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In the early 1990s, Chip Bruce created a taxonomy of education technology uses, which the author of the article helped to expand and evaluate. This taxonomy is based on John Dewey's ‘four impulses of the child’: inquiry, construction, communication, and expression. This taxonomy has helped people interested in the uses of technologies for education to better understand the range of uses and it has also helped spur the development of new uses.

This study describes differences in the values of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) white blood cell (WBC), glucose, and protein counts in infants less than 60 days of age with fever who were not proven to have viral or bacterial meningitis.

OBJECTIVES To describe the magnitude of off-label drug use, to identify drugs most commonly used off-label, and to identify factors associated with off-label drug use in children hospitalized in the United States. DESIGN Retrospective cohort study. SETTING Administrative database containing inpatient resource utilization data from January 1 to December 31, 2004, from 31 tertiary care pediatric hospitals in the United States. PARTICIPANTS Hospitalized patients 18 years or younger. MAIN EXPOSURES Institution and patient characteristics. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Off-label drug use was defined as use of a specific drug in a patient younger than the Food and Drug Administration–approved age range for any indication of that drug. RESULTS At least 1 drug was used off-label in 297 592 (78.7%) of 355 409 patients discharged during the study. Off-label use accounted for $270 275 849 (40.5%) of the total dollars spent on these medications. Medications classified as central or autonomic nervous system agents or as fluids or nutrients, or gastrointestinal tract agents were most commonly used off-label, whereas antineoplastic agents were rarely used off-label. Factors associated with off-label use in multivariate analysis were as follows: undergoing a surgical procedure, age older than 28 days, greater severity of illness, and all-cause in-hospital mortality. CONCLUSIONS Most patients hospitalized at tertiary care pediatric institutions receive at least 1 medication outside the terms of the Food and Drug Administration product license. Substantial variation in the frequency of off-label use was observed across diagnostic categories and drug classes. Despite the frequent off-label use of drugs, using an administrative database, we cannot determine which of these treatments are unsafe or ineffective and which treatments result in substantial benefit to the patient.--

Within the existing system of education, student work rarely has any value beyond the particular course that it is created for. The work is graded and then usually discarded. The authors describe in this article a way that student work can be systematically made available for use by others beyond the immediate learning context within which it is created. They provide a case study in which this mechanism worked. They describe the benefits and costs of doing this, along with the broader implications this systematic publication of exemplary student work might have for the changing relationship between learning and doing, between education and the rest of society. This publication mechanism, called OPEER (open publishing of exemplary educational resources), can enable education to have an additional major positive impact on the rest of society, creating and maintaining quality-assured resources at a minimal additional cost.

AbstractWe describe here the power of multiplicity in learning and teaching. Multiplicity decreases efficiency in the short run, but it encourages the development of powerful new learning and teaching environments in the longer term. If multiplicity is embedded in a systematic evaluation framework, then we can learn from comparisons of what worked and what did not. We will show how six types of multiplicity have been useful for developing and implementing an online master of education program. The comparisons of multiple ways of learning and teaching encourage the examination of the instructional goals and resources available and suggest new ways to choose the technology, activities, format, contexts, and evaluation and assessment tools that are most appropriate for these goals and resources. They allow us to determine both formatively and summatively the effects these educational innovations have on learning and teaching.

Given rapid changes in the use of network computer technologies in education, it is increasingly important to better understand teachers' conceptions of these technologies, especially as used in teaching and learning. This is particularly true regarding teachers' ways of thinking about the Internet and the World Wide Web. Two questions are addressed in this study: First, does a teacher's conceptual representation of a network technology have an impact on how he or she uses it? Second, do experts think about network technologies such as the Internet and the World Wide Web in ways different than novices? To examine the role of teachers' conceptual representations in detail, a survey and ten case studies were conducted among pre- and in-service teachers enrolled in university courses. The survey elicited the representations that teachers had of the Internet and the World Wide Web. The case studies consisted of network problem-solving tasks using think-aloud protocols. The results show a surprisingly diverse set of plausible representations of the Internet and the Web, not related to the level of technical expertise. The case studies reveal relationships between representations and navigation strategies, in which experts employ multiple structurally and epistemically different representations at different stages in network tasks. This suggests that experts have “representational toolkit” containing many different representations. Experts not only know how to use each representational tool, but they know which representational tool to use for which purpose and how to sequence the selection and use of multiple representational tools. This reconceptualization of the nature of expertise has implications for the design of educational applications of technologies, for teacher training, and for learning and teaching more generally.

An experiment tests the hypothesis that sound-proof room and water-immersion isolation environments differ with respect to their effects on reported hallucinations and a variety of physiological responses. Results support the effect on physiological responses but not with respect to hallucinations.

Recent advances in the way that adults perform computation in our society require reconsideration of the assumptions underlying current elementary mathematics instruction. The widespread use of calculators and computers for situations requiring precise calculation removes much of the motivation for teaching the current addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division algorithms. Yet precisely this use of computing technology now puts a premium on the exercise of estimation techniques for verifying the reasonableness of computations. These techniques, especially those that can be used “mentally” (without the use of any external tools), have been used informally for years, but never formalized for instruction. This paper discusses a range of estimation techniques, and presents in detail a series of mental estimation procedures based on the concepts of measurement and real numbers rather than on counting and integers. A set of techniques for teaching these procedures is described. These estimation techniques are evaluated against the multiple functions that elementary mathematics instruction needs to serve.

Education in different communication media takes place with functional differences that have consequences for the course of instructional interaction. In this paper, we examine instructional interaction among people using a computer-based electronic message system, contrasting it with conventional face-to-face discussion in a college level class. Interaction via the non-real time message system contained multiple “threads of discourse,” a higher proportion of student turns to teacher turns, and other deviations from the “initiation-response-evaluation” sequences usually found in face-to-face classroom interactions. Based on the results of our contrast, we describe ways to organize instruction using electronic message systems to take advantage of new properties and to avoid shortcomings of these new instructional media.

This paper is about networking failures as well as networking successes. A research strategy for comparing educational activities conducted across electronic networks was employed to examine the critical features of successes as well as failures in designing electronic communities. The analysis provides a set of guidelines for those who plan to use telecommunications as a tool for creating global communities.

We describe a new way of classifying uses of educational technologies, based on a four-part division suggested years ago by John Dewey: inquiry, communication, construction, and expression. This taxonomy is compared to previous taxonomies of educational technologies, and is found to cover a wider range of uses, including many of the cutting-edge uses of educational technologies. We have tested the utility of this taxonomy by using it to classify a set of “advanced applications” of educational technologies supported by the National Science Foundation, and we use the taxonomy to point to new potential uses of technologies to support learning.

This study compared the values of college open admissions students and of college police students to their teachers' values. It was found that for both groups new students differ from the faculty more than do advanced students, suggesting value changes in the direction of the faculty. Also found was no relationship between students' value similarity to the faculty and their academic success.

An experiment tested the hypothesis that highly creative Ss have more need for information than Ss low in measured creativity. 36 Ss were selected from the extremes of a larger group who had taken the Remote Associates Test (RAT). 22 Ss scored high (highly creative) and 14 Ss scored low (low-creatives) on the RAT. All Ss were deprived of information, i.e., placed in a lightproof and relatively soundproof chamber, for 8 hr. After 1 to 5 hr. one-half the Ss at each level of creativity were given access to information (a choice between two sequences of photic stimulation differing as to their informational content). An instrumental response activated the apparatus and caused brief flashes of light to appear in the ceiling of the experimental chamber. Results support the hypothesized motivational effect.

AbstractTeachers need to be trained to skillfully integrate technology into their instruction. Teaching Teleapprenticeships (TTa), an innovative program in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is in its fourth year of integrating technology into the preservice experience of undergraduate education majors. One group targeted by the TTa researchers has been the year-long project (YLP), which involves elementary education majors. Data were collected on the impact of this program on the YLP through surveys, interviews, video, digital images, and a number of nontraditional measures. Results show that technology has become more than an add on and more than just part of the curriculum they are studying; it is now an integral part of the students’ personal and professional lives.

The use of anecdotal records to monitor—and improve—the behavior of chronically disruptive students is effective, con venient, and inexpensive, say these writers. They explain the technique on the following pages.

Our studies of naturally occurring human dialogue have led to the recognition of a class of regularities which characterize impoltant aspects of communication. People appear to interact according to established patterns which span several turns in a dialogue and which recur frequently. These patterns appear to be organized around the goals which the dialogue serves for each participant. Many things which are said later in a dialogue can only be interpreted as pursuit of these goals, established by earlier dialogue.

Because interaction via long-distance electronic networks differs from conventional instructional interaction, it is important to determine the ways in which learning can be effectively organized in this new medium. Network-based instructional interactions are characterized by systematic cycles of activity and knowledge of these cycles is important for creating effective, network-based learning environments. Several global activity cycles are documented here. In addition, the life cycles of two types of instructional activities, teletask forces and teleapprenticeships, are discussed. The implications of these analyses for the educational uses of computer networks are also described.

The use of xenografts (Xgs) from distantly related species to relieve the increasing shortage of organs for clinical transplantation is prevented by the occurrence of hyperacute rejection (HAR). This process, in which C activation plays a central role, cannot be inhibited with currently available immunosuppressants. In two clinically relevant xenotransplantation models, this study evaluated the effect of C inhibition using recombinant soluble complement receptor type 1 (sCR1) on HAR.

Salmonella meningitis is a rare manifestation of meningitis typically presenting in neonates and the elderly. This infection typically associates with foodborne outbreaks in developing nations and AIDS-endemic regions. We report a case of a 19-year-old male presenting with altered mental status after 3-day absence from work at a Wisconsin tourist area. He was febrile, tachycardic, and tachypneic with a GCS of 8. The patient was intubated and a presumptive diagnosis of meningitis was made. Treatment was initiated with ceftriaxone, vancomycin, acyclovir, dexamethasone, and fluid resuscitation. A lumbar puncture showed cloudy CSF with Gram negative rods. He was admitted to the ICU. CSF culture confirmed Salmonella enterica subsp. I (enterica) Enteritidis (A). Based on this finding, a 4th-generation HIV antibody/p24 antigen test was sent. When this returned positive, a CD4 count was obtained and showed 3 cells/mm3, confirming AIDS. The patient ultimately received 38 days of ceftriaxone, was placed on elvitegravir, cobicistat, emtricitabine, and tenofovir alafenamide (Genvoya) for HIV/AIDS, and was discharged neurologically intact after a 44-day admission.

This study examines a new approach of using the Design Structure Matrix (DSM) modeling technique to improve the design of Electronic Medical Record (EMR) user interfaces. The usability of an EMR medication dosage calculator used for placing orders in an academic hospital setting was investigated. The proposed method captures and analyzes the interactions between user interface elements of the EMR system and groups elements based on information exchange, spatial adjacency, and similarity to improve screen density and time-on-task. Medication dose adjustment task time was recorded for the existing and new designs using a cognitive simulation model that predicts user performance. We estimate that the design improvement could reduce time-on-task by saving an average of 21 hours of hospital physicians’ time over the course of a month. The study suggests that the application of DSM can improve the usability of an EMR user interface.

There are many material and processing options for building highly accurate defect-free X-ray masks that meet the 0.25-µ m and smaller lithography groundrules. IBM's path and rationale for reducing the key mask parameters of image size, image placement and defects is covered. For image size resolution and control, high voltage e-beam lithography (greater then 50 kV) is the preferred technique for X-ray masks. For tighter image placement control, special writing schemes that reduce the e-beam lithography systematic and random placement errors must be used. Special absorber electroplating conditions and thermal controls were implemented to control process-induced distortion. For tight defect control, identifying and eliminating sources of defect is key. Clearly, for IBM, most of the defect sources were process rather than foreign material related. Our defect reduction work has resulted in the fabrication of a fully functional 64-Mb DRAM (single chip) mask.

To the Editor.—In his excellent review of the current progress in computerized medical expert systems, Dr shortliffe1 neglects an important "human factor issue": familiarity. No matter how sophisticated, tools can only become useful when we learn their strengths and weaknesses and discover how they work in a number of different situations. For this reason, a program such as DXplain2 may never find wide acceptance. Because it is intended to help the physician only with particularly difficult diagnoses, it is unlikely that he or she will ever gain enough experience to be able to use it with confidence. Although desirable, the ability of the program to review its "reasoning" may not necessarily substitute for experience gained with the program under a variety of circumstances.It is unfortunate that, in his editorial in the same issue of JAMA, Mr Harris3 chose to reinforce the fear that physicians may

Reports on the use of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in Missouri courts. Mechanics of the ADR; State circuit courts which already implemented ADR programs; Measure of success of the program; Increased activities in the state and local bar associations regarding ADR.