Usability Testing of BusinessThinkingTM e-Learning CD-ROMs with Older Adults

BusinessThinking^TM is a computer-based e-learning package designed to teach technology skills and business information to adults, ages 50–69, who remain in the workforce. This article outlines results from usability testing for the material on using technology applications (Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel and the Internet), and career development (career management and preretirement planning. In Study 1, a usability test was conducted to ensure that the material was user-friendly. In Studies 2 and 3, the PowerPoint and career development materials were redesigned according to the findings from Study 1. Results indicated that the redesign was effective in increasing navigation of the material.     

The Classroom Systems Observation Scale: Development of an instrument to assess classrooms using a systems perspective

This study describes the development of the Classroom Systems Observation Scale (CSOS) (Fish & Dane, 1992) and reports initial reliability and validity data. The CSOS assesses preschool through sixth grade classroom functioning from a systems perspective using a theoretical framework based on the Circumplex Model of Marital and Family Systems (Olson, Russell & Sprenkle, 1989). The CSOS is theoretically derived, has acceptable interobserver agreement, fair to moderate stability, and is comprised of factors consistent with conceptual components. The design of the CSOS represents a theoretical shift by changing the focus of observation from the individual child to the classroom system. The CSOS can be used in research and holds promise for clinical applications.     

Born Again Phonics and the Nursery Rhyme Revival

People know what they do; they frequently know why they do what they do; but what they don't know is what what they do does . (Michel Foucault, quoted in Dreyfus & Rabinow, 1983, p. 187)     

Which English? Standard English and Language Variety: Some Educational Perspectives

The aim of this paper is to provoke thought on the role of standard English in the early years of education. It examines the nature and function of a standard and highlights its close relationship with political aims and its potential for liberation and oppression. The reality of language variety and bilingualism is outlined and leads to a discussion of standard English and early schooling. The paper concludes with some suggestions for avoiding the standard English trap.     

From work to text to document

The defining trope for the humanities in the last 30 years has been typified by the move from “work” to “text.” The signature text defining this move has been Roland Barthes seminal essay, “From Work to Text.” But the current move in library, archival and information studies toward the “document” as the key term offers challenges for contemporary humanities research. In making our own movement from work to text to document, we can explicate fully the complexity of conducting archival humanistic research within disciplinary and institutional contexts in the twenty-first century. This essay calls for a complex perspective, one that demands that we understand the raw materials of scholarship are processed by disciplines, by institutions, and by the work of the scholar. When we understand our materials as constrained by disciplines, we understand them as “works.” When we understand them as constrained by the institutions of memory that preserve and grant access to them, we understand them as “documents.” And when we understand them as the ground for our own interpretive activity, we understand them as “texts.” When we understand that humanistic scholarship requires an awareness of all three perspectives simultaneously (an understanding demonstrated by case studies in historical studies of the discipline of rhetoric), we will be ready for a richer historical scholarship as well as a richer collaboration between humanists and archivists.