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Computer Aided Instruction

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COMPUTER-AIDED INSTRUCTION
Douglas N. Arnold
I. Introduction
Computer-Aided Instruction (CAI), diverse and rapidly expanding spectrum of computer technologies that assist the teaching and learning process. CAI is also known as computer-assisted instruction. Examples of CAI applications include guided drill and practice exercises, computer visualization of complex objects, and computer-facilitated communication between students and teachers. The number of computers in
American schools has risen from one for every 125 students in 1981 to one for every nine students in 1996. While the United States leads the world in the number of computers per school student, Western European and Japanese schools are also highly computerized. …show more content…

Student training in the computer technology may be required as well, and this process can distract from the core educational process. Although much effort has been directed at developing CAI systems that are easy to use and incorporate expert knowledge of teaching and learning, such systems are still far from achieving their full potential.

IV. History
In the mid-1950s and early 1960s a collaboration between educators at
Stanford University in California and International Business Machines
Corporation (IBM) introduced CAI into select elementary schools.
Initially, CAI programs were a linear presentation of information with drill and practice sessions. These early CAI systems were limited by the expense and the difficulty of obtaining, maintaining, and using the computers that were available at that time.
Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations (PLATO) system, another early CAI system initiated at the University of Illinois in the early 1960s and developed by Control Data Corporation, was used for higher learning. It consisted of a mainframe computer that supported up to 1000 terminals for use by individual students. By 1985 over 100
PLATO systems were operating in the United States. From 1978 to 1985 users logged 40 million hours on PLATO systems. PLATO also introduced a communication system between students that was a forerunner of modern electronic mail (messages electronically passed from computer to computer). The

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