A profile is presented of a high school designed so that its academic spaces are completely adaptable--changes in the program can be quickly reflected in the building through the easy rearrangement of partitions. The profile emphasizes why the school was designed as it was and how it was designed and built. Schematics and photographs are included…

Almost every state is "imposing" academic standards. Helping students to meet those standards is a key task for teachers and school administrators, as well as instructional systems designers. Thus, instructional designers in the K-12 environments are facing the challenge of using appropriately and effectively academic standards in their…

This case study of six newly-opened high schools explored: (1) What steps were taken to involve district staff members and community representatives in educational-specifications and design-development work? How effective did these steps prove to be? What impact did this involvement appear to have on the emergent and completed high school project?…

This paper analyzes content and design of 120 school media center World Wide Web sites. The study's purposes were to develop a list of criteria for use in developing media center Web sites and to compare Web sites by author type to determine if differences exist in incorporation of criteria. The sites were analyzed on June 17 and 18, 2000 using…

Many universities have striven to provide their students, parents, faculty, staff, and alumni with robust, useful, and informative Web sites. Villanova University (Villanova, Pennsylvania) has spent the last 12 months overhauling its static Web site to a dynamic and individualized Web system. At the outset, the term "portal" was adopted by the…

Offers reasons and guidelines for classroom exercises in creating black and white posters for introductory courses in graphics, design, production, or layout. (RL)

A lesson from a physics textbook for secondary students was redesigned in three versions and given to 600 students. Results of achievement measures suggested that one of the experimental versions (which stressed the visual aspects of the printed page) was superior to the standard and the other experimental versions. (GT)

A study of the Types of Preferred Examinations (TOPE) in secondary school science students was done according to school type and gender. Findings show students prefer written, open book, unlimited time examinations which, they perceive, stress understanding rather than rote learning and that teachers, aware of student preferences, continue to use…

Architects, group home administrators, people with mental retardation, family members of people with mental retardation, and college undergraduates substantially agreed in rating the homelikeness of 20 community residences for people with mental retardation. Clusters of physical features identified using an architectural inventory were found to be…

Provides an overview of the potential of hypermedia as an instructional medium and discusses research that has investigated learning outcomes. Discusses instructional design considerations to guide developers and designers of hypermedia systems, including learner characteristics and elements of content presentation such as text structure,…

Describes the process undertaken by a design team comprising both elementary school students and researchers to design a Web portal intended for use by children. The approach adopted by the team was based upon several design theories related to usability studies: contextual inquiry, participatory design, and cooperative inquiry. Presents…

Reports on the methodology used in an experiment whose objective was to discover whether information seekers display experimentally demonstrable preferences for index terms with particular properties, and if so, to analyze those preferences. Results provide strong evidence that it is possible to measure human preference for index terms.…

A study was conducted to investigate the views of 40 Australian service providers on the support and service needs of parents with intellectual disabilities and to discover key issues faced by the providers. The special needs of the parents, desirable service characteristics, and constraints on service delivery are identified. (CR)

Investigates the supportive side of current technology in the visual process of learning and the issues instructional designers must address to utilize these capabilities and maximize their effects. Provides an overview of visual memory and discusses information processing and analogic reasoning, cognition and visual information processing, visual…

Illustrates how each of these principles may guide decisions about Web-based design for young children consistent with developmentally appropriate practice: (1) simple, clean and concrete design; (2) adult guidance; (3) progressive and individualized; (4) relevant to children; (5) integrated activities; (6) active and enjoyable; and (7)…