In these days of increasing concern for the state of the environment and declining biodiversity, it is important that students and teachers come to appreciate the value of life in all its forms. Natural history provides students with an opportunity to understand better how life on the planet interacts, as well as the place and responsibility of…

Owing to the emergence and flourishing of the Internet, traditional teaching and educational activities are increasingly relying on the convenient and global-reaching networking technology. To boost up the development of e-learning technology and the interoperability of learning materials, the Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative defined a…

This study analyzes the performance and attitudes of technical writing students in PowerPoint-enhanced and in non-PowerPoint lectures. Four classes of upper-level undergraduates (n = 84) at a mid-sized, Southern university taking a one-semester technical writing course were surveyed at the beginning and end of the course about their perceptions of…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to report the impact of an online simulation that was designed to provide pre-service teachers with experience in dealing with complex classroom situations associated with the teaching of literacy. Design/methodology/approach: A developmental approach to the research was used. This is also known as…

Learning objects and learning content management systems are considered to be "the next wave in engineering education". The results of experiments with these new trends in ICT in engineering education are described in this paper. The prospects were examined and the concepts of reusability of content for teachers and for personalized…

Since the time of Kinsey, sexuality education courses in colleges across the country have drawn large numbers of co-eds to their rosters. As educators move beyond discussions about the facts of anatomy, physiology, and biology, they increasingly look to technological advances to further the art of teaching. Taking a conversational approach to…

In this paper, we present an ontology to represent the semantics of the IMS Learning Design (IMS LD) specification, a meta-language used to describe the main elements of the learning design process. The motivation of this work relies on the expressiveness limitations found on the current XML-Schema implementation of the IMS LD conceptual model. To…

The use of PowerPoint (PPT)-based lectures in business classes across universities is ubiquitous yet understudied in empirical pedagogical research. The purpose of this empirical study was to ascertain whether significant differences exist between faculty and student perceptions with regard to PPT's impact on perceived learning, classroom…

Digital video and accompanying editing software are increasingly becoming more accessible for researchers in terms of ease of use and cost. The rich, visually appealing and seductive nature of video-based data can convey a strong sense of direct experience with the phenomena studied (Pea, 1999). However, the ease of selection and editing of…

This study examined 49 student teachers' actions and perspectives when implementing a curricular innovation (the tactical games approach). Data were collected via videotaped lessons, interviews, and follow-up questionnaires. Questions for interviews and questionnaires were pilot tested and data were analyzed using the constant comparison method.…

"Read Naturally" is designed to improve reading fluency using a combination of books, audio-tapes, and computer software. This program includes three main strategies: (1) repeated reading of English text for oral reading fluency development; (2) teacher modeling of story reading; and (3) systematic monitoring of student progress by…

This final report describes a federally funded project to improve the instructional design and use of general software with students who have special learning needs. An 86-page guide, which was the project output, is provided. This "Guide for the Use of General Software with Students Who Have Special Learning Needs" is designed to help teachers…

A multimedia software package, ASTOUND, has been used by the University of South Carolina (USC) Sumter in the development of lectures and support learning materials in a computer literacy course. A hardware setup, known as the Tech Commander, which provides immediate feedback for both students and instructor as work is being done in the lab, has…

This paper discusses a computer-based prototype called TestMaker that enables educators to create computer-based tests. Given the functional needs of faculty, the host of research implications computer technology has for assessment, and current educational perspectives such as constructivism and their impact on testing, the purposes for developing…

Commitment to teaching excellence is enhanced when innovative and creative methods are introduced into the education setting. With today's rapidly changing technology, professional and presentation software can be used to improve the learning process. At Florida's Stetson University, professional estate, gift, and fiduciary software packages were…