What does brain-based research say about how adolescents learn? The 1990s was declared as the Decade of the Brain by President Bush and Congress. With the advancement of MRIs (Magnetic Resonance Imagining) and PET (positron emission tomography) scans, it has become much easier to study live healthy brains. As a result, the concept of…

In May 1994, the first website for the School of Education at Indiana University Bloomington (IUB) was launched. At that time, the home page had two links: (1) The Instructional Systems Technology Department; and (2) The IUB home page. A decade later, the site now consists of more than 6,000 web pages, and has received more than 41.5 million page…

In this article, the authors feature the model, Under Control: The Damming of the Missouri River, which was designed to engage middle school students in a real-world geographic issue: investigating the long term environmental, economic and cultural impacts of the 1944 Pick-Sloan Plan, which resulted in the construction of six dams on the Missouri…

The student population is changing, and teachers need new tools to help their English language learner (ELL) students. ELL students are learning to read, write, and speak English at the same time as they study history, science, math, and all the other subjects taught in our schools. This article describes one tool, the Colorin Colorado website,…

Hurricane Katrina made landfall near New Orleans, Louisiana, on August 29, 2005. The author discusses the efforts she and other Association for Childhood Education International (ACEI) colleagues made for the welfare of children who suffered from the storm. After her initial search for family, friends, and professional colleagues, she began trying…

M.A.S.H. mnemonic is a useful framework for generating, tracking, and objectively evaluating innovative ideas. M.A.S.H. expresses the fundamental components of successful design; Mechanics, Aesthetics, Sustainability, and Human Factors. These essential elements are often underdeveloped in student design concepts and subsequently require bolstering…

Researchers in this study analyze the websites of 30 Washington state school districts to explore differences and similarities between high- and low-performing districts. The study offers evidence about ways educators use accountability data on district websites to communicate with parents, community members, and business representatives about…

Frequent reading practice is one of the best ways to develop vocabulary and improve reading comprehension. "Extensive reading" (reading large amounts of text without worrying too much about details or looking up all vocabulary) and "intensive reading" (closely examining meaning and structures to be sure you figure out all the details) are both…

Adolescents nowadays socialize, network, and sort out their friendships and relationships online. As such, it is assumed that adolescents' experiences in the online world will influence their experiences in the face-to-face world and will play an important role in their development of social and moral knowledge. In this article, the author…

In Australia, careers fairs have traditionally been one of the avenues used by major companies to recruit their graduate staff. Most Australian universities have a one- or two-day event of this type to promote their graduates to employers and to expose their students to employment opportunities. Attendance at careers fairs is expensive for…

An action research project, managed by a graduate student, resulted in the development of an academic website as an effective internal and external communication tool. The main focus of the investigation was to uncover the tacit knowledge held by staff in the Department of Management Communication through a series of in-depth interviews, a focus…

"Wiki", the Hawaiian word for quick, can refer to either a Web site or the software that runs it. Ward Cunningham, a Portland, OR, programmer, invented and named the wiki in 1995. He wanted to help a virtual community of programmers communicate efficiently. Teachers and librarians nationwide have begun to explore the role of wikis in…

This "Packet of Information for Professionals" (PIP) was developed for professionals who work with gifted and talented students who have an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The purpose of PIP is to offer recommendations that will lead to a positive experience for twice-exceptional students who participate in specialized programs for…

This study explores the concept of finding pleasure in social and ecological caring from the a/r/tographic stance of the author as artist, researcher, and teacher. I combine place-based and visual culture art education with multicultural children's picture books to promote more connection and pleasure in the teaching and learning process. The…

Frequently writing is now no longer the central mode of representation in learning materials--textbooks, Web-based resources, teacher-produced materials. Still (as well as moving) images are increasingly prominent as carriers of meaning. Uses and forms of writing have undergone profound changes over the last decades, which calls for a social,…