The Quebec Ministry of Education has implemented curriculum reforms that emphasize the integration of information technology into classroom teaching practices. Despite these efforts, however, many teachers appear to resist using computers in their classrooms. Some of these resistors are technologically literate! The purpose of this qualitative study is to better understand the reluctance of the technologically-literate teachers (with two to three years of experience) to integrate technology into their teaching practices. / The six teachers participating in this study completed questionnaires and were individually interviewed using an open-ended approach. The data were then analyzed using the Constant Comparative Method. The results showed that although the participants were using computers in their classrooms, they were not actually integrating technology as stipulated by the curriculum reforms. This was attributed to a number of factors, including personal limitations, job stability, lack of resources and funds, time, training, and curriculum issues.

This study examined diagnostic problem solving and post-problem reflection in medical students, residents, and experts. Participants worked on three internal medicine cases from the computer-based learning environment, BioWorld. The analyses focused on general performance measures, problem solving operators and knowledge states, and post-problem reflection activities. Verbal protocol data was collected and examined using a coding scheme developed and implemented with the N-Vivo software. Students and residents differed in overall diagnostic accuracy, and significant differences were found in solution time and the number of utterances made for cases of varying difficulty. Differences in the use of operators and knowledge states are highlighted, although the groups were quite similar on many measures. The experts spent considerably more time working on case history information, consistently engaged in planning, and always generated the correct diagnosis (among others) in response to case history information. During post-problem reflection students used more case history data than residents. Expert models highlight the experts' problem solving cycle that consisted of reviewing data, identifying hypotheses, and planning. Post-questionnaire results indicate that participants found the cases to be interesting, useful for learning, but not especially difficult. Finally, several implications are drawn for the future development of BioWorld for medical training.

This thesis presents a systematic review regarding the way technology supports adult learning in communities of practice. It presents the systematic review procedure that was developed, based on NBS CRD (2001) protocol, from publication sources relevant to the topic. It includes the identification of research from an initial question that is: how does technology support adult learning in communities of practice. In addition, it presents a search strategy, a study quality assessment, a data extraction strategy and a synthesis of findings. Because most of the pertinent research is qualitative, a typology of qualitative research and a critical appraisal checklist for quality assessment were designed and are presented. The results presented have synthesized evidence from studies that meet certain quality criteria and they are discussed in terms of (a) the kinds of technologies applied in communities of practice, and (b) successful features of the technology that seem to contribute to learning.

The purpose of the study was to examine and report on the Vehicle Scheduling Program as provided to the Northern Wells Community School Corporation by the Indiana State Department of Public Instruction. Specifically, the study examined, compared, and analyzed the results of the VSP computer program with the results of the traditional method of scheduling buses in the Northern Wells Community School Corporation. The examinations, analysis, and comparisons involved the following factors:1. Number of buses required.2. Number of bus routes required.3. Number of miles traveled by buses.4. Number of minutes required by buses to complete routes.Data from the study resulted in the following findings:1. A number of districts which have utilized data processing techniques to schedule school bus fleets have experienced substantial financial savings.2. The amount of time required by administrators to prepare data for such computer programs is more extensive than the time required to prepare manual routes.

The purpose of this study was to begin to define and describe some of the complex intersections between teaching and learning first-year composition with digital portfolios, focusing on the construction, presentation, and assessment processes in one first-year composition course at Ball State University. The study employed a qualitative ethnographic methodology with case study, and used grounded theory to develop a resultant guide to code the data collected through several methods: observation, interview, survey, and artifact assessment.The resultant coding guide included the core categories "reflective immediacy," "reflexive hypermediacy," and "active remediation." With the guide findings indicate several effective "common tool" digital portfolio strategies for both teachers and learners. For teachers: introduce the digital portfolio as early in the course as possible; make connections between digital portfolios and personal pedagogical strategies; highlight rhetorical hyperlinking and constructing navigational schemes; emphasize scalability; create a sustainable support system. For learners: consider the instructor's objectives within the framework of the portfolio; synthesize writing process with course content and portfolio construction; include each component of the writing process in the portfolio. / Department of English

The study is to explore the differences between ICAI and CCAI systems. The differences are examined by comparing the capabilities between the Intelligent Classification Skill system and the Conventional Classification Skill system. AI and expert system represent the path for major changes in CAI. It is the best way to improve the CAI software available. The prototype system of the Intelligent Classification Skill system is developed to illustrate the progress. The ICS system is capable of handling many different classification problems. The logical structure of classification methods is built in to the ICS system. / Department of Computer Science

The major purpose of the study was to provide for a means of meeting the computer needs of the graduate student enrolled in the Teachers College at Ball State University. This purpose resulted in the formulation of the statement of the problem which was to identify the computer needs of the graduate students enrolled in the Teachers College. In order to identify these needs the answers to the following questions were sought: 1. What are the computational needs of the students? 2. Are the needs of the graduate students in the Teachers College different from students in the other Colleges? 3. How comprehensive should the student's knowledge be about computers? 4. What computer courses should the student take? 5. How many courses should be offered? 6. What should be the course content? 7. What are the facilities needed to support the findings of this study? The plan was to review selected computer methods in education which would give credence to the computer course outlines proposed by the study. Three classifications were identified as different uses of computers in the classroom. They are the following: 1. CAL (Computer Assisted Learning)--Direct interface design to facilitate behavioral change. 2. CMI (Computer Managed Instruction)--Management and evaluation of a process designed to facilitate behavioral change. 3. CAI (Computer Assisted Instruction)--Supportive or auxiliary nonadministrative, instructional related activities which facilitate the execution of the course unit learning process. Because each of the above classifications could be subjects for independent study, and because CAL is more closely related to this study, the review of literature dealt mainly with CAL. The rest of the study evolved in the following manner: 1. Investigate the role of the computer in today's society in implementing the related educational goals of the nation and of higher education. 2. Investigate the ways in which selected universities are using the computer to help implement their own educational goals. 3. Investigate in what way the computer can be of use in achieving the educational goals of Ball State University and of the departments of the Teachers College. 4. Write the outlines of selected computer courses to be taught to the graduate students in the University's Teachers College as a function of the findings of points 1-3 above. 1. Every college or university student should be exposed to a basic understanding of the principles of computer-data processing. 2. Every student in the Teachers College of Ball State University should be exposed to the principles of computerdata processing as they relate to education. 3. A presence of adequate computer coursework on the university campus can stimulate faculty, staff, and student activities in research, teaching, and service. 4. Computer expertise learned from structured computer coursework can aid in the implementation of educational goals. 5. Computer courses for practicing or future educators should deal heavily with the role of the computer in teacher-pupil relationship. In this connection the Computer Assisted Learning process dealing with the computer in problem solving, drill and exercise, simulation and games, and tutoring should be stressed. 6. Only a conceptual knowledge of the operation of the computer should be required of the student but more skill should be required with respect to programming. It is also necessary for the user to be able to select and apply certain techniques learned in coursework. 7. In general there appears to be no substitute for a staff or faculty with computer expertise because in some universities this ability has circumvented a shortage of computer hardware. 8. When adequate money and staff is available, computer hardware should be selected to meet the total university needs and not to restrict the availability to, or needs of, the users. 9. A minimum of two languages should be made available to the students of this study with some skills developed in at least one. For overall computational skills FORTRAN is still the most widely used and accepted. In order to teach of the skills of Computer Assisted Learning COURSEWRITER written by IBM is used. 10. An introduction to remote terminal operation of the computer seems desirable, because both industry and educational institutions are rapidly changing to this mode of input/output to the computer. 11. Because the Computer Center of Ball State University supports administrative applications as well as those which are academic in nature, some method of time sharing is highly desirable. 12. Adequate hardware should provide a student option on whether to process a program interactively from a remote terminal or in a batch mode.

Science education in South Africa is not improving much. Many science educators do not have appropriate science qualifications. Majority of the learners have limited facilities to learn science. In this dilemma the move to OBE may result in further substantial deterioration of science education. A possible way out is to use computers in science education to facilitate the learning process. This study was designed to investigate how computers contribute to learners’ skills development in a physics course. A series of interactive computer simulations of colour mixing and a number of closely related traditional practical activities are aimed to promote learners’ understanding of colour. It was concluded that while computer environments have greater potentialas learning tools, they also limit interactions in significant ways.

This thesis contends that the growing phenomena of multi-user networked "learning environments" should be treated as distributed interactive systems and that their developers should be aware of the systems and networks issues involved in their construction and maintenance. Such environments are henceforth referred to as distributed learning environments, or DLEs. Three major themes are identified as part of systems support: i) shared resource coherence in DLEs; ii) Quality of Service for the end- users of DLEs; and iii) the need for an integrating framework to develop, deploy and manage DLEs. The thesis reports on several distinct implementations and investigations that are each linked by one or more of those themes. Initially, responsiveness and coherence emerged as potentially conflicting requirements, and although a system was built that successfully resolved this conflict it proved difficult to move from the "clean room" conditions of a research project into a real world learning context. Accordingly, subsequent systems adopted a web-based approach to aid deployment in realistic settings. Indeed, production versions of these systems have been used extensively in credit-bearing modules in several Scottish Universities. Interactive responsiveness then emerged as a major Quality of Service issue in its own right, and motivated a series of investigations into the sources of delay, as experienced by end users of web-oriented distributed learning environments. Investigations into this issue provided insight into the nature of web-oriented interactive distributed learning and highlighted the need to be QoS-aware. As the volume and the range of usage of distributed learning applications increased the need for an integrating framework emerged. This required identifying and supporting a wide variety of educational resource types and also the key roles occupied by users of the system, such as tutors, students, supervisors, service providers, administrators, examiners. The thesis reports on the approaches taken and lessons learned from researching, designing and implementing systems which support distributed learning. As such, it constitutes a documented body of work that can inform the future design and deployment of distributed learning environments.

Programming lecturers are faced with logistical problems associated with evaluating students’ assignments. This dissertation will discuss the problems associated with paper- and electronic-based submission and evaluation systems. Managing student assignments is thus an important issue and this dissertation investigates how the computer can be used to help in both the management of programming assignments and giving of feedback for those assignments. Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) technologies offer a technical solution for the submission of assignments. CMC technologies are therefore studied and their use in the educational sphere discussed. Information Security is another important feature that is needed when using CMC for assignment management. A guideline showing the different features that an assignment management and feedback system would need was developed. Current systems that offer some assignment management features were studied and evaluated according to the guideline. A model was developed for the management of programming assignments. The model addresses the problems of paper-based and previous electronic submission systems and includes the assessment of the assignments. The viability of the model was determined by building and testing a prototype based on the model’s specifications. The prototype was evaluated within a second year Visual Basic programming class. The evaluation determined that there were areas that needed improvement, however the feedback was generally positive.