More than 1.5 million K-12 students in the United States engage in online or blended learning, according to a recent report. As of the end of 2010, 38 states had state virtual schools or state-led online initiatives; 27 states plus Washington, D.C., had full-time online schools; and 20 states offered both supplemental and full-time online learning…

Today's world is filled with technology resources such as cellphones, iPods, laptops and the internet. By using these technological resources, adult education ESOL teachers can improve instruction, boost learning and better prepare students for real world English use. This article examines advantages of technology use and offers examples of…

In past decades, the "digital divide" referred to the gap between those who could afford access to technology and those who could not. The divide has shifted in recent years to reflect the growing technological chasm between teachers and their students: today's schools and teenagers' worlds. The digital divide is widening and deepening…

This exploratory study examines differences in K-12 educators' use of technology for instruction across school economic factors. Survey data from 94 practicing K-12 teachers are analyzed. This study finds that schools' economic factors explain variation in how teachers use technology to promote higher-order thinking skills. Our findings support…

As teachers and students increasingly dwell in a digital world, Wikipedia is a powerful presence. While it is wise to plan and teach cautiously with respect to Wikipedia, the author believes that teachers need to acknowledge its stronghold in students' lives and teach correspondingly. That is, social studies teachers must provide opportunities for…

This article describes a simulation activity that can be used to help students see that the estimator "S" is a biased estimator of [sigma]. The activity can be implemented using either a statistical package such as R, Minitab, or a Web applet. In the activity, the students investigate and compare the bias of "S" when sampling from different…

Introduction: A way to find out how scientific thinking in children develops is to focus on the processes that are involved. As such, scientific thinking can be seen as a particular form of problem solving in which the problem solver selects a strategy from the space of possible experiments that can reveal the cause of an event. Notwithstanding…

Planning and implementing teacher professional development is a process of engaging in organisational learning and change. Yet our planning and implementation of professional development is at times a series of one-off sessions and can be quite ad hoc. This paper argues that teacher learning takes place not only through formal sessions but also…

Educational games and simulations are excellent active learning tools that offer students hands-on experience. Little research is available on developing games and simulations and how teachers can be assisted in making their own games and simulations. In this context, the paper presents a multi-step process of how to develop games and simulations…

This paper reports on the different gesture types employed by twenty-three Year 10 students as they endeavoured to explain their understanding of rate of change associated with the functions resulting from two different computer simulations. These gestures also have application to revealing students' understanding of functions. However,…

Countries like India are engaged in exploring appropriate ways of tackling the urgent problem of educating their large and growing populations in relatively little time and with limited resources. Against this background, achieving universal primary education is a major concern. If this Millennium Development Goal is to be achieved, the…

This review of research focuses on technological intervention methods as an alternative way to teach literacy to students with disabilities. It discusses the current emphasis of integrating students with specific learning needs in the general education curriculum and the fact that they are struggling, especially in the area of literacy. Through…

This paper explores the implementation of a Flickr (Web 2.0 photo sharing software) learning task in a first year primary education course. The context for the task was a Multiliteracies course where students designed digital media activities for later use with primary age students. The Flickr task was constructed to determine how a learning…

Every quarter at California State University East Bay, a special event-planning course is offered in a hybrid format (face-to-face and online) and uses interactive Problem-Based Learning (PBL) activities designed to challenge and inspire intellectual growth. The PLB method is different in that students are not only receivers of knowledge but are…

A phylogenetics exercise is incorporated into the "Introduction to biocomputing" course, a junior-level course at Savannah State University. This exercise is designed to help students learn important concepts and practical skills in molecular phylogenetics through solving a real-world problem. In this application, students are required to identify…