Science is a wonderful subject to teach. Often characterised as "hard", it is a subject that has evolved constantly over the years by adopting new practices. In recent years, these have included many aspects of ICT, which was the starting point for the author and his team's project. The basic principles of the project were that: (1) subject…

In our previous two columns, we discussed the potential for using blogs and wikis with developmental education (DE) students. Another Web 2.0 technology, virtual environments like "Second Life", provides a virtual world where residents create avatars (three-dimensional [3-D] self-representations) and navigate around an online environment (Caverly,…

The Association Supporting Computer Users in Education (ASCUE) is a group of people interested in small college computing issues. It is a blend of people from all over the country who use computers in their teaching, academic support, and administrative support functions. ASCUE has a strong tradition of bringing its members together to pool their…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to elaborate upon the relation between information and communication technologies (ICT), particularly web-based resources, and their use, programs and learning in Portuguese middle and high regular public schools. Design/methodology/approach: Adding collected documentation on curriculum, laws and other related…

Renewal of an extinguished conditioned response has been demonstrated in humans and in animals using various types of procedures, except renewal of motor learning such as eyeblink conditioning. We tested renewal of delay and trace eyeblink conditioning in a virtual environment in an ABA design. Following acquisition in one context (A, e.g., an…

This article examines distance education (DE) in the context to which is most frequently applied, i.e., higher education, and from the perspective of some of its most important actors, i.e., teachers. This study, of a qualitative nature, was conducted at a public university in Brazil. Data were collected by means of unstructured interviews,…

The Personalised System of Instruction is a form of mastery learning which, though it has been proven to be educationally effective, has never seriously challenged the dominant lecture-tutorial teaching method in higher education and has largely fallen into disuse. An information and communications technology assisted version of the Personalised…

This article explores the transition in course delivery from a paper-based format to blended learning, and highlights the role of the virtual learning environment (VLE) in this process. Professional practice in postgraduate programmes in particular is investigated during this transition stage at the University of Dundee (UoD) in Scotland, and the…

The online virtual world Second Life (www.secondlife.com) has multiple potential uses in teaching. In Second Life (SL), users create avatars that represent them in the virtual world. Within SL, avatars can interact with each other and with objects and environments. SL offers tremendous creative potential in that users can create content within the…

Ten years into the new century, people are still trying to find the web 2.0 tools that best facilitate collaboration--one of the fundamentals of 21st century learning. As the number of tools continues to grow, and fuzzy terms like "cloud computing," "hashtags," and "synchronous live platforms" are introduced into the lexicon daily, even the most…

"Second Life" (SL) is a three-dimensional (3D) virtual world, and educational institutions are adopting SL to support their teaching and learning. Although the question of how 3D learning spaces should be designed to support student learning and engagement has been raised among SL educators and designers, there is hardly any guidance or…

Educators in medical schools around the world are presently experimenting with innovative ways of using web-based learning to supplement the existing teaching and learning process. We have recently used a popular open-source course management system (CMS) called the modular object-oriented dynamic learning environment (Moodle) to construct an…

This article discusses how Skype and other video-conferencing software have become a staple for teachers, librarians, and authors who want to get kids excited about reading. The past year has brought a huge increase in the number of schools and libraries using Skype to connect classrooms and bring in experts to talk with kids. And with cuts in…

This work describes the use of a virtual learning environment (VLE) applied to the biochemistry class for undergraduate, first-year medical students at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. The course focused on the integration of energy metabolism, exploring metabolic adaptations in different physiological or pathological states such as…

This paper reports the findings from an investigation into the distance learning support systems of a UK University's overseas MBA programme. This programme is provided to several countries around the world in alliance with the overseas' local higher educational institutions (HEIs), and is delivered primarily via online courses, but also with…