Evaluating The Breeze As Educational Tool In E-Learning

In the best-seller books, Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert T. Kiyosaki and his co-author Susan L. Lechter highlights the needs for growing assets instead of liabilities. In other words, they suggest that we, anyone who wants to be rich, should not spend our money in any way that is no relation with assets creation. In this manner, they regard knowledge, obtained through formal or non-formal education, as the most important element of success in today’s fast changing world.Regarding the idea, we witness that educators continue finding the right proportion of syllabus that fit the needs of current and future workplaces.This is essential to meet current workplace demands that require employees that are knowledgeable, capable of handling and distribute information, and have expertise in technology (Goldstein, 2003). The situation highlights that employees need to be skillful in operating high technology equipments and also other tools that help them to communicate effectively with their colleagues. Concerning the issue, this paper will discuss about the evaluation of Macromedia Breeze as education tools in E-Learning. 2. Aims and Objectives a.This paper intends to discuss about the importance of using of technology as education tools b. By employing non-participant observation method, collecting data and analyzing qualitative information from a wide range of sources including journals, books, magazines and online materials, this paper aims at discussing the benefits of using Macromedia Breeze as education tools that support the implementation of e-learning. c. In addition, the paper also intends to describe about factors that encourage technology integration for education systems3. Problem Statement Education becomes key success factors that help a person to master the required knowledge in order to enable him performing their jobs effectively. The education itself can be learned when he is at school or during his duty in a company through several internal or exter nal training sessions. Concerning the education system and the use of technology, therefore the research statement or question is â€Å"Does Macromedia Breeze provide greater benefits for people in carrying out rapid e-learning (REL) in a company? †I choose this research question since it might be completely different from others that may focus only on general use of technology in a company. Therefore, instead of elaborating partial discussion on the issue, I decide to discuss the comprehensive discussion on branding in order to favor readers in understanding the technical benefits that Macromedia Breeze offers to users in performing rapid e-learning (REL) method. For this reason, in the literature review, I employ several sources ranging from academic journals, magazines, online news and books that relate to the use of technology as education tools.4. Literature Review Information Technology as Educational Tools The above condition strengthens the importance of current educa tion system to understand the needs of current and future workplaces in order to customize their syllabus so that they meet the needs of employers. Moreover, the authors also stress the importance of workforces to master information and communication technologies so that they can employ appropriate and hence effective methods in completing any tasks.We must remember that our society has experienced many changes. People or firms who succeed are those who can meet the demands required by each workplace. Once we were in agricultural society then moved into industrial society through industrial revolution in 19th century and now we live in information society marked by the advancement in telecommunications and computer technology that enable the transfer of information at the speed of light.Concerning the situation, Carly Fiorina, former CEO of HP, says only people and firms having pile of information can take benefits of the future market. Therefore, Fiorina implies the urge of becomin g learning organization in which information exchange exists in a company and the benefits of using information technology can be encouraged in the education institutions. Given the importance of information processing in the commerce, it is not surprising that business of any types was among the earliest adopters of automated information processing technology.For this reason, they need labor that have expertise in using and operating computers in commerce or trade so that they can handle sophisticated tasks like storing and retrieving large amounts of information and at making calculations and designs at highest accuracy. Historically, the convergence of digital technologies including television, telephony, and computers has stimulated the reach of the innovations of the Internet that grew from inter-university computer networks in United States.Under such circumstance, it is common to hope that current education systems should address in their syllabus about current and future emp loyment needs. Macromedia Breeze and E-Learning The use of technology especially software has influenced the way employees performing their jobs. There are many applications or software that sold in the market with various variant or version. For example, in word processing tool, customers are already accustomed to using famous application such as Microsoft Word, Word Perfect, and Open Office (for open source platform).Meanwhile, for creating slides for presentations, they are used to using Microsoft PowerPoint. In addition to the famous Microsoft PowerPoint, currently, there are many other software applications that show the powerful of presentation especially ones that support the electronic learning or e-learning. Historically, the emerging rapid e-learning has become a hot issue in workplace since it provides many benefits for employees. The situation encourages 85% of Fortune 500 companies to adopt e-learning immediately.Moreover, 80% of the respondents in the survey reveal tha t the adoption of rapid e-learning concept can give the significant contribution to their companies (Archibald, 2005). The key benefits of using Macromedia Breeze is it reduces the costs for traditional e-learning solutions that usually costs customers about US$10,000 and $50,000 per hour. According to Philip Kotler (2000), the marketing mix consisting of four important factors; they are Product, Promotion, Price and Place is a crucial aspect of forming a marketing program.In addition, by using rapid e-learning method, customers enable to have training material that has critical development timelines and alters or content updated frequently, to name a few (Archibald, 2005). Currently, in the market, there are many tools that help customers to perform rapid e-learning (REL) schemes; they include Lersus, Articulate, SNAP! Studio, Webex, and mindflash. Macromedia Breeze, Content Point, and Macromedia Breeze. Technically, Macromedia Breeze uses PowerPoint as its main development tool.Ho wever, Macromedia Breeze adds several features including the easiness of adding an audio track to the training material. Other features of Macromedia Breeze are the capability of conducting assessment and tracking tools and they are AICC- and SCORM-compliant (Archibald, 2005). Encouraging Technology Integration at Education Systems Considering the importance of technology integration at education systems, some scholars reveal three factors that characterize the tendencies to integrate technology within education systems as following:a) First, the society realized the importance of introducing computers and other technology in formal education (schools). The trend of considering computers and their allied components as a necessity in school programs is considerable stronger, starting from the 1980’s (Milton, 2005). b) Second, there is a strong rationale within the education institution to replace the traditional programs with modern technology education. A National survey by C hinies, Oaks and Boutique (2002) indicated that school based technological literacy was one of the greatest factors that empowered any advancing economy in the world.c) Third, there is a strong support from teachers and school administrators, who became loyal contributors of efforts in designing technology programs and supporting the use of computers in all aspects of schooling (Hache, 1996) 5. Methodological and Ethical Issues The paper will employ qualitative approach, which is a research that is carried out through observations. The benefit of employing qualitative approach is it enables a researcher to investigate in little more detail on the individual perceptions of a phenomenon. However, since the research deals with the personal, therefore, such an investigation is limited in its scope.Moreover, observation becomes an important technique for collecting data concerning what occurs in a real-life situation. This method also helps us to reach an understanding about the percepti ons of those who are being studied, in that situation. To be specific, we employ non-participant observation method especially by analyzing qualitative information from journals, books, magazines and many more. The most interesting part of conducting observation is it provides researchers with an understanding about the perceptions about things or people we observe.However, since observation deals with someone’s perception, we plan to avoid preconceptions since it would provide this research with some bias. In order to comprehensive explanation, this paper will describe the use of information technology especially software applications for education purposes. In this situation, I will employ various sources including websites that discuss the use of software applications for education purposes. 6. Time Schedule In preparing the research proposal, below is the detail schedule of finalization for my research.