Student-designed curricula: The graduate and professional school reaction

Recent changes in undergraduate programs now enable students to design their own curricula. In the process, many students define their post-baccalaureate goals as graduate school or professional school work.This study investigated how a graduate department or professional school would react to an applicant with a self-designed program. Questionnaires were distributed to admissions directors of the 58 graduate departments and professional schools of the State University of New York at Buffalo, a major university center in the state.The results indicate that recognition of differences between student-designed programs and standard (university-designed) ones are only beginning. Thus, (1) special-degree students are initially not differentiated from other applicants, e.g., in the first sift; (2) criteria for effectively evaluating special-program applicants, as distinct from standard ones, are necessary.To date it is the applicant's responsibility to document and communicate his worth and that of his endeavor. Admissions personnel are eager for additional information.     

Learning through Media at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century

This paper summarizes the developments in educational media in Slovenia as it prepares for the twenty-first century. Initiated by the Ministry of Education and Sport and the National Education Institute, the program Computer Literacy was introduced which contributed in big changes in the introduction and use of modern media and information technology in the educational process. The programme is a six-year programme which started in 1994 and is coming to an end in 2000.

L'apprentissage par les médias au tournant du 21e siècle

Cet article résume les développements des médias éducatifs en Slovénie qui préparent le 21e siècle. Initié par le Ministère de l'Education et des Sports et l'Institut National pour l'Education, le programme d'initiation à l'informatique a été introduit et contribué à apporter de grands changements dans l'utilisation des médias modernes et de la technologie de l'information dans le programme éducatif. C'est un programme qui a débuté en 1994 et qui s'achèvera en 2000.

Lernen mit Medien an der Wende zum 21. Jahrhundert

Dieses Papier faßt die Entwicklungen im Bereich der Unterrichtsmedien in Slowenien an der Grenze zum 21. Jahrhundert zusammen. Initialisiert durch das Ministerium für Erziehung und Sport und das Nationale Institut für Pädagogik wurde das Programm ? Computer Literacy” eingeführt, das seinen Anteil an den grossen Änderungen bei Einführung und Nutzung der modernen Media und der Informationstechnologie im pädagogischen Prozeß hatte. Das Programm ist ein Sechsjahresprogramm, das 1994 begann und im Jahr 2000 enden wird.     

Benchmarking the digital divide using a multi-level outranking framework: Evidence from EBRD countries of operation

The paper proposes an innovative procedure for benchmarking the digital divide. The study demonstrates the potential of an outranking approach as an alternative to the commonly used ranking models based on Composite Indices (CIs). To fulfill the objectives of the benchmarking process, an ELECTRE-based (ELimination Et Choix Traduisant la REalité; Elimination and Choice Corresponding to Reality) multi-level outranking (ELECTRE MLO) method is developed. The proposed approach improves on previous methods of benchmarking the digital divide in two ways: by classifying countries into hierarchical levels of performance and by identifying corresponding benchmarks for less successful ones. The method is applied to 29 EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) countries of operation. The results are visualized in the form of a relation tree, thus providing clear insights for policy-makers regarding how countries stand relative to each other.     

Social justice and its renewals: A sociological comment

Education Action Zones (EAZs) were launched in the United Kingdom in 1998 as 'the standard bearers in a new crusade … to modernize education in areas of social deprivation, and hailed as a third way in education.' In the light of the authors ' ongoing evaluation of a single EAZ, the article examines the extent to which the ambitious claims made by government have been realised. It assesses the extent to which EAZs can be viewed as part of the British twentieth-century theme in education of tackling inequality. It demonstrates that EAZ policy was riddled with tensions and paradoxes arising out of the eccentric mix of neo-liberal, social democratic and Third Way approaches to addressing educational inequality. The article concludes that EAZs suffered from three types of error: concept, process and outcomes, and hence were a mission impossible. The authors argue that EAZs may, hopefully, be a lesson in making the vision of resolving education inequality possible.     

Identical,Fraternal, or Separated at Birth: A Case Study of Educator Teams Within American-Israeli School Twinning

School-to-school collaboration has emerged as a key paradigm for fostering personal and institutional connections between Israeli and Diaspora youth, educators, and schools. Using the findings of a multi-year case study of a high school level twinning initiative, this article describes the challenges to this form of transnational collaboration and takes the first steps to articulating a theory of intervention of Israeli-Diaspora school twinning at the organizational level. The article suggests two processes, collaborative capacity and cultural competence, critical to development of positive and productive relationships in school partnerships. Institutional twinning is suggested as the goal of these interventions at the organizational level.     

Building interfaces for on-line collaborative learning

For several years we have been engaged in the development and research of software environments for collaborative learning, for example in the recently completed CoLabs project (which we presented at the IFIP TC3 WG3.5 working conference in Budapest in 2004, see also http://matchsz.inf.elte.hu/Colabs/), also within lately defended long-range doctoral research, in which the co-author of this paper together with his undergraduate students had developed and evaluated cooperative computer activities for children aged 10 to 18. They observed children when using those environments and studied the influence of different approaches and solutions on the degree of their involvement and will to cooperate. We have also been involved in the London Knowledge Lab pilot project for developing a collaborative layered learning space travel games construction kit. Our department’s prior engagement in the development of collaborative activities also includes publishing a popular on-line journal (developed by A. Hrusecka and D. Lehotska, this on-line journal (in Slovak) can proudly boast up to 250,000 visits per month) for children, which intensively exploits on-line collaboration. This topic attracts us not only as a support for the learning process, but is a challenge for us as developers of educational programming tools as well. In our SuperLogo and Imagine environments we have always tried to provide users (ranging from children to developers) with new and powerful options to foster learning by exploring and developing. Thus we have equipped Imagine with the means for building objects and their behaviours in incremental loops, with parallel independent processes, event-driven programming and complex yet intuitive support for developing on-line environments for collaborative learning. In this paper we place our collaborative applications in the context of other related interfaces reported in literature. We use eight criteria to classify them and conclude that collaborative applications being developed by us and our students—future teachers—are distinguishable from others along two or three of those criteria: they combine in themselves typical features of Logo microworlds and inspiring support for on-line cooperation. We then analyze in detail our collaborative Imagine microworlds along four dimensions of their development. We specify means for establishing and maintaining on-line connection among any number of participants. We study tools for sending and receiving items (data, active characters with their behaviours, instructions etc.). We reflect on what can be shared by two or more participants in a collaborative activity. We examine all possible operations with common and private characters of a participant from the collaboration point of view. Our goals in this research and development are to:

1. Better understand potential the interfaces for on-line collaboration offer to support the learning process,
2. Place our Imagine Logo microworlds into context of other related applications,
3. Build a detailed map of all aspects important for their development (i.e., build a framework for the development),
4. Present the observations from our long-range experimental development and evaluation of the collaborative environments,
5. Point out how simple and natural it is (in the academic surroundings) to develop small and yet powerful collaborative microworlds—built for instance for immediate need in a classroom—with exceptional potential for interaction and openness.

Most of all, however, we want to motivate the endeavour to overcome all obstacles connected with the integration of on-line cooperation into children’s learning.     

Multimedia: Differences in cognitive processes observed with EEG

This study investigated the cognitive processes involved in learning information presented in multimedia and text format using electroencephalographic (EEG) measures. Thirty-eight students (19 gifted, and 19 average) learned material presented with text (text); text, sound, and picture (picture); and text, sound and video (video), while their EEG was recorded. Alpha power, which is inversely related to mental effort, was analyzed. For thetext presentation, the alpha power measures showed higher amplitudes (less mental activity) over the occipital and temporal lobes, and less alpha power (higher mental activity) over the frontal lobes. The results support the assumption that thevideo andpicture presentations induced visualization strategies, whereas thetext presentation mainly generated processes related to verbal processing. The results further showed that gifted students displayed less mental activity during all three formats of presentation. These differences were especially pronounced for thevideo format. No gender-related differences in EEG patterns related to the format of presentation were observed.