The touch of
Information Technology has paved a long way to represent a New order of
learning methodology in totality. With the accelerating phase of the
advent of Information Technology there is an emergence of a new social
order. This has made the need for computer literacy among the masses
indispensable. Rapid progress in the area of electronics and space
technology have contributed substantially to this phenomena.
A digital computer is an electronic machine and a very powerful tool in
information processing. The computer can well store, retrieve, analyze and
synthesize data or raw information received from various sources to
produce meaningful information necessary in making decisions and solving
problems. It has become easy to obtain information about our bank and
insurance accounts, train and airline reservations through computerized
systems. Several special effects are created in electronic music and watch
television programs. Computerized zerox machines, washing machines,
digital watches and the like are familiar to nearly all of us. We are also
aware of all of the factories in which computer controlled robots perform
various mechanical operations and space programs which are heavily
dependent on the new technologies. These are just a few examples of the
kind of changes which have offered in our society in recent years and the
rate of change is only going to rise in the years to come. To match the
new realities of today's sophisticated technology, there is a pressing
need to develop new skills to make the most of the new technology that is
available to us. The costs of introducing and using these new techniques,
providing the necessary equipment, and training people in their use have
to be set against the old methods of operation and the social consequences
of making the changes. The children in our schools were born in this era
of change. They cannot see anything strange in these novel approaches. The
curriculum for all pupils in schools will have to place emphasis on
technological change and its implications. Such a curriculum should ensure
that all students are able to use technology to communicate effectively
with and through the computer as well as appreciate its role.
The information revolution of the twentieth century which has been brought
about by advances in the computer technology has created an information
society in which a majority of the labor force is expected to hold
information-related jobs. Ignorance about computers will rather render
people functionally illiterate as does ignorance of reading, writing and
arithmetic. This means that our society will depend heavily on information
technology in many areas of work and personal life. Hence, the new task of
our schools is to familiarize pupils with applications of computers. A
computer literate has an aid to problem solving in a variety of
disciplines. This familiarity essentially involves an understanding of the
use of facilities such as word processing, screen reading and the
effective usage of files and data. It also demands a limited comprehension
of keyboard skills.
Under this, keeping with the marching pace towards the promotion of
literacy, the idea of providing knowledge about computers in schools was
put into practice in the country through a pilot project called CLASS,
(Computer Literacy and Studies in Schools) in 1984, by the Government of
India as a joint venture of the Ministry Of Human Resource Development and
the Department of Electronics.
The interactive nature of computer based learning and the facility to
individualize the learning experience, the needs of the learner are the
two most important aspects of computer assisted learning. The capacity of
the computer functions somewhat like a traditional teacher through the use
of a suitable educational software. In this mode, the computer can be used
to teach the learner through tutorials, drill and practice, games,
simulations or a combination of any of these strategies. Besides the
computer can be programmed in such a way that tutorial lessons can be
given to the pupils. With this, students will be able to learn at their
own performance independent of the teacher.
Using quality educational software packages, good learning environment can
be created in schools. As such, it is necessary for all citizens to
understand what computers are capable of. Students should be aware of the
many uses of computers, such as their use in teaching-learning,
information storage and retrieval. Any country's social and economic
well-being depends entirely on how well equipped its people are for a
literacy-intensive technology in order to promote overall quality oriented
academic excellence. If computers can assist us in the teaching process
then there is a good reason to welcome their appearance. Hence, it is
absolutely essential for all those involved in education to become
computer literate.
With the irritation of leakage of question papers of academic arena, there
appears a tough tasks to exist for the academicians. Accordingly, there
appears to be a great phobia of the mass designing of the question papers
of N sets manually.
The advent of the intelligent machine has led to the specific
indispensable importance of computers in this regard. The question paper
setting assumes prime importance of computers in this regard. The question
paper setting assumes prime importance in the present education system.
Keeping this concept in regard, there has been a recent development in
order to pace the usage of computers, through the concepts of CAPES and
QUEPS.
CAPES, the Computer aided paperless examination system, offers firing of
the multiple questions on the terminal to the candidate on a particular
subject, with the questions having been already fed into the machine by
the authority concerned for the conduct of the examination. This system
allows no cheating as the probability of flashing out a similar question
to a set of two candidates is one in every hundred. Here the candidate is
not at all required to have any working knowledge of computers, simply he/
she has to press the right alternative key on the keypad. With this, there
is no need of the office/ stationary/ Invigilators etc. The usage of this
system has revealed great success by the concerned authorities. The
results are much more reliable and speedy as compared with the traditional
type of examination.
On the other hand, the recent development in this regard is the QUEPS,
which is a prototype knowledge based system, for question paper setting.
This system also aims at modeling the human expertise, which is
perishable, is affected by fatigue and prejudices and lacks ability to
duplicate with ease. Perhaps, in the domain of question paper setting,
deep knowledge may be available in the form of question bank containing
different types of questions framed on a particular subject where they are
made available in the form of units featuring essays, short type questions
and the objective questions. The QUEPS and CAPES offer the usage of
objective questions in terms of framing and designing items for testing.
The questions are stored in a dynamic database, where each question is
stored as a predicate containing unit number, question number and the
corresponding attribute list. The attributes are stored as elements of a
list. List handling predicates are used while comparing the attributes as
also while updating the lists of each question given out once. This is in
accordance with the view that questions are never stored in the memory but
are addressed or referred only through question numbers.
It may sound farfetched but the tests have revealed that it is more or
less the true explanation that these systems offer plenty of scope for
expansion in terms of the expertise contained in it, as also using more
sophisticated mechanism to incorporate advanced concepts such as machine
learning. Also in this domain the level of complexity of the system has
risen up to the advanced levels of testing.
A point which come to ponder over the introduction of this HI-TECH concept
in the field of academics, is of the limitation of its' being to the
objective system only. This again becomes tiresome for the subjective
brand of system where every level of the answer is ranked in a different
manner independent of any particular answer, which can be fed into the
machine.
The quality in
this direction is highlighted with the quick declaration of results,
regularization of sessions and all in all bringing out overall
satisfaction of the students and the parents. This further brings the
profitable aspect of the organization in long run as more and more fame is
gathered for the same and the rush of admissions produce more revenue
monetarily bringing boon the education industry at large.
The capacity of any institution entirely depends upon the efficiency of
the office staff working in within. Keeping this view in regard, it is one
of the concerns of the management to give prime importance at times. In
any organization, the quality of work undertaken entirely depends upon the
speedy conduct with the strong guiding motivation of the BOSS. But
unfortunately, this has lagged far behind due to the increasing level of
work load over the years to be conducted through the old tools like
carbon, pencil, ruler and the hard key typewriters.
Now, with the march of time, the very business environment has changed
faster than ever before. The increased competition among organizations has
led to the reappraisal of accepted business practices for higher
efficiency. The attempts are being made to meet the competitive threat by
reducing cost by rationalizing production, shedding labor and
restructuring business. These are complemented with investment in
technology to improve productivity. But the huge bulk of commercial
documents generated by companies in the trading cycle still remain locked
in slow, antiquated paperbound processes.
Documents produced by one computer are printed and posted, only to be
entered into the recipient's computer - a time consuming, error prone and
costly experience of exercise, estimated between 4% AND 7% of the value of
the goods traded.
In a complex web of trading relationship in which each organization is a
customer of another, we can see what paper work all too easily becomes a
barrier to the trade it was designed to support. Under the novel scheme of
hi-tech system within an organization of academic nature, for example, a
small local area network within the office, the principal's room,
different other subjected related departments if required, are linked
through connected computers having an access of each other universally.
This certainly reduces the circular work from one desk to the other.
Accordingly, there is a paperless workplace having a direct line from one
computer system to the computers of all the probable customers and
suppliers. With this, every transaction could be electronic, sales returns
could be analyzed and fed into ordering process, orders could be raised to
reflect both demand and the known stock process, orders could be raised to
reflect both demand and the known stock available in any commodity related
business environment. Similarly, under the economic activity pertaining to
the services as the product, like Banks and educational institutions, the
on-line result display on the terminals, interactive teaching etc. are the
promotional qualitative services which can be adopted through this
machine, belonging to information technology. Apart from this, the
official work load of sending of instruction etc., could be sent to the
distributors in tandem with the order to ensure fast delivery. Carriage by
road, rail, sea or air could be booked simultaneously. Customer clearance
and documentation could be available in advance of the goods arriving,
thus avoiding hold ups. Even payment instructions could be issued to banks
to ensure prompt payment without the mountain of paper work involved in
the present day business transaction. This very transmissions of
information to the trading partners computers for processing is known as
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). It replaces conventional paper
documents with formatted and standardized business documents, transmitted
as electronic transmission of business data from computer to computer, of
independent organizations, using an agreed standard to structure the
transaction, which is accomplished without human intervention.
According to the principle of EDI, a 'sending computer', usually located
at a customer's premises, uses telecommunications technology to transfer
orders data instantly to the receiving computer, usually located at the
supplier's distribution centre. The received order data is then
manipulated and formatted to match the order entry files in the order data
base of the supplier. Next, the information is transferred into other
database, with the generation of any appropriate error messages and/ or
exceptions reports. This technology can be very rightly applied to the
transmittal of any business forms, including invoices and purchases
orders. The 'sending computer' stores and follows up on it. The
'receiving' computer automatically transfers the data to the ware house,
the factory, the accounting and billing departments and the shipping
departments. Similarly, in the institutional base, the orders of the
different books and deputed stationeries are accordingly ordered and
assured of the deliveries. The electronic data interchange is vastly
implemented in the trucking, marine shopping and air cargo industries in
developed countries. Implementation need not be expensive. All that a
small organization needs to have is a personal computer, a modem and
telephone line and the necessary software. The day is not far off, when
this very technology would create the concept of Total Quality Management
(TQM), applicable to nearly all small scale business arenas as well.
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