Recent years have seen growing interest in electronic learning portfolios (e-portfolios) as a tool to support student learning across higher education in both public and private colleges and universities. The concept of an e-portfolio is multifaceted--it is a technology, a pedagogical approach, and a process, as well as a product. Its purpose can…

Increasing instructor-student interactions and improving support personnel interventions with students positively affects their academic performance, retention, and graduation rates. This article discusses the Grade Performance Status (GPS) which is Northern Arizona University's new online, academic early alert tool for increasing instructor…

The incorporation of new learning technologies into courses at Canadian universities has been largely undertaken at the initiative of individual instructors, rather than in response to explicit institutional direction or faculty initiatives. This appears to be particularly the case with the migration of individual courses that were formally…

A new Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) approach was designed for youth who participated in the Minnesota State Fair Livestock interview process. The project and evaluation were designed to determine if the new SET approach increased content knowledge and science process skills in participants. Results revealed that youth participants not…

Search engine use is one of the most popular online activities. According to a recent OCLC report, nearly all students start their electronic research using a search engine instead of the library Web site. Instead of viewing search engines as competition, however, librarians at Binghamton University Libraries decided to employ search engine…

This article reports that the six states that now have federal approval to change the way they hold schools accountable under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act will use six different ways to distinguish between schools with minor problems and those that need total overhauls. The variety of approaches will help inform Congress when it resumes…

This article discusses Hawaii's energy conservation efforts. Faced with high electricity costs, the Hawaii Department of Education instituted a pilot program in which schools could earn back half the amount they saved in electricity over the course of a semester. As a result, one school's electricity use decreased by more than 10% for the…

The Educational Interpreter Performance Assessment (EIPA) is as an important research tool for examining the quality of interpreters who use American Sign Language or a sign system in classroom settings, but it is not currently applicable to educational interpreters who use Cued Speech (CS). In order to determine the feasibility of extending the…

Tennessee is one of 15 states participating in a pilot program to explore new ways to measure school performance under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Under NCLB, states are held accountable for ensuring that sufficient numbers of schools' students are meeting state proficiency standards and improving schools that fail to measure up. In…

On June 15, 2009, Martha Abele Mac Iver and Douglas J. Mac Iver presented "Beyond the Indicators: An Integrated School-Level Approach to Dropout Prevention." In this webinar (and accompanying paper), they explained how to create an integrated dropout prevention strategy and highlighted an innovated pilot program that yielded results…

This paper evaluates a United Kingdom pilot study designed to test whether a means-tested conditional cash transfer paid to 16- to 18-year-olds for staying in full-time education is an effective way of reducing the proportion of school dropouts. The transfer's impact is substantial: In the first year, full-time education participation rates…

Visualization is becoming more prevalent as an application in science, engineering, and technology related professions. The analysis of static and dynamic graphical visualization provides data solutions and understandings that go beyond traditional forms of communication. The study of technology-based content and the application of conceptual…

This article provides a course overview of English 304 & Communications 250: Professional Rhetorics. This course was a pilot project instituted at Clemson University in spring of 2008. The project integrally linked English 304 (Business Writing) and Communications 250 (Public Speaking), requiring the same students to be enrolled in both 3…

In July 2004, The National Endowment for the Arts released the results of a survey entitled "Reading at Risk." The survey covered a 20-year period from 1982 to 2002 and documented a dramatic decline in the reading of literary works by all age groups during that period. The steepest decline of 28 percent was found among the youngest age group of…

The affordances of today's digital technologies have significantly changed the way students learn. Arguing that current learning theories have failed to address this new reality, Marie Sontag proposes a new theory, social-connectedness and cognitive-connectedness schemata (SCCS) theory, that integrates key elements of other theories with gaming…