When Brigham Young University received a PT3 grant three years ago, the university, the Utah State Office of Education, and individual school districts throughout the state were just beginning to explore possible benefits and implementation strategies for electronic portfolios. With a few fortunate "breaks"-financial, administrative, and…

The purpose of this paper is to present the Large Unit District Association virtual high school (LUDA-VHS) project and discuss its design, development, and implementation. A model developed at the Center for the Application of Information Technologies for designing online classes will be presented and discussed. The focus of the paper will be to…

Some predictions made by the author 20 years ago, in the first issue of Computers in the Schools, are revisited. The author explains how he didn't see some trends that developed and how he predicted things that never came to pass. A distinction is made between empirical and ideological arguments for using technology in the schools. Numerous…

A school district in the southwestern United States has over the past several years built its infrastructure to support high-quality technology integration by its teachers. The district partnered with a nearby university's educational technology graduate program to develop a digital high school project. Teachers and advanced instructional-design…

This article presents a brief retrospective from the editor's point of view covering 25 years of Computers in the Schools. The author then presents some of the ideas relating to obstacles that have prevented a more thorough immersion of information technology in education. Finally, the article introduces the authors and articles that comprise the…

The twentieth anniversary of Computers in the Schools is an occasion to reflect on the state of the art in information technology in education. Computers are probably no longer in danger of being abandoned by schools; and, in fact, computers have gained so much cultural momentum that educators could probably not intentionally prevent their…

This article outlines best practices for teachers who are faced with the often daunting task of teaching online using the World Wide Web. In many cases, these instructors are asked to design, develop and implement a Web-based or Web-enhanced course in a short period of time. Often administrators and faculty alike are unaware of the preparation…

The success or failure of an asynchronous computer conference as part of a distance education course is largely dependent upon the abilities of the moderator of the conference. This paper discusses various skills and responsibilities of a moderator. It includes a discussion of ineffective moderation and how to avoid making common mistakes by…

Online interaction creates a desirable learning situation. Transferring traditional instruction to an online environment usually does not generate effective interaction for learning. This paper discusses theories and practices for an interactive collaborative learning community in an online environment. Three theoretical constructs--interactivity,…

A frequent concern raised by distance educators is that e-learning takes more time to facilitate than traditional classroom instruction. The simple fact that it takes more time to read and write than to speak and listen warrants consideration. To establish viable e-learning programs, we need to optimize the amount of time educators spend online.…

Fads are common in every area of education. The problem with fads is that even promising developments are quickly abandoned to make room for the next innovation. Educational innovations become fads partly because they are without a firm foundation in theories of learning, or because that foundation is not fully identified and communicated. There…

Making decisions about which technologies, if any, are appropriate for your classroom or educational institution has never been easy. These difficult decisions are, however, increasing in their complexity as new technologies continually enter the marketplace, expectations of parents and students rise for more technology in the classroom, budget…

A small rural school in Idaho tried various forms of distance education to broaden the range of subjects offered to students. It gave up on satellite-based coursework because of high cost and synchronization problems. Correspondence courses solved the synchronization problem, but still required expensive adult supervision to keep students on task.…

In 1999, Virginia Beach City Public Schools launched a completely new distance learning (DL) initiative, Quality Connection. Since that time, through perseverance and creative thinking, the program has become a model of technology as well as a highly successful method of delivering services to a wide variety of stakeholders. Not only do students…

Ten years of instrument development are summarized and placed within a framework for assessing the impact of technology in education. Seven well-validated instruments spanning the areas of attitudes, beliefs, skills, competencies, and technology integration proficiencies are presented, along with data analysis examples. These instruments are…