After taking an environmental inventory of their community, seventh-graders in a Denver-area middle school decided to tackle the drinking water problem and fix it. The school is one of seven participating in Earth Force, an environmental and community-service-learning program based in Alexandria, Virginia. The program's progress and six-step…

Describes the University of Exeter (UK), Mondex, and NatWest UK smartcard-based campus card system project. Smartcards, wallet-sized plastic cards with microprocessors, interface with network terminal devices and are programmable as data, identity, and finance cards. International standard multiple operating system (MULTOS) increases current…

Describes the Instructional Technology Project (ITP) at Floyd College (Georgia), a two-year school where every student must lease a laptop computer to access CD-ROMs and the Internet. Focuses on issues such as how the laptops are used and Internet research. Argues against a total virtual education and assesses the contribution of the laptops. (CMK)

Offers a descriptive account and critical analysis of three cooperative collection development projects undertaken by the Virtual Library of Virginia (VIVA), a consortium of Virginia academic libraries. Reviews cooperative collection development processes and explains objectives that included cost effectiveness, improved access to information…

Sponsored by West Chester University and the local League of Women Voters, the Kids Around Town Program is helping some Pennsylvania elementary school children develop responsible citizenship by involving them in community service activities. Students select a public policy issue affecting them. This issue serves as a springboard for study and…

A Connecticut principal describes how his middle school explored benefits of looping for seventh and eighth graders. Results of a study evaluating the effects of a pilot project on student discipline, attitudes, and achievement were positive enough to justify expanding looping to all seventh- and eighth-grade classes. (Contains 19 references.)…

Discusses the development of a model for providing user-centered access to collections of information that uses a standard terminology to represent the information collection and a set of possibly overlapping user domains to represent a social network. Describes results of a pilot study using the Metathesaurus of the Unified Medical Language…

Presents feedback from students and teachers who participated in the pilot of Project E.L.I.T.E. (Electronic Learning and Information Technologies in Education). The purpose of the Project was to deliver curriculum-specific materials through state-of-the-art multimedia technology. Suggestions are provided for teaching the social studies curriculum…

Specific combinations of educational and ICT conditions including computer use may optimise learning processes, particularly for learners at risk. This position paper asks which curricular, instructional, and ICT characteristics can be expected to optimise learning processes and outcomes, and how to best achieve this optimization. A theoretical…

Academics are reported to be working longer hours and have less time for research because of increasing administrative and teaching demands. The traditional pattern of the academic enterprise appears to have changed. To explore whether this is indeed the case, the Experience Sampling Method [ESM], a research technique devised by Mihaly…

Given the decline in French majors and enrollments in French junior year study abroad programs, educators have increasingly turned to short-term study abroad for first- and second-year students. These programs can motivate students fulfilling the language requirement, while also internationalizing the curriculum through interdisciplinary and…

In this study, the authors evaluated the effectiveness of the "Energize Your Life!" social-marketing campaign pilot study to improve knowledge, attitudes, and fruit intake among community college students. The authors used a cross-sectional, quasi-experimental, pre- and posttest design. They randomly selected community college students…

In many developing countries, small- and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) account for a large part of national employment and income. Therefore, governments have used various strategies/policy instruments to develop human resources for SMEs and improve their productivity and national welfare. In the literature, however, there has been little effort…

The Autism Diagnostic Observational Schedule (ADOS) is a semi-structured observational scale developed to assess social interaction, communication and play in individuals who are suspected to have autism. Since the ADOS is not suitable to be used with severely or profoundly mentally retarded adolescents and adults with very limited language…

This study describes a technological pilot project providing 160 graduate students with asynchronous access to the ongoing proceedings of a lecture-based course. Exactly half of the students spoke the language of instruction, English, as a second language (ESL). While the asynchronous video-on-demand service proved popular overall, ESL students…