Research spanning the last thirty years confirms that people learn better by active enquiry, collaboration and experimental problem solving than by passive reception and acceptance of information. Empirical evidence, as well as the pressing demands of pervasive social and technological change, requires learning and teaching approaches that combine…

Many academics continue to approach the multi-path and multi-voiced capacity of the Internet's networked nodal structure as if it were a book with pages and paragraphs and sentences that flow together in one direction to make a whole. A different approach to that of traditional writing, is required to make effective use of the distinctive…

An integrated learning object, a web-based inquiry environment "Young Scientist" for basic school level is introduced by applying the semiosphere conception for explaining learning processes. The study focused on the development of students' (n=30) awareness of the affordances of learning objects (LO) during the 3 inquiry tasks, and their ability…

Choi and Clark (2006) argue that learning is attributed to the instructional method rather than the specific medium used to deliver instruction (i.e., the pedagogical agent). Additionally, they consider pedagogical agents as unnecessarily expensive tools, whose instructional affordances can be replicated by less expensive options. In this response…

In Dubai, traffic accidents kill one person every 37 hours and injure one person every 3 hours. Novice traffic accident investigators in the Dubai police force are expected to "learn by doing" in this intense environment. Currently, they use no alternative to the real world in order to practice. This paper argues for the use of an…

This article presents sets of observations and recommendations for Web-based distance learning, based on formative and summative performance and opinion data collected from participants involved in the design, development, and utilization of Wired Class, a Web-based learning environment that was developed to teach mathematics to Egyptian secondary…

For the thirty-fifth year, the Research and Theory Division of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) is sponsoring the publication of these Proceedings. Papers published in this volume were presented at the national AECT Convention in Louisville, Kentucky. The Proceedings of AECT's Convention are published in two…

Design Based Research (DBR) is a new and still-emerging approach to research about design, learning, and allied areas. This article reports one designer's experiences within a DBR project. Whereas most reports of DBR focus on the outcomes of the design itself, the current paper offers a hermeneutical perspective by focusing on the personal…

Significant improvements in instructional design and in the development of classroom support materials, as well as the blurring of lines separating computer software, computer-interactive videodisc, CD-ROM, and other new technologies, are cited as the rationale for combining three topics covered by separate guidelines published in…

The development of potentially powerful computer-based tools within rich learning environments is hampered by the constraints of delivery systems (specifically low-resolution, low-real estate displays). In designing a World Wide Web-based tool for manipulating time-based information, the authors have encountered a lack of guidelines or empirical…

This paper shows how to use design patterns for building educational multimedia applications. The first section summarizes design issues related to organizing the information, the organization of the interface, and implementation. Navigating through information is covered in the second section, including problems, motivations, and solutions, and…

This practicum was developed in response to a concern that a week-long orientation program did not eliminate the difficulties experienced by sixth graders in signing onto and using the school's Local Area Network (LAN). Class printouts demonstrated a noticeable discrepancy between the number of skills students were supposed to complete and the…

Some factors in the design of instructional micrcomputer simulations that high school social studies teachers must consider when selecting and using computer software are discussed: (1) Instructional computer simulations are adequate instructionally only to the extent that they make explicit the set of relationships underlying the program for the…

The second annual report of the 4-year Project CREATE describes activities toward the Project's overall objective of determining how effective microcomputer and related technologies can be in improving the education of learning disabled students. During the second year examination of factors understood to contribute to the beneficial use of…

Based on an earlier user's guide to a minicomputer page layout system called PLA (Terrell, 1982), this guide is designed for use in the development and production of text-graphic materials for training relatively unskilled technicians to perform complex procedures. A microcomputer version of PLA, MicroPLA uses the Commodore 8032 microcomputer to…