This article describes how the mail merge facility within Microsoft Word can be used in conjunction with Microsoft Excel to generate personalized assignments for students at all levels.

This article proposes that visual encoding learning improves reading fluency by widening the span over which letters are recognized from a fixated text image so that fewer fixations are needed to cover a text line. Encoder is a connectionist model that learns to convert images like the fixated text images human readers encode into the…

Extols the virtues of PowerPoint as a teaching aid yet cautions against inappropriate use of it which may cause students to learn very little. Explains a number of features of slide preparation and presentation techniques that enable teachers to give effective lessons. Includes examples of PowerPoint presentations. (Author/NB)

Reviews current research into the use of PowerPoint in instruction and offers guidance for secondary science teachers on how to achieve the best learning outcomes for their students using the program. (Author/NB)

School nurses access an enormous amount of information through the Internet. Although most avid computer users are savvy to the threat of viruses to the integrity of data, many who surf the Web do not know that their data and the functioning of their computer is at risk to another hidden threat--spyware. This article will describe spyware, why it…

This paper describes how parametric cubic splines and cubic Bezier curves may be used in designing a two dimensional shape. A simple aerofoil shape is designed using both methods. The mathematics is described and the shape drawn using Excel. The effect of varying parameters is shown in both methods.

In this paper, the author presents ten rules for keeping an audience engaged during conference presentations: (1) Think of your talk as an "advertisement" for your paper; (2) Choose your data selectively; (3) Present slides with boldfaced print no less than 32-point type size; (4) Never project a quotation without reading it to your audience; (5)…

In this brief article, the author instructs teachers on how to produce an interactive spreadsheet from scratch in about 20 minutes and en route equip themselves and their students, with handy "Excel" skills. The aim is to introduce the basics of "Excel," plus some fun bits, speedily and with a purpose; producing something that is useful in its own…

Librarians are frequently consulted about proper citation formats and support the use of PC-based personal bibliographic citation management programs, such as EndNote, often used by faculty and graduate students. Recently, free or inexpensive Web-based tools have been developed that create citations and format bibliographies. An analysis of…

An oft-noted shortcoming of the research on teaching has been the meager description of teachers' knowledge and experience: their intellectual engagement with the subject matter they teach, their understanding of how to manage ideas in their teaching, or even their conceptions of how students develop knowledge of the subject matter taught. To…

The spectacular increase in Internet-based applications during the past decade has had a significant impact on the education delivery paradigms. The user interactivity aspect of the Internet has provided new opportunities to instructors to incorporate its use in developing new learning systems. The use of the Internet in carrying out live…

U.S. Supreme Court justices struggled in a lively debate with how to balance the competing interests of the entertainment industry and developers of file-sharing technology. Some justices sharply questioned whether it was fair to hold inventors of a distribution technology liable for copyright infringement, while others suggested that it was wrong…

Portable software applications can be carried on a convenient storage medium such as a USB drive, and offer numerous benefits to mobile teachers and learner. The article illustrates the growing field of "portable apps" in reviews of seven contrasting products. These represent the major categories of document editing, email maintenance,…

A computer virus is defined as a software program capable of reproducing itself and usually capable of causing great harm to files or other programs on the same computer. The existence of computer viruses--or the necessity of avoiding viruses--is part of using a computer. With the advent of the Internet, the door was opened wide for these…

This paper presents an argument for introducing location-allocation theory to advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students in a simplified continuous space environment that is relatively free of the distorting effects of networks and other aspects of more differentiated "real-world" environments. This approach can enable instructors to…