In 1985, I had the opportunity to visit, across four states of Australia, twenty primary schools interested in using computers as part of the school curriculum. In eighteen of these schools the children had been using computers for a year or more; in two, although they were interested in utilising ...

This article is not intended to be a series of handy hints on choosing between specific brands of microcomputers or different word processing programs. That sort of information is best obtained from teachers already using word processors, orfrom advisory staff in education departments. Instead, I hope to show just how ...

The study of children's mathematical behaviour goes back many years. Piaget in the 1930s used clinical interviews to unearth children's ideas about number. Earlier than this, Brueckner had used tests that measured ability in computation and solving verbal problems, and tests that sampled various combinations of a particular skill (such ...

Just when can children take charge of their own health? New research shows that, even at age 5, children are quite clued up on ways to keep well. In our study we talked to 53 Wellington children about what it means to stay healthy and what they know about certain ...

It is generally the case that teachers, instructing young children to read single words, present these sight-words in the company of pictures representing the same objects. For example, when teaching a child to recognise and later read the word I dog', the teacher presents the word accompanied by a picture ...

Tertiary education should give students (1) the general ability to think critically and independently and, (2) competencies in at least one specialised discipline. Unfortunately, if tertiary education does have a beneficial impact on intellectual growth there is not much convincing evidence of it. A fundamental problem for teachers and researchers ...

Is classroom interaction research worth the effort involved? Up till recently the main result of decades of work seemed to be that 'time on task' was the only thing you could be sure about: the more time a subject got the more learning took place. But time is a precious ...

When we look at recent research on reading acquisition, there has only been one exciting show to watch, and that has been the debate between Ken Goodman and Phil Gough. Ken Goodman's (1967) paper, 'Reading: A Psycholinguistic Guessing Game', made him the person most clearly associated with the view that ...

Decoding has always been controversial. Rather than an ally, it has often been seen as the enemy of comprehension. The problem is that poor comprehenders are usually poor decoders as welt which implies that decoding is the culprit. This leads to the strange argument that we should give less attention ...

Open plan education began in New Zealand primary schools about 1970 when keen groups of teachers who wished to work in teams helped get conventional classroom blocks modified. Also the new minimum code of buildings permitted architects to design' open planned' units. The rnajority of New Zealand open plan units ...