Potentially, computers can balance some of the effects of visual impairment and provide equality of opportunity (Gerber, 2003). Students' individual needs entail that they and their teachers have access to a range of assistive technologies that may vary according to the task as well as to the learner. A dual output graphics card with a twin…

We describe an easy and fun project using water rockets to demonstrate applications of single variable calculus concepts. We provide procedures and a supplies list for launching and videotaping a water rocket flight to provide the experimental data. Because of factors such as fuel expulsion and wind effects, the water rocket does not follow the…

Most colleges and universities have adopted course management systems (e.g., Blackboard, WebCT). Worldwide faculty and students use them for class communications and discussions. The discussion tools provided by course management systems, while powerful, often do not offer adequate capabilities to appraise communication patterns, online behaviors,…

Visual Phonics is an instructional program to provide print awareness, alphabet knowledge, and sound-letter correspondence for children with hearing loss who experience difficulty developing a foundation of phonemic awareness skills. Its purpose is "to clarify the sound symbol relationship between spoken English and print" (Waddy-Smith…

The phrase "death by PowerPoint" was not born in the offices of Microsoft's competitors; it came straight from the hearts of victimized meeting attendees. Microsoft estimates that at least 30 million PowerPoint presentations are made daily, with many rightfully warranting death verdict assessment. Death sentences often result from a "construction…

Student presentations have assumed such prominence at the Nanyang Business School (NBS), Singapore, that business communication academics have begun conducting workshops on presentations for other faculty members. In addition to guidance on assessing student presentations, the authors offer theoretical and practical perspectives on PowerPoint,…

One interesting aspect of teaching students to use PowerPoint and similar graphics packages effectively is that graduate students who are already in the workforce often have bad presentation habits that they need to break. In this article, the author discusses ways of breaking these bad habits. Using storyboards is one way to keep students from…

This study investigated the learning-from-practice skills that pre-service teachers possess when they enter teacher preparation programs in the United States. Two subskills were hypothesized to represent, at least in part, what is required to learn from practice: (1) the ability to collect evidence about students' learning in order to analyze the…

The research reported in this paper concerns the development of children's skills of interpreting and evaluating evidence in science. Previous studies have shown that school teaching often places limited emphasis on the development of these skills, which are necessary for children to engage in scientific debate and decision-making. The research,…

This study sought to explore what sort of relationships exist between students' number sense and their problem solving ability, and the contribution of the teacher's teaching style and the students' learning style towards students' performance in these two respective areas. The problem solving ability and number sense proficiency of three classes…

With the implementation of the inclusion concept in public school classes, the ability of the general physical educator to effectively teach all of his or her students has been tested. This is particularly true with some students who have a receptive language disability (e.g., deaf, traumatic brain injury), an expressive language disability (e.g.,…

Twenty-one scholarly papers and fourteen abstracts comprise the content of the ninth annual "Brick and Click Libraries Symposium," held annually at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri. The peer-reviewed proceedings, authored by academic librarians and presented at the symposium, portray the contemporary and future…

This issue of "Exploring," is devoted primarily to examination of alphabets and the languages they represent. Major articles include: "Shrinking the Alphabet" (Pat Murphy), a comparison of alphabet composition for different languages; "The Puzzle of Linear B" (Paul Doherty), a history of archaeologists' deciphering of an early form of written…

Graduate students often have difficulty understanding the concepts behind the various models of instructional design (ID). In order to help students in an introductory ID course come to a better understanding of the similarities and differences between various instructional models, the models were developed into dynamic computer graphics to use…

This study explores the interpretation of two types of flow diagrams composed of different visual elements intended to communicate the same meaning. Using linear and cyclical diagrams, the study focused on whether, given a series of diagrams using linear elements and a series using cyclical elements, both types of visuals convey the same message…