This article discusses how one professional development program (STAR Tech) used communities of practice to help teachers help each other integrate technology tools into the curriculum to benefit students with and without disabilities. This case study focused on the experience of one team member, a third grade teacher of an inclusive classroom.…

This article summarizes a formative evaluation of a two-year project to provide professional development in technology for urban early childhood teachers. The researcher collected and analyzed data from interviews of 18 teachers. Using the constant comparative method the researcher identified common barriers that inhibited the effective…

One of the best ways of incentivating the use of ICTs as university teaching tools is by providing clear evidence that this technology helps to increase educational benefits, i.e., that students learn more and more effectively--in conditions of equivalent efforts by both teachers and students. The point, however, is that little has been reported…

Research indicates that teachers who readily integrate technology into their instruction are more likely to possess constructivist teaching styles. Evidence suggests there is a parallel between a teacher's student-centered beliefs about instruction and the nature of the teacher's technology-integrated lessons. This connection between the use of…

The author of this paper teaches grades 6-8 Health and Physical Education at a rural middle school in Howland, Maine (Hichborn Middle School). In 1996, the state legislature approved "The Maine Learning Results" as the document identifying the knowledge and skills essential to prepare Maine students for work, higher education,…

This article describes the critical experiences of a middle school mathematics teacher as she progressed from a novice to a knowledgeable creator of technology-enhanced learning activities for her classroom. During an eight week intervention, cognitive apprenticeship strategies (Collins, 1991) were utilized in a partnership with the teacher until…

This paper describes the findings of a qualitative study to examine preservice teacher education students' experiences and reasons for creating digital teaching portfolios. Also, it examines the advantages and disadvantages of creating digital teaching portfolios. Findings indicate that the process of creating digital teaching portfolios was a…

Digital libraries are changing the way academic disciplines within universities are conceptualized. The nation's scholars are investing their careers and millions of dollars to use technology to rethink the nature of their disciplines. These advances are affecting academic research and instruction as academic disciplines restructure in response to…

An analysis of the characteristics of education and educational institutions of the third millennium shows that predominant features are flexibility, inclusiveness, collaboration, authenticity, relevance and extended institutional boundaries. Roles of both students and teachers have changed significantly as educational goals have broadened to…

The purposes of this study were to determine the actual amount of instructional time spent on social studies, to determine the variety of instructional strategies used during social studies instruction, and to assess the frequency and types of technology usage during social studies instruction. As part of addressing the No Child Left Behind Act, a…

Whether staff members are working in urban, rural, or suburban branches, for many years national organizations have been committed to preparing them to work effectively with young people. Over the past couple of decades, national organizations have sought and received strong funding to develop targeted, comprehensive professional development…

Editor-in-chief James Morrison interviews Joel Barker and Scott Erickson, co-authors of the book "Five Regions of the Future: A New Way to Think about Technology". In their book, the authors propose an ecological model that classifies technology according to different clusters or regions, each of which entails its own perspective of technology and…

Online instruction is gaining an increasing presence due to the benefits associated with it, including the ability to consolidate education and training across geographical and time constraints, and the claim by many that online education and training is cost efficient. This paper provides a relatively concise and useful history of online…

A problem solving protocol is described and then applied to a teacher training problematic situation in science and technology education. The problem consists of improving a learning community involved in education research, development and communication. Some remarks concerning the strengths and limitations of using the protocol are made in…

For history teachers, the Web seems ubiquitous these days. Many of them are completely accustomed to drawing on Web-based resources, constructing their own Web materials, engaging in various kinds of distance learning activities, and hearing colleagues talk about it whether or not they want to listen. It wasn't always this way, of course. The…