ABSTRACT
The Jasper series arose from several research projects that were being conducted in 1984 when we began the Learning Technology Center (LTC) at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University. At that time, we never envisioned creating products such as Jasper because we defined ourselves as a research rather than a development center. However, it soon became apparent that typical materials such as textbooks and end-of-chapter word problems made it extremely difficult to create the types of learning environments that we wanted to study. In addition, we wanted to collaborate with teachers and, therefore, needed materials that they were eager to use in their classrooms. As a result, the development of high quality materials to support learning became an important part of our center's research plan.
