Education and Computing最新文献

The field of software engineering evolved during the last decade from pure (but excellent) programming towards an engineering discipline including managerial, organizational, hardware and even commercial aspects. Nowadays, engineers have to cope with the development of very complex systems which are composed of various components such as software, hardware, interfaces, etc., and which are expected to guarantee robustness, reliability and even correctness for their products. Thus, the width of the discipline poses a variety of problems to the teaching of the field, but sometimes resulting in courses just tackling the surface of those problems. The paper presents a curriculum for a software engineering course and identifies directions for further evolution.

The paper discusses an approach for acquainting fourth grade university students in informatics with various tools and methods of teaching informatics at school. The language Logo is used as an universal tool for:

• (1)

  introducing one variant of school informatics curriculum;

• (2)

  introducing some basic notions, principles and methods of informatics and a number of tools and specific approaches for their explanation and clarification;

• (3)

  demonstrating a variety of applications of computers in different fields: mathematics, language, drawing, music, physics, biology, history, etc.;

• (4)

  developing a sophisticated programming environment corresponding to the problem being solved and the specific users' needs;

• (5)

  demonstrating some basic principles of developing educational software, passing through all the phases of the software life cycle;

• (6)

  applying artificial intelligence methods and tools when developing and using educational software.

The students get self-confidence both as teachers in informatics and as educational software designers. So they can step towards a new pedagogy in a rich computerized learning environment.

The paper presents a brief description of the structure, conditions and development of the introduction of new information technology into general education in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the rôle of the federal government in promoting this.

Nowadays, in Dutch secondary education, computer science is integrated within school subjects. About ten years ago computer science was considered an independent subject, but in the mid-1980s this idea changed. In our study we investigated whether the objectives of teaching computer science as an independent subject are met when computer science is integrated within school subjects. The main problem was that there was no formal curriculum of computer science as an independent subject. Therefore we interviewed 13 experts in the field of computer science and then compared this formal curriculum with the operational (integrated) curriculum, which is still in the development stage. It appears that most of the components of the formal curriculum are being covered by the operational curriculum, and we therefore concluded that these curricula are equivalent, although there may be differences in the level of teaching. In our opinion the best approach to computer science is to combine the independent and the integrated approaches.

An advanced tutorial system for teaching the fundamentals of logic has been developed to run on unix work stations and commonly available microcomputers. An important part of this tutorial is the intelligent problem solving environment which allows students to practise writing logical sentences in mathematical notation. A natural language system for intelligent logic narrative analysis (ilona) allows students to type in their own logical sentences in plain English and then have the computer check their working when they write these in mathematical form. ilona is an intelligent tutoring system which allows students a great deal of initiative in problem solving and provides a degree of flexibility in answer evaluation not found in traditional cai systems. The concepts and structures used in the development of ilona are easily transferable to other domains.

Conventional approaches to the provision of learning and training opportunities often leave much to be desired in terms of their suitability, their relevance and their cost-effectiveness. Of course, in the current financial climate, educational establishments are also being called upon to achieve much higher productivity with minimal increase in resources. In order to meet the increasing demands that are being placed upon conventional training and learning resources, many organizations are actively searching for new approaches to instruction. Because of the attractive facilities that they offer, computer-assisted learning (cal) and computer-based training (cbt) have now become important techniques for both knowledge dissemination and skill acquisition. Five important attributes of these approaches to pedagogy have contributed to their success: efficiency, effectiveness, adaptability, automated monitoring and the high degree of student motivation that can be achieved. For the reasons outlined above, many organizations are now setting up “institutional” cal or cbt centres. Their function is to provide courseware development services on a cross-organizational basis. This paper discusses some architectural blueprints for the creation of a successful courseware development centre. In this paper, we cover such topics as courseware engineering principles, authoring tools, media selection, workstation design, production strategies and the marketing of courseware products.

This paper describes an expeirment to determine the effect of the use of a computer algebra system in the school classroom. A standard computer algebra package, muMath, was enhanced for use in the classroom and a comparison between it and conventional teaching methods was performed. The conclusion from the experiment indicates that such a system is a useful teaching aid in the classroom.

This paper charts the use of computers in the multi-media teaching system of the British Open University through the nineteen-eighties. It follows Bramer's previous paper [5] and describes the transition from a network linking 240 hardcopy terminals to central mainframes, in 1980, to a Home Computing Programme with 13,000 students using microcomputers at home, in 1990.