Computer as tutor,tutee,tool

The computer is a machine like any other machines, but we can make it tutor or tutee or tool.

To function as a tutor in some subject, the computer must be programmed by experts in programming. The student is then tutored by the computer executing the program. The computer presents some subject material, the student responds, the computer evaluates the response, from the results of the evaluation, determines what to present next.

I think that this mode requires a lot of money when we want to apply it in schools to buy these huge educational programs, and to purchase computers that will be used for this task. There is a group of teachers, especially computer teachers which they are excellent in programming, but the lack of encouragement and financial support from the Ministry of Education make them refuse to work in this area, especially the programming means time-consuming.

To function as a tool, the classroom computer need only have some useful capability programmed into it such as statistical analysis, super calculation, or word processing. Students can then use it to help them in a variety of subjects. For example, they might use it as a calculator in math and various science assignments, as a map-making tool in geography, or as a text editor and copyist in English.

In my opinion,To use the computer as tutor and tool can both improve and enrich classroom learning and neither requires student or teacher to learn much about computers.

To use the computer as tutee is to tutor the computer; for that, the student or teacher doing the tutoring must learn to program, to talk to the computer in a language it understands. The benefits are several. First, because you can't teach what you don't understand, the human tutor will learn what he or she is trying to teach the computer. Second, by trying to realize broad teaching goals through software constructed from the narrow capabilities of computer logic, the human tutor of the computer will learn something both about how computers work and how his or her own thinking works. Learners gain new insights into their own thinking through learning to program, and teachers have their understanding of education enriched and broadened as they see how their students can benefit from treating the computer as a tutee. As a result, extended use of the computer as tutee can shift the focus of education in the classroom from end product to process, from acquiring facts to manipulating and understanding them.