MES-102

Ans 1: There are many different types of visual aids. The following advice will help you make
the most of those most commonly used.

PowerPoint (or equivalent)

Microsoft PowerPoint is probably now the most commonly used form of visual aid. Used well, it
can really help you in your presentation; used badly, however, it can have the opposite effect.
The general principles are:

Do
use a big enough font (minimum 20pt)
keep the background simple
use animations when appropriate
make things visual
Don't
make it so small you can't read it
use a fussy background image
but don't over-do the animation - it gets
distracting
use endless slides of bulleted lists that all look
the same

White or black board

White or black boards can be very useful to help explain the sequence of ideas or routines,
particularly in the sciences. Use them to clarify your title or to record your key points as you
introduce your presentation (this will give you a fixed list to help you recap as you go along).
Rather than expecting the audience to follow your spoken description of an experiment or
process, write each stage on the board, including any complex terminology or precise references
to help your audience take accurate notes. However, once you have written something on the
board you will either have to leave it there or rub it off - both can be distracting to your audience.
Check to make sure your audience has taken down a reference before rubbing it off - there is
nothing more frustrating than not being given enough time! Avoid leaving out of date material
from an earlier point of your presentation on the board as this might confuse your audience. If
you do need to write 'live', check that your audience can read your writing.

Paper handouts

Handouts are incredibly useful. Use a handout if your information is too detailed to fit on a slide
or if you want your audience to have a full record of your findings. Consider the merits of
passing round your handouts at the beginning, middle and end of a presentation. Given too early
and they may prove a distraction. Given too late and your audience may have taken too many
unnecessary notes. Given out in the middle and your audience will inevitably read rather than
listen. One powerful way of avoiding these pitfalls is to give out incomplete handouts at key
stages during your presentation. You can then highlight the missing details vocally, encouraging
your audience to fill in the gaps.

Flip chart

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A flip chart is a large pad of paper on a stand. It is a very useful and flexible way of recording
information during your presentation - you can even use pre-prepared sheets for key points.
Record information as you go along, keeping one main idea to each sheet. Flip back through the
pad to help you recap your main points. Use the turning of a page to show progression from
point to point. Remember to make your writing clear and readable and your diagrams as simple
as possible.

Video (DVD or VHS)

Video gives you a chance to show stimulating visual information. Use video to bring movement,
pictures and sound into your presentation. Always make sure that the clip is directly relevant to
your content. Tell your audience what to look for. Avoid showing any more film than you need.

Overhead projector slides/transparencies

Overhead projector slides/transparencies are displayed on the overhead projector (OHP) - a very
useful tool found in most lecture and seminar rooms. The OHP projects and enlarges your slides
onto a screen or wall without requiring the lights to be dimmed. You can produce your slides in
three ways:

pre-prepared slides : these can be words or images either hand written/drawn or produced
on a computer;

spontaneously produced slides: these can be written as you speak to illustrate your points
or to record comments from the audience;

a mixture of each: try adding to pre-prepared slides when making your presentation to
show movement, highlight change or signal detailed interrelationships.

Make sure that the text on your slides is large enough to be read from the back of the room. A
useful rule of thumb is to use 18 point text if you are producing slides with text on a computer.
This should also help reduce the amount of information on each slide. Avoid giving your
audience too much text or overly complicated diagrams to read as this limits their ability to
listen. Try to avoid lists of abstract words as these can be misleading or uninformative.

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Ans 2: These two terms, reliability and validity, are often used interchangeably when they are
not related to statistics. When critical readers of statistics use these terms, however, they refer to
different properties of the statistical or experimental method.

Reliability is another term for consistency. If one person takes the same personality test several
times and always receives the same results, the test is reliable.

A test is valid if it measures what it is supposed to measure. If the results of the personality test
claimed that a very shy person was in fact outgoing, the test would be invalid.

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Reliability and validity are independent of each other. A measurement maybe valid but not
reliable, or reliable but not valid. Suppose your bathroom scale was reset to read 10 pound
lighter. The weight it reads will be reliable(the same every time you step on it) but will not be
valid, since it is not reading your actual weight.

Reliability is a measure of the consistency of a metric or a method.

Every metric or method we use, including things like methods for uncovering usability problems
in an interface and expert judgment, must be assessed for reliability.

In fact, before you can establish validity, you need to establish reliability.

Here are the four most common ways of measuring reliability for any empirical method or
metric:

inter-rater reliability

test-retest reliability

parallel forms reliability

internal consistency reliability

Inter-Rater Reliability

The extent to which raters or observers respond the same way to a given phenomenon is one
measure of reliability. Where theres judgment theres disagreement.

Even highly trained experts disagree among themselves when observing the same phenomenon.
Kappa and the correlation coefficient are two common measures of inter-rater reliability. Some
examples include:

Evaluators identifying interface problems

Experts rating the severity of a problem

For example, we found that the average inter-rater reliability[pdf] of usability experts rating the
severity of usability problems was r = .52. You can also measure intra-rater reliability, whereby
you correlate multiple scores from one observer. In that same study, we found that the average
intra-rater reliability when judging problem severity was r = .58 (which is generally low
reliability).

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Test-Retest Reliability

Do customers provide the same set of responses when nothing about their experience or their
attitudes has changed? You dont want your measurement system to fluctuate when all other
things are static.

Have a set of participants answer a set of questions (or perform a set of tasks). Later (by at least a
few days, typically), have them answer the same questions again. When you correlate the two
sets of measures, look for very high correlations (r > 0.7) to establish retest reliability.

As you can see, theres some effort and planning involved: you need for participants to agree to
answer the same questions twice. Few questionnaires measure test-retest reliability (mostly
because of the logistics), but with the proliferation of online research, we should encourage more
of this type of measure.

Parallel Forms Reliability

Getting the same or very similar results from slight variations on the question or evaluation
method also establishes reliability. One way to achieve this is to have, say, 20 items that measure
one construct (satisfaction, loyalty, usability) and to administer 10 of the items to one group and
the other 10 to another group, and then correlate the results. Youre looking for high correlations
and no systematic difference in scores between the groups.

Internal Consistency Reliability

This is by far the most commonly used measure of reliability in applied settings. Its popular
because its the easiest to compute using softwareit requires only one sample of data to
estimate the internal consistency reliability. This measure of reliability is described most often
using Cronbachs alpha (sometimes called coefficient alpha).

It measures how consistently participants respond to one set of items. You can think of it as a sort
of average of the correlations between items. Cronbachs alpha ranges from 0.0 to 1.0 (a negative
alpha means you probably need to reverse some items). Since the late 1960s, the minimally
acceptable measure of reliability has been 0.70; in practice, though, for high-stakes
questionnaires, aim for greater than 0.90. For example, the SUS has a Cronbachs alpha of 0.92.

The more items you have, the more internally reliable the instrument, so to increase internal
consistency reliability, you would add items to your questionnaire. Since theres often a strong
need to have few items, however, internal reliability usually suffers. When you have only a few
items, and therefore usually lower internal reliability, having a larger sample size helps offset the
loss in reliability.

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Ans 3 a): Advantages of Grading System

The New Scheme of Grading has been introduced with the aim that :

It will minimize misclassification of students on the basis of marks.

It will eliminate unhealthy competition among high achievers.

It will reduce societal pressure and will provide the learner with more flexibility.

It will lead to a focus on a better learning environment Operational

It will facilitate joyful and stress free learning.

Awarding of grades has number of advantages over awarding of numerical marks. It

considerably reduces inter and intra examiners variability in marking.

It also takes care of imperfection of tools used for assessment. Statistical research in assessment
techniques indicates that there is a possibility of variation of scores awarded to individuals to the
extent of to 15%.

Putting students of similar potential in same ability bands (grades) automatically takes care of all
these aberrations in assessment techniques.

Lastly, it will reduce undesired and unsound comparison of small difference of marks.

Ans 3b): The Merits and Demerits of Lecture Method of Teaching Science are as follows:

Merits of Lecture Method

This method offers certain merits or advantages, mention of some of which are as follows:

a. By making use of this method, teacher feels very secure and satisfied as he can follow it
without much botheration.

b. As in this method, no laboratory equipments and other materials are necessary; thus, it is
found to be very economical by some experts and is suitable for the schools of our nation, where
problem of shortage of resources is generally faced.

c. By this method, teacher can cover lengthy syllabi within short period of time.

d. By making use of this method, teacher can keep a logical sequence of subject properly. Lesson
develops continuously as teacher plans the lectures in advance, which prove to be an important
fact that less time is required to arrange such lectures.

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e. This method does not lead to wastage of time and money in any form as there is no student
participation in the teaching process.

f. Lectures delivered by highly qualified and able teachers have high inspirational value. As a
result of information provided through the lectures, usually it is found that in students level of
motivation and confidence get boost up to considerable extent.

Demerits of Lecture Method

This method has certain limitations, mention of which are as follows:

a. In this method, no place is provided to experimental work as a result of which power of

observation found in the students get stagnate.

b. As through this method, students get ready made information from the teacher, thus they are
not inspired to indulge themselves in independent thinking and self- exploration processes. Thus,
with this method, objective of getting the all round development of the students cannot be
achieved in any way.

c. Generally it is seen that half of the students present in the classroom do not pay any kind of
attention on the information provided by the teacher. Thus, lecture delivered by the teacher prove
to be mere wastage of time and energy and no benefits get accrue to students through this
method.

d. Sometimes students understand the information imparted by teacher for a short period of time,
but as it is provided orally, then forget it after some period of time. Thus, it can be said that
information obtained through such method does not take the permanent position and possibilities
of students forgetting it are more.

e. This method does not help in any way to inculcate scientific attitudes and training in scientific
method among the students, as a result of which, an important objective of science teaching
cannot be fulfilled successfully and all the efforts of teacher will prove to be wastage of time.

Ans 3 c): Advantages of the CAL are given below:

1. CAL is individualized, that is each student is free to work at his own place, totally unaffected
by the performance of any other students.

2. Information is presented in a structured form. It proves useful in the study of a subject where
there is hierarchy of facts and rules.

3. CAL forces active participation on the part of the student, which contrasts with the more
passive role in reading a book or attending a lecture.

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4. CAL utilizes a reporting system that provides the student with a clear picture of his progress.
Thus students can identify the subject areas in which they have improved and in which they need
improvement.

5. By enabling students to manipulate concepts directly and explore the results of such
manipulation, it reduces the time taken to comprehend difficult concepts.

6. CAL offers a wide range of experiences that are otherwise not available to the student. It
works as multimedia providing audio as well as visual inputs. It enables the student to
understand concepts clearly with the use of stimulating techniques such as animation, blinking,
graphical displays etc.

7. CAL provides a lot of drilling which can prove useful for low aptitude students and through
which high-aptitude students can be escaped.

8. CAL can enhance reasoning and decision-making abilities.

Ans 3 d): Theres one major distinction between an intranet and the Internet: The Internet is an
open, public space, while an intranet is designed to be a private space. An intranet may be
accessible from the Internet, but as a rule its protected by a password and accessible only to
employees or other authorized users.

From within a company, an intranet server may respond much more quickly than a typical Web
site. This is because the public Internet is at the mercy of traffic spikes, server breakdowns and
other problems that may slow the network. Within a company, however, users have much more
bandwidth and network hardware may be more reliable. This makes it easier to serve high-
bandwidth content, such as audio and video, over an intranet.

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Ans 4: Educational Technology as a systems approach: All attempts made to define the
concept of educational technology as an area of study involving the application of technologies
emerged from the application of theories of learning and development as well as information and
communication technologies have not been comprehensive enough without a theoretical
grounding in the social context. The use of these technologies has to be grounded in a theoretical
foundation provided by a systems perspective. The field of educational technology shares the
same difficulties and struggles involved in defining itself as one comes across while defining
other social sciences and applied social sciences. This section attempts to provide you with
adequate theoretical understanding about systems theory in order to have a more comprehensive
view of the field of educational technology.

You would have read through the two sections indicated in the article by Luppicini (2005). You
would have understood that a comprehensive definition of educational technology goes beyond
uses of technology including techniques, theories, and methods from multiple knowledge
domains which are standardised and reproducible such as computer science, psychology and

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communications. The definition would also include the governing principles of systems
approach.

The systems approach to educational technology The systems approach to the design and
analysis of teaching/learning situations is the basis of the great majority of modern educational
technology-related developments. However, the terms system and systems approach are
themselves jargon terms that can have a variety of interpretations. Let us therefore take a look at
these terms in order to define the way in which we are to use them.

In general systems theory, a system is any collection of interrelated parts that together constitute
a larger whole. These component parts, or elements of the system are intimately linked with one
another, either directly or indirectly, and any change in one or more elements may affect the
overall performance of the system, either beneficially or adversely. A simple system is illustrated
schematically in Figure 2:

the system consists of four distinct elements A, B, C, D, which are related to or dependent upon
each other as indicated. Note that some interrelationships may be two-way, while others may be
one-way only. These elements may themselves be capable of further breakdown into other
smaller components, and may thus be regarded as sub-systems of the overall system.

The processes of teaching and learning can be considered to be very complex systems indeed.
The input to a given teaching/learning system consists of people, resources and information, and
the output consists of people whose performance or ideas have (it is to be hoped) improved in
some desired way. A schematic representation of systems of this type is shown in Figure 3:

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Figure 3. The 'systems' model of the educational process

In such a system, the teaching/learning process may be so complex that it can only be considered
as a 'black box' whose mechanisms are not fully understood. However, research into the nature of
the learning process has thrown some light on what happens inside the 'black box'. This has
enabled educational technologists to structure the input to systems of this type in such a way as
to try to improve the output through increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of the learning
process, thus leading to a systems approach to course and curriculum design based on current
knowledge of how people learn. Such a systems approach attempts to mould the input to a course
in such a way as to enable the optimal assimilation of knowledge and skills to take place during
the learning process, and hence maximize the quality of the output.

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