INSTRUCTIONAL AIDS

 

INSTRUCTIONAL AIDS

Educational broadcasting and telecasting:

      Educational broadcasting is one of the important landmarks in the history of mankind. It revolutionized the thinking and life style of man. Potentials of this technology can be effectively utilized for education also. Listening to broadcasts will arouse the interest of pupils and will create a desire to acquire more knowledge and to develop skills.

      Educational broadcasts potentially have a great coverage. It can be received any where either in the house or in the school or even while travelling. It is very much suitable for supportive type of learning. It has the capacity of stimulating imaginative involvement of listeners.

INTERACTIVE VIDEOS:

      Interactive video is an interactive group communication or a real time interaction between two or more people in two or more locations through electronic medium. It makes possible conferencing among the participants even remaining at a large distance from each other. On account of the use of a sophisticated electronic medium for communication, teleconferencing may bring people together under one roof even though they are separated by thousands of miles for the exchange of information and opinion.

 

TELE-LECTURE:

 

Ø  A lecture delivered using audiovisual telecommunications 

Ø  A lecture delivered to an audience at another location via electronic means, as television, a satellite link-up, or a telephone line with voice amplification.

Ø  A lecture delivered to an audience at another location via electronic means, as television, a satellite link-up, or a telephone line with voice amplification.

Ø  A teleteaching is an online instructional technology specially being used in massive open online courses (MOOCS) for providing services such as live, recorded lectures as video streams. It also included some intelligent integration methods for enhancing student learning outcomes and experiences

SOFTWARE IN COMMERCE:

What is ecommerce software?

          eCommerce software is a tool that drives all online store processes, helping owners manage inventory, add or remove products, process payments, compute taxes, and fulfill orders, among many others. It offers all the things needed to run a retail site, effectively simplifying online store management.

       An online store consists of many intricate components and processes, which ecommerce software streamlines through an easy-to-use interface that even non-tech persons can operate. Further facilitating things is the ability of the system to integrate with other platforms and services such as CRM, CMS, ERP, payment gateways, email marketing tools, accounting software, fulfillment services, and social media networks.

TYPES OF ECOMMERCE SOFTWARE

         There are two general classifications of ecommerce software and they pertain to the type of deployment:

1. On-Premise: Installed on a local server or computer and managed on-site by a team that handles manual updates, fix problems, and do general troubleshooting. Online sellers early on initially went with on-premise solutions because they allowed greater hands-on management compared to hosted solutions.
2. Software as a Service: SaaS or hosted solutions are technically the hands-off option since all updates, patches, and newly-released features are done automatically or with one-click integrations. Hosted ecommerce software has evolved dramatically to allow wide customization and flexibility, previously exclusive to on-premise, making it now a sufficient solution for most online retailers. Furthermore, SaaS software can be launched quickly and comes in affordable packages.

What Does eCommerce Software Do?

       What does ecommerce software do? While ecommerce software in itself can handle most of the important tasks relevant to running your store, it oftentimes integrates with other apps and services to help you do some other things right from within the system. With robust features and functionalities, coupled with powerful integration capabilities, ecommerce software becomes your all-in-one integrated platform that can do the following.

1. Manage customers and orders: Managing a customer’s order from product selection to payment, to checkout and delivery is vital. Every order is a sales transaction that will impact your bottom line Hence, it must be done efficiently and conveniently for the customer. eCommerce software takes care of managing orders, check order status, and making quick changes if needed. On its own or with some other third-party app or service, it can handle payment processing, keep transaction records, manage customer information, create billing and invoicing, undertake accurate accounting, provide analytics and reporting, among others.
2. Manage products and inventory: You get product specifics from SKUs and variations (size, color, quantity) to names and images, allowing you to organize and catalog items. You’re also notified and made aware if stocks are low and what particular items are fast-moving and need replenishing.
3. Simplify marketing: Built-in SEO allows online stores to rank higher in organic search engines for increased online discovery and presence as well as lower customer acquisition costs.
4. Automates shipping and taxation: Printing shipping labels, calculating sales taxes based on customer location, and sending notification emails to customers can be done automatically and more accurately.
5. Enhance customer experience: ecommerce software is meant to enable customers quickly and efficiently find what they need in your store. Hosted solutions offer service-level agreements to guarantee 100% uptime and simple but robust website management, allowing you to provide your customers with the best online shopping experience.

FEATURES OF ECOMMERCE SOFTWARE    

          To be able to realize its purpose, ecommerce software is designed with a wide range of features and functions that streamline and support the many aspects involved in online selling. Here are the common features of ecommerce software:

1. Automation: The checkout process, including accurate computation of pricing, taxes, shipping rates, and handling costs are automated to give customers an immediate idea of how much they’ll be paying on items they select for purchase.
2. Website builder: If you don’t have an existing website, ecommerce software can help you build one from the ground up. It provides design templates for you to quickly create a professional-looking website and storefront based on your preferences without the need to hire commercial designers.
3. Central database: You get a centralized location for easy storing, access, and retrieval of product information, customer data, accounting transactions, product listings, browsing histories, and payment and shipping status.
4. Search function: Sophisticated search functions make it simple for shoppers to find the items or products they’re looking for. eCommerce platforms are capable of listing, categorizing, and updating new products together with descriptions, pictures, and feature lists.
5. Integration: Most ecommerce solutions are able to integrate with various business apps and third-party platforms and services to allow you to handle various tasks – accounting, email marketing, order fulfillment, and payment processing – within a single system.
6. Marketing tools: You can use your ecommerce software to enhance your website’s marketing, promotion, and branding. You can utilize an array of tools to come up with targeted campaigns, SEO optimization strategies, and branding/image reinforcement.
7. Analytics and reporting: eCommerce software can help you to analyze and identify trends and patterns that affect customer buying habits, providing with you insights and stats on customer demographics, keywords, and clickstreams. You’ll get to know what is working or not, and craft strategies to improve revenues.

ADVANTAGES OF ECOMMERCE SOFTWARE

      Why use ecommerce software? Because it has plenty of benefits for your business. Here are the advantages using of ecommerce software.

1. Quickly start your online business: Most ecommerce software comes with easy to use online store builders with pre-built templates and an assortment of themes to help you build your store quickly. We’re talking here of minutes, not hours, if you’re familiar with drag-and-drop functions where you just put your store elements into place, add product images, put in descriptions and prices, set up your shopping cart, and you’re basically good to go.
2. Your store is always open: One of the biggest business advantages of using ecommerce software is that it keeps your online store open, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Your business hours are not limited by physical location or the working schedule of your staff. Since everything is automated, you are not required to continually monitor your online store through your dashboard.
3. You can sell to anyone, anywhere: In relation to the above, which allows you to sell anytime, you can sell to everyone from any location in the world. You have a global market for your products, unhindered by time, geography, and boundaries. You harness the internet’s connectivity to sell to anyone, wherever they may be.
4. You save time, money, and resources: When you calculate your expenses, you will find that it costs you less operating an online store than running a brick-and-mortar store where you’ll have to rent expensive space in a prime location, employ sales staff, and pay for utilities, among others. Paying monthly for an affordable ecommerce platform that takes care of your online store reduces expenses and maximizes profits.
5. You can sell as many products: Unlike a traditional retail outlet which has limited storage space to fit all your products, an online store has no physical space to constrict the number of products that you can carry, display, and sell. Since more people are shopping online nowadays, this allows you to sell more, offering products organized in catalog web pages that can easily be searched and viewed by customers. This also results in shorter selling cycles, providing you maximum returns at minimum investment.
6. Easy online payment and shipping: eCommerce software and shopping cart platforms are equipped to process online payments, either as a built-in feature or integrated with a payment gateway service, allowing for safe and secure online transactions. The software can also be connected seamlessly with 3PL or order fulfillment service providers that can offer your customers their preferred delivery and shipping options.
7. Built-in marketing tools: Many ecommerce software is loaded with powerful marketing tools and SEO features to help your store rank higher in search engine results and attract potential customers. There are also built-in analytics and statistical tools that can provide you with real-time analytical data, helping you to come up with targeted marketing campaigns, special deals and offers, as well as make improvements to your product mix or promotion.
8. You can provide quality online customer service: eCommerce software gives you the means to provide your customers with the best online shopping experience— from easy product selection, order, and checkout, to convenient online payment, shipping, and delivery—everything is designed through automation to make it as simple as possible for customers to buy at your store, and get the best service they can expect.

VIDEO CONFERENCING

      In video conferencing, the resource persons at the teaching end may use mainly television cameras to show demonstrations, activities, discussions, etc. (television-based video conferencing.) or may transmit the visuals generated through computer (computer-based video conferencing). In reality, videoconferences of the television kind may also include computers for display of power-point slides, graphics, etc.

          Similarly, computer-based teleconferences may contain video cameras (or, more commonly, ‘web cameras’, which are low resolution versions of video cameras) to enable multi-media exchange. The groups located at the learner ends can see as well as listen to the resource persons through video monitors.

         Interactivity between the learners/participants and the resource persons may happen through audio only (one-way video and two-way audio conferencing) or the same facilities as available at the teaching end may also be used at the learner centers for exchanging both visual and audio information among all the participating locations (two-way video conferencing).

One-way Video and Two-way Audio Conferencing:

        Among the different forms of video conferencing, it is the television-based one-way video and two-way audio conferencing, which is commonly used in the context of education and training. It consists of three major elements:

1.       Teaching end: This can be a room or a studio from which the resource person conducts a live lesson to the learners/participants through audio-visual means. In the simplest case, a single video camera faces the resource person, while a microphone picks up his/her voice.

       In more sophisticated systems, the teaching-end resembles a broadcast TV studio, with a multi camera setup for different uses such as showing graphics, etc. Other equipment used are video cassette recorders (VCRs), computers and other video sources.

2.       User end/Learner Centers:  Display of the video at the learner’s centers is arranged through a television set/video monitor of sufficient size for the viewing comfort of the learners as a group. If the group were too big, a projection TV system on a wide screen would be preferable. Audio can be listened to either through in-built speakers of the TV monitors or external speakers.

      It may also be necessary to provide for a back-up power source (i.e. Generator or inverter) particularly when the power supply is erratic.

      For purposes of interaction, provision is made at the learner centers for calling in the teaching end through normal telephone lines, fax and e-mail.

3.       Telecommunication links: The communication links to interconnect the teaching end and learner centers can take a variety of forms. Since both motion videos as well as audio signals need to be transmitted on the outbound path (that is, from the teaching end to learner centers). This channel needs to be a broadband one for better quality of sound land visual.

Two-Way Video Conferencing:

       While the one-way video and two-way audio-conferencing systems are instances of point-to-multipoint communication, two-way video conferencing systems are generally instancing of multipoint to multipoint communications with facilities for exchanging visual as well as aural information among all the participating locations.

     Different conferencing systems under this category are:

ü  Roll-about Video Conferencing.

ü  Point-to-point Video Conferencing.

ü  Multipoint Video Conferencing.