However, to find an optimal or even an approximate optimal solution to a test construction…

This paper focuses on the challenges of using photographic evidence while conducting evaluation and research. The viability of photo-interviewing is discussed as part of a perception-based model of evaluation to describe and judge a technology infusion program in higher education. The program involved the use of a software tool, HyperCard, as a…

Designed to serve as a blueprint for other libraries developing plans for microcomputer facilities, this report describes the planning and implementation of a microcomputer laboratory at South Dakota State University's Hilton M. Briggs Library. The university's plan for installing microcomputer labs on campus and the initial planning process…

The use of computer graphics as visual aids to lecture-style university instruction is discussed briefly. It is contended that the following three factors inhibit the application of computers as visual aids: (1) the costs of providing sufficient numbers of monitors and large enough monitors to allow appropriate visual access by students are…

This combined directory and bibliography contains information on 2,000 resources, including print, non-print, and organizational issues, related to computer-assisted language learning and teaching and desktop publishing. While most citations of print and non-print materials are from the 1980s, some were produced in the 1970's. Topics include…

This paper describes the progress to date of a project to develop an educational environment to train farmers, ranchers, and staff in the use of microcomputers and economic and financial management. The project is located at the Stiles Farm, a 3,300-acre foundation farm in central Texas. A training center has been built at the farm to facilitate…

Artificial intelligence research on natural language understanding is discussed in this report using the notions that (1) natural language understanding systems must "see" sentences as elements whose significance resides in the contribution they make to the larger whole, and (2) a natural language understanding computer system must…