Reviews the development of information technology in public schools in Jordan from 1984-1998. Concludes that the highly centralized nature of the Jordanian educational system and the comprehensive policy of the Directorate of Educational Computing have made the introduction of computers in schools less difficult. (Author/LRW)

Assesses whether or not people's writing styles and ways of thinking change when new technologies are introduced. Compares material written over a 30-year period and concludes that writing styles were consistent over time, even though new technologies changed the ways the individual writers worked. (Author/LRW)

Discusses results of a Web survey of members of the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications that examined faculty perceptions of instructional support in relation to faculty members' motivation, commitment, and satisfaction associated with distance teaching. Findings indicated that faculty motivation and commitment were higher in…

Explores the use of multimedia in assignments that are submitted on compact disks. Examines the sources of media available, including video, still images, and sound; techniques for editing and incorporating media files, including appropriate software; compact disk technology; copyright; assessment criteria; equal opportunity considerations; and…

Discusses intelligent tutoring systems and the application of Bayesian networks to student modeling. Considers reasons for not using Bayesian networks, including the computational complexity of the algorithms and the difficulty of knowledge acquisition, and proposes an approach to simplify knowledge acquisition that applies causal independence to…

Discusses changes in accepted approaches to teaching and learning, shifts in psychological and pedagogical theory towards a constructivist view of learning, and the consequences of these theoretical shifts for computer assisted learning. Explains a classification scheme for constructivism that provides a framework for looking at constructivist…

Describes strategies used to teach mathematics to engineering students at Loughborough University (United Kingdom). Explains a combination of traditional instruction with computer assisted learning in an open learning environment that motivates students by providing a more flexible approach to be responsive to individual needs. (LRW)

Reports on a 1999 study that investigated student and teacher perceptions regarding the use of portable computers in a Western Australia secondary school. Compares results with a 1995 study and discusses the need for professional development, support for the development of student computer-related skills, and curriculum changes towards more…

Describes a study that provided slum children in New Delhi (India) with unsupervised and unguided access to the Internet via an outdoor kiosk. Concludes that children seem to understand and use the technology fluently and that language and formal education do not seem to make any significant difference. (Author/LRW)

Discusses the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in homes and its impact on teachers in schools, based partly on case studies of British secondary schools. Topics include home learning environments; the National Curriculum for England and Wales; and initial teacher training curriculum for ICT. (LRW)

Describes the results of the use of computer-based tutorials to teach the pathology of the cardiovascular system in a veterinary school in the United Kingdom. Concludes that the combined worksheet and computer based learning format is suitable for teaching veterinary pathology. (LRW)

Presents results of a study of postgraduate students who were asked to create Web pages using HTML in order to explore the relationship between matching and mismatching instructional presentation style (breadth-first and depth-first) with students' cognitive style (field dependence-independence) in a computer-based learning environment. Findings…

Presents the results of running four spellcheckers over samples of text containing the types of spelling errors made by dyslexics. Describes the ways in which they differ from more conventional misspellings that spellcheckers are designed to deal with and concludes that spellcheckers need to use syntactic and contextual information to improve…

Describes a computer-assisted learning program called Link, which was designed for psychology students to review their understanding of correlation. Results of a summative evaluation showed that use of Link contributed to students' understanding of correlation, as did the use of paper-based instructional materials. Suggests implications for…

Discusses the use of role-play for the development of interpersonal skills and evaluates a computer-based learning environment for initial training in dealing with social-communicative problems. Discusses high cognitive load, explains the use of a conversational model, describes the results of two experiments with university students, and suggests…