Computers have been in schools and indeed some mathematics classrooms for more than 35 years. Some schools have chosen to centralise their computers in laboratories, while others have a mix of configurations and networks. Whatever the case, how extensive has been the classroom use of computers for teaching and learning in mathematics? What has their presence added to the classrooms and the learning experiences of students? What effect has there been on the pedagogy of teachers in this time? How...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Mathematics Instruction, Computer Software, Teacher Educators, Online Courses,...
In this article, I analyse how schools in Alberta have defined the province's identity and its role in Confederation. During two eras, the 1930s and the 1980s, social studies curriculum and teaching resources contained assertions of provincial uniqueness. In the late 1930s, the progressive curriculum implemented in Alberta's schools represented the first time a strong provincial consciousness was evident. The resurgence of Western regionalism was reflected in reforms introduced in 1981. I note...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Social Studies, Educational Resources, Progressive Education,...
In today's rapidly changing world, people must continually come up with creative solutions to unexpected problems. Success is based not only on what one knows or how much one knows, but on one's ability to think and act creatively. In short, people are now living in the Creative Society. Unfortunately, few of today's classrooms focus on helping students develop as creative thinkers. In addition, the proliferation of new technologies is quickening the pace of change, accentuating the need for...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Creative Thinking, Problem Solving, Technology Uses in Education, Children,...
Reliable information on emerging technologies for learning is as vital as it is difficult to come by. To meet this need, the International Society for Technology in Education organized the Emerging Technologies Task Force. Its goal is to create a database of contributions from educators highlighting their use of emerging technologies to support teaching and learning. The database is online, and the demographics that are collected include grade level, size of district, and type of network...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Elementary Secondary Education, Information Sources, Educational Technology,...
As changes in federal funding spell the end of the network of Regional Technology in Education Consortia (R*TEC), the authors, who are staff members of the Advanced Learning Technologies project at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning, discuss resources left in R*TEC's wake. Many of these resources are still available and can be a great asset to anyone struggling to integrate technology into their classrooms. An easy way to find one of the more than 200 R*TEC resources that...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Technology Integration, Educational Technology, Computer Uses in Education, Access to...
Plagiarism is an ugly word. Copying someone else's work and attempting to claim credit for one's self is an act that involves a number of ethical failings--theft, laziness, coveting, and lying among others. Many educators blame the Internet for what they perceive as the rise of plagiarism. Although the Internet certainly enables more efficient plagiarism, blaming it for widespread copying is akin to blaming a bank robbery on the presence of cash in the building. This article presents several...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Plagiarism, Internet, Prevention, Ethics, Student Behavior, Teaching Methods, Higher...
Many career and technical education (CTE) programs rely heavily on support from the business community to serve their students. However, there is very little information available on building solid business-education partnerships. Most people in the business world will say that they care about education, but how can educators find the people willing to pay education more than lip service by committing their time and resources to support schools? What do those people want to accomplish? What can...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Business, Partnerships in Education, Technical Education, Career Education, Program...
This paper presents two separate and contrasting "opinion pieces" on the subject of multiple intelligence. Over the past few years, James Delisle has become more and more bold in his attacks on Howard Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI) and Joseph Renzulli's Schoolwide Enrichment Model (SEM). He has made numerous presentations at state and national conferences and written articles claiming that Gardner and Renzulli have advocated that all children are gifted and that...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Multiple Intelligences, Academically Gifted, Models, Program Effectiveness, History,...
As college health education professors attempt to engage the Web 2.0 generation of learners, use of innovative video technology resources such as YouTube can be integrated to provide relevant and targeted information to supplement college course content, create a sense of "classroom community," and enrich the learning environment for all students--both younger and older. In this article, a general description of YouTube, its relevance to the field of higher education, examples of how...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Health Education, Course Content, Internet, Educational Resources, Classroom...
Richard Murnane observes that the American ideal of equality of educational opportunity has for years been more the rhetoric than the reality of the nation's political life. Children living in poverty, he notes, tend to be concentrated in low-performing schools staffed by ill-equipped teachers. They are likely to leave school without the skills needed to earn a decent living in a rapidly changing economy. Murnane describes three initiatives that the federal government could take to improve the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Poverty, Graduation Rate, Federal Legislation, School Choice, Program Effectiveness,...
Physical education instructors who teach high school or college walking/jogging/running classes, or who include walking or running as a segment of a wellness class, face a particular challenge in trying to meet each student's individual fitness needs while ensuring safety. This article provides strategies for effectively meeting individual needs and providing safety despite large class numbers and the wide range of fitness and health levels among class participants. It also provides tools and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Physical Education, Physical Activities, Safety, Adolescents, Physical Education...
This review of literature was written in preparation for conducting a research study on the U.S. community college system as a potential model for developing countries, and using Vietnam as a specific case. It is divided into four sections: (a) a discussion of the purposes of higher education (HE), (b) an examination of problems faced by the HE systems in developing countries, (c) a description of Vietnam's HE context, and (d) perspectives concerning U.S. community colleges. The literature...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Teacher Salaries, Higher Education, Community Colleges, Institutional Autonomy,...
It is imperative that educational administrators continually examine the issues that confront teachers on a day-to-day basis, keeping in mind how they can best assist their faculty in maintaining the focus on their students and the overall instructional process. The issues presented in the following discussion are provided as a sampling of concerns that are being raised in respect to the efficacy and support of teachers, their ability to teach, and the critical role they play in the educational...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Teacher Effectiveness, Teacher Morale, Federal Legislation, Teacher Attitudes,...
Australian primary schools are mirroring international trends where textbooks become the pseudo curriculum. Some schools have adopted a publication series, and mandate its use at every year level. However, textbook-dependent mathematics programs are riddled with problems. In this article, the author argues the case against overuse of mathematics texts in classrooms. The author asserts the need for teachers, principals, and schools to challenge the textbook driven mathematics curriculum, and to...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Mathematics Curriculum, Textbooks, Mathematics Instruction, Mathematics Education,...
Developing strategies for engaging mathematics activities is always a challenge. Teachers seek out new resources and online activities to excite students and support their learning. Mathematics through Movement offers an active learning strategy requiring few resources, and a bit of imagination, to achieve a variety of outcomes across mathematics domains. It is based on sound educational theory and a lifetime of experience in dance. This paper examines the beginnings of research into this...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Mathematics Activities, Learning Strategies, Active Learning, Foreign Countries,...
Everyone knows that teachers do not have unlimited time, a log of experience, or a deep understanding of all the mathematics they teach. To solve this problem, teachers often use textbooks, and the accompanying teacher's resource books, as sources of activities and advice about how to help students learn mathematics. The activity that prompted this article (the "Two Spinners Game") came from such a resource. The authors observed two teachers using this activity in their Grade 5...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Textbooks, Grade 5, Probability, Foreign Countries, Educational Games, Educational...
In education, the term "metacognition" describes thinking about thinking. Within mathematics, the term "metacomputation" describes thinking about computational methods and tools. This article shows how Dr. Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats can be used to demonstrate metacognition and metacomputation in the primary classroom. The article suggests teaching and learning sequences for developing these concepts, using Dr. de Bono's hats as graphic organisers. (Contains 4...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Mathematics Education, Metacognition, Computation, Teaching Methods, Foreign...
Gradually Internet-based educational resources are making their way into the school mathematics curriculum. Online resources are potentially useful compared to normal courseware because of their abundance, availability at no cost, platform-free accessibility, and wide reaching accessibility. On the other hand, a major limitation of online resources is their lack of appropriate pedagogy, coupled with poor instructional design and layout. This article discusses the development of evaluation...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Mathematics Curriculum, Instructional Design, Evaluation Criteria, Internet,...
Teachers assume that by the end of primary school, students should know the essentials regarding shape. For example, the NSW Mathematics K-6 syllabus states by year six students should be able manipulate, classify and draw two-dimensional shapes and describe side and angle properties. The reality is, that due to the pressure for students to achieve mastery in number, teachers often spend less time teaching about the other aspects of mathematics, especially shape (Becker, 2003; Horne, 2003)....
Topics: ERIC Archive, Mathematics Education, Mathematics Instruction, Teaching Methods, Geometric Concepts,...
Young students often struggle with abstract concepts in mathematics, causing primary teachers to continue to search for ways to help teach such concepts. "Principles and Standards for School Mathematics" (NCTM, 2000) recommends using concrete models and physical materials before moving on to more abstract ideas. However, some children still have difficulties understanding concepts even with the help of manipulatives. How can teachers supplement the use of manipulatives to help boost...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Mathematics Instruction, Primary Education, Foreign Countries, Mathematical Concepts,...
Listening to podcasts or watching videocasts in the classroom couldn't be easier--or cheaper. But if one has a computer and an Internet connection, he or she already has all the equipment he or she needs. This article lists ten podcasts for teachers and students.
Topics: ERIC Archive, Internet, Educational Resources, Computer Uses in Education, German, Second Language...
Emphasis on the individual is reshaping the business models of today's firms as they gear up to compete, not on products and services, but through innovation and the insight of individual workers. In the coming decade, meeting the human capital development needs of these firms and individuals will challenge New England's education and workforce development institutions. Indeed, education institutions need to likewise refocus on enabling the insight of individual learners. This article describes...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Higher Education, Human Capital, Innovation, Education Work Relationship, Community...
So often teachers say that motivation is the key to everything they do in the classroom. They want to motivate kids to read, write, and solve problems. They want to inspire them to take pride in a fluently-read paragraph or a simple act of kindness. They hope that their encouragement will help students to find their passions so they can become lifelong learners. It is an important job, and a big one. This article provides tips on reaching kids. Everything is here, from advice on helping...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Altruism, Motivation Techniques, Teacher Guidance, Student Motivation, Elementary...
You have got boxes filled with glue sticks, 32 calculators, apple juice, Band-Aids and that gallon of blue glitter you know will come in handy someday. It's all stuff you need, but when you are getting ready for the new year, you just wish you could hire a professional organizer to take care of it all for you. Donna Smallin is an organizational expert and author of "The One-Minute Organizer, Plain & Simple." This article presents a few of her tips on getting organized, and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Classroom Environment, Space Utilization, Teacher Guidance, Storage, Self Management,...
This paper offers an insight into the development, use and governance of e-repositories for learning and teaching, illustrated by Eric Raymond's bazaar and cathedral analogies and by a comparison of collection strategies that focus on content coverage or on the needs of users. It addresses in particular the processes that encourage and achieve community engagement. This insight is illustrated by one particular e-repository, the Education Media On-Line (EMOL) service. This paper draws analogies...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Educational Resources, Information Management, Participative Decision Making,...
This study examined the congruence between the priorities of the Manitoba Government's "Kindergarten to Senior 4 (K-S4) Education Agenda for Student Success" and priorities of stakeholders in a rural Manitoba school division, and the division's capacity to achieve them. Capacity included three components for success: Legitimization of Alternatives, Diverse Networks, and Resource Mobilization. The findings suggest that the theoretical conceptualizations of how rural areas develop...
Topics: ERIC Archive, School Restructuring, Academic Achievement, Educational Change, Foreign Countries,...
Access to education is not freely available to all. Open Educational Resources (OERs) have the potential to change the playing field in terms of an individual's right to education. The Open University in the United Kingdom was founded almost forty years ago on the principle of "open" access with no entry requirements necessary. The University develops innovative high quality multiple media distance-learning courses. In a new venture called "OpenLearn," The Open University is...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Educational Opportunities, Open Universities, Distance Education, Foreign Countries,...
An all-volunteer organization called the Opensource Opencourseware Prototype System (OOPS), headquartered in Taiwan, was initially designed to translate open source materials from MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) site into Chinese. Given the recent plethora of open educational resources (OER), such as the OCW, the growing use of such resources by the world community, and the emergence of online global education communities to localize resources such as the OOPS, a key goal of this research was to...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Global Education, Translation, Quality Control, Foreign Countries, Educational...
As educators' awareness of their responsibilities towards ensuring the accessibility of the learning environment to disabled students increases, significant debate surrounds the implications of accessibility requirements on educational multimedia. There would appear to be widespread concern that the fundamental principles of creating accessible web-based materials seem at odds with the creative and innovative use of multimedia to support learning and teaching, as well as concerns over the time...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Accessibility (for Disabled), Disabilities, Educational Environment, Multimedia...
This paper presents the systematic development of a "Uses and Gratification Expectancy" (UGE) conceptual framework which is able to predict students' "Perceived e-Learning Experience." It is argued that students' UGE as regards e-learning resources cannot be implicitly or explicitly explored without first examining underlying communication theories and learning perspectives. As such, the theoretical framework is grounded in the confluence of theories from communication...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Learning Experience, Educational Resources, Virtual Classrooms, Online Courses, Web...
For gifted students, the power of the Internet is its vastness. Students can access extensive resources that far exceed the collections in their classrooms or school library. Especially with the rapid growth of the Internet during the last decade, the gateway to a rich array of sophisticated resources is literally a click away. Curriculum content can be differentiated by complexity and depth, and those gifted students with the ability to process large amounts of information quickly (Siegle,...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Academically Gifted, School Libraries, Internet, Educational Resources, Elementary...
Metadata enables users to find the resources they require, therefore it is an important component of any digital learning object repository. Much work has already been done within the learning technology community to assure metadata quality, focused on the development of metadata standards, specifications and vocabularies and their implementation within repositories. The metadata creation process has thus far been largely overlooked. There has been an assumption that metadata creation will be...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Quality Control, Educational Technology, Metadata, Foreign Countries, Electronic...
Since MIT's bold announcement of the OpenCourseWare initiative in 2001, the content of over 700 of its courses have been published on the Web and made available for free to the world. Important infrastructure initiatives have also been launched recently with a view to enabling the sustainable implementation of these educational programmes, through strengthening organizational capacity as well as through building open, standards-based technology. Each of these initiatives point to a rich palette...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Ecology, Information Technology, Educational Technology, Educational Opportunities,...
Recent experience shows that reusable learning objects, like the computer assisted learning programmes of the early 1990s, have so far failed to achieve expected levels of integration into educational practice. This is despite technical interoperability, cataloguing systems, high quality standards, targeted dissemination and professional development initiatives. Analysis of this problem suggests that conceptualization of the problem may be limiting the scope of solutions. This paper proposes a...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Computer Assisted Instruction, Educational Practices, Educational Technology,...
This paper considers the role of quality assurance in e-learning; reflecting on the conditions necessary for successful e-learning. It reviews some of the current international work on quality assurance in this area and goes on to consider the ways in which the quality of a process or activity can be assessed--focusing on the use of benchmarking and specification of standards. (Contains 4 figures.)
Topics: ERIC Archive, Quality Control, Educational Quality, Electronic Learning, Role, Educational...
One of the key concepts in the right to education is access: access to the means to fully develop as human beings as well as access to the means to gain skills, knowledge and credentials. This is an important perspective through which to examine the solutions to access enabled by Open Educational Resources (OER) and online learning. The authors compare and contrast OER and online learning and their potential for addressing human rights "to" and "in" education. The authors...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Global Education, Online Courses, Access to Education, Educational Resources, Equal...
With today's computer and telecommunications technologies, every young person can have a quality education regardless of his or her place of birth. This is the dream that Open Educational Resources (OERs), when viewed as a right rather than a privilege, are directed to realize. For developing countries, we propose a type of OER initiative that leverages not only technology but also the skills of the in-class teacher, that utilizes not only the Internet but also lower-tech delivery platforms,...
Topics: ERIC Archive, High Schools, Educational Technology, Educational Resources, Blended Learning,...
This article seeks to develop research involving a macro-level critical comparative analysis of reference documents produced by international organisations (UNDP, OECD, UNESCO, the World Bank and the European Union) which guide world education policy decisions. The primary objective was to consider the key guidelines currently defined for education in terms of major millennium goals. In other words, to what extent do education policy evaluation and monitoring indicators incorporate the new...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Comparative Analysis, Educational Policy, International Organizations, Reference...
This article explores a number of challenges faced by e-learning or distance educators in developing and emerging countries, provides a context for many of the challenges, and outlines some measures devised to overcome them. These educators must determine a sound rationale for employing online learning, recognize that technology is only part of the educational transformation process, address the lack of infrastructure and the cost of Internet bandwidth and equipment, counter the cultural...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Distance Education, Online Courses, Learning Experience, Educational Resources,...
This paper reports on a study that examined teachers' concerns and attitude toward inclusive education of students with disabilities in Ghana. A 20 item Attitudes Toward Inclusion in Africa Scale (ATIAS) was completed by 100 teachers from five "Inclusive Project" schools and five Non-Project coeducational basic schools in three different localities; central business, coastal and suburban areas within the Greater Accra metropolis. Analysis of the responses indicated four factors:...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Student Needs, Inclusive Schools, Disabilities, Foreign Countries, Teacher Attitudes,...
The world is a diverse ecosystem where humans and the environment must interact and live in harmony. In order to keep any society going, either at the national or global level, the importance of having visions for the improvement of that society cannot be overemphasized. It is in the light of this dream of making Botswana an enviable nation that the "Vision 2016" was published in 1997. A pillar of the "Vision" focuses on the development of a moral and tolerant nation. This...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Community Support, Values Education, Moral Values, Social Values,...
In this article, the author discusses "CanCore," a learning resource metadata initiative funded by Industry Canada and supported by Athabasca University, Alberta, and TeleUniversite du Quebec, and describes the increasing range of international uses of the "CanCore" metadata for the indexing of learning objects. "CanCore" is designed to facilitate the indexing of online educational resources or Learning Objects (LO), by assisting project implementers and catalogers...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Metadata, Indexing, Educational Resources, Higher Education,...
American educators have a mindset about learners and the learning process. Although all educators do not have the same mindset, many see teaching in terms of controlling: what students learn, how they learn, and how the learning is measured. This mindset focusing on teaching--rather than on learners and the learning process--seems to be fairly common among American educators of today. Here, at the start of the 21st-century, educators are being urged to rethink how they look at learning and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Educational Philosophy, Learning, Learner Controlled Instruction, Cognitive Style,...
Mathematics is a discipline that has significantly advanced through the use of digital technologies with improved computational, graphical, and symbolic capabilities. Digital videos can be used to present challenging mathematical questions for students. Video clips offer instructional possibilities for moving students from a passive mode of watching to active exploration of mathematical ideas. Video clips (short excerpts from movies, television shows, professionally prepared educational videos,...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Mathematics Education, Mathematical Concepts, Video Technology, Logical Thinking,...
In honor of International Society for Technology in Education's (ISTE's) 30th anniversary, "Learning & Leading with Technology" conducted a poll asking members to cite their favorite teaching tools. After asking members of ISTE's Special Interest Groups to name three tech tools they felt were the most influential in education over the course of the past 30 years, three categories emerged. These categories were: Internet tools/resources (such as e-mail and Web browsers), general...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Educational History, Teacher Attitudes, Educational Resources, Computer Mediated...
The leadership of today's schools supports both students' academic success and their preparation for employment in a global work environment. As stimulus funds become available to U.S. school districts, it remains critical that technology leaders align technology acquired with those funds with system-, school-, and classroom-identified student academic outcomes. To align appropriate technology solutions, it is increasingly important that technology leaders have a common language with which to...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Academic Achievement, Alignment (Education), Guidelines, Educational Resources,...
Today, information and communication technologies such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter are some of the most popular technologies available on the Internet, with millions of users worldwide. Research is still trying to discover how people use them, for what purposes, and in what settings, and investigate how they may be shaping the ways they think, work, and communicate. In this article, the author describes two of the trends in using these tools that she and her colleagues see happening,...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Social Networks, Internet, Educational Trends, Web Sites, Computer Mediated...
Understanding the views of the public is an important factor in developing and evaluating policy on inclusive education. This article presents the results of an opinion poll conducted by an alliance of researchers and community partners to measure public perceptions regarding inclusive education of students with an intellectual disability, the related impacts, and obstacles to expansion. Participants were 680 adults across a large region of Ontario. Respondents held divergent views about the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Student Behavior, Inclusive Schools, Mental Retardation, Foreign Countries, Public...
Few studies explore the specific sources of stress, and the coping strategies applied by teachers of children with special educational needs, particularly in small countries such as Greece. The present study investigated the specific work-related stressors affecting special educational needs teachers in Greece and the coping strategies applied by them. 158 One hundred fifty eight special education teachers participated in the study, recruited from Athens (n = 113), and other urbanised areas of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Educational Needs, Coping, Measures (Individuals), Foreign Countries, Special...
The Open Learning Initiative (OLI) is an open educational resources project at Carnegie Mellon University that began in 2002 with a grant from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. OLI creates web-based courses that are designed so that students can learn effectively without an instructor. In addition, the courses are often used by instructors to support and complement face-to-face classroom instruction. Our evaluation efforts have investigated OLI courses' effectiveness in both of these...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Open Education, Cooperative Learning, Program Effectiveness, Acceleration...