For students, field trips can be the best of both worlds: a welcome and exciting break from day-to-day classroom activities and a memorable, real-world experience that will solidify the curriculum in their minds. Unfortunately, the most desirable trips--those to far-away, enticing destinations--have long been inaccessible to all but a select few,…

Many children between the ages of four and twelve log in to Web-based virtual play spaces each day, and these virtual worlds are quickly becoming an important aspect of their out-of-school lives. Consequently, educators' challenge is to see how they can leverage virtual spaces, such as the virtual play spaces, for learning and literacy. Over the…

So, what if one lives in a remote, rural area, but still has important knowledge and insights that others might benefit from learning? What if one is the only school librarian for multiple districts, and one just cannot justify the time to travel to a regular, traditional class meeting These are questions that school librarians in Iowa, as well as…

As Florida school districts scramble to meet a looming state mandate to offer full-time online instruction for K-8 students, and as high school enrollments in such courses continue to climb, lawmakers are mulling restrictions and budget cuts for the state's nationally known virtual school. Together, online-learning advocates say, the growing…

A comprehensive survey on the Internet based virtualisation of experiments is presented, covering several individual as well as collaborative efforts in various engineering disciplines. From this survey it could be concluded that there is a pressing need to develop full-fledged remote laboratory experiments for integrated directly into engineering…

Across a giant swath of desert and mountain terrain southeast of Tucson, one yellow school bus has been carrying an extra passenger since last fall. Along with dozens of students, the bus rolls through the Vail School District's most far-flung portions equipped with a wireless router. It delivers the Internet to students for as many as three hours…

This article presents findings from a case study related to the risks associated with the choice of traditional, tenure track faculty to teach online. Education offered at a distance via the World Wide Web is on the rise; so too is the demand for university faculty members who will teach those courses. While traditional academic and professional…

This article describes an online experience that has not only created a fantasy world for the general public but has enabled some tech-savvy educators to create virtual educational opportunities. Second Life, or SL, is a 3-D Internet-based virtual world created by Linden Lab and populated by nearly 1,000,000 active users worldwide since 2003.…

E-learning has been a hot topic for academics, technical researches, and practices because there is a need to employ advancements in technologies to support the education process and help academics and universities. E-learning, together with classical learning, can further enhance the learning process through the benefits of the new technologies.…

This quantitative survey study examines the willingness of online students to adopt an immersive virtual environment as a classroom tool and compares this with their feelings about more traditional learning modes including our ANGEL learning management system and the Elluminate live Web conferencing tool. I surveyed 1,108 graduate students in…

Today, millions of school-age children are learning outside of a traditional classroom and using cutting edge educational options. Policy experts predict that in a decade half of all education will be delivered virtually. In "Virtual Schooling" three top authorities help you navigate the fastest growing movement in education--regardless of whether…

Five months ago, the author introduced Web 2.0 technology to her students, and already, there is a story to tell. Integrating a social networking site into her teaching has been even more challenging and will prove to be even more beneficial than she could have imagined. By sharing her story, the author hopes that she can provide a road map for…

Online courses are flexible and convenient for students, but creating them takes time and careful planning. Educators need to reflect on the goals of a course change when transitioning from a classroom setting to a virtual environment. In this article, the authors have drawn up an outline of the basic steps needed to go from a traditional course…

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…

With the assistance of the Internet and related technologies, students today have many more ways to be academically dishonest than students a generation ago. With more and more Internet based course offerings, the concern is whether cheating will increase as students work and take tests away from the eyes of instructors. While the research on…