When integrated appropriately into the curriculum, technology can support the achievement of specific learning outcomes. To help newcomers to technology, the paper lists professional journals, technology organizations, and quality software and multimedia catalogs and presents a list of strategies teachers can use to evaluate whether technology can…

Discusses formative evaluation of courseware and describes a study of undergraduates that compared the effects of two methods of formative evaluation on the revision of a computer-assisted instruction (CAI) program written in HyperCard. Use of the one-to-one method and the small group method of evaluation are explained, and posttest scores are…

Examines and compares five available computer programs intended for self-instruction in Italian, focusing on their attention to learning strategies and personalized learning pace. Content, format, and other features of each are noted. General issues discussed include overall organization, cultural content, sequencing, exercise types, and ancillary…

The increased use of constructed-response items, like essays, creates a need for tools to score these responses automatically in part or as a whole. This study explores one approach to analyzing essay-length natural language constructed-responses. A decision model for scoring essays was developed and evaluated. The decision model uses…

The central objective of factor analysis is to explain the greatest amount of variance in a data set with the smallest number of factors. Higher-order analysis is an invaluable tool that offers the benefit of parsimony provided by first-order analysis with the opportunity to make data-based generalizations beyond the first-order. Higher-order…

The monthly newsletter of the National AppleWorks Users Group (NAUG), "The AppleWorks Forum," serves as a clearinghouse for user-discovered applications and work-arounds. This article presents 10 of the most popular suggested applications for the program, including the development and use of word processing templates, the installation of…

The advancement of microcomputer technology has reached the point where color monitors and color computer software are fast becoming the norm in our information society. Color is another channel for communication, and can be used for enhancement of both aesthetic characteristics and productivity. The advantage to the use of color for communication…

The paper examines the applications of microcomputers to recreation programing for blind persons. The accessibility of microcomputers to this population is discussed, and the advantages as well as disadvantages of speech synthesis equipment are noted. Information is presented on the modification of hardware for Radio Shack and Apple computers.…

The number of educational software packages on today's market is growing steadily. A large percentage of them are found to be of poor quality in terms of instructional and/or technical design. Arguing that a microcomputer in the classroom is only as effective as the software used with it, the first part of this digest provides an overview of the…

This guide was developed as a "how to" training device for merging database and word processing files using Appleworks and the Apple IIe computer with a Duodisk or two disk drives. Step-by-step directions are provided for transferring the database file, printing the file, moving to the word processor file, and merging documents. Also…

This guide was started in 1986 as an effort to pull together a collection of several computer guides that had been written over the previous several years to assist schools in making simple computer repairs. The first of six sections contains general tips and hints, including sections on tool requirements, strobe disk speed adjustment, static…

This guide provides instructions for preventive maintenance and for making minor technical adjustments on microcomputers. General hints are provided for all microcomputers concerning static electricity reduction; use of dust covers; heat, magnetic fields, and floppy disks; and the use of halogen fire extinguishers. These are followed by…

Variable selection techniques in stepwise regression analysis are discussed. In stepwise regression, variables are added or deleted from a model in sequence to produce a final "good" or "best" predictive model. Stepwise computer programs are discussed and four different variable selection strategies are described. These…

This guide to the development of effective documentation for users of computer software begins by identifying five types of documentation, i.e., training manuals, user guides, tutorials, on-screen help comments, and troubleshooting manuals. Six steps in the development process are then outlined and briefly described: (1) planning and preparation;…

Designed to aid teachers, school administrators, and parents in selecting excellent education software for grades K-12, this guide reports the results of over 7,800 evaluations of educational software programs and lists the 250 selected as the newest education software winners. In addition to these programs, this 1986 edition has added software…