Lesson 14: The Software as an Educational Resource

Whenever people think about computers, they are most likely thinking about the computer machine such as the television-like monitor screen, the keyboard to type on, the printer which produces copies of text-and-graphics material, and the computer housing called “the box” which contains the electronic parts and circuits (the central processing unit) that receives/ stores data and direct computer operations. The computer machine or hardware is naturally an attention-getter.

      It’s more difficult to realize, however, that the computer hardware can hardly be useful without the program or system that tells what the computer machine should do. This is called software.

There are two kinds of software:

1. The system software. This is the operating system that is found or bundled inside all computer machines.

2. The application software. This contains the system that commands the particular task or solves a particular problem.

In turn the applications software may be:

(a) A custom software that is made for specific tasks often by large corporations, or

(b) A commercial software packaged for personal computers that helps with a variety of tasks such as writing papers, calculating numbers, drawing graphs, playing games, and so much more.

It is hard to put limit or boundary between casual gaming apps that are very in demand today and those application that are intended for learning. I can say that programmers nowadays are more than just being intelligent. They are able to integrate learning while you are gaming and having fun.

   

I use to play Farmville before, I didn’t really paid so much attention with the farming concept I just wanted to expand my farm. With that mind-set I was blindly learning the basic of farming. I have to toil the soil, water the pants, and apply fertilizer and so many things to do. It’s quite funny but I really learned from it and it also helped to become more sensitive on the hardships that the farmers were experiencing as they work hard to have bountiful harvest.

There are a lot of things we can do to make the teaching-learning process a fun, exciting and fruitful one. The use of game application is just one, we may see it casual something that can take away boredom but in reality it taught of something, at first it’s hard to figure out but as time goes by you will realize that it really helped you.