NEWSLETTER

ABSTRACT

The tremendous impact of electronic technology (like computer and computer embedded devices, computer networking, artificial intelligence, multimedia among others) on the human psychological capabilities productivity, intellectuality and other human related activities are very obvious. The quest and virtual implementation of computer in all the fields of human endeavor increases the ease and speed at which tasks are carried out. These ease and speed at which task are done are on its increase due to the need for high quality and timely response. Therefore, this project titled, “Design and implementation of an electronic tutor for nursery school children”, is aimed at exploring and incorporating some of these sophisticated technologies for the development of electronic tutorial materials. This work examines and explains the step-by-step procedure for accomplishing the development of the proposed software products, the attainment of the goals and necessary requirement for their implementation. It considers and discusses the impact of the proposed products on the targeted end-users. This project is implemented using visual basic 6.0 programming language. This language was chose because of its easy syntax and structure for developing windows based graphic user interface applications.

CHAPTER ONE

1.0            INTRODUCTION

The Electronic Kindergarten is a computer based tutor for pre-school children between the ages of 2 to 7 years. It mimics or initiates the kindergarten teachers in that it performs some of the tasks which the teacher does. Some of these tasks are:

a.                  It teaches the children how to recognize and pronounce the alphabets.

b.                 It teaches them how to recognize and spell the names of objects

The Electronic Kindergarten provides a stimulated environment to learn because of the colours, graphics and sound involved in the learning process. Since learning process involves language and this computer-based tutor helps in vocabulary knowledge and academic achievement in the sense that vocabulary and reading are closely related.

1.1            BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Web definitions of kindergarten on the web. A group or class that is part of a public school program, and is taught during the year preceding first grade (ec.ric.dc.gov/ea/cwp/view.asp.o) Kindergarten (German for garden for children) is a name used in many part of the world for the first stages of a child’s classroom education. In some parts kindergarten is part of the formal school system in others it may refer to pre-school or daycare. It is an institution for pre-school children that serve as an orientation for school. It is also a school for children too young to be beginning formal education. In this institution, children from ages 2 to 7 are taught the basic education tools, which are language, basic arithmetic operations, writing etc. in preparation for formal education.

Language learning is a major course of study in this institution and it involves the accumulation of basic common vocabularies and subsequent combination of the words to make meaningful statements. The kindergarten provides first hand experience for the child. This is because it provides avenue for the child to have a good deal of experience in looking, touching, hearing, smelling, and tasting so that they begin to build images of experience to furnish their thinking and this will enable them master basic reading skills as quickly as possible. It also helps in providing an attractive and stimulating learning environment for the children.

1.2            STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

1.                 Learning especially the vocabularies involve the constant repetition of words. This is a problem because the teachers find it difficult to keep repeating the words as long as a necessary for the kids.

2.                 The absence of equipment or games, which will, improved the problem solving and skill mastering abilities of a child. This makes the child get less practice in using reason and less chance to improve his skill.

3.                 The curriculum in kindergarten schools in unattractive and dull. This makes the child’s interest to wane easily.

4.                 Most parents have very busy schedules and so do not have the time to monitor the child’s program and correct his mistakes. This makes the child deficient in the area of parent tutelage.

1.3            OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The major objective of this study is the institution of the computer in child vocabulary learning.

The following benefits should come from the resulting system:

1.                 The computer becomes an aid to the kindergarten teachers in that it helps to meet the demands of the growing population of kindergarten schools and reduces the workload of the teacher.

2.                 The child is introduced to a wide variety of words that are dearly and attractively illustrated.

3.                 Little external help is needed to make the system favours busy parents whose work allows little time for home reasons with the children.

4.                 It provides private tutorship and individual attention for children as long as in desired.

5.                 The system is not only a formal tutorial but also serves as an entertainment tool.

6.                 It also makes learning faster and easier because of the attractive learning environment.

1.4            SCOPE OF STUDY

          At this present stage of development the system concentrates solely on the teaching of vocabulary with set of alphabets. Other like basic simple arithmetic operations, writing etc are not yet part of the system.

1.5            LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

Some pictures appear to be distorted due to some factors like non-availability of very high screen resolutions.

1.6            SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This system will go a long way to increase the learning ability of the pre-school child in that:

1.                 It provides an attractive and better-learning environment.

2.                 It provides private tutorship and serves the busy parents the stress of home reasons.

Most important of all in that this system will not get tired of teaching or repeating any particular word. All these make it better than the human kindergarten teacher.

1.7            DEFINITION OF TERMS

Definitions of some of the basic terms and concepts as used in this work are given for charity and quick understanding of the entire work.

Nevertheless, this is not exhaustive; hence, some other technical terms would be defined in the text as we continue.

Database:

A collection of different files in a specialized way for easy retrieval and update.

Computer:

An electronic device capable of performing computations and making logical decisions as speeds of times faster than human beings can.

Hardware:

These are the physical components of the computer.

Software:

It used to describe all programs that are written in a particularly computer installation and their associated documents.

Program:

It is a set of instructions, which enables particular processes to be performed by a computer.

Menu:

This provides the user with a number of options and a simple means of selecting between them.

Computer Graphics:

This is a field of usual computing, where one utilizes computers both to generate visual images synthetically and to integrate or alter visual and spatial information samples from the real world. This involves the use of pictures, diagrams, graph, line drawing, animated cottons etc.

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