Computer Aided Education

Abstract

While all sort of written information were widely used in education, studies showed that visual perception is very important in learning. For this purpose new teaching strategies were developed using computer. The aim of this paper was to emphasize roles of computer in education and to make a comparison of computer aided education vs. traditional education. Computer aided education (CAE) system is a key to improve the effectiveness and the quality of education system. Computer education forms a part of the school and college curricula, as it is important for every individual today.

Full text

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 103 ( 2013 ) 220 – 229
1877-0428 © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of The Association of Science, Education and Technology-TASET, Sakarya
Universitesi, Turkey.
doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.10.329
ScienceDirect
13
th
International Educational Technology Conference
Computer aided education
Can Cemal Cingi *
Instructor, Anadolu University, Eskisehir, 26470, Turkey
Abstract
While all sort of written information were widely used in education, studies showed that visual perception is very important in
learning. For this purpose new teaching strategies were developed using computer. The aim of this paper was to emphasize
roles of computer in education and to make a comparison of computer aided education vs. traditional education. Computer
aided education (CAE) system is a key to improve the effectiveness and the quality of education system. Computer education
forms a part of the school and college curricula, as it is important for every individual today.
© 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of The Association of Science, Education and Technology-TASET, Sakarya
Universitesi, Turkey.
Keywords: Computer Aided Education; Computer Aided Education’s Advantages; Computer Aided Education’s Materials; Comparison
between Computer Aided Education and Traditional Education; Education
1. Introduction
Computer aided education eases the process of learning. Life without computers would seem almost
unimaginable for many individual using computers daily.
Computer aided education (CAE) is not a new fact. In the early 1960s, Stanford University psychology
professors Patrick Suppes and Richard C. Atkinson experimented with using computers to teach math and
reading to young children in elementary schools in East Palo Alto, California. Stanford's Education Program for
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +90-222-335-0810/5242; fax: +90-222-320-4520.
E-mail address: ccc@anadolu.edu.tr
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
© 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of The Association of Science, Education and Technology-TASET, Sakarya
Universitesi, Turkey.
Open access under
CC BY-NC-ND license.
Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.

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Can Cemal Cingi / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 103 ( 2013 ) 220 – 229
Gifted Youth is descended from those early experiments. In 1963, Bernard Luskin installed the first computer in
a community college for instruction, working with Stanford and others, developed computer-assisted instruction
(Wikipedia). Usage of computer in data communication has commenced in 15th Century. Most of the individuals
in 15th Century were extremely ignorant.
Computer aided education eases the process of learning. A life without computers would seem almost
unimaginable for many individual using computers daily. Traditional teaching methods and course contents have
all been affected by the introduction of computer technology.
Therefore, one case study quoted for showing importance of computer-aided education. Ath. Kehagias and
Pan. Vlachos has a research called Melon project for Melon foundation grant to their project, which is fulfilled in
The American College of Thessaloniki. They choose American College students for their diverse educational
backgrounds. They wanted to design courses, which will teach to the students basic mathematical knowledge
(necessary for follow-up courses); and , They want to relevance them to mathematics. And They though thing to
keep a fine balance between showing more technical (in which case students will be alienated) and too simple (in
which case students will lose interests in the course). Then they organized a course which they can use computer
in class. by They using some software packages such as Microsoft Excel and Mathcad. At the end of the course
they had also found that it computers did play a positive role, in "sweetening mathematics”; and. And they have
found that CAE students were better at it than traditional ones (Kehagias&Vlachos, 1999).
In this paper, types of computer aided education were mentioned such as autonomy, model creation,
demonstration, game model, storytelling model, virtual reality, animation, e-books, user created content and
distance education. Designing materials for creating computer aided education; text, color, illustrations, sound,
video, and characteristic of the learner were also explained. Advantages of computer-aided education (CAE) and
comparison for CAE and traditional education were also discussed.
2. Types of Computer Aided Education
Traditional teaching methods and course contents have all been affected by the introduction of computer
technology. Education is the main step of all disciplines and should be carried out seriously. In our competing
world every individual should learn more and fast in order to take a front row in this competition.

222 Can Cemal Cingi / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 103 ( 2013 ) 220 – 229
Education is defined as the process of forming an individual identity, becoming sociable and gaining
economic effectiveness. It is also the process of constructing the balance between human and the environment by
interaction, which has many aspects (Aydın&Sütçü, 1999).
Education is a fundamental part of differentiating from a simple living creature to a thinking human being
taking part in social, economic and industrial world. In this highly competing world it is getting more and more
important to learn more and faster.
Education is a complex process in which both human and technical resources should be utilized in a carefully
balanced way. Traditional teaching practice, learning methods and course content have all been affected by the
introduction of computer technology. The challenge is to develop and use modern learning environments in
education while the curriculum of university education is continuously evaluated and modified to both include
new ideas, thinking and learning methods, and to eliminate redundant material (Kızıl et al, 2004).
Encyclopaedia of Britannica described the word “Education” as follows, which is very difficult to accept
today: “Education is a discipline that is concerned, in this context, mainly with methods of teaching and learning
in schools or school like environments as opposed to various informal means of socialization” (Britannica Online
Encyclopaedia).
As we know and use distance education by means of computers now, the definition of a highly trusted
Encyclopaedia became incorrect. Actually changing time and technologies even made the difference in
definitions of Encyclopaedias.
It is very well known that learning gets easier if the information could be given by a combination of different
sources at the same time as sound, picture and words. It starts with the alphabet only with letters and letters with
pictures. It is obvious that if it is possible to teach letters with motion and sound concomitantly, it will be easier
to learn. Beside this teaching advantage it will bring another differentiation, which is willingness to learn.
Autonomy may be described as the willingness or self-determination of every individual to study and to learn.
Various techniques were described and analysed in order to improve education methods, because it is almost
obligatory to learn more in less time in this competing world. This is the aim of many research groups to provide
a teaching method for faster learning and better understanding.

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Can Cemal Cingi / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 103 ( 2013 ) 220 – 229
Traditional teaching methods and course contents have all been affected by the introduction of computer
technology. Education is the main step of all disciplines and should be carried out seriously. In our competing
world every individual should learn being quickly in order to take a front row in this competition.
It is very well known that learning gets easier if the information could be given by a combination of different
sources at the same time as sound, picture and words. It starts with the alphabet only with letters and letters with
pictures. It is obvious that if it is possible to teach letters with motion and sound concomitantly, it will be easier
to learn. Beside this teaching advantage it will bring another differentiation that is willingness to learn. Autonomy
may be described as the willingness or self-determination of every individual to study and to learn.
Regardless which theory we believe, computer aided education is of importance for sure. Different
application areas of computers are examined and evaluated according to the changing needs and improving
technology. New devices and methods have been developed besides autonomy, model creation, demonstration,
game model, storytelling model, virtual reality, animation, e-books, user created content, distance education and
online education and for sure they will be more development in near future.
3. Designing Computer Based Education Materials
Computers have a wide range of education materials contrary to traditional tools. Text is still the most
important tool to transfer information. But there are many different additives to text in computers such as colour,
graphics, sound, animation, third dimension and interactive sections.
Moreover, in preparation of the computer-based learning materials the characteristic of the learner has great
importance. Different learners will respond to stimuli in a range of ways so it is important to be aware of the
characteristics of the group you are designing for. You can’t design same material to adult and child.
Alan Clarke summarized these factors in details. The factors, which may influence the learners’ response,
include age, computer literacy, previous experience of computer-based learning, gender, educational experience,
learning skills, physical characteristics, reading age, knowledge of the subject and first language (Clarke, 2001).
The best way to transfer knowledge is text. Although computers have various possibilities, text is the most
condensed way of giving theoretical information. Computers have many advantages when preparing reader
friendly text pieces and when reading pre-prepared texts. Arrangements of paragraphs, headings and subheadings

224 Can Cemal Cingi / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 103 ( 2013 ) 220 – 229
are important parts of text preparation.
Selection of fonts is a very important subject. The font of a storybook that is prepared for elementary school
children should be different than a postgraduate master degree paper. A scientific paper should also have
different letters than a joke book.
Moreover colours are very important in our daily life, psychology and mood. Actually the human eye can
recognize millions of colours. So colours may be used to draw attention to important points. Setting the same
colour for related topics may also be helpful.
Colour is a powerful motivating force. People will often judge coloured products as having a higher value and
quality than the equivalent monochrome products. It is an important way of gaining learners' attention,
reinforcing key points and segregating information (Clarke, 2001).
4. Advantages of Computer Aided Education
The adva
ntages
of computer-aided education can be overviewed in various topics. But for me the most
important ones are correction and update possibility of the education materials. Computers in education provide
us quick information processing and very importantly the saving of paper.
The roles of computers in education may be summarized as follows.
* The initiation of education may start earlier in preschool children which were not able to write and read yet
* It will be more interesting and attractive to use a colourful software with animations than reading a book
especially I children
* Computer education module can help students deeply understand the content with diagrams, pictures and movie
clips when needed.
* Softwares are easy to carry, copy and distribute
* Instruction manuel
* Decrease of labour
* Chance of sharing personal experience, ideas and new methods
* Chance of searching in seconds
The uses and advantages for this system are endless. For example, teachers are encouraged to use edutainment

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computer-based learning for introducing students to new or difficult lectures or concepts. Times, tables or
grammar are incorporated into platform games that use positive reinforcement to encourage children to move
onto new difficulty levels. Children are able to pick which times, tables or grammatical problems they wish to
tackle in the session. This interactive element is essential to ensure children feel they have some control over
their education (Roschelle et al., 2005).
5. Comparison of Computer Aided Education vs. Traditional Education
Computer aided education system is a key to improve the effectiveness and the quality of education system.
Conventional education system, which is using a book or hardcopy material, can easily make the student to feel
bored and complicated to understand what they have learnt in class. The information need to be digging out from
the whole bunch of the book out of nowhere and this might consumes a lot of time. Differ from the computer
aided education which is much easier to amend and update the material. Besides, Computer aided education
system can reduce publishing and distribution costing. Therefore it worthwhile to replace the existing of the
conventional education system with computer aided education (Sabariman, 2008).
Another issue is changing time and changing habits. Traditions, fashion and preferences change from
generation to generation. While I am very comfortable with computers my parents are using them with minor
problems whereas my grandparents have major difficulty in using them.
Computers have revolutionized common man’s life and have brought a dramatic change in the life of every
human being. Plentiful information is available on the Internet that can be read by means of a computer. Hence
one might not want to be deprived of this new world of information. The information is inclusive of all aspects of
knowledge. It ranges from preliminary facts in science to philosophy of life. Almost everything that the books
once carried is now accessible through a computer. Everything that the textbooks have is now just a click away!
(Oak, 2008).
Information can be presented in different forms over a computer. Information can be in the form of an audio
recording or a video clip. Computer teaching is thus much more than just making students read from the screen. It
is about providing them with a learning system wherein they can view pictures, watch videos and listen to
speeches or lectures. It is about making the process of teaching and learning, interesting and interactive.
According to Manali Oak’s paper, writes “teachers are irreplaceable”, but on the other hand life conditions

226 Can Cemal Cingi / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 103 ( 2013 ) 220 – 229
necessitated teaching with computers which may be accepted as virtual teachers. Another extension of this
situation is distant education. Distance education may be accepted as third revolution in education. It is obvious
that it is the last stage of computer aided education (Oak, 2008).
Ath. Kehagias and Pan. Vlachos has a research related with this subject, which is fulfilled in The American
College of Thessaloniki. They choose American College students for their diverse educational backgrounds.
They want to design courses, which will teach to the student’s basic mathematical knowledge. They want to
relevance them to mathematics. And they think to keep a fine balance between showing more technical ( in which
case students will be alienated ) and too simple ( in which case students will lose interests in the course). The
problem is worsen because in some of our classes we teach concurrently two groups of students: the first group
will major in the Liberal Arts and the second in Business Administration.
To fix the above problems, they have found it necessary to continuously engage in curriculum reform. They
have been especially interested in computer aided education (CAE) to increase both the learning material and
teaching process. They have experienced with software packages such as Microsoft Excel, Mathcad and
Scientific Notebook as well as with HTML-based hypertexts for three years.
Their efforts for emphasized conceptual understanding, through the use of graphical and numerical
approaches. In particular, in the Calculus course they have used numerical and graphing experiments (in Excel
and in Mathcad). They have also experimented with various teaching strategies: we have taught traditional,
classroom-based courses, as well as courses almost exclusively taught in the computer lab; they have used
collaborative assignments and individual take-home projects.
They have also noticed that students are eager to participate in classroom activities in computer-intensive
classes. On the other hand, they have found that when teaching a computer-intensive class the students may
become quite proficient in the use of computers and mathematical software, without grasping the mathematical
concepts in which are ultimately interested.
Their main goal during this phase was to familiarize us with the symbolic math software Mathcad and with
teaching computer lab-based courses. They chose Mathcad because of its combination of symbolic math
operations with “live” computation (i.e. changes made at some part of a document result in immediate update of
the whole document). They found this feature very useful both for demonstration by the instructor and for
experimentation by the students.

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According to their work’s results, it appears that CAE did not make a difference as far as concepts
understanding is concerned. More specifically, CAE students were better at conceptual understanding both at the
beginning and at the end of the course; but, on the average, they improved at the same rate as traditional students.
However, CAE did make a difference regarding general mathematical performance both in absolute and
differential terms. CAE also made a difference regarding the attitude of the students to the course (i.e. students
liked the CAE course better than the traditional one). Statistics and numbers do not tell the whole story. So it is
useful to briefly relate our informal experiences. They definitely felt throughout the course that CAE students
were more active and interested than the traditional ones.
They also find it computers did play a positive role, in "sweetening mathematics". They have found that, the
CAE classes developed so much momentum, it is particularly important to plan class activities and teaching
strategies very carefully so that the learning process does not degenerate into an exercise of computer gaming.
Also, they think that some lecturing is still necessary, even in the CAE course; they do not want to revert to 100%
lab course because if they revert.
Regarding mathematical performance, they did feel that on the average CAE students were better and
remained so at the end of the course. Statistical analysis offers a further significant insight: not only were CAE
students better in absolute terms, but they also improved more than traditional students (Kehagias&Vlachos,
1999).
Finally, regarding the understanding of mathematical concepts, they have found that CAE students were
better at it than traditional ones. This is substantiated by statistical analysis, which further reveals however, that
there was no difference in differential improvement. In other words, statistics suggests (and as of now we have no
grounds to dispute this), that CAE students were originally better at conceptual understanding and remained so at
the end of the class. A scenario which they found plausible after consideration of the statistical analysis and their
subjective experiences is that better students were drawn to the CAE course than to the traditional one. This
seems to be supported by the statistically significant difference in GPA between the CAE and traditional students
(Kehagias&Vlachos, 1999).
In conclusion, course was a useful improvement over the traditional course and they intend to refine and
repeat it. Teaching Mathcad to CAE students created an overhead, which was partly compensated by spending
less time in teaching traditional techniques of differentiation and integration.

228 Can Cemal Cingi / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 103 ( 2013 ) 220 – 229
6. Conclusion
Computer aided education eases the process of learning. A life without computers would seem almost
unimaginable for many individual using computers daily.
Internet, which is the source of all kind of information, can play an important role in education. As it is an
enormous information base, it can serve as a source for a wide variety of subjects. Search engines are very
helpful in reaching the target. It is usually possible to reach the headed information when the clues or keywords
were obscure. This is another advantage of computers to thick textbooks.
The importance of computers is evident today and having the perfect know-how of computers can only propel
one’s career in the right direction. Today, computers are a part of almost every industry. They are no more
limited to the software industry. They are widely used in networking, information access, data storage and the
processing of information. So why not introduce computers early in education? Introducing computers early in
education lays the foundation of most of the major competitive careers. Computers play a significant role in one’s
personal and professional life (Oak, 2008). Computer aided education has the advantage of easy teaching, better
learning, free repetition and furthermore all sort of distance education.
In final, I defenced computer aided educations superiority again with supporting a case study. Ath. Kehagias
and Pan. Vlachos has a research called Melon project for Melon foundation grant to their project, which is
fulfilled in The American College of Thessaloniki. They choose American College students for their diverse
educational backgrounds. They want to design courses, which will teach to the students basic mathematical
knowledge (necessary for follow-up courses), They want to relevance them to mathematics. And they think to
keep a fine balance between showing more technical (in which case students will be alienated) and too simple (in
which case students will lose interests in the course). Then they organize a course which they can use computer in
class. They used some software packages such as Microsoft Excel and Mathcad. At the end of the course they
also find it computers did play a positive role, in "sweetening mathematics”. And they have found that computer
aided education students were better at it than traditional ones.

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Can Cemal Cingi / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 103 ( 2013 ) 220 – 229
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