This study examined the uses of computer-mediated communication (CMC) by educators in selected public schools. It used Rogers' Diffusion of Innovation Theory as the underpinnings of the study. CMC refers to any exchange of information that involves the use of computers for communication between individuals or individuals and a machine. This study was an exploration of difficulties users confront, what services they access, and the tasks they accomplish when using CMC. It investigated the factors that affect the use of CMC. The sample population was drawn from registered users on TENET, the Texas Education Network as of December 1997. The educators were described with frequency and percentages analyzing the demographic data. For the research, eight indices were selected to test how strongly these user and environmental attributes were associated with the use of CMC. These variables were (1) education, (2) position, (3) place of employment, (4) geographic location, (5) district size, (6) organization vitality, (7) adopter resources, and (8) instrumentality Two dependent variables were used to test for usage: (1) depth or frequency of CMC usage and amount of time spent online and (2) breadth or variety of Internet utilities used. Additionally, the users' perception of network benefits was measured. Network benefits were correlated with social interaction and perception of CMC to investigate what tasks educators were accomplishing with CMC. Correlations, SEQ CHAPTER h r 1 crosstabulations, and ANOVAs were used to analysis the data for testing the four hypotheses. The major findings of the study, based on the hypotheses tested, were that the socioeconomic variables of education and position influenced the use of CMC. A significant finding is that teachers used e-mail and for Internet resources less frequently than those in other positions. An interesting finding was that frequency of use was more significant for usage than amount of time spent online. This implied that an accessible computer and network connection was more important than the amount of time available to use it. There was little evidence that place of employment, geographic location, or school district size influenced differences in use or nonuse of CMC features. Significant findings for Organization Vitality suggest that a school could contribute to usage by educators when computers and network connections that were close, convenient, and accessible. The Individual Resources of importance for usage were years of experience and confidence with computers and Internet usage. The heavy uses of CMC for communication attested to the importance of CMC in reducing practitioner isolation for many educators. Communication, professional development, work productivity, and professional information seeking showed significant relationships with network benefits and perceived CMC attributes. CMC is a pervasive communication technology that continues to expand in all areas of society. For educators and education it is a venue promising great rewards.

The primary purpose of this thesis is a description of some of the major changes which the population of Texas has undergone, particularly in the first half of the twentieth century. Other approaches are possible. For example, it is both possible and important to develop the relationship of population change to social problems. However, it is not the purpose of this thesis to investigate these relationships. It is the purpose here to view the population problem in almost entirely a factual sense, basing observations and interpretations on strictly demographic data.

This study of the history of the Granbury Opera House in Granbury, Texas, includes three divisions. The first division is the compilation of the early history of the Opera House, 1886 to 1911. The second division is the renovation of the Granbury Opera House, 1970 to 1975. The final division treats the production methods of the Granbury Opera House Stock Company, including choice of seasons and personnel involved. This study was drawn from newspaper clippings, histories, memoirs of the period, a traveling Shakespearean actor's diary of the period, Granbury's application for a Texas historical marker, interviews, releases, and theatre annual reports. A projection into the future is offered as a conclusion of the study,

The specific aim of this study is to show the significance of the natural resources of Texas and their potential possibilities as an adequate source of income for the State. Linked in with this discussion and underlying it is the thesis that adequate taxation of the natural resources will not only provide sufficient income for the State's needs but also conserve and utilize these resources.

The State of Texas is endowed with many valuable resources. It has vast oil and gas deposits, huge timber reserves, and land in abundance. Not least among its re sources is water, the key resource. It is water, even before food, which sustains all life on this earth. Without water the human processes of agriculture, industry, and commerce would be impossible. Water serves as a major source of energy, transportation, and recreation. It is not a risky statement to make that water, above everything else on this earth except land, permits man to exist.

The purpose of this research paper was to conduct a hospital management survey of the administration of medical services for prison inmates within the Texas Prison system. This type of survey has not been conducted within the medical services of the Texas Prison System in the past by any individual, or public or private group. Specific purposes were to appraise certain major areas in this system, to compare these findings with authoritative survey criteria, and to make recommendations based on the findings of the investigation.

The text of the composition was selected from a set of six unpublished poems by Sidney L. Burks. The four used were the most musically adaptable.

The following chapters attempt to show the work that has been done toward restoration, preservation, and marking of historic spots in Texas by patriotic societies, individuals, civic groups, the Centennial Commission, and other agencies. It has not been the purpose of the writer to go into details regarding every one of the sites and individual markers, especially in instances in which several of the same type were erected. In such cases a general description of the markers is given, together with a general idea of the type of inscription that appears on them. Since so much was done by the Centennial Commission, more attention has been devoted to its activities than to those of other organizations unable to carry out such an extensive program...in many instances it has been necessary to rely upon information from magazines, newspapers, Chamber of Commerce bulletins, pamphlets, and personal letters, because of lack of recorded materials. The information obtained, however, has been weighed and carefully compared with other sources on the same subject until its authenticity is assured.

The Texas Ranger tradition of over twenty-five years of frontier defense influenced the methods by which Texans provided for frontier defense, 1861-1865. The elements that guarded the Texas frontier during the war combined organizational policies that characterized previous Texas military experience and held the frontier together in marked contrast to its rapid collapse at the Confederacy's end. The first attempt to guard the Indian frontier during the Civil War was by the Texas Mounted Rifles, a regiment patterned after the Rangers, who replaced the United States troops forced out of the state by the Confederates. By the spring of 1862 the Frontier Regiment, a unit funded at state expense, replaced the Texas Mounted Rifles and assumed responsibility for frontier defense during 1862 and 1863. By mid-1863 the question of frontier defense for Texas was not so clearly defined as in the war's early days. Then, the Indian threat was the only responsibility, but the magnitude of Civil War widened the scope of frontier protection. From late 1863 until the war's end, frontier defense went hand in hand with protecting frontier Texans from a foe as deadly as Indians—themselves. The massed bands of deserters, Union sympathizers, and criminals that accumulated on the frontier came to dominate the activities of the ensuing organizations of frontier defense. Any treatment of frontier protection in Texas during the Civil War depends largely on the wealth of source material found in the Texas State Library. Of particular value is the extensive Adjutant General's Records, including the muster rolls for numerous companies organized for frontier defense. The Barker Texas History Center contains a number of valuable collections, particularly the Barry Papers and the Burleson Papers. The author found two collections to be most revealing on aspects of frontier defense, 1863-1865: the William Quayle Papers, University of Alabama, and the Bourland Papers, Library of Congress. As always, the Official Records is indispensible for any military analysis of the American Civil War.

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