ABSTRACT
Computer aided learning is one of the most important learning. Electronic tutor has provided a wide context for a field which has already attracted a lot of attention.
In early 1990’s the constructivist theory of education and collaboration learning were introduced which emphasized on increasing the rate of understanding when learning.
Mathematics and English requires adequate teaching skills to enable knowledge to be impacted into the children so that; the children will have the skill to perform English and mathematics credibly as a chore subjects.
This project takes a look at the prospect of modeling a computer based interactive software that will help nursery school children to acquire the basic skill and improve the basic concept of English and mathematics. This project when implemented will make teaching and learning faster and, easier and interactive because of the audio and picture format used in designing this system.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE———————————————————i
APPROVAL PAGE————————————————-ii
CERTIFICATION PAGE——————————————iii
DEDDICATION —————————————————-iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT —————————————–v
ABSTRACT———————————————————-vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 Introduction, History/Background ————————–1
1.1 Statement of the problem————————————-2
1.2 Objective of the problem————————————-4
1.3 Scope of the study———————————————5
1.4 limitation of the study—————————————–5
1.5 Significant of the study—————————————-6
1.6 Definition of terms———————————————6
CHAPTER TWO
Literature review
2.0 Introduction—————————————————–9
2.1 Integration of computers into the classroom—————10
2.2 Teachers computer training———————————–11
2.3 Computer for nursery children and primary children—–12
2.4 Computer and child’s training——————————–13
2.5 Children solving practical learning situation—————14
2.6 Developmentally appropriate computer activities———15
2.7 Advantages/Benefits of computer use for children——–15
2.8 Learning Mathematics and it concept———————–16
2.9 Learning English and its concepts—————————–17
CHAPTER THREE
3.0 System Analysis and design————————————19
3.1 System investigation ——————————————–19
3.2 Sources of data—————————————————20
3.3 method of data collection ————————————–20
3.4 Approaches to Electronic Tutor——————————-21
3.5 System Design—————————————————22
3.6 System Flow Diagram (Use DFD symbols) —————-24
CHAPTE FOUR
4.0 Programming and System Implementation——————25
4.1 Program design and implementation————————-25
4.2 Justification of Language Used——————————–26
4.3 Program———————————————————–27
Algorithm and flowchart
Source code and testing
4.4 System Requirement——————————————–44
4.5 System Control————————————————–44
Handover procedure
4.6 User manual——————————————————45
CHAPTER FIVE
5.0 Summary, Recommendation and Conclusion
5.1 Summary———————————————————-46
5.2 Recommendation————————————————-46
5.3 Conclusion ——————————————————–47
Reference———————————————————–48
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
An electronic tutor is a computer based graphics for teaching children in nursery schools between two (2) to six (6) years. The computer based graphic is an interaction program that help the children to provide a stimulated environment to learn because the teaching appears on the screen in audio and picture format.
Thousands of software developers have designed a lot of screen reading, voice software that help to assist the teaching and learning process. Some of the software includes;
Realspeak: This can read the text on computer screen aloud, because many professors use websites to provide class update, the blind or visually impaired children can now use Realspeak to access these update.
Another one is job access with speech (jaws) for windows that uses an integrated voice synthesizers and the computer sound cards to output the content of a computer screen to speakers. Users can adjust the voice rate, pitch, and amount of punctuations spoken. Because Braille is by far the most common tactile system used by the blind and visually impaired, Jaws helps children by providing line-by- line Braille on a specialized keyboard that change or refreshes according to the text on the screen.
Also IBM homepage reader (HPR) bring spooking access to the internet for the blind and visually impaired users, it also convert web information text in column, tables, date input fields and graphics description to speech. Support and for low vision user permits customization of font size, background, color, and others display element.
For printed information that is physically present, open book and WYNN wizard (freedom scientific, 2003a) convert written text to speech for visually impaired. For the low vision users, the MAGIC software magnifies the computer screen
Thus this project aims at finding an interactive based electronic tutor or online tutor for teaching basic concept of English and mathematics with audio/pictorial approaches in nursery schools. Hence, teachers find it difficult to keep repeating the alphabet, words, short sentences, numbers and their arithmetic expression for the children.
1.1 HISTORY/BACKGROUND
The nursery movement began in the early 19th century as a response to the increasing employment of women in industry. The absence of great numbers of mothers away from their homes during the day led to child neglect. This in turn, stimulated a variety of charitable agencies to set ways o caring for the caring of working parents.
The early leader of this movement was French philanthropist Jean Baptist Firmin marbeau, who in 1846 founded the crèche (French, “cradle”) society of France, with the aim of fostering child care. Within a relatively short period, nurseries were established in many parts of France and several others European countries. Many wholly or partly supported by local and national government. A large numbers of nurseries were setup in factories, enabling mothers to take brief periods from their work to tend to their young children.
In the U.S, the first nursery was first opened in 1854 by the nursery and child’s hospital of New York City. Most of the nurseries established in the latter half of the 19th century were supported by charitable organizations; both in the Europe and in the United states, the nursery movement received great impetus during worldwar1. When unprecedented numbers of woman replaced men in the industry
In Britain, France, Germany and Italy, nurseries were established in munitions plants, under the direct government sponsorship. The numbers of nurseries in the U.S also rose, but without the government aid of any kind. During the years following world war1 Federal, state, and local government in the U.S gradually began to exercise some control over nursery educations through licensing inspection, and regulation of conductions within the facilities.
As the studies of children revealed the importance of the early years in physical, social, emotional, and intellectual development, the nursery schools movement spread rapidly in Britain and others European countries. The first nursery in the U.S were started under the auspices or colleges and universities and served as laboratories for child study, teacher education and parent education.
For many years, nurseries were mainly charitable institution operated for custodial care, whereas nursery schools were generally commercial ventures offering educational programs. Now, in most instances, both daycare centers and nursery schools employ trained personnel and offer various educational activities, daycare centers. However, are opened for longer hours to accommodate working parents.
With the outbreak of world war11, the number of nursery increased rapidly as a large number of women were again called to work in industry. This time, the U.S government immediately came to the support of facilities for young children allocating 6million Dollar in July 1942 for a program of children of working mothers. Many states and local communities supplemented this federal aid. By 1945, more than 100,000 children were been cared for in centers receiving subsidies, most employed mothers would leave their jobs at the end of the war was only partially fulfilled and during the post war year a widespread movement development aid to meet the need for a comprehensive day care program.
Beginning in 1960’s more and more women with children joined the workforce, and the popularity of nursery educational program has steadily increased. The quality of nursery programs however, varies. Some schools provide solid educational programs that stimulate the development of skills in communication a growing awareness of size, shape and color manipulate skills and physical development.
1.2 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The use of manual method of teaching is tiresome, bore and time consuming. The manual method of teaching is prone to error. Therefore the electronic method of teaching and learning should be adapted in nursery schools because it involves less time check, more efficient and more reliable.
Learning especially mathematics and English involves a constant repetitions of letters, words, short sentences, numbers, and arithmetic operations, hence the teachers finds it difficult tom keep repeating the words and numbers as long as is needed by the children.
The absence of audio and pictorial approaches makes the children to find the learning very difficult and less chance to improve the skills. Most parent have very busy schedule and so do not have the time to monitor the children in terms of tutelage.
1.3 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The main objective of this study is to teach the children of two (2) to six (6) years of age to be developmentally ready to explore compute electronically; children are comfortable clicking various options to see what is going to happen next. Teachers may want to interfere when the children appear frustrated or when nothing seems to be happening.
The child is introduced to a wide variety of letters, words, short sentences, numbers, and their arithmetic that are dearly and attractively illustrated.
It improves the children in acquiring the basic concept of English and mathematic.
It encourages private tutorship and individual and individual attention in nursery schools.
Finally, it also makes learning faster and easier because of the audio/pictorial format of the study and the interactive learning environment.
1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The scope of this project work focuses in the present stage of development; the system concentrate solely on the teaching of vocabulary with set of alphabet and identifications of numbers pictorially.
Others, like basic simple short sentences, state and capital and arithmetic operations are still part of the system which is equally enhance the learning of the children. These were designed and implemented into the system for effective understanding of the children.
1.5 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
Many limitations were encountered during the process of gathering of information for the development of this project work. The main problem encountered or constraint in the course of this research were the initial difficulty in grasping the knowledge of this field which was quite alien to the researcher through these were overcome within a short period of time.
Also obtaining of accurate and complete information was somehow inhibited. The researcher had to some independent investigation and internet surfing to ensure that the relevant information was used. Some pictures appear distorted due to some factors like; availability of very high resolution but were corrected latter.
Finally the issue of time cannot be forgotten, a very limited time to carry out the research of the project and we also faced some financial constraint and power break down by the power holding.
1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
This system will go a long way to increase the learning ability of the nursery school child in that it provide private tutorship and serves the busy parent the stress of home lessons.
Most important of all is that, this system will not get tired of repeating any particular word and numbers. All these make it better than human nursery teachers
1.7 DEFINITIONS OF TERMS
Definition of some of the basic terns and concept as used in this work are given for clarity and understanding of the entire work
Nevertheless, this is not exhaustive hence some other technical terms would be defined in the text as we continue.
COMPUTER; This is an electronic and electromagnetic device, which accepts related data as an input, store, process, and output it as information that is useful to the overall system.
DATA: This is a collection of natural phenomenon descriptors including the result of experience, observation or experiment or premise, this may consist of numbers, words, or images particularly as measurement or observations or set of variable..
DATABASE: This is a collection of data organized for storage in a computer memory and designed for easy access by the authorized users. It may be in form of text, numbers, or encoded graphics.
HARDWARE: This is equipment involved in the function of a computer. Computer hardware consist of those component that can be physically handled, the functions of these component is typically divided into three main category; input, output and storage.
SOFTWARE: this is a set of instruction that course the hardware machines to do work, software as a whole can be divided into a number of categories, based on the types of work-done by the program the two primary software categories are; operating system (system software) and application software.
PROGRAM: this is a set of instructions that directs the computer to perform some processing function or combination of functions.
MENU: in relation to computers, it is a list of options from which a program user can select in order to perform a desired option, Such as; choosing a command or applying a particular format to part of a document.
COMPUTER GRAPHICS: This is an image created by using a computer, Computer graphics are used in variety of fields including; entertainment, science, education, medicine, business, and industries. This utilizes computer both to generate visual images synthetically and to generate and spatial information samples from the real world. This involves the use of pictures, diagrams, graphs, line drawing, animated cartoons.
PASSWORD: They are secret wordings known only to the user and to the professionals used for safeguarding the system. They are most commonly used in networks to keep anyone from accessing of the “secret” and access to the computer.
NURSERY SCHOOLS: This is a pre-kindergarten school to children between the age of three (3) to six (6) years staffed wholly by qualified teachers who encourage and supervise educational play rather than simply providing child care.
AUDIO: This is a physical phenomenon that stimulates the sense of hearing in humans learning takes place when ever vibration of frequency from about 154hertz to about 20,000hertz reaches the inner ear.
LEARNIING: This is acquiring of knowledge or developing the ability to perform new behavior. It is common to think of learning as something that takes place in school, but much of human learning occurs outside the classroom and people continue to learn throughout their lives time.
ACCESS CONTROL: This is a means of preventing authentic users from certain information that is not specifically meant for them. However, definitions of terms, is very important to explain terms and words, which might be very difficult to the understanding of this work.
