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Successful technology integration into the teaching of social studies is imperative in the twenty-first century classroom. This study sought to answer the following questions: do synchronous and asynchronous technology integration increase a student’s understanding of social studies content? Are synchronous technology-integrated social studies lessons more effective than asynchronous technology-integrated social studies lessons? How do students perceive the effectiveness of a synchronous technology-integrated lesson vs the effectiveness of an asynchronous technology-integrated lesson? The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper presents the results of a quasi-experimental research project comparing the learning outcomes of students who participated in synchronous and asynchronous technology-augmented lessons.

The results of this study found that synchronous and asynchronous technology-enhanced lessons are both viable pedagogies for increasing a student’s understanding of social studies content. The results also yielded no statistical significance between the effectiveness of the synchronous instruction vs asynchronous instruction. However, a statistical significance exists when analyzing a student’s perception of their own learning. Students participating in synchronous technology-integrated instruction reported a higher confidence in the lesson’s ability to teach them, when compared to that of the asynchronous population.

By continuing to seek new ways to integrate technology effectively into classrooms, social studies teachers can design lessons more effectively to meet the needs of today’s social studies students. The need to understand the learning outcomes of various technology-integrated approaches will continue to grow as more technologies become available to social studies teachers.

In their book Megatrends 2000, John Naisbitt and Patricia Aburdene (1990) stated that one of the ten “megatrends for the 1990's would be the rise of “The Age of Biology.” One of the central forces behind this societal shift which is occurring right now, they say, is research into understanding human genetics and the rise of biotechnology. The scientific knowledge regarding human genetics and the technology to examine an individual's genetic makeup have grown at a rapid pace, especially in the last decade as a result of the Human Genome Project. This venture has been labelled alternatively as “mediocre science” (Roberts, 1990b: p. 804) and as “biology's Holy Grail,” (Nelkin and Tancredi, 1989: p. 14). It is indisputably a monumental scientific undertaking, likened to the drive to put a man on the moon in the sixties (“The Geography of Genes,” 1989). This knowledge and the resultant trends will likely prove to be important factors not only in our future economy, but also in the nature of how we understand ourselves.

The Question Master for this session was Miss Mildred Couldrey. The Panel of Experts included Mr. D. V. Arnold (I.C.I., Ltd., Paints Division), Miss Ruth Jacobs (Department of Scientific and Industrial Research), Miss Barbara Kyle (Royal Institute of International Affairs), Mr. F. A. Sharr (Manchester Public Libraries), and Mr. E. N. Simons (Edgar Allen & Co., Ltd.).

As part of a series to mark the 60th anniversary of the Journal of Documentation, the aim is to review a 1956 article by Barbara Kyle.

Literature review and analysis.

The theme of Barbara Kyle's 1956 Journal of Documentation article “Privilege and public provision in the intellectual welfare state” retains its professional resonance in the 21st century. Her distinction between the mission of the library for the general public and that of the private sector library for a restricted clientele, draws attention to the broad educational and leisure mission of the former and the contribution to the commercial advantage of the organisation of the latter. The current professional focus on public rights to information, as expressed in freedom of information legislation, threatens to obscure the private sector's concern with the protection of intellectual property and the acquisition of business intelligence for the benefit of the organisation, but the distinct missions of library and information services in the two sector remain as significant as ever.

Provides a review of historical information still of value today.

Some thirty years ago, when the laboratory where I worked needed light alloy castings, success depended on divination carried out by the foreman. This hinged upon the effects of spitting in the crucible, and the results beat any scientific method hollow. About five years later we were using more dependable and repeatable, if less picturesque, criteria. This came about because meantime various theoretically‐minded people had studied various apparently minor and irrelevant matters such as the behaviour of single crystals of aluminium. Some of the personal skill and experience hitherto needed for routine operations now could be delegated; at times even to instruments.

Barbara Kyle is a respected member of the library profession. It is sad to know that she has resigned her place in Aslib work. She is too young and too able to be lost to library science. We look forward to seeing her health restored and her work resumed. Our first meeting was in 1948, in Chatham House. The huge work of newspaper clippings being done there impressed me as a first‐class piece of documentation work in the field of social sciences. Our next meeting was at Geneva in 1955 at a meeting of the Committee on the International Organization of Documentation Work in Social Sciences. There her dynamism could be seen in its fullness. In May 1957, she presided over my talk on Classification as a Discipline at the Dorking Conference. These were all formal occasions. We had a more intimate talk later, when we happened to ride by chance on the same bus down New Oxford Street in London.

As her many friends and colleagues all over the world already know, Barbara Kyle retired prematurely at the end of June from her twin posts on the staff of Aslib: Research Librarian and Editor of this Journal. Thus ill health has interrupted a career of singular éclat in the realm of librarianship and imposed a burden of rest and recuperation on one whose capacity for living is everywhere a legend. And ‘everywhere’, it must be said, contains in this context no hint of poetic licence, for rarely can the British documentalist abroad have engaged in converse with his colleagues without the name of Kyle being mentioned with respect, admiration, or personal affection—frequently the rare tribute of all three.

20. There is also a decree, dated 12th April, 1924, made under the authority of the Law of 21st December, 1923, which deals with the preparation of condensed milk and dried milk. The chief provisions of the decree are that the factory where the milk is prepared for export must be licensed by the Minister of Agriculture, and that it must have a satisfactory water supply and drainage system. It must also conform with the requirements of the Minister in regard to cleanliness. Definitions of condensed milk (full cream and skimmed), dried milk, homogenised milk and sterilised milk are also given. Rules are also laid down for the labelling of containers, and standards of purity are prescribed for the metal of which these are made. Provision is also made for the sampling of the products by officials of the Ministry of Agriculture and their examination at the laboratory of the Ministry. A further decree of the same date deals with the sanitation and hygiene of condenseries, the sterilisation and proper condition of milk vessels, the cleansing of machinery, and the health of the workers in so far as risk of infection of the milk is concerned.

In a communication which appeared in The Times, and which Mr. Max Pemberton has also addressed to this Journal, Mr. Pemberton observes that during the Great War a Commercial Treaty was made between this country and its oldest ally, Portugal. One of the considerations for this Treaty was that Great Britain reserved to Portugal the sole right of use of the name “Port” to be applied to wines certified as such by the Portuguese Government. Before that Treaty there was no legal restriction of the use of the word “port,” which could be, and was, applied to cheap Spanish and even British wines—such as “Tarragona Port” and “British Port.” Unfortunately, in granting Portugal the exclusive right to the word “Port,” our Government made no stipulation as to the standard below which the Portuguese wines should not be certified as port, and, in effect, the Treaty bound the English law to follow the Portuguese law in this matter. Port is a strong wine made from vines grown on the banks of the Upper Douro, and “fortified” at the vintage by the addition of fine grape brandy. Its strength is a vital and distinctive characteristic, and at the time when the Treaty was made, and for very many years before that, the strength standard recognised by all reputable shippers was not under 35 per cent. of proof spirit. At the time of the Treaty, our wine duty was 2s. 6d. per dozen for wines up to 30 per cent., and 6s. per dozen for wines above that strength. so that all “recognised” ports then paid our higher rate of duty.—In 1920 our wine duties were doubled and all wines over 30 became chargeable at 12s. per dozen, instead of 6s. With a view to reducing costs some syndicates in Portugal then started shipping ports to this country at strengths below 30 per cent., thus saving 7s. a dozen to the buyers. But this saving was not necessarily passed to the consumer, and as, unfortunately, the law does not require a statement of the strength of port on the label, these low‐strength wines can be sold to the public at the same prices as the recognised high‐grade and high‐strength ports. At present, therefore, the public has no security as to strength, unless it insists on buying ports of the well‐known brands of reputable, houses, which carry a guarantee that they are of full strength, and these low‐strength wines sold as port are pouring into this country in an ever‐increasing volume, nearly three times as much having been shipped to Great Britain in the year 1924–5 as in 1921–22. If all these 2,228.842 gallons of low‐duty port imported into this country paid the higher rate of wine duty, the Revenue would have received £390,000 more from them than it actually did—in other words, the difference in the duty paid on these wines has resulted in a loss of that sum to the British revenue. Our Government could not have foreseen, when the treaty was made, how it would be evaded. From the revenue point of view, therefore, as well as that of the consumer, there is a clear case for regulating the strength at which wines may be described as “port.”—Port now plays so great a part in the wine dietary of this country that there should be an amendment of our law which would compel a statement on all port labels as to the strength of the wine—whether above or below the 30 per cent. duty line—in protection of the British consumer, who, in the meantime, can protect himself only on insisting on a disclosure as to whether his wine be full strength or otherwise. Indeed, some of the leading houses have found it necessary already to state on their labels and in their advertisements that their ports are of “full strength” as a safeguard to the buyer. Undoubtedly, some legal protection is required for the growing army of port consumers, in accordance with the precedent by which the law compels disclosure of strength in the case of whisky and other spirits below 35 degrees under proof. The public would then be protected against a form of the “confidence trick” and vendors of port could not complain if they were required to state the strength‐standard of their wine. Strong wines (over 30 degrees) from our Colonies were granted in the last Budget a preference of 8s. per dozen in duty, with a deliberate view to the development of Empire trade. Such is the magic of the word “port,” however, that so long as the wines are subject to the competition of low‐duty Portuguese wines at a cheap price to which the name “port” may be applied (Colonial wines are not permitted by law to use that name) the preference wines cannot be fully effective. If our Imperial wines containing over 30 per cent. of proof spirit cannot be described as port, it seems unfair that the name should be allowed to Portuguese wines containing less than 30 per cent. of proof spirit.