In the fall of 2002, Visions In Education, a charter school for home-schooled and independent-study children, opened Visions High School Academy (www.visions academy.org), a virtual project-based high school. The five educators who started the program--Mark Jackson, Fred Lamora, Celine Darby, Jennifer Russell and the author--identified three…

One of the traditional problems in courseware development that is recognized as hard to solve, is the communication and co-operation between various disciplines in project teams that are working on a courseware product [Alber (1996) "Multimedia: a management perspective." California: Wadsworth; Boyle (1997) "Design for multimedia learning." UK:…

"Innovate" editorial board member William H. Graves talks with Carol A. Twigg, president and CEO of the National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT), a nonprofit organization dedicated to encouraging course redesign at both the state and system levels, about NCAT's groundbreaking Program in Course Redesign (PCR). PCR demonstrated that…

For five years, Advanced Learning Technologies (ALT), a unit within the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia (USG), has worked with faculty and staff to develop the eCore, an electronically delivered core curriculum for the University System of Georgia. The eCore contains courses leading to the completion of the first two years of…

The sharable content object reference model (SCORM) includes a representation of distance learning contents and a behavior definition of how users should interact with the contents. Generally, SCORMcompliant systems were based on multimedia and Web technologies on PCs. We further build a pervasive learning environment, which allows users to read…

The Scottish Science and Technology Network (SSTN) is a major collaboration between Careers Scotland and Scottish industry to promote science and technology via an on-line and integrated learning programme. An initial two-year pilot project has grown considerably and has now been running for over 7 years. The SSTN programme is a web-based…

The Eighth Annual EDUCAUSE Current Issues Survey asked campus information technology leaders to rate the most critical IT challenges facing them, their campuses, and/or their systems. Four findings associated with all respondents to this year's survey merit special mention. First, for the 2007 survey, the CIC decided to split a key issue choice…

In the past decades, English learning has received lots of attention all over the world, especially for those who are not native English speakers. Various English learning and testing systems have been developed on the Internet. Nevertheless, most existing English testing systems represent the learning status of a student by assigning that student…

The current paper describes the design and development of a qualitative analysis course and an interactive web-based teaching and assessment tool called VSE (virtual structural environment). The widespread reliance on structural analysis programs requires engineers to be able to verify computer output by carrying out qualitative analyses.…

A project to convert part of a Chinese language course ("Standard Chinese: A Modular Approach") to the PLATO computerized teaching system is reported. The project involved: (1) transcribing all the first sequence audiotapes for the first six instructional modules (these tapes present the material of each lesson); (2) rewriting the lesson…

This handbook is designed to serve the needs of colleges and universities considering the development of distance degree programs. Its objectives are to report on current practices among colleges offering degree programs primarily through telecommunications; to describe current distance degree programs that can be used as models; and to identify…

This paper discusses some of the common threads shared by three dissimilar cases of multimedia authoring: multimedia conference proceedings, multimedia courseware development, and multimedia information kiosks. The benefits and pitfalls of academic development are reviewed and points of wisdom are shared. The paper draws on the experiences from…

Application of Computer-based systems to Training in Information Technology (ACT-IT, a project by a consortium of partners in the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic, is part of the TIDE program, an initiative of the European Community (EC) to make information technology more accessible to disabled and elderly people. This paper outlines the…

A current project is underway to develop a multimedia system that would support the teaching and learning of Chinese characters, as well as provide a platform for conducting research into the cognitive aspects of Chinese language acquisition. Although the number of commonly used Chinese characters amounts to thousands, there are many structural…

This paper chronicles the Teaching Mathematics Using Interactive Videodisk (TMMUIV) pilot project. The project emerged in response to the need to train pre-service teachers in, among other things, the use of mathematics manipulatives. The project now can offer a video database and pilot instructional program that combines full-motion video,…