CHAPTER ONE
1.1 Background
of the study
Learning
is one of the very vital human activities that require concentration blended
with interactivity, clear and distinct understanding of the facts been stated
or discussed, high communication skills and techniques, attractive learning
qualities such as colorful pictorial presentations of information among others.
Nevertheless, all not learning process is considered to be effective. Effective
could be assumed to had been achieved if about hundred percent (100%), of the
population lectured assimilate the knowledge and/or ideas across; this is quite
different when the population size is very high and there is existences of
certain un-conducive learning conditions such as noise, poor ventilation, and
extreme temperatures.
For
effective learning to take place, it is
dependent on many factors. In most cases, these factors arise from the
teachers, the students, the teaching and learning media or materials, and the
learning environment with its structures. For instance, if a teacher lacks
communication skills and techniques, the students, will find it difficult to
comprehend, if the necessary media or materials required for teaching and
learning is not provided or if the provision is inadequate, the understanding
of the subject topic or issue been discussed might be impaired. In addition,
the duration for teaching and learning, the rate of understanding and
individual learning style effect the assimilation of knowledge by the students;
and may have impact on the extent to which the teacher covers the teaching scheme.
These factors will, certainly, hamper the effective teaching and learning by
the teacher and by the students respectively.
Most
especially, the factors affecting effective learning is pronounced in learning
aspects where intensive or much practical approach is required for the
impacting of knowledge to the students. For example, in computer science much
practical knowledge is required especially in computer networking, computer
programming, and computer maintenance. The practical equipping of students are
been affected by certain factors such as the duration for practical teaching
and learning, inadequate computers, availability of computer laboratories, and
poor power supply among others. As a result it is generally observed that most
computer science students with little or no practical knowledge engages the
service of the road side “computer training institute” due to the fact that it
is not financially intensive and there is great need for the services, this
approach, by such student has high tendency of impacting wrong knowledge on
students especially on the terms and explanation of concept s found or used in
the computer science world. Therefore, there is the need to reduce this
different situation and ensure that the practical standard required of the
students is attained.
The
progress made in the computer world through the development of sophisticated
hardware, software, and other technologies could be employed for the remedy of
the situation. Exploring the powerful capabilities of multimedia and implementing
it on teaching and learning processes via the production of learning material
and products such as e-book, computer assisted learning (CAI), computer aided
instruction(CAT), computer based training(CBT), internet based training among
others would go a long way towards improving the advancement of the practical
and theoretical knowledge of the students. With high quality content value of
the e-learning products and the captivating multimedia features embedded in
them, a student can easily, assimilate such knowledge (even in the absence of a
teacher and the required physical environment) through repetitive
Accessing
of the e-learning materials and following the animated instructions contained
therein. Finally, the case study computer science department, Federal college
of Agriculture Ishiagu is selected due to its proximity.
1.2 STATEMENT
OF THE PROBLEM
It
is very obvious that it is required of the computer science students to be
practically and theoretically sound so as to face the challenges to be encountered
in the labor market. Disappointingly, most of the computer science students are
not equipped as expected before lunching them into the labor market.
Often
time, the students are found to be the highest set of customers patronizing
most of the side “computer training institute” and in turn, might not get the
value of services they requested. This situation had been ascribed to many
claims, in most occasions, had been made by both students and teachers on the
pattern of teaching and learning respectively .for instance, the students claim
the greater percentage of the teachers have poor teaching communication skills,
and likewise the teachers blame the inadequate teaching and learning facilities
and/ or infrastructure as the reason for ineffective learning.
Hence,
the problem centers on effective teaching and learning processes for the
impacting and the advancement of the students’ theoretical and practical
knowledge.
1.3 OBJECTIVES
OF THE STUDY
owing to the difficulties experienced during
teaching and learning processes, this project is aimed at implementing
e-learning through the development of a web site expected to be published over
the internet, a CAL application package that will be installed in a computer,
and on e-book in portal document format (PDF); this is to provide different
remedy platforms for the shortcoming found in the traditional teaching and
learning procedures.
Focusing on the above, the objectives of the study
are to develop e-learning applications that are capable of:
I.
providing coherent
instruction for the selected subject topics
II.
Accommodating
individual learning style.
III.
Encouraging
learning and mastering of the individual topic contained therein.
IV.
Enhancing the
students practical knowledge and broaden their theoretical knowledge.
V.
Creating a more
interacting learning process.
VI.
Overcoming most
factors affecting effecting learning such as noise.
VII.
Promoting
students concentration during learning.
VIII. Accommodation learner’s unrestricted learning
schedule.
IX.
Promoting quick
assimilation of information.
X.
Providing
accurate and high quality content value.
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE
OF THE STUDY
This
project uses the combination of multimedia features, little artificial
intelligence features, and human –computer interaction principles for the
development of a web site for an online and implementation offline
implementation of e-learning. Both of the e-learning are designed for the
learning of computer science courses at its introductory level. These proposed
e-learning avenues are deviations from the traditional teaching and learning
procedure, and as a result have their main importance as follows:
i.
Effective
learning of the subject topic by the students- the traditional classroom
methods have high tendencies of responding to the many factors affecting
effecting learning (see table 1 in the appendix for more information). But with
the adoption of e-learning, these factors may exist with little or no impact on
the learner. Hence, this project is focused on developing e-learning
application that will be captivating through the provision of different
learning platforms and skillful use of multimedia which will lead to the
enhancing of effective learning and reduction of teachers teaching work load.
ii.
Cost of learning
materials-could be reduced significantly when compared to the cost of
traditional learning materials or the cost of conventional instructional
system. This is, however, accomplished in this project by providing free access
with limited content value to the user.
iii.
Reduction in the
duration of teaching and learning, and strengthening of teachers
effort-according to some research, the training time could be reduced up to
sixty percent (60%) as against the traditional classroom method using
e-learning products. (khoo, 1994). These, in turn, increase the rate of knowledge
assimilation and allow the teachers to direct more effort on other areas where
the students are deficient. This is basically achieved in this project the use
of certain technological features such as the multimedia features.
Apart
from these main importance of the study, other reasons like protecting the
students from assimilating wrong information passed on by the quack, the
inadequate learning and teaching materials, difficulties to have access to
information on time, and the general factors affecting effective learning could
take care of.
1.5 SCOPE OF
THE STUDY
The proposed e-learning products are targeted for
the attainment of effective learning through the use of interactive
presentations. Further, the products are expected to be used by computer science
students. The product contents are
structured to accommodate novice in computer courses and their usage
are not limited to computer science students alone but to students of
other disciplines who wish to have basic fundamental knowledge.
In the development of the proposed products,
certain security consciousness likes piracy where moderately considered while
some security measures like password were implemented. Each of the proposed
e-learning products have different security requirement. On the side of the
e-learning application package, password usage was implemented for
discriminating the premium users from the free users. The internet application
is designed to have an open unrestricted accessibility; this is to boost
products awareness and marketing. The e-book is created in portal document
format (PDF) so as to ensure content authenticity. Nonetheless, the three
e-learning products do not implement any strong piracy security due to the fact
that day after day more sophisticated hardware and software are developed
which, in the contrary reason for their development and usage, used for
computer product piracy. Finally, the physiological and cognitive impact of the
proposed e-learning products on their users have their scope for achieving them
limited to the use of multimedia features and interface design. This is one of
the most important tasks required to be embedded in the products. In this
learning application package, this is accomplished through the use of help menu
and help animations, the internet application accomplishes the same task
through the use of hyperlinks, flash animations, and still images while the
e-book made use of hyperlinks and still images.
1.6 LIMITATION
AND DELIMITATION OF THE STUDY
Apart
from the usual risk and limitation present in every project due to time, scope,
quality and financing, a major limitation arises from the gathering of
information or data from the concerned individuals with fair and un-bias
judgment of the proposed e-learning products. Many of the individual, especially
the expected users, were unwilling to give feedback on the impact of the
proposed products on them while some other will prefer to give haphazard
information which tantamount dirty data. In addition, the tendency of receiving
unfair and bias information and materials (which ranges from reference
materials to development support devices) required for actualizing the proposed
e-learning products specifications posed a great impediment to the study.
Nevertheless, in the attempt to overcome these impediments, the research work
of other scholars and practitioners were used in conjunction with the result of
my project research evacuation and analysis. This approach is adopted to ensure
accurate and good developmental practices
Considering
the multi-tasking nature of the project, much time and financial resources are
required. Owing to this fact, specifications of the proposed e-learning
products were adjusted to suit the available financial budget allocated to it
and which is obtainable. However, efforts were made, towards retaining the
e-learning products quality, accomplishing of the projects objectives and
completion of the project within the specified period of time.
1.7 DEFINITION OF TERMS
Software – a set of logical related program modules
that are given to the computer for the accomplishment of a specific task or
asset of task.
Program module – this is made up of one or more
program procedure, routine, function, or events that handle a definite task or
set of task.
Program procedure – a set of program codes that
response to a particular action such as click or could be called for execution
from another program procedure depending on its scope.
Program routine – see program procedure.
Program function – this is of ascribe to program
procedure that is used for accomplishing a specific task, especially
mathematical operations, whenever call for execution.
World Wide Web: World Wide Wed simply called www is
the most
important
tool of the Internet. It was created ion the late
1980s in Europe
and was used limitedly in academic
File Transfer: Any kind of computer file can be sent via the Internet
from one
Internet user to another. Table of accounts on
spreadsheets, design by
a graphic artists, music sound
files etc, can
all be exchanged in this way.
Web Brower: This is a special kind of software that processes hypertext
make-up language (HTML) document. In
other words, a
web browser is a
computer program that interprets HTML
command to collect,
arranged and display the parts of a
web page.
Web Site: A website is a collection of many interconnected web pages
organized by a specific
college, organization company etc,
containing web pages (good
and commodities) on the Internet.
Web site are stored on web
servers. There are many web site and
thousand of HTML pages on each
web site. A web site is a
treasure of information and
entertainment.
Hyperlinks: Hyperlinks are highlighted words and
phrase you find on web
documents that you can
click on as to jump to some other
documents or Internet
services.
Online: Connected via a computer attached to or
available via a central
computer network.
Offline: Disconnected from computer network;
describes a computer
terminal or peripheral
device disconnected from a computer
network.
Program- a set of logical related instruction codes that is
given to the computer which enables it to perform a specific task or events.
Application
– this is synonymous to application software or
application package. Application software is a class of software that runs on
an operating system and its design to handle a specified task related to any
human career.
Operating
system – it is a set of logical
related programs which enables the computer to manage its resources. The
resources which it manages are hardware components.
System software – this is a class of software that
are made up of other suit of software designed to enable the computer handle
its resources and carry out some set of task. The system software comprises of
operating system, program translators, editors and utility programs.
Translator – this is synonymous to program
translator or language translator or programming language translator. This is
software whose function is to translate or transform program codes written in
one programming language level to another (from high level programming language
code to low level programming language codes). A translator could be an
assembler, an interpreter or a compiler.
Dirty information – this is also known as dirty
data. It is information that does not conform to the directives for its supply.
Example: supplying your date of birth as against date of employment using the
title finger instead of ring finger in a finger print which requires ring
finger.
High level programming language – this is a class
of programming language that is much closer to human language. It requires
program translator for its codes to make meaning and be executed by the
computer. Examples of high level programming language are BASIC, JAVA, HTML,
C++ and PASCAL.
BASIC – this is a high level programming language,
is very simple and less difficult to learn and use. It can come in the form of
command oriented programming language e.g. QBasic or could come in the form of object oriented
programming language e.g. visual basic.
HTML – this is one of the programming languages
which could be used for developing web documents.HTML stands for hypertext
markup language. Other languages that could be for web development are XML
(extended markup language) and XHTML (extended hypertext markup language).
Programming language – this is a set of operation
of grammatical rules (syntax or protocol) use for written and developing
instructional codes given to the computer for task performance.
Programming language application software – this is
application software designed to allow the user write and develop program
and/or application using a particular programming language. For instance, visual Basic programming language.
Interpreter – this is a kind language translator
that translates high level programming codes equivalent and at the same time
executes the program codes line after line, this is achieved if and only if the
line of code is error free.
Compiler – this is a kind of language translator
that translates high level programming language code into its low level
programming language codes equivalent and makes it executable only if this
entire program code is error free.
Low level programming language – this is a class of
programming language that requires language translators for it to be
understandable by the computer. This class of programming language has the
characteristics of machine independency, easer to debug and comparatively show
during program execution. Example, Basic, FORTAN, java, Pascal, C, C++ among
others.
Debug – this refers to detecting and correcting or
removing errors contained in a source program.
Source program – this is a set of program codes
that contains the instructions and response to events. It is usually used in
guiding the computer on the reaction to take place or the specific task to
carryout for a given action. The source program codes are usually executed by
the computer and are not to be seen by the user especially if the target
program is application software.
User interface – the environment that is seen by
the end-user of application software which allows the end-user to make use of
it.
Event – An action that is made by the computer system
though its input devices or software.
Object code – codes that are displayed as a result
of executing the sources program or the source codes. Object codes are
displayed on the user interface.
Media – these are those things, materials or tools
used for storing and delivering of information or data. Media can also imply
channels, links or materials that convey data or information.
Learning media – learning materials that convey
information to a student or from which a student can extract knowledge from. Example,
textbooks novels, among others.
Multimedia – as applied to this project, it is
media and content that uses a combination of different content forms.
Contents – information and experiences that may
provide value for end-user.
Content form – this refers to the way information
or content is been presented. The different features of the multimedia forms
its content forms. Example audio, video, text, among others.
Content value – this refers to the usefulness of
information contained in media.
End-user – also known as user. this is an
individual or an organization that make use of finished product or for whom a
product is designed and developed.
Hardware – this is a physical component of a
computer that could be touched or felt. Example visual display unit (VDU).
CAL – this stands for computer Assisted learning.
It is an application package that is designed to enable the user learn a
particular subject through the provision of tutorial that may or may not
companied by questions. CAL is popularly called tutorial software. CAL is very
close to CAI and could be used interchangeable, but in some cases, might not
mean exactly the same.
CAI – this is an abbreviation of computer aided
instruction. It is an application package that is designed to enable the user learn and/or get
acquainted with a specific subject or an aspect of life.CAI, in most cases, is
a simulation of real life event or true appearance of the subject for which for
the user is to be educated on. Most CAI comes in the form of examination preparatory
tutorials like TOEFL (test of English as a foreign language) and safety
training tutorials like military combat training. Computer game is not always
regarded as a CAI application rather entertainment application software.
Project – this is finite endeavor having started
and completion dates undertaken to create quantifiable product. It is made up
of series of job to be completed individually within the time duration
allocated such a project.
Project completion time – those resources or inputs
that are required for accomplishing a project. The major project resources are
human materials and financial resources.
Data collection – the act of gathering information
or data from different sources within the problem defined set. Data collected
are processed and the information used for validating the proposed product of
the project.
Problem defined set – the population set for which
an evaluation must be made to verify the impact of the proposed product. For
instance, the problem defined set for
this project are the students (especially, the computer science students).