The Use Of Educational Software In Romanian School

Authors:Cristian-Mihai Bârcă

Alexandru-Cătălin Bujor Coordinator:Asist. drd. Simona Găbureanu

An immense number of titles, probably running into the thousands, were developed and released from the mid-1990’s onwards, aimed primarily at the home education of younger children.

The design of educational software programs for home use has been influenced strongly by computer gaming concepts – in other words, they are designed to be fun as well as educational. However as far as possible a distinction should be drawn between proper learning titles (such as these) and software where the gaming outweighs the educational value.

Courseware is a term that combines the words 'course' with 'software'. Its meaning originally was used to describe additional educational material intended as kits for teachers or trainers or as tutorials for students, usually packaged for use with a computer. The term's meaning and usage has expanded and can refer to the entire course and any additional material when used in reference an online or 'computer formatted' classroom.

The courseware itself can be in different formats, some are only available online such as html pages, while others can be downloaded in pdf files or other types of document files.

In a broader sense, the term eduitment describes an intentional merger of computer games and educational software into a single product (and could therefore also comprise more serious titles described above under children’s learning software). Software of this kind is not structured towards school curricula, does not normally involve educational advisors, and does not focus on core skills such as literacy and numeracy.

Educational software = Courseware + Edutainment

In this project we proposed to gather information and to discuss about the use of educational software in Romanian school. In this purpose we used an electronic survey (with 15 questions) and we posted it on several high-school forums. After several days we gather almost 60 answers and we made the summary report.

1. At how many lessons that used educational software have you taken part in the last semester?

% of Respondents

Number of Respondents

None

14.29% 8

Between 1 and 5

66.07% 37

Between 5 and 15

14.29% 8

More then 15

5.36% 3

Number of respondents 56 Number or respondents who skipped this question 0

2. Do you use educational software in your independent studies? % of

Respondents Number of

Respondents

Yes

29.09% 16

No

70.91% 39


3. Have you ever bought any of the educational software packages available on the market?

% of Respondents


Yes

16.07% 9

No

83.93% 47


7. What features impressed you in an educational software? animations, experiments, interactivity, nice chemistry/physics phenomena simulation, graphics, evaluation tests, accessibility, accuracy


31

Number or respondents who skipped this question 25

8. What features would you like to find in an educational software? “search and discover by yourself”, virtual reality, simulation of things hard to realize/observe in real life, dictionary, printable information, more experiments/simulations/animations, user friendly interface, clear examples and solutions, video materials


26


9. Give an example of two colors that could be the theme color for an educational software. blue & white,blue & green, green & white, blue & orange, dark grey & white;


39


12. Do you consider that the use of educational software should be compulsory in domains in which this mode of teaching is suitable?

% of Respondents


Yes

47.27% 26

No

52.73% 29


13. What educational software developers do you know? Siveco,Softwin,Oracle,Adobe, Varox, Edison3, Mela, Kehes, Euler, 3D Fiz,Infomedia,etc.


35


14. Would you use educational software developed for mobile phone?

% of Respondents


Yes

58.18% 32

No

41.82% 23


15. Would you contribute without being paid to the development of an educational software package that should include lessons (respecting the school curriculum) knowing that can be used by each student / teacher from Romania?

% of Respondents


Da

82.14% 46

Nu

17.86% 10


0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

Not at all Less Average Much Very Much

Question 6 - statistics

Learning definitions

Ilearning formulas

Solving theoretical problems

Performing experiments

1

2

3

4

5

1

2

3

4

5

1

2

3

45

1

23

4

5

1

2

3

4

5

1

2

3

4

5

12

3

4

5

1

2

3

4

5

1

2

34

5

1

2

3

4

5

1

2

3

4

5

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

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Question 10 - statistics

1

2

3

4

5

Most of students/teachers spent between 1 and 5 hours in the last semester using educational software.

Not many students use educational software in self-education purpose. Not many students/teachers buy/bought educational software. An educational software it is very useful for performing experiments. The most impressive features ever seen in an educational software were:

◦ animations, experiments, interactivity, nice chemistry/physics phenomena simulation, graphics, evaluation tests, accessibility, accuracy

Great features for an educational software would be:◦ “search and discover by yourself”, virtual reality, simulation of things hard to

realize/observe in real life, dictionary, printable information, more experiments/simulations/animations, user friendly interface, clear examples and solutions, video materials

Two colors that could be the theme color for an educational software are: blue & white, blue & green, green & white, blue & orange, dark grey & white;

Educational software is very useful and important for domains like physics, chemistry, biology.

Even if the educational software would be free to purchase, not many students/teachers would use it.

Many considered that the use of educational software shouldn’t be compulsory in domains in which this mode of teaching is suitable.