Comparison on Public Cloud Service and Traditional Environment for Information Education

• Main Authors: Sun-Liang Hsien, 謝孫良
• Other Authors: Chen-Feng Wu
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2012
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/48692945575532435857

碩士 === 育達商業科技大學 === 資訊管理所 === 100 === Education must start when children are young, and information education is no exception. Since 1997, the Taiwanese government has promoted information education curricula. In addition to improving the hardware environment or environments for tangible facilities, and encouraging teachers to integrate information into teaching activities, the time and environment for afterschool learning must be provided to enhance students’ information capabilities. However, the following problems have been encountered when promoting information education: insufficient time for student practice, inconsistent curriculum design, the requirement to replace old IT equipment with updated equipment, and the increased workload of IT staff resulting from the maintenance and management of equipment. However, the recent extensive use of cloud computing and trends under public cloud services present a new option for solving these problems. Public cloud services demonstrate the following tendencies: easy connection and use through the Internet, no need to consider the costs of building a server, included Web applications and word processing services, and easy sharing of user data, which are stored on the cloud platform. In this study, we analyzed how the adoption of a public cloud computing service platform could enable students to use Web-based operating software, applications, and file management systems for practice by simply connecting to the platform with a browser. This could further enhance the learning effects, user convenience, and mutual assistance and learning among peers. We used a quasi-experimental research method to conduct a group experiment without affecting existing teaching activities. We employed the technology acceptance model as the theoretical basis for the research framework and designed a public cloud computing service platform usage behavior scale, a learning effects scale, and a learning transfer scale to use as research tools. We recruited 110 fifth graders from an elementary school in Miaoli County as the participants of this study. Through experimental teaching, we examined students’ acceptance of the public cloud computing service platform, learning effects, and learning transfer. The results showed that using a public cloud computing service platform for information education is feasible. Additionally, the students did not experience adaptation difficulties when shifting from the traditional information education environment to the public cloud computing service platform, and the platform effectively overcame the weaknesses of the existing information education environment.