INTERACTIVE CAI FOR BIOLOGY [FORTFOLIO]

CREDITS TO : 

          HTTP://WWW.GOOGLE.COM where in me and my system groups made this project entitled "Interactive Computer Aided Instructions for Biology in Francisco Adlaon Learning Institute Subject for Second Year Level" This project is for the fulfillment on our school Davao del Norte State College (DNSC).

All the interactive game's that we attach in this system came from www.google.com search engine, lots of website is visit to come up with this project.

Here is our Documentation:

                                                                     Chapter 1

                                                              INTRODUCTION

Background of the project

           Technology in the information revolution has provided many unique benefits to Instructional programs. It also creates an educational learning strategy that is used by the students to enhance, improve and evaluate their capabilities. Today, a wide variety of Computer-Aided Instruction (CAI) software is available in different subject matters from pre-school to adult learning.

            Although the use of computers is not new, CAI is still a popular and common terminology in today’s educational institutions and schooling process. CAI provides an instructional interaction between the learner and the computer in a variety of contents with or without the assistance of a teacher.

            Some of U.S studies have shown that the usage of CAI in teaching and learning improves the performance of the students that serves as their respondents. In the Philippines, computer literacy is being implemented to public and private schools through the administration of the Department of Education and some other private sectors. At present, most schools in the country have been using computers on their classes. Educational institution also uses CAI in the delivery of lessons including high schools and colleges.

Francisco Adlaon Learning Institute is a non-sectarian and private educational institution with permit to operate for pre-school, elementary and secondary programs respectively. Discussing of lessons, giving some assignments, quizzes, activities and some project to be passed on the scheduled date and distributing some topics to be reported in the next day are usual activities that the teacher performed inside the class. Teachers also find difficulties in

getting student’s attention. Below are the following problems encountered by the teachers during their classes:

1. Some students are not interested on the subject because of common methodology used by some subject teachers like doing seatwork, lectures, and other activities performed in a class.

2. Actual illustrations can be difficult to obtain in the subject biology.

3. Some materials that will be use during laboratory time are much expensive like skeleton system and other artificial representation that is involved in the subject.

The project is to develop an interactive computer-aided instructional for Biology subject in Francisco Adlaon Learning Institute for the second year level.

Objectives of the project

General objective:

            The project aims to develop an interactive CAI for Biology subject of Francisco Adlaon Learning Institute for second year level.

Specific objectives:

1.    Integrate graphics, animation, images and video clips that allow students to learn the basic concepts in Biology.

2.    Randomized chapter quizzes that are related to the subject such as; multiple choice, true/false, identification.

3.    Provide teacher’s and student’s account.

4.    View student’s scores/result in quiz.

5.    Provide instructional games related to the subject to be performed by the student.

6.    Generate quiz results.

Significance of the project

          This project would be significant to the following:

Students. Students will be able to have more interest on the subject matter because of interactive media. Hence, improve student learning.

Teachers. They can teach more clearly to the students because of the actual illustrations.

Researchers. One of their requirements to get the degree, must passed the requirement which is a system project to be implemented in their chosen agency. They will improve their skills on programming as well as analyzing systems. Also, it can help other researchers to get some idea in this project.

Scope and Limitations

The project is to develop an interactive computer-aided instructional material for Biology subject. It will be implemented in all second year level of Francisco Adlaon Learning Institute. This project also integrates graphics, animation, video images and video clips into multimedia packages that allow students to learn the basic concepts in Biology subject through illustrations. There will be chapter quizzes that are related to the subject such as; multiple choice, true/false, fill in the blanks, identification.  The students can go back to the previous questions and change their answers. They can view the results of their quiz after they completely answer the question. It is also a network-based system. It provides games for the student.

A chapter randomized quizzes is still provided to allow the students to take self exercises. However, it does not include examination test every grading exam.

Students are not allowed to add and delete questions and other activities that are posted in the project.

The proposed project will not include the general average of the student to compute their grades in the subject. It should only generate the scores they get from the quizzes.

Operational terms

Biology. It is a scientific study of life and of living organisms. Botany, zoology, and ecology are all branches of biology. It is also the science subject for all second year student of Francisco Adlaon Learning Institute.

 Computer-Aided Instruction. A kind of tutorial implication in which a

Computer helps the learner(s) to present material and acts as a tutor. Using a branching model of lessons in this process, the computer presents information, asks questions, and gives feedback.

Interactive. Is a computer science of or relating to a program that responds to user activity.

Students. These are the second year student of Francisco Adlaon Learning Institute taking up Biology subject.

Teachers. One who explain and discusses about the subject matter to the students.

Multimedia. These are media and content that use a combination of different forms such as: graphics, animation, video images and video clips.

Instructional games .Provide content in a game environment. The main purpose of the

game is to teach and reinforce the content. This process is determined by a set of rules and the learner must be very competitive to reach target outcomes.

 

Chapter 2

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND WORKS

This chapter contains the review of related literature, studies and works that aims to support the current study of the developers’ additional awareness, information and understanding of the Computer-Aided-Instructional system with educational gaming exercises and activities.

Related Literature

            Computer Aided Instruction is an instruction material presented by a computer. Computer Aided Instructions either present information or fill a tutorial role and testing the student for comprehension. By providing one-on-one interaction and producing immediate response to input answers. Computer Aided Instruction allows users to demonstrate mastery and learn new material at their own pace. 

            Computer-Aided-Instruction based tools and applications are used to assist the teacher, students or school administrator in the management of the learner and instructional process. Although computer-assisted teaching can offer students who have limited computer skills an opportunity to increase their comfort level with computers, teachers ought to be prepared for a steep classroom learning curve if their students are not adept at using the equipment and navigating online (http://wiseGeek.com) (Retrieved: January 27, 2013)

In national aspect, the Computer-Aided Instruction (CAI) as a new face in teaching does not phase out pure lectures, but it welcomes opportunities to academic augmentation. It offers various entries of improvement – from lectures to visually supported teaching instructions. Moreover, whatever changes come half the way in the Philippine educational system, the answer is not to ignore these changes, but rather to camouflage within them (http://WikiEducator.htm) (Retrieved: January 27, 2013).

Since CAI is the first step, the second step towards enhancement in learning process is the application of interactive games and relating it to education. Thus these come up with the term of educational game. Those are games that are designed to teach people about certain subjects, expand concepts, reinforce development, understand an historical event or culture, or assist them in learning a skill as they play. Game types include board, card, and video games. Educational games are defined as Individual or group games that have cognitive, social, behavioral, and/or emotional, etc., dimensions which are related to educational objectives (http://Wikipedia.com) (Retrieved: January 27, 2013).

            The research study conducted in 2009 shows that the children who spent more time playing interactive games were more competent to object controlled skills (i.e. kicking, catching, rolling and bouncing a ball).Thus the results shows that object controlled motor skills were better in the children who played interactive games (Psychology& Psychiatry) (Retrieved: January 27, 2013).

            Hence it shows that Computer-Aided-Instruction and interactive game aims to achieve the end product of educational innovation which is to impart not just an ordinary knowledge and learning but rather the one that we can call “Quality Education”. In this part plays the role of the work and studies that the current researchers are conducting and that is to produce a Computer-Aided-Instruction with the touch of educational game to impart knowledge while developing not only the learning process of the students but also their skills like the above mentioned motor skill.

Related Works

Quiz Software

Question Writer supports multiple choice, multiple responses, true/false, fill in the blank, matching, sequencing, and essay questions. You can provide explanations for correct and incorrect answers, and give partial credit to answers. For each question, you can display a title, the number of points, an image, audio, video and Flash content. Use random question selection and ordering to make the quiz different each time. Add questions to different groups to balance the quiz with a set number asked from each group. Provide question-level, answer-level, or quiz-level feedback, and deliver the feedback at question time, answer time, or at the end of the quiz. Test results can be viewed online, or emailed to instructors. ( http://www.questionwriter.com/quiz-software.html)

           

                                                            Figure 1: Interface

           

Edmodo

            Edmodo is a social learning platform for teachers, students, and parents.

Design

Edmodo utilizes a design similar to Facebook, and provides teachers and students a secure place to connect, collaborate and share content. Teachers are also able to post grades, assignments and quizzes to students. Students can submit homework and view their grades and any comments the teacher may have posted about their assignment. Teachers can also create polls and post topics for discussion among the students. Teachers can differentiate and individualize learning through the creation of sub-groups within a course.

Other Features

Groups are private sections in Edmodo created by the teacher to be able to communicate with just that class and parents. Students have to have a code to join the group. Security, in an attempt to prevent outsiders from joining school networks, Edmodo provides special codes to schools and classes. These codes are given to students and are necessary to join groups. The company has recently enhanced the security of the Edmodo service by implementing SQL injection protection to prevent unauthorized access to the website's resources and database (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmodo) (Retrieve: January 30, 2013).

Figure 2: Login page

Figure 3: Home page of Teacher’s account

EDIBON (Technical Teaching Equipment)       

The Computer Aided Instruction Software System is a complete package that explains how to do a proper use of EDIBON’s unit.

Features

In Classroom Management Software (Instructor Software) the Teacher has a whole range of options, among them: Organize Students by Classes and Groups, create easily new entries or delete them, create data bases with student information, analyze results and make statistical comparisons, generate and Print reports, develop own examinations, detect student’s progress and difficulties, and many other facilities, the Instructor Software working in network configuration allows controlling all the students in the classroom. Computer Aided Instruction Software (Student Software), it explains how to use the unit, run the experiments and what to do at any moment, the options are presented by pull-down menus and pop-up windows, and the Software Package contains: theory and lessons, exercises, and guided practices exams.

Figure 4: Menu in student’s module

Figure 5: Student’s module Lesson and Theory

Encarta

            Microsoft Encarta was a digital multimedia encyclopedia published by Microsoft Corporation from 1993 to 2009. As of 2008, the complete English version, Encarta Premium, consisted of more than 62,000 articles, numerous photos and illustrations, music clips, videos, interactive contents, timelines, maps & atlas and homework tools. It was available on the World Wide Web by yearly subscription or by purchase on DVD or multiple CDs.

Features

Encarta includes a trivia game called "MindMaze" (accessible through Ctrl+Z) in which the player explores a castle by answering questions whose answers can be found in the encyclopedia's articles. There is also a Geography Quiz and several other games and quizzes, some quizzes also in Encarta Kids.

 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encarta) (Retrieved: January 30, 2013).

Figure 6: Home menu of Encarta

Synthesis

 Computer-based educational materials that take full advantage of multimedia are starting to emerge. Multimedia presentations allow students to interact with information in a variety of ways. These computer-based instructional materials integrate graphics, animation, video images and video clips into multimedia packages that allow students to learn the basic concepts in biology through exploration of actual illustrations. Visualization of the objects will greatly enhance the student’s understanding and appreciation of the activities that will be provided, includes animations, interactive activities, and cartoons designed to make learning biology a richer, more engaging experience. Like for example, a virtual tour of the human body. Detailed descriptions, animations, images, and narrated tours present the brain, skeleton, heart, and digestive tract in an informative way.

Some features of the said related works can help to produce the project system. One of the features in Quiz software that will be about to produce in the project have a multiple choice, true/false, fill in the blank. For each question, you can display the number of points, an image, video and flash content. In the Edmodo, teachers are able to post grades and quizzes to students. Students can view their grades and they can also view the embedded video clips. We are also planning to have module for the player or user that contains:  lessons, exercises that can be found in Edibon software.  And lastly, we include games and quizzes by levels like in Encarta.

Chapter 3

  METHODOLOGY

This chapter discussed all the methods and processes that will be used for the improvement of the study into valuable information. It showed the whole representation conducted in order to reach the objectives of the project.

A.   Systems Planning and Selection

The researchers conducted an interview with Mr. Reggy Paring, a biology teacher in Francisco Adlaon Learning Institute on December 05, 2012 with the school principal and at the same time the owner of the institution who is Engr. Rudy G. Adlaon and collected some important information of the processes with their daily activities. During the interview the researchers observed that some students are not interested on the subject because of common methodology used by some subject teachers like doing seatwork, lectures, and other activities performed in a class. Actual illustrations in the subject biology can be difficult to obtain. And some materials that will be use during laboratory time are much expensive like skeleton system and other artificial representation that is involved in the subject. In this case, the researchers suggested to produce a computer aided instruction to help enhance the learning and teaching procedure of the institution. The researchers suggested the development of an interactive or integrated computer aided instruction specifically for the Biology subject.

B.   Systems Analysis

The researchers gathered information about the subject matter on January 23, 2012 so that the researchers will have references for the project after they have conduct interview from a subject teacher. The developers gathered to discuss, analyze and solve the problems and requirements of the said system. This will guide the developers to know the necessities in doing the software which will provide quizzes for the student’s activities. It also contains videos, images and lessons for the chapter topics they have to learn from the subject. And lastly, it provides games so that students will not getting bored inside the class. This will help the students to give some interest in the subject.

Requirement specifications include documentation such as background of the project, the objectives, significance of the project and scope and limitation, and also, the letter for interview, environmental scanning, appreciation letter and all the requirements specifications that serve as a strong basis for the employment of the project will supply its  discrepancy in the success of the project.

C.   System Design

In this part, the developers make forms to be used for the system and the features as well as the processes. They created a Context Flow Diagram (CFD) to organize the scope and limitation to be considered in making the system; they also formulated and designed a Data Flow Diagram (DFD) to illustrate the systems’ main processes; and finally they come up with an Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) that contains tables, relationships and keys that they will be using for the system production.

The developers are coding the design, features, and process of the system with the help of the software they used XAMPP and MySQL for the designing the database for the said system, HTML5 Adobe Flash and Adobe Photoshop CS5 for the logos, background pictures, animations and other graphics involved in the project in terms of the physical design in the system will be partly handled by the software, and lastly the Sublime, Php and Wysiwyg for coding the web part of the system.

D.   System Implementation and Operation

The developers will be implementing a system project at Francisco Adlaon Learning Institute’s computer laboratory that is consisting of almost thirty numbers of computer units. The laboratory is well equipped to support the needs of the system that is currently on its developing process. And also, the developers present the output to the panels’ critics for suggestions, recommendations, and corrections for the improvement and development of the system. The researchers noted all suggestions and recommendations for the application accuracy of the system. Thus, the constructions of the system free from error and ready to be implemented in the cooperative.

Chapter 4

TECHNOLOGICAL BACKGROUND

            This chapter presents the technological background of the project which shows the features of the software that are being used in creating the system.

XAMPP      

Xampp is a free, cross-platform standalone server that is regularly updated to integrate the latest releases of Apache, MySQL, PHP and Perl. It also comes with a number of other modules including OpenSSL and phpMyAdmin. It only requires only one zip, tar or exe file to be downloaded and run, and little or no configuration of the various components that make up the web server is required.  And it can exist on a single computer, and can be copied from one computer to another.

.                                   Figure 1.  Xampp Control Panel Window

Its philosophy is to build an easy to install distribution for website designers and programmers to test their work on their own computers without any access to the internet. XAMPP is sometimes used to actually serve web pages on the World Wide Web. It is a compilation of a free software(comparable to linux contribution), its free of charge and free to copy under the license term of GNU General Public License.          MySQL

MySQL is an open source database that have been developed, distributed, and supported by Oracle Corporation. It provides server as a separate program to use in client/server networked environment.  It also provide a transactional storage engine that can provide automatic recovery of data and non-transactional storage engine for a less memory required perform updates. The MySQL database server has a capacity to handle deeply embedded applications in only 1MB to consecutively huge data warehouses holding terabytes of information.

Figure 2. MySQL query browser

It allows full customization for unique requirements. MySQL provides mechanisms for ensuring only authorized users have entry to the database server, with the ability to block users down to the client machine level being possible. A smooth structure and powerful data encryption and decryption functions ensure that sensitive data is protected from unauthorized viewing. MySQL also have a comprehensive support for every application development need that might help user in making a system, like plug-in libraries, stored procedures, triggers, functions and more. And it doesn’t matter what programming language the user might be using.      (http://www.mysql.com/why-mysql/topreasons.html)

SUBLIME

Sublime Text  is a cross-platform text and source code editor, with a Python API. Its functionality is also extendable with sublime-packages. Sublime Text is not an open source software or free software, but some of the extending packages have free-software licenses and are community-built and maintained.  Sublime Text has a number of features like column selection and multi-select editing, auto completion, in-editor code building, goto anything, snippets, auto save and etc.

Figure 3. Sublime text interface

Column selection and multi-select editing that allows users select entire columns at once or place more than one cursor in text, which allows for simultaneous editing. Auto completion is a common feature in Sublime Text that auto-completes variables created by the user. In-editor code building allows users to run code for definite languages which eliminates the need to switch out to the command line and back again. Goto anything is a navigation tool that allows users to move between files and also within them. Snippets allow users to save blocks that often used code and assign keywords to them. Auto save which prevents users from losing their work.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublime_Text)

Adobe Flash Professional 

Adobe Flash Professional is a multimedia authoring program used to create content for the Adobe Engagement Platform, such as web applications, games and movies, and content for mobile phones and other embedded devices. Flash CS3 is the first version of Flash released under the Adobe name. CS3 features full support for ActionScript 3.0, allows entire applications to be converted into ActionScript, adds better integration with other Adobe products such as Adobe Photoshop, and also provides better Vector drawing behavior, becoming more like Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Fireworks.

Figure 6. Adobe Flash Professional CS3

Adobe Flash CS3 Professional features powerful new functionality that makes it even more enjoyable to create truly engaging interactive content. Advanced design and animation tools provide greater flexibility to express your most creative ideas, new ActionScript programming features make for an even more productive development environment, and impressive integration with other Adobe design and development software improves productivity.

Adobe Photoshop CS5

Adobe Photoshop CS5   is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems. Adobe's 2003 "Creative Suite" rebranding led to Adobe Photoshop 8's renaming to Adobe Photoshop CS. With Adobe Photoshop CS5, the user can create an eye-catching image.

                                                Figure 4: Adobe Photoshop CS5

 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Adobe_Flash_CS5.png)

PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor)

PHP stands for Hypertext Preprocessor that is a widely-used, open source scripting language and PHP. It is free to use and download. PHP files can contain text, HTML, JavaScript code, and PHP code. PHP codes are executed on the server, and the result is returned to the browser as plain HTML. PHP files have a default file extension of ".php".

Figure 6. PHP in Sublime

PHP can generate dynamic page content, can create, open, read, write, and close files on the server, can send and receive cookies, can add, delete, modify data in database, and can restrict users to access some pages on website. With PHP you are not limited to output HTML. You can output images, PDF files, and even Flash movies. You can also output any text, such as XHTML and XML.PHP runs on different platforms (Windows, Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, etc.). PHP is compatible with almost all servers used today (Apache, IIS, etc.). PHP has support for a wide range of databases. (http://www.w3schools.com/php/default.asp)

HTML5

is a markup language used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web and a core technology of the Internet. It is the fifth revision of the HTML standard (created in 1990 and standardized as HTML 4 as of 1997)^] and, as of December 2012, is a candidate recommendationof the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Its core aims have been to improve the language with support for the latest multimedia while keeping it easily readable by humans and consistently understood by computers and devices

Some of the most interesting new features in HTML5:

• The <canvas> element for 2D drawing
• The <video> and <audio> elements for media playback
• Support for local storage
• New content-specific elements, like <article>, <footer>, <header>, <nav>, <section>

   (http://blog.analogmachine.org)

WYSIWYG

WYSIWYG pronounced as WIZ-zee-wig, short for what you see is what you get. It is an application that enables you to see on the display screen exactly what will appear when the document is printed. This differs, for example, from word processors that are incapable of displaying different fonts and graphics on the display screen even though the formatting codes have been inserted into the file. WYSIWYG applications are more WYSIWYG than others. For example, many desktop publishing systems print text using outline fonts (PostScript fonts, for example). Many of these systems, however, use corresponding bit-mapped fonts to display documents on a monitor. What you see on the display screen, therefore, is not exactly what you see when you print out the document. In addition, standard laser printers have a resolution of at least 300 dpi, whereas even the best graphics monitors have resolutions of only 100 dpi. Graphics and text, therefore, always look sharper when printed than they do on the display screen. And colors often appear differently on a monitor than they do when printed out.

s

(http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/W/WYSIWYG.html)