Some of the earliest electronic computers were installed in academic institutions in the 1940s and 1950s, where they were either studied as a curiosity in their own right or used to perform calculations rapidly.
Thus, one of the earliest applications of computers in education involved the training of engineers, who had to know how to build computers.
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As computers found their way into businesses, data processing and information systems courses evolved in business schools.
Some academic visionaries, such as John Kemeny at Dartmouth College in 1960s, realized early on that computers would be useful for performing work in an ever wider variety of disciplines.
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And so BASIC was developed and rapidly became part of every student’s life at Dartmouth. Today computers and education are combined in a wide variety of ways. Let’s look at a few of these.
Learning about Computers :
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Learning about computers involves taking courses that teach you about things such as general computer principles or hands-on use of a specific software package.
As with many other disciplines, the very act of learning about computers can be done from several perspectives. Many large businesses and independent training firms provide computer courses.
Computer-Enhanced Instruction :
Computers are also now widely used to assist in the process of teaching. With computer-assisted instruction (CAI), the student and computer take part in an interactive dialog.
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For example, a high-school algebra student using a CAI package may be given a problem on the screen to solve. If the answer given is correct, the package poses another problem, perhaps one that’s more advanced.
If the answer is wrong, the package may go into a “remedial mode” in which it either gives hints, shows how to solve the problem, or provides another problem on the same level. Each student progresses at his or her own pace.
At the end of the session, the student is graded. A “progress report” may also be provided. A closely related technology is computer-managed instruction (CMI).
In a CMI system, the computer merely supervises students, perhaps directing them to read certain books or see certain library firms on their own.
On completing one assignment, students return to their computer workstations w testing and, perhaps, further assignments. Thus, with CMI, students aren’t limited to materials that can be stored and disseminated by a computer system.
CMI can be implemented as a supplemental technique in a course or, on a larger scale, by a so-called “electronic university”.
New technologies such as videodisk and hypermedia are also just I beginning to be used to assist in the educational process. Of course, no computer-enhanced instructional tool has ever been recognized as a solution that will meet every teaching need.
In many situations the computer may never seriously challenge the purely human, personal approach to education.
Problem Solving :
One of the first applications of computers in education was solving difficult problems.
Today, students in a wide variety of disciplines use computers to perform such tasks as producing cash flow statements, developing business strategies through what-if scenarios, simulating product designs, planning facilities, testing decision alternatives, computing mathematic curves, and producing course papers.
The list is almost endless. Also, virtually every professor involved in research uses computers in one form or another to discover new scientific facts or to just become more efficient at getting work done.