Investigation of Teacher Candidates' Opinions about Instructional Technologies and Material Usage

The purpose of this study is to determine the awareness of teacher candidates about instructional technologies and materials and the ways of giving place in instruction by integrating them with different activities, to reveal opinions about their usage. Seventeen female and eight male, in total twenty five participants are sampling. The ages of the participants within the group heterogeneous between twenty two and thirty five.According to the purpose, the opinions of the teachers candidates who have been taken ‘Instructional Technology and Material Design’ lesson in the ‘Pedagogical Formation Training Certificate Program’ which is a pre-service teacher training program and have been practiced learning outputs of this lesson in other practical instruction lessons and in their lectures in the teaching internship school, were taken by writing. In this context the study is designed as a qualitative research. The findings are presented in thematically coded and supported by mind maps as visuals.It has been seen that teacher candidates are focused on different instructional technologies and materials that they learned in the ‘Instructional Technology and Material Design’ lesson. In addition different experiences of teacher candidates about the usage of instructional technologies and materials have been identified

Multicriteria ranking using weights which minimize the score range

Various schemes have been proposed for generating a set of non-subjective weights when aggregating multiple criteria for the purposes of ranking or selecting alternatives. The maximin approach chooses the weights which maximise the lowest score (assuming there is an upper bound to scores). This is equivalent to finding the weights which minimize the maximum deviation, or range, between the worst and best scores (minimax). At first glance this seems to be an equitable way of apportioning weight, and the Rawlsian theory of justice has been cited in its support.We draw a distinction between using the maximin rule for the purpose of assessing performance, and using it for allocating resources amongst the alternatives. We demonstrate that it has a number of drawbacks which make it inappropriate for the assessment of performance. Specifically, it is tantamount to allowing the worst performers to decide the worth of the criteria so as to maximise their overall score. Furthermore, when making a selection from a list of alternatives, the final choice is highly sensitive to the removal or inclusion of alternatives whose performance is so poor that they are clearly irrelevant to the choice at hand

Untersuchung der differenziellen Genexpression in sensorischen und motorischen Nervenästen des peripheren Nervensystems

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The Effect of Computer Assisted Instruction on Elementary Reading and Writing Achievement

The research investigated the effect of computer assisted instruction (CAI) on elementary reading and writing achievement (ERWA). The sample consisted of 64 first graders (32 in the experimental group and 32 in the control group) in the 2006-2007 academic year. This quasi-experimental study had a posttest only control group design and was conducted during the first semester. The experimental group was taught by CAI and the control group was taught by traditional instruction. Data were gathered through ‘Parent Questionnaire’, ‘Reading Concepts Scale’, ‘Achievement Test’, ‘Reading and Handwriting Observation Form’ and analyzed by chi-square, frequency and t test through SPSS 12.0. The main findings of the study were as follows: (1) CAI affected first graders’ handwriting, reading fluency and punctuation, (2) CAI didn’t affect their writing and reading comprehension, (3) CAI affected ERWA of those who did not have any computer at home.Bu çalışmada bilgisayar destekli öğretimin ilkokuma yazma başarısına etkisi incelenmiştir. Son-test kontrol gruplu desene sahip bu araştırma yarı deneysel bir çalışmadır. Araştırmanın çalışma grubunu deney grubunda 32, kontrol grubunda 32 öğrenci olmak üzere toplam 64 ilköğretim 1.sınıf öğrencisi oluşturmuştur. Uygulama, deney grubunda bilgisayar destekli öğretimle yürütülürken kontrol grubunda geleneksel öğretimle sürdürülmüştür. Veriler, “Veli Anketi”, “Okuma Kavramları Ölçeği”, “Başarı Testi”, “Okuma Değerlendirme Formu” ve “Yazı Değerlendirme Formu” ile toplanmış ve ki kare, frekans ve t testi ile analiz edilmiştir. Elde edilen bulgulara göre bilgisayar destekli okuma yazma öğretimi gören öğrenciler ile geleneksel öğretim görenlerin yazı, noktalama ve okuma başarılarında anlamlı fark bulunmuş ancak okuduğunu anlama ve yazma başarılarında anlamlı bir fark bulunmamıştır. Genele bakıldığında ilkokuma yazma başarılarında anlamlı fark bulunmuştur. Evinde bilgisayar olmayan deney ve kontrol grubu öğrencilerinin ilkokuma yazma başarılarında anlamlı fark bulunmuş ancak evinde bilgisayar olanların ilkokuma yazma başarılarında anlamlı bir fark bulunmamıştır. Sonuçlar, farklı yazarların araştırma sonuçları incelenerek tartışılmıştır

Seels ve Glasgow ‘Generic Model’in Bir Değerlendirmesi

Bu çalışmada Seels ve Glasgow ‘Generic Model’e dayalı bilgisayar destekli öğretim tasarımının ilköğretim 5.sınıf öğrencilerinin Fen ve Teknoloji dersi ‘Besin Zinciri’ konusundaki akademik başarılarına ve işbirlikli süreç performanslarına etkisi araştırılmıştır. Araştırma 2007-2008 eğitim-öğretim yılı bahar döneminde İstanbul iline bağlı bir devlet ilköğretim okulunda okuyan 30 beşinci sınıf öğrencisiyle yapılmıştır. Çalışmada veri toplama araçları olarak öntest ve sontest olarak akademik başarı testi, grup özdeğerlendirme formu ve öğretmen grup değerlendirme formu kullanılmıştır. Verilerin çözümlenmesi için t-test ve frekans testleri yapılmıştır. Elde edilen bulgular, Seels ve Glasgow ‘Generic Model’e göre tasarlanan bilgisayar destekli öğretim tasarımının, öğrencilerin akademik başarılarında ve süreç performanslarının gelişiminde olumlu etkisi olduğunu ortaya koymuştur.Anahtar Sözcükler: Seels ve Glasgow ‘Generic Model’, bilgisayar destekli öğretim tasarımı, Fen ve Teknoloj

A research on creativity skills of the students who has and hasn’t changed their homeroom teacherÖğretmen değiştiren ve değiştirmeyen öğrencilerin yaraticilik becerilerinin incelenmesi

The aim of this research was to determine whether there is a difference between productivity and individuality skills of creativity  of the students who hasn't changed their homeroom teacher with the same skills of the students who has changed their homeroom teacher. The population of the study consisted of the 5th grade students having primary education in Turkey in 2008-2009 Education Year. The sampling of the research  was 85 students, 41 of whom are the students of  A Primary School  and 44 of whom are the students of  B Primary School. In this research survey model was used  and The Scale of "Productivity of Association" was used to collect data. The data collected was analized through  SPSS 15.0 software using t-test and  Pearson correlation. Results are discussed. ÖzetBu araştırmada, ilköğretim birinci kademede öğretmen değiştirmeyen ve değiştiren öğrencilerin yaratıcılık kapsamında verimlilik ve özgünlük becerileri arasındaki farklılık incelenmiştir. Araştırmanın evrenini, 2008-2009 eğitim-öğretim yılında, A ili ilköğretim 5. sınıf öğrencileri oluşturmaktadır. Araştırmanın örneklemini ise A İlköğretim Okulu 5-A sınıfı öğrencilerinden 41 öğrenci, B İlköğretim Okulu 5-E sınıfı öğrencilerinden 44 öğrenci olmak üzere toplam 85 öğrenci oluşturmaktadır. Bu araştırma tarama modeline göre düzenlenmiştir. Araştırmada veri toplama aracı olarak tek sözcükle "Çağrışım Verimliliği Ölçeği" kullanılmıştır. Elde edilen verilerin çözümlenmesinde SPSS 15.0 paket programı kullanılarak, veriler üzerinde t-testi ve Pearson korelasyon analizleri yapılmıştır. Sonuçlar tartışılmıştır. The aim of this research was to determine whether there is a difference between productivity and individuality skills of creativity  of the students who hasn’t changed their homeroom teacher with the same skills of the students who has changed their homeroom teacher. The population of the study consisted of the 5th grade students having primary education in Turkey in 2008-2009 Education Year. The sampling of the research  was 85 students, 41 of whom are the students of  A Primary School  and 44 of whom are the students of  B Primary School. In this research survey model was used  and The Scale of “Productivity of Association” was used to collect data. The data collected was analized through  SPSS 15.0 software using t-testand  Pearson correlation. Results are discussed

Improved common weight DEA-based decision approach for economic and financial performance assessment

Economic and financial performance assessment possesses an important role for efficient usage of available resources. In this study, a novel common weight multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) approach based on data envelopment analysis (DEA) is presented to identify the best performing decision making unit (DMU) accounting for multiple inputs as well as multiple outputs. The robustness of the developed model, which provides a rank-order with enhanced discriminatory characteristics and improved weight dispersion, is illustrated by two case studies that aim to provide economic and financial performance assessment. The first study presents an evaluation of Morgan Stanley Capital International emerging markets, whereas the second case study ranks the Turkish deposit banks using the proposed methodology as well as providing a comparative evaluation with several other approaches addressed in earlier works. The results indicate that the introduced approach guarantees to identify the best performing DMU without including a discriminating parameter requiring an arbitrary step size value in model formulation while also achieving an improved weight dispersion for inputs and outputs

A teleoperation system to control the humanoid robot using an RGB-D sensor

This paper presents a concept design of the work algorithm for a teleoperation control system of a humanoid robot. The humanoid robot control system needs to stabilize the robot in a vertical position in order to prevent the robot from falling. The process of design of the control system includes the design of position filter to detect the unstable positions. The application of such a control system enables to control the humanoid robot using motion capture technology

Real options approach for valuation of enterprise resource planning systems

Günümüzde tüm dünya genelindeki sağlık kurumları, hizmet kalitelerini iyileştirmeyi ve maliyetleri düşürmeyi amaçlayan bilişim teknolojileri yatırımlarının önemini kavramışlardır. Sağlık sektörünün sürekli yükselen standartları ve sigorta sistemlerinin artan gereksinimleri karar vericileri, hastanelerde Kurumsal Kaynak Planlama (KKP) sistemlerinin sağlık sektörünün gerek ve ihtiyaçlarına göre uyarlanmış ve geliştirilmiş hali olan Hastane Bilgi Sistemi (HBS) yatırım uygulamalarını dikkate almalarını zorunlu kılmaktadır. Bu tür yatırımların ekonomik değerlemesi karmaşık yapıları nedeniyle her zaman zor olmuştur. Bununla beraber bu yatırımların, bünyelerinde barındırdığı ve firmalara rekabet ortamında avantajlar sağlayan birçok faydası da mevcuttur. Geleneksel iskontolanmış nakit akışı yöntemleri, bu sistemlerin içinde varolan ve yatırım kararını haklı çıkartacak, yönetsel ve stratejik esnekliklerin değerini dikkate almamaktadır. Reel opsiyon yaklaşımı karar vericilere, geleneksel değerleme yöntemlerindeki bu yetersizliklerin üstesinden gelme olanağını sunmaktadır. Bu çalışmada, reel opsiyonları temel alan bir yaklaşımla, birden fazla opsiyonun birarada yer aldığı bir KKP sistemi yatırımının değerlemesine imkan tanıyan bir model önerilmektedir. Binom ağacı modelini temel alarak geliştirilen değerleme modelinin yapısı KKP yatırım fırsatının bünyesindeki birleşik opsiyonları değerlemeye imkan tanıyacak şekilde genişletilmiş ve dolayısıyla karar vericilere yeni bir katma değer sunulmuştur. Geliştirilen modelin potansiyel uygulaması gerçek bir HBS yatırımı değerlemesiyle gösterilmektedir. Yapılan uygulama geleneksel değerleme yöntemlerince kabul edilir görülmeyen yatırımların bile, bünyelerinde barındırdıkları stratejik ve yönetsel unsurlar sayesinde ve gelecekte oluşması muhtemel koşullar dahilinde kabul edilebilir bir hal alabileceğini ortaya koymaktadır. Anahtar Kelimeler: KKP yatırımlarının değerlemesi, reel opsiyonlar, birleşik opsiyonlar, opsiyon değerleme modelleri.Nowadays in order to improve the quality of care delivery and reduce costs, healthcare organizations globally recognize the importance of investing in information technologies (IT). The key drivers of healthcare sector like continuous improvement of healthcare standards and insurance systems have introduced new requirements for hospitals, which in return provided a solid ground for decision-makers to consider implementing hospital information system investment. Hospital information systems (HIS) are the customized and improved versions of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, designed according to the needs and the requirements of healthcare sector. It has been always difficult to value such investments in monetary terms due to their complex nature. This type of investments also has many inherent benefits that can provide significant competitive advantages. These inherent benefits can only be viable for decision support if strategic and managerial flexibilities can be utilized. However, traditional capital budgeting techniques, such as net present value (NPV), do not enable decision-makers to consider these flexibilities. Due to its idle valuation approach, NPV only considers a static scenario that ignores the possible dynamic changes in the market affecting future cash flows and interest rates. NPV's passive commitment strategy also forces the decision-makers pre-committing today to a "go" or "no-go" decision considering information only available today. Thus, it is clear that the traditional NPV methods ignore the value of managerial and strategic flexibility inherent in the investments which undermines a company's strategic opportunities. Investment science experts agreed that it is a must to integrate financial and strategic issues and study them together for making an investment decision. Recognizing the shortcomings of traditional NPV methods, real options (RO) technique has been suggested as an alternative approach. RO whose methodology is based upon financial options theory enable the decisions makers to analyze the true value of a real life investment opportunity through better modeling of the uncertainty within the investment. RO method does not only value the managerial flexibility through the investment horizon, it also supports and expands the firm's strategic frame. It gives a road map to the managers to optimize the medium and long-term strategies according to the expectations. RO can be categorized to six main managerial options according to the flexibility they have: option to defer, option to stage, option to expand/contract, option to abandon, option to switch and growth option. In a real-life investment scenario it is usually viable to have more than one real option concurrently. The first applications of real options are about mining and operating natural resource investments. Besides, the new application areas for RO are growing rapidly. Regardless of an industry, it can be used in many cases like entering a new market, deciding the initial scale of an investment, scaling up or down in the future according to the needs, managing multi-staged complex projects, and freezing up or completely ending an investment. Developing with dynamic market conditions due to the continuous improvements, IT investments are also an appropriate application area for RO. This study introduces a RO based methodology that enables decision-makers to value an ERP system investment incorporating multiple options. The option valuation model developed in this study extends the binomial lattice framework to model an ERP investment opportunity with compound options. The potential application of the proposed model is presented to evaluate an HIS implementation project of a Turkish health care organization. For this purpose, considering the ever changing dynamics of the market affecting possible cash flows, a computer-based decision support framework is developed to provide a flexible and efficient solution to decision-makers. In this manner, for simulating various possible future market conditions, different scenarios are generated via triggering conditional changes in model variables and parameters. Results are interpreted with tables and graphs for submitting a thorough road map to decision-makers that can be utilized as a managerial asset for understanding the interactions between model parameters. Further investigations have shown that even an investment that is not approved to be undertaken with traditional valuation methods, can be valuable for a firm considering the strategic and managerial flexibilities inherent in the investment, with the effect of the possible market conditions in the future. Thus, it is also emphasized that real options approach generally presents a new point of view for valuing IT investment projects. Keywords: Evaluation of ERP investments, real options, compound options, option valuation models

Evaluating the efficiencies of alternative energy resources for electricity generation in Turkey

Birden çok girdi ve çıktıya sahip karar birimlerinin göreli performanslarının ölçülmesi için kullanılan klasik Veri Zarflama Analizi (VZA) modellerinde yalnızca kesin sayısal veriler kullanılabilir. Oysa gerçek hayattaki birçok uygulamada karar birimlerinin kullanıldığı girdiler ve ürettiği çıktılar belirsiz, aralıklar halinde veya sözel olarak ifade edilmiş olabilir. Enerji kaynak alternatiflerinin etkinlik analizindeki uzman görüşleri sözel olarak, maliyet girdisi de belirsiz olduğu için bulanık sayılarla ifade edilmektedir. Bu çalışmada, Türkiye’de elektrik üretimi için kullanılabilecek enerji kaynak alternatiflerinin etkinliğinin ölçülmesi için Bulanık VZA (BVZA) kullanılmıştır. Makalede, Charnes vd. (1978) tarafından geliştirilen klasik VZA modelinin (CCR modeli) dual formunu temel alan yeni bir bulanık VZA formülasyonu (Dual Bulanık Veri Zarflama analizi–DBVZA) önerilmektedir. Bulanık model, α-kesmeleri yaklaşımı kullanılarak doğrusallaştırılmıştır. DBVZA modelinde, diğer bulanık VZA modellerinden farklı olarak, Karar Birimlerinin (KB) etkinliği ölçülürken, bulanık girdi ve çıktı değerlerinin α-kesmelerinin uç noktaları yerine, tüm α-kesmeleri performans ölçümünde kullanılmakta ve böylelikle aralığın içindeki verilerin de etkinlik analizinde dikkate alınması sağlanmaktadır. DBVZA’nın karar vericilere sağladığı bir diğer avantaj, tüm α seviyelerinde etkinlik sınırında yer alan, bir başka deyişle %100 etkin olan KB sayısının diğer bulanık VZA yöntemlerine göre düşük olmasıdır. Bu durum KB’lerin etkinliklerine göre sıralanmasını kolaylaştırmaktadır. Ayrıca DBVZA ile yapılan uygulamalarda karar birimlerinin etkinliklerine göre sıralanabilmesi için herhangi bir bulanık sıralama yöntemine ihtiyaç duyulmamaktadır. Anahtar Kelimeler: Veri zarflama analizi, bulanık matematik programlama, etkinlik analizi, enerji alternatifleri, elektrik üretimi.With the beginning of 21st century, the consumption of energy all over the world is increasing far more rapidly than in the last century. Today, energy is the most important basic input for economical and industrial development. Especially for developing countries like Turkey, alternative energy resources for power plants have very high strategic importance. In Turkey, like many other countries, the generation of electric power is based on fossil fuels. The volatility of oil prices, the exhaustibility of fossil fuels and environmental issues force developing industries to revise their alternatives for electricity generation. Now, it is the time to give more attention to stable, reliable and non-polluting energy resources. Most forms of alternative energy resources are dependent on geographical and environmental factors which vary from country to country. Every country has to determine its energy policy considering its specific conditions like demand and supply equilibrium, dependency on other countries, geographical conditions, variations of population, etc.Turkey is a country that lacks sufficient conventional energy resources and is importing oil and natural gas from other countries. As an emerging country, Turkey has been one of the fastest growing energy markets in the world. Turkey's share in total OECD production is expected to increase from 2% in 1995 to 7% in 2020s, making Turkey a significant economic power within the OECD countries but this will be possible only with a proper energy policy and efficient selection of alternative energy resources. Selecting among different resource alternatives is a very difficult task as the factors which affect the efficiency of energy resources are imprecise and require expert knowledge. The criteria, such as sustainability, security etc. are defined in linguistic form as it is impossible to quantify them. As a result, some of the criteria of efficiency have to be introduced in analysis as fuzzy data. The performance assessment methods which enable us to use fuzzy inputs and outputs are suitable for the evaluation of energy alternatives efficiencies. The potentially viable electricity resources considered for Turkey are oil, coal, natural gas, nuclear power, hydropower, wind power, solar power and biomass power. For the evaluation criteria of these energy resources and their values, we refer to expert opinions. The details about efficiency criteria and results of the analysis can be found in the application. The energy resources are ranked by their efficiency scores as follows: Wind, natural gas, hydropower, biomass, coal, oil, solar power and nuclear power. The existing data envelopment analysis (DEA) models for measuring the relative efficiencies of a set of decision making units (DMUs) using various inputs to produce various outputs are limited to crisp data.  However, the data acquired from expert opinions for evaluating the efficiencies of alternative energy resources is generally in linguistic form. This paper proposes a fuzzy DEA formulation based on dual form of the DEA model developed by Charnes et al. (1978) to deal with imprecise or linguistic data that we frequently come across in real-world applications. The model is transformed into a family of crisp linear problems using the "-cut approach. In dual fuzzy DEA formulation, the entire "-cut interval is taken into account unlike many other fuzzy DEA formulations which use the boundary points of "-cuts when calculating the efficiency scores of DMUs. Dual fuzzy DEA is suitable to rank every DMU in all "-levels as we are not faced with the problem of having too many DMUs on the efficient frontier. Another advantage of the dual fuzzy DEA formulation is that, it does not require any fuzzy ranking method to rank the DMUs. As the result, dual fuzzy DEA can be very useful in performance evaluation, especially when decision makers or researchers have few DMUs and a large number of decision criteria (inputs and outputs) as they will be able to rank all DMUs according their efficiency scores. The paper is organized as follows: A literature survey of fuzzy DEA models is followed by the presentation of the classical DEA model (CCR formulation), dual form of the CCR formulation and fuzzy DEA model. Then, the linearization of dual fuzzy DEA by ?-cut approach and variable alterations is introduced. After a real life application concerning the assessment of energy alternatives for electricity production in Turkey, the paper ends with the conclusion. Keywords: Data envelopment analysis, fuzzy mathematical programming, efficiency analysis, energy alternatives, electricity generation