Search

In the past, computer programming was perceived as a task only carried out by computer scientists; in the 21st century, however, computer programming is viewed as a critical and necessary skill that everyone should learn. In order to improve teaching of problem-solving abilities in a computing environment, extensive research is being done on teaching-learning methods, types of teaching software, the educational environment, and related tools. This paper, based on diverse experimental results, proposes an environment where elementary students can easily learn and practice computer programming. The proposed robot game environment used a tangible programming tool with which students can easily create robot programs, without learning syntax, and then validate their programming results; it can also provide various game activities to incite students' interest. Observation of elementary school students placed in the robot game environment confirmed the tool's usability and entertainment aspects, and students' attitudes toward programming and their understanding of programming concepts improved.

Information and communication technology (ICT) literacy education has become an important issue, and the necessity of computational literacy (CL) has been increasing in our growing information society. CL is becoming an important element for future talents, and many countries, including the USA, are developing programs for CL education. Accordingly, Korea's Ministry of Education has modified the ICT education program created in 2000. The revised curriculum has emphasized computational thinking and informational ethics since 2007. However, in revising the ICT curriculum, we need to develop a new ICT test tool because the previous tool did not include CL. Thus, we developed a new ICT literacy test tool consisting of fundamental concepts, contemporary skills, and CL. We then carried out a test on 40,072 elementary students nationally. To determine the CL level of students, we used the standard level obtained from ten experts using the Angoff method (1971) and analyzed the difference between the standard level and students' level in the test. The results showed that students' CL scores were remarkably lower than their scores on fundamental concepts and contemporary skills. We consequently found that the revised ICT curriculum did not apply to the current ICT education domain, implying that we need to develop a strategy to expand CL to different educational fields, which would help researchers and administrators to measure CL in ICT education.

A spiking neural network (SNN) is a type of artificial neural network that operates based on discrete spikes to process timing information, similar to the manner in which the human brain processes real-world problems. In this paper, we propose a new spiking neural network (SNN) based on conventional, biologically plausible paradigms, such as the leaky integrate-and-fire model, spike timing-dependent plasticity, and the adaptive spiking threshold, by suggesting new biological models; that is, dynamic inhibition weight change, a synaptic wiring method, and Bayesian inference. The proposed network is designed for image recognition tasks, which are frequently used to evaluate the performance of conventional deep neural networks. To manifest the bio-realistic neural architecture, the learning is unsupervised, and the inhibition weight is dynamically changed; this, in turn, affects the synaptic wiring method based on Hebbian learning and the neuronal population. In the inference phase, Bayesian inference successfully classifies the input digits by counting the spikes from the responding neurons. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed biological model ensures a performance improvement compared with other biologically plausible SNN models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on ICT literacy competency that is an essential ability required for living in a modern information-based society. To analyze students' ICT literacy competency levels, the ICT literacy competency of 15,558 Korean middle school students was measured with results indicating that the percentages of excellent level, average level, basic level and below basic level based on the criteria set by experts were 6.3%, 31.4%, 57.7% and 4.5% respectively. In other words, the highest percentage consisted of the basic level. Second, as a result of producing a norm as a national standard for Korea and conducting analyses based on the norm, it was found that 3rd year students in "small & medium cities" showed the highest level of ICT literacy competency. In relation to ICT literacy competency measured in various countries, this study suggested grounds for measuring the levels against an absolute standard and utilization of criteria for measuring relative levels. That is, this paper suggests that the purpose of a test should be explained clearly when an ICT literacy competency test is conducted. (Contains 19 tables and 2 figures.)

Many nations are greatly affected by their education policies, and the educational level of different schools is relevant to a nation's ICT policy. In the area of ICT, Korea has achieved quite high levels of competency. This study analyzed the level of ICT competency of 4490 elementary and 2419 middle schools in Korea within the context of the Korean educational system and social circumstances. The findings are as follows: first, differences in ICT level were greater among elementary schools than among middle schools; and secondly, ICT usage had a great impact on the ICT composite index for both elementary and middle schools. For both elementary and middle schools, the indicators that were found to have the greatest impact on the ICT composite index were "effort to make use of computers and ICT resources" and "teaching of ICT-related subjects." Another variable that affected ICT competency was the level of ICT competency among the teachers and their willingness to use ICT in their lessons. This study found that merely the building of an ICT infrastructure is not enough to enhance the ICT level of schools. In addition to an ICT infrastructure the efforts of the teachers and administration were more important than any other factors. The findings of this study might provide useful suggestions to other nations that are endeavoring to enhance the ICT levels of their schools. (Contains 18 tables and 4 figures.)

Online learning is used for different purposes such as the actualization of equal opportunity in education or excellence in education. In Korea, nationwide online learning has been launched since 2005 to boost the self-directed learning capabilities and academic achievement of underprivileged students. The purpose of this study was to examine factors affecting the online learning satisfaction of underprivileged students. The subjects in this study were 1043 students and 915 underprivileged students. The underprivileged students were found to be more satisfied with online learning than the students, and the students who were under the guidance of their online homeroom teachers (hereinafter called the students of class type) expressed better satisfaction than the others who studied on their own (hereinafter called the students of self-study type). And the learning support function (F3) was identified as the variable that exerted the largest influence on the satisfaction level of the underprivileged students. This study was significant in that it attempted to suggest what kind of assistance should be provided to raise the online learning satisfaction of underprivileged students and to set up learning assistance models geared toward underprivileged students by covering diverse relevant elements without leaning toward any particular one. (Contains 2 figures and 13 tables.)

Korea is recognized as one of the most advanced countries in terms of informatization. The development of informatization has impacted education, and education informatization has contributed to the improvement of teaching in the classroom. Accordingly, education informatiozation is one of the paramount pedagogical issues in South Korea. This study evaluated the effect of Korea's education informatization policy qualitatively. The access to education information, competency, utilization and the satisfaction levels of students, teachers and parents, who are the groups most directly affected by education policies, were analyzed. In addition, the level of education informatization, the growth of which had been expected by experts, was measured. The rate of achievement as compared to the level expected by experts was analyzed. According to the results of the analysis, the rate of achievement of all three groups was low, and the education informatization level of parents was the lowest. On the basis of the results of this study, we have suggestions about the kind of effort that is needed to raise the level of education informatization. (Contains 4 tables and 3 figures.)