The U.S. Department of Education awarded 19 Challenge Grants for Technology in Education in fiscal year 1995, and planned to award additional grants in fiscal year 1996. The diverse projects are intended to mobilize resources, develop technology enabled learning environments, and provide lessons to others seeking to make effective use of…

Describing entries in the National Council of Instructional Administrators' (NCIA's) Annual Exemplary Instructional Program Awards for 1994-95, this volume presents descriptions of community college programs in the five categories in which they were submitted. The first section focuses on programs in the category of best use of technology for…

The report details the activities of the federally-funded Multifunctional Resource Center for Bilingual Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which serves the area of Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. Its mission includes provision of training and technical assistance to educators and parents…

A research study looked at the effect of vocational training on the ability of 151 released felons who had successfully completed vocational training and were still under supervision, on parole, within New Hampshire. A literature review on recidivism and vocational education in corrections showed the value of vocational training in reducing…

Surveys and follow-up interviews were conducted in 1978 and 1980 respectively at the Navy's Instructional Program Development Centers to determine the need for the development or modification of authoring aids (manuals containing detailed procedural guidelines) to support designers/developers in producing high quality, usable instructional…

Distance education is a current "catch-all" phrase for any form of instruction in which the learner is linked to an educational institution and is formally enrolled, but instruction does not necessarily have to be delivered to or from an official school site. Distance education can provide equity and increase the quality of educational…

To help young adolescents reach their potential, middle schools must provide high quality intellectual climates that foster the development of adaptive skills which students can use throughout their lives. Accordingly, practical advice is presented for 12 interrelated dimensions of schooling at the middle level that merit the highest priority…

A project researched a process and generated a sample product to facilitate the teaching of English to adults who have limited proficiency in reading, speaking, or writing the language. Specific areas of interest included using a videocassette recorder (VCR) as a supplemental delivery system, using home video equipment to develop instructional…

Three conference papers on rehabilitation technology, authored by staff members of the Trace Research and Development Center, form this collection. The first, "Keyboard Equivalent for Mouse Input" by Charles Lee and Gregg Vanderheiden, describes implementation of a keyboard mouse input device using the numeric keypad. The paper discusses…

Efforts to evaluate the use of technology in education tend to be inconclusive because they lack specificity about what types of technology are being considered, what types of evaluation are being used, or both. While different evaluative studies focus on different valid objectives, the studies will provide generalizable information of practical…

This report summarizes the proceedings and presents the papers discussed at a national conference on effective aspects of urban education. The first paper discusses the development of the San Francisco (California) Redesign Program, a five year master plan for educational reform which aimed to improve the physical educational environment,…

The purpose of this hearing was to examine the Federal Communications Commission's management and oversight of the E-Rate program. This subcommittee has done much to expose for Congress a range of problems in the E-Rate program management--problems that raise questions about the program's effectiveness and whether the Nation's taxpayers can be…

This document presents the final evaluation of the second phase of the Community Action Programme for Education and Training for Technology (COMETT), which was called COMETT II and ran from 1990 to 1994, and centered on cooperation between universities and industry regarding training in the field of technology. Included are the following: overview…

The Insuring Information Technology Competence project explored ways to improve skills and retrain individuals to exploit information technology (IT) for more effective delivery of financial services. Seven organizations working in the financial services sector in Britain participated. The project was dependent on the organizations' ability to…

A University of Nebraska-Lincoln study evaluated use of a campus compensatory technology program, particularly compensatory communications systems, by students with disabilities. Results indicate a high level of student use, student perceptions that the compensatory systems were helpful, and improved student academic performance. (Author/MSE)