For more than 30 years, Staples High School (Westport, Connecticut) juniors have undertaken a major research paper. Their English teachers supervise this project-based unit and get feedback about the preparation students feel they have gotten in research and in writing. Students used to be taught to use notebooks, paper, pencil, and index cards…

On February 10, 2004, Alex Bick contacted Chris Dede, the Timothy E. Wirth Professor of Learning Technologies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, seeking a mentor for his work to determine whether handheld computers regularly carried by high school students generally affect academic achievement. At the time, Bick was a 10th grader…

Australia is a hotbed of Ed Tech activity. The Australian Council for Computers in Education is one of many active ISTE Affi liates in Australia, and through the New South Wales Computer Education Group it has brought ISTE two active educational leaders: Paul Meldrum and Gary Brown. Like many of our members, both of these men were so effective at…

Imagine this? As students walk into the room, I have a thunderstorm CD playing in the background. I ask the students to come into the room quietly and listen to the sounds. After taking attendance, students share what they heard: "thunder," "rain," "birds." I then tell them to watch the screen, where they see an online streaming video of a…

The Davidson County School District in Lexington, North Carolina, has jumped into project-based learning with both feet: they have committed to using PBL in all their schools and classrooms by 2006, and they have received a U.S. federal government Enhancing Education Through Technology grant to help provide the staff development and equipment…

While I wrote this column, there seemed to be a lull in new software announcements for education and educators. Perhaps it is reflective of the tightening of school budgets or the heavy emphasis on standardized tests and strictly measurable results here in the United States, which has lead to fewer really exciting software announcements lately.…

Although teacher-librarians learn searching skills in preservice programs, most classroom teachers do not. This paper serves as a guide for educators on how to help their students develop essential searching skills; i.e., move the best results up to the top of the list, evaluate a works-cited page, guide them to their search tool options, or…