Many traditional colleges and universities have been forced to embrace distance education as a result of the changing demographics of the student population. Part of the change is the student's access to efficient and relevant information. In turn, they are requiring educational institutions to apply efficient information access to academic programs and courses. The information technology exists for this application providing for computer-based instruction or asynchronous learning networks. These provisions are creating the "virtual campus". Many institutions have overlooked, or are not aware of, the dimensions of this new classroom. The asynchronous environment raises a number of concerns for institutions, the most essential aspect being the support of the distant student. This support raises new challenges in meeting the fundamental requirement of any higher education institution- providing skills to students so that they can process information, address its relevance and acquire knowledge. It is essential for institutions to develop a system analysis and design so that distance education can be incorporated into its overall educational system. There have been a number of system models developed to support distance education, however, since each institution has a unique culture and special needs, a unique system designs must be developed that is tailored for the institution. This paper will offer a prototype of a general system model for application. 1.

Information literacy has become a priority in education. Elementary school library media specialists daily encounter the dilemma of having to teach information literacy skills without having time to do it adequately. With the proliferation of computers in schools, the possibility exists that students could use web-based information literacy tutorials or guides when teachers or librarians are not available. This study examines fifth grade students ' perceptions of using online, web-based assistance to help them work through a research process, the Big6. Qualitative research was conducted in 1998-1999 with ten students of diverse background and reading ability who were ten or eleven years old. Data collection instruments included questionnaires, interviews, observations, computer log files, student journals, researcher field notes, and student projects. The investigation raised new questions about the practice of inquiry with fifth grade students. Findings show that students were reluctant to use the on-line assistance, were looking for answers to factual questions, and had a "school research " mindset that did not result in disciplined inquiry. Although some students learned new research strategies, the on-line assistance did not prompt students to practice disciplined inquiry that begins with meaningful questions includes human mentoring and confrontation. Discussion revolves around the

Fifty-eight Education graduate students took a forty-minute computer-based instructional module on introductory statistics with a built-in solicited guidance mechanism. Subjects were randomly assigned to programs that used one of four types of advisement: on-screen digitized video of a human advisor, onscreen text-based advisor, pull-down digitized video of a human advisor, or pull-down text-based advisor. Results indicated that The on-screen video-based advisor condition resulted in higher advisor use than both the text-based and video-based pull-down advisor conditions. Advisor use was significantly correlated with performance during instruction, to time spent during instruction, and to television hours watched per week, but not with retention scores. Two nonsignificant, but inviting, findings were that the video-based on-screen advisors were used twice as much as textbased on-screen advisors and active learners used advisement three times as often as passive learners. Advisor Use ...

Introduction When the University of London instituted correspondence courses in 1858, the first university to do so, its students (typically expatriates in what were then the colonies of Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and South Africa), discovered the programme by word of mouth and wrote to the university to enrol. The university then despatched, by post-and-boat, what today we would call the course outline, a set of previous examination papers and a list of places around the world where examinations were conducted. It left any "learning" to the hapless student, who sat the examination whenever he or she felt ready: a truly "flexible" schedule! This was first generation distance education (Tapsall and Ryan, 1999): "independent" learning for highly motivated and resourceful autodidacts disadvantaged by distance. In 2000, a reporter for the Washington Post, Jay Mathews, gave a bemused account of his "test drive" of an online course. After several telephone calls inquiring about

The development and use of technology-based tools for financial literacy education has grown rapidly in recent years, often based on the presumption that digital media will enhance past practice. However, little attention has been given to understanding why such technologies may be expected to enhance outcomes for either general or vulnerable populations. This literature review fills this gap by examining behavioral and educational theories that provide insight into how digital pedagogies may support personal-finance-related teaching and learning. The authors present an ecological model for technology-based financial literacy education intervention and propose an action agenda for practice and further research. The research reported herein was performed pursuant to a grant from the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) funded as part of the Financial Literacy Research Consortium. The opinions and conclusions expressed are solely those of the authors and do not represent the opinions or policy of SSA or any agency of the Federal Government.