educational software baby computer redirects here for the worlds first electronic storedprogram computer see manchester baby see also list of educational software educational software is the term used for any computer software in which is made for any educational purpose it encompasses different ranges from language learning software to classroom management software to reference software etc the purpose of all this software is to make some part of education more effective and efficient history 1946s1970s the use of computer hardware and software in education and training dates to the early 1940s when american researchers developed flight simulators which used analog computers to generate simulated onboard instrument data one such system was the type19 synthetic radar trainer built in 1943 from these early attempts in the wwii era through the mid1970s educational software was directly tied to the hardware on which it ran pioneering educational computer systems in this era included the plato system 1960 developed at the university of illinois and ticcit 1969 in 1963 ibm had established a partnership with stanford universitys institute for mathematical studies in the social sciences imsss directed by patrick suppes to develop the first comprehensive cai elementary school curriculum which was implemented on a large scale in schools in both california and mississippi was formed to market to schools the materials developed through the ibm partnership early terminals that ran educational systems cost over 10000 putting them out of reach of most institutions some programming languages from this period p3 and logo 1967 can also be considered educational as they were specifically targeted to students and novice computer users the plato iv system released in 1972 supported many features which later became standard in educational software running on home computers its features included bitmap graphics primitive sound generation and support for nonkeyboard input devices including the touchscreen 1970s1980s the arrival of the personal computer with the altair 8800 in 1975 changed the field of software in general with specific implications for educational software whereas users prior to 1975 were dependent upon university or government owned mainframe computers with timesharing users after this shift could create and use software for computers in homes and schools computers available for less than 2000 by the early 1980s the availability of personal computers including the apple ii 1977 commodore pet 1977 commodore vic20 1980 and commodore 64 1982 allowed for the creation of companies and nonprofits which specialized in educational software brderbund and the learning company are key companies from this period and mecc the minnesota educational computing consortium a key nonprofit software developer these and other companies designed a range of titles for personal computers with the bulk of the software initially developed for the apple ii categories of educational software courseware courseware is a term that combines the words course with software it was originally used to describe additional educational material intended as kits for teachers or trainers or as tutorials for students usually packaged for use with a computer the terms meaning and usage has expanded and can refer to the entire course and any additional material when used in reference an online or computer formatted classroom many companies are using the term to describe the entire package consisting of one class or course bundled together with the various lessons tests and other material needed the courseware itself can be in different formats some are only available online such as web pages while others can be downloaded as pdf files or other types of document many forms of educational technology are now covered by the term courseware most leading educational companies solicit or include courseware with their training packages classroom aids see also interactive whiteboard some educational software is designed for use in school classrooms typically such software may be projected onto a large whiteboard at the front of the class andor run simultaneously on a network of desktop computers in a classroom the most notable are smart boards that use smart notebook to interact with the board which allows the use of pens to digitally draw on the board this type of software is often called classroom management software while teachers often choose to use educational software from other categories in their it suites eg reference works childrens software a whole category of educational software has grown up specifically intended to assist classroom teaching branding has been less strong in this category than in those oriented towards home users software titles are often very specialized and produced by various manufacturers including many established educational book publishers assessment software moodle is a very popular assessment websites used by teachers to send assignments and grade students works with the impact of environmental damage and the need for institutions to become paperless more educational institutions are seeking alternative ways of assessment and testing which has always traditionally been known to use up vasts amount of paper assessment software refers to software with a primary purpose of assessing and testing students in a virtual environment assessment software allows students to complete tests and examinations using a computer usually networked the software then scores each test transcript and outputs results for each student assessment software is available in various delivery methods the most popular being selfhosted software online software and handheld voting systems proprietary software and opensource software systems are available while technically falling into the courseware category see above skill evaluation lab is an example for computerbased assessment software with ppa2 plan prove assess methodology to create and conduct computer based online examination moodle is an example of opensource software with an assessment component that is gaining popularity other popular international assessment systems include assessment master google classroom blackboard learn evalunet xt and questbase reference software reference software many publishers of print dictionaries and encyclopedias have been involved in the production of educational reference software since the mid1990s they were joined in the reference software market by both startup companies and established software publishers most notably microsoft the first commercial reference software products were reformulations of existing content into cdrom editions often supplemented with new multimedia content including compressed video and sound more recent products made use of internet technologies to supplement cdrom products then more recently to replace them entirely wikipedia and its offspins such as wiktionary marked a new departure in educational reference software previously encyclopedias and dictionaries had compiled their contents on the basis of invited and closed teams of specialists the wiki concept has allowed for the development of collaborative reference works through open cooperation incorporating experts and nonexperts custom platforms some manufacturers regarded normal personal computers as an inappropriate platform for learning software for younger children and produced custom childfriendly pieces of hardware instead the hardware and software is generally combined into a single product such as a child laptoplookalike the laptop keyboard for younger children follows an alphabetic order and the qwerty order for the older ones the most wellknown example are leapfrog products these include imaginatively designed handheld consoles with a variety of pluggable educational game cartridges and booklike electronic devices into which a variety of electronic books can be loaded these products are more portable than laptop computers but have a much more limited range of purposes concentrating on literacy while mainstream operating systems are designed for general usages and are more or less customized for education only by the application sets added to them a variety of software manufacturers especially linux distributions have sought to provide integrated platforms for specifically education corporate training and tertiary education earlier educational software for the important corporate and tertiary education markets was designed to run on a single desktop computer or an equivalent user device in the years immediately following 2000 planners decided to switch to serverbased applications with a high degree of standardization this means that educational software runs primarily on servers which may be hundreds or thousands of miles from the actual user the user only receives tiny pieces of a learning module or test fed over the internet one by one the server software decides on what learning material to distribute collects results and displays progress to teaching staff another way of expressing this change is to say that educational software morphed into an online educational service us governmental endorsements and approval systems ensured the rapid switch to the new way of managing and distributing learning material see also educational technology scorm virtual learning environment lms learning management system training management system webbased training specific educational purposes educational software for learning standard chinese using pinyin there are highly specific niche markets for educational software including teacher tools and classroom management software remote control and monitoring software filetransfer software document camera and presenter free tools driving test software interactive geometry software language learning software mind mapping software which provides a focal point for discussion helps make classes more interactive and assists students with studying essays and projects notetaking comparison of notetaking software software for enabling simulated dissection of human and animal bodies used in medical and veterinary college courses spelling tutor software typing tutors reading instruction medical and healthcare educational software video game and gamification video games can be used to teach a user technology literacy or more about a subject some operating systems and mobile phones have these features a notable example is microsoft solitaire which was developed to familiarize users with the use of graphical user interfaces especially the mouse and the draganddrop technique mavis beacon teaches typing is a largely know program with built in minigames to keep the user entertained while improving their typing skills gamification is the use of game design elements in nongame contexts and has been shown to be effective in motivating behavior change by seeing game elements as motivational affordances and formalizing the relationship between these elements and motivational affordances classcraft is a software tool used by teachers that has games elements alongside an educational goal effects and use of educational software tutor based software tutor based education software is defined as software that mimics the teacher student one on one dynamic of tutoring with software in place of a teacher research was conducted to see if this type of software would be effective in improving students understanding of material it concluded that there was a positive impact which decreased the amount of time students need to study for and relative gain of understanding helping those with disabilities a study was conducted to see the effects of education software on children with mild disabilities the results were that the software was a positive impact assisting teaching these children social skills though team based learning and discussion videos and games education software evaluation there is a large market of educational software in use today a team decided that they were to develop a system in which educational software should be evaluated as there is no current standard it is called the construction of the comprehensive evaluation of electronic learning tools and educational software ceeltes the software to be evaluated is graded on a point scale in four categories the area of technical technological and user attributes area of criteria evaluating the information content and operation of the software the area of criteria evaluating the information in terms of educational use learning and recognition the area of criteria evaluating the psychological and pedagogical use of the software use in higher education in university level computer science course learning logic is an essential part of the curriculum there is a proposal on using two logistical education tool folst and logicchess to understand first order logic for university students to better understand the course material and the essentials of logistical design trends in educational software virtual and augmented reality vrar vrar are increasingly being used in the classroom as their technology becomes more powerful and affordable classvr is a company that makes their own headsets and software specifically for using vr in the classroom they have a vast amount of lesson plans that go along with their product vrar are used as reinforcement of old concepts and as a way to introduce new ones as well many believe that there is great potential to make vrar common place to improve learning artificial intelligence ai ai has become increasingly more advanced over the years now it is being used in the classroom as teaching assistants that students can ask questions to and it will find and explain the answer theyre being used because it reduces the amount of time a teacher needs to spend on a specific question allow the teacher to explain the more complex material one of the most popular examples is brainly a website that is used for asking educational questions once a student asks a question another student can answer it and brainly will check its databases to make sure that the information is correct selected reports and academic articles virvou m katsionis g manos k 2005 combining software games with education evaluation of its educational effectiveness educational technology society 8 2 5465 seels b 1989 the instructional design movement in educational technology educational technology may 1115 httpswebarchiveorgweb 20080515073002 httpwwwcoeuheducoursescuin6373idh istory 1960 html niemiec rp walberg ht 1989 from teaching machines to microcomputers some milestones in the history of computerbased instruction journal of research on computing in education 213 263276 annetta l minogue j holmes s cheng m 2009 investigation the impact of video games on high school students engagement and learning genetics computers and education 53 7485 bainbridge w 2007 the scientific research potential of virtual worlds science 317 27 471476 barab s scott b siyahhan s goldstone r ingramgoble a zuiker s warren s 2009transformational play as a curricular scaffold using videogames to support science education journal of science education technology18 305320 bourgonjon j valcke m soetaert r schellens t 2010 students perceptions about the use of video games in the classroom computers and education 54 11451156 adaptive learning computerassisted language learning educational game educational technology educational entertainment edutainment instructional technology 