WordSmith Tools, since its launch in 1996, has had a rather unusual history and the aim of this paper is to record some of the chief influences on its development. The paper thus presents and discusses the history of WordSmith Tools and its predecessors going back to the early 1980s when processors were much slower, memory very limited and disk…

Data-validation routines enable computer applications to test data to ensure their accuracy, completeness, and conformance to industry or proprietary standards. This paper presents five programming cases that require students to validate five different types of data: (1) simple user data entries, (2) UPC codes, (3) passwords, (4) ISBN numbers, and…

Software for text processing and presentation design is becoming increasingly sophisticated. Nevertheless, it is difficult to find a good solution for collaborative writing of technical course material, allowing the creation of high quality lecture notes and presentation slides from a single source. This article presents a new editing framework…

There is an active research community concentrating on visualizations of algorithms taught in CS1 and CS2 courses. These visualizations can help students to create concrete visual images of the algorithms and their underlying concepts. Not only "fundamental algorithms" can be visualized, but also algorithms used in compilers. Visualizations that…

Gifted students with Asperger syndrome (AS) frequently exhibit behaviors that puzzle and challenge teachers and other professionals. They display many of the behaviors typically associated with AS and therefore receive educational interventions designed to address their deficit areas. Often lacking is strength-based programming--that is,…

During at least one afternoon each month, Wilmette (Illinois) Public Library (WPL) hosts a local group of computer programmers, designers, and artists, who meet to discuss digital projects and resources, technical challenges, and successful design or programming strategies. WPL's Game Design Club, now in its third year, owes its existence to a…

European cooperation is a relevant subject that contributes to building a competitive network of high education institutions. A case of teacher mobility on behalf of the Erasmus programme is presented: it considers some Operations Research topics and the development of the Lego on My Decision module. The module considers eight lecture hours in…

In this paper, a video streaming system for education based on a wireless mesh network is proposed. A wireless mesh network is a self-organizing, self-managing and reliable intelligent network, which allows educators to deploy a network quickly. Video streaming plays an important role in this system for multimedia data transmission. This new…

Web 2.0 services include sharing and collaborative technologies such as blogs, social networking sites, online office productivity tools, and wikis. Wikis are increasingly used for the design and implementation of pedagogy, for example to facilitate experiential learning. A U.S. government-funded project for system security risk assessment was…

For over 30 years, reference resolution, the process of determining what a noun phrase including a pronoun refers to in written and spoken language, has been an important and on-going area of research. Most existing pronominal reference resolution algorithms and systems are designed to use syntactic information and surface features (e.g. number…

"Multicultural Programs for Tweens and Teens" is a one-stop resource that encourages children and young adults to explore different cultures. Dozens of flexible programming ideas allow you to: (1) Choose a program specific to your scheduling, budget, or age group requirements; (2) Create an event that reflects a specific culture; and (3) Recommend…

Over time children's educational television has successfully modified programming to incorporate research-based strategies to facilitate learning and engagement during viewing. However, research has been limited on whether these same strategies would work with preschool deaf children viewing videos in American Sign Language. In a descriptive…

In this paper, we summarize our experiences from teaching a course in humanoid robotics at Chalmers University of Technology in Goteborg, Sweden. We describe the robotic platform used in the course and we propose the use of a custom-built robot consisting of standard electronic and mechanical components. In our experience, by using standard…

"Scratch" is a media-rich digital environment that utilises a building block command structure to manipulate graphic, audio, and video aspects. It incorporates elements of Logo including "tinkerability" in the programming process. In "Scratch" students use geometric and measurement concepts such as coordinates, angle,…

Background: Teaching of health and medical concepts in the K-12 curriculum may help improve health literacy. Purpose: The purpose of this project was to determine acceptability and preliminary efficacy of pilot implementation of a health literacy curriculum using brief clips from a popular television program. Methods: Participants included 55…