This column describes how technology can enrich the learning environment provided by the modern language classroom. Typically, modern languages taught in U.S. public schools are French, Spanish, and German. A general broadening of high school graduation and college and professional school admission requirements to include a certain level of modern…

Enthusiasts for new social software do not always acknowledge that belonging to e-learning communities depends upon complex and often unresolved identity issues for learners. Drawing on the author's previous research on belonging in social learning, the paper presents a theory of identity congruence in social learning and brings to the foreground…

Discusses the digital divide, or inequality in access to computers, and how it affects minority students at home and school. Highlights include home computer ownership and Internet access; technology experiences at school; and a collaborative college program in Florida that helps disadvantaged students prepare for college by teaching them how to…

Distance learning is the separation of teacher and student by time and space. Rapid advances in communications technology have allowed distance learning to become one of the fastest-growing trends in higher education. College courses are being delivered across a highway that is global in scope. Today, two thirds of the 4,000 accredited colleges…

Explains the AN-MSI (Advanced Networking with Minority Serving Institutions), an alliance of minority-serving institutions that are working together to reach information technology (IT) parity. Describes partnerships that have been formed to support four main activities: assisting campus leadership in IT planning, network technologies, Internet…

Describes an interdisciplinary seminar that addressed the topic of the "digital divide." Presents examples of how different types of classroom instruction--lecture, computer hands-on, reading, small-group discussion, and final paper--were used to highlight technological barriers, educational barriers, logistical and financial barriers,…

Assesses the status of instructional technology in the United States and projects trends that appear to be taking shape. Highlights include corporate training and development, including the use of technology-based media; higher education, including changes in faculty roles; and elementary and secondary education, including distance education and…

Presents access issues based on three Canadian empirical studies of the use of computer and information technologies by college students with physical, sensory, and learning disabilities. Results of focus groups, interviews, and questionnaires indicated that the majority used computers and the Internet but many needed some type of adaptation to…

Discusses access to information technology and technological change; examines the culture that has grown up around computers; discusses previous military funding of academic computing and the need to change focus; describes the use of computers to promote equity and access; and considers the Bill of Rights and Responsibilities for Electronic…

Evaluates implications of replacing traditional modes of small group teaching with information technology-facilitated virtual seminars based on a case study of undergraduates at Nottingham Trent University (United Kingdom). Highlights include the tutor's role; impact on staff; colleagues' attitudes; student attitudes; and equality of student…

Presents abstracts of 38 special interest group (SIG) sessions. Topics addressed include data models for historical information; managing information in biomedical research; electronic information access in higher education; equal access to information and the socioeconomic distribution of ownership and use of information technologies;…

Assistive technology that can help disabled computer users is described, and a resource guide to computer help for the disabled is presented. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 has broad implications for higher education, in that it mandates that colleges and universities give disabled students equal access to computers on public…

When Congress passed the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, it included Section 504 which forbade discrimination against persons with disabilities by programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance, which included virtually every institution of higher education, except the U.S. military academies and a few small religious schools. This was…