In 2004, Sampson-Livermore Library at The University of North Carolina at Pembroke, began circulating laptops to its patrons. After a small pilot project, full-scale implementation occurred and the service proved to be very popular. Policies and procedures were adjusted at several steps along the way to accommodate lessons learned from the…

Helping prospective teachers become more knowledgeable and skilled in the use of technology in education is an important goal of today's teacher preparation programs. This article reports the results of a survey, "Pre-service Teacher Technology Survey: technology usage and needs of science educators", that determined pre-service science…

Modeling has been shown to correct weaknesses of traditional instruction by engaging students in the design of physical models to describe, explain, and predict phenomena. Although the modeling method can be used without computers, the use of computers allows students to study problems that are difficult and time consuming, to visualize their…

E-learning is an accepted and commonly used component in tertiary education. However, success would appear to remain variable. Effective e-learning is a concept which sometimes eludes even the most reputable of online educators. It is an issue which plagues both the corporate and education fields and which is frequently aggravated by the numerous,…

Perceptual differences among higher education faculty members regarding distance education were examined. It is noteworthy that only the perceptions were measured rather than actual learning outcomes and quality of distance education. The results suggested those faculty members with experience responded favorably to questions about distance…

The Department of Mathematics at the University of Food Technology, Plovdiv, Bulgaria, has introduced the Computer Algebra System DERIVE into the Mathematics courses with a view to increasing student motivation and understanding of the material taught as well as the efficiency of the teaching process. With the aim of investigating the effect of…

This article is an evaluation of the use of Interactive Whiteboards (IWBs) as a teaching and learning medium from the perspectives of students in Years 5 and 7 at Firbank Grammar School, in Victoria. It replicates a study undertaken in the United Kingdom by Wall, Higgins and Smith (2005). Fifty-six Year 5 students and 82 Year 7 students at the…

Although a seemingly good idea, electronic portfolios have to date failed to gain significant traction in higher education. Institutions with ePortfolio implementations routinely report high numbers of accounts on their campuses, but few believe that those numbers are a meaningful reflection of actual usage. Change is in the air for the…

In a first-of-its-kind survey, the Greaves Group queried more than 900 school administrators last year about technology needs. The result, America's Digital Schools 2006, is a comprehensive look at how schools are adapting to the new world their students inhabit--and how they're going to fund it. This article presents the key finding from the…

Virtual reality (VR) describes a set of technologies that allow users to explore and experience 3-dimensional computer-generated "worlds" or "environments." These virtual environments can contain representations of real or imaginary objects on a small or large scale (from modeling of molecular structures to buildings, streets, and scenery of a…

Students seem to be always connected through their computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), or mobile phones, making it easy to reach them--if you are a peer. For colleges and universities, reaching students with timely and relevant information often proves a challenge. With rapid changes in both technology and social practices, what should…

Previous research has indicated that most students copy and paste notes from Internet sources in a mindless way; they typically paste large sections of text into their notes and then later can recall little of what they have stored. However, supplying students with a note-taking framework that restricts the amount of text that may be pasted can…

Students rarely ask questions related to course content in large-format introductory classes. The use of a Web-based forum devoted to student-generated questions was explored in a second-semester introductory biology course. Approximately 80% of the enrolled students asked at least one question about course content during each of three semesters…

Physics as a subsidiary subject has to match very different objectives and to cope with a variety of students' learning conditions. Targeted labwork means that a careful choice among these objectives is made according to research outcomes. For medical students, a targeted labwork course in physics was developed. Essentially, the development was…

There is a conceptual world surrounding writing in schools, and we are conditioned to a particular language about composition and literacy. This study seeks to interrogate the terms composition and literacy at the level of the classroom: to ask what is meant when it is invoked and what it means to the teachers who teach it. The central question of…