Eight teams of elementary and middle school teachers developed pilot online courses for the North Carolina Virtual Public School (NCVPS) in the USA. A qualitative case study with focus groups and a follow-up survey helped to identify common needs of these non-traditional course designers during course development efforts. Findings suggest virtual…

The introduction of web-based education in Canadian schools, as in other developed countries, has been particularly noticeable in rural areas. Small schools in rural communities have continued to get smaller as families relocate in urban areas in search of increased educational and vocational opportunities. There are a number of issues common to…

The library at the University of Alaska Fairbanks offers a unique equipment lending program through its Circulation Desk. The program features a wide array of equipment types, generous circulation policies, and unrestricted borrowing, enabling students, staff, and faculty to experiment with the latest in audio, video, and computer technologies,…

There is a growing consensus among educators and the general public that technology should play a more integral role in students' education. However, the question of whether the introduction of technology into the classroom has a positive impact on teaching and learning is still under intense debate within the educational community. This…

This article explores the implementation of effective synchronous voice communication sessions within a graduate level university program in education. Through the analysis of data derived from the multiple perspectives of an instructor, graduate student, program administrator and instructional technology support person, challenges and highlights…

Technology's impact on the delivery of health care mandates that nursing faculty use all technologies at their disposal to better prepare students to work in technology-infused health care environments. Essential components of an infrastructure to grow technology-infused nursing education include a skilled team comprised of tech-savvy faculty and…

Online delivery of university-level courses has grown exponentially in the last decade and is increasingly being recognised as a viable and effective alternative to face-to-face classroom teaching. Many scholars have already written about the benefits and best practices of online teaching in general. However, not many studies have paid specific…

The "Local Technology Plan Guidelines" serve as the basis for the Department's annual technology data collection. This report takes a look at the data submitted by 344 school districts, examining the progress Massachusetts school districts are making in meeting the recommended guidelines. In doing so, it will gauge the degree to which…

Recently, these authors had the opportunity to present "IT and Educational Technology: What's Pedagogy Got to Do With IT?" at the 2006 EDUCAUSE Midwest Regional Conference. The presentation addressed IT staff as teachers of pedagogy--not just trainers of how to use a tool--and how this change came about. The authors thought that the…

Critical thinking is a highly desirable goal of online higher education courses. This article presents qualitative data from a mixed-method study that explores how asynchronous discussions within online courses influence critical thinking among students. In this study, online discussions were related to higher levels of critical thinking, but…

Schools of education (SOEs) are experiencing increased pressure to prepare teacher candidates for the effective and innovative integration of technologies. Lack of both ubiquitous on-campus access and effective modeling by SOE faculty are two often-cited barriers to reaching this goal. The Academic Technology Initiative (ATI) at a large…

This paper reports on a field-based study of online help systems at the University of Maryland. After collecting data by means of interview, observation and focus group, analysis is grounded on the contextual data, thus shedding light on particular organizational and human behavioral issues on online help systems. The objectives of this research…

This article discusses 10 "IT myths": (1) Standardizing on a single computing platform reduces costs and enables better support; (2) Requiring students to own a computer (or laptop) will improve the quality of education at an institution; (3) Having a campus subscription to a music download service will reduce the incidence of online copyright…

This study was designed to determine the degree of use, level of client satisfaction of professional development and educational services, and to identify suggestions for improving services. Results from a mixed methodology approach indicated moderate to high levels of satisfaction in two program areas and moderate to high levels of…

Teaching today's students requires an integration of learner-centered pedagogy with innovative technological resources. In this article, Blase Scarnati and Paula Garcia describe the redesign of a junior-level music history course guided by learner-centered principles and driven by a fusion of stimulating technology-based learning tools and…