Myjict - Volume 1 - 2009

MyJICT – Malaysian Journal of Information & Communication Technology (Vol.
1, 2009)
Malaysian Journal of Information,

MyJICT | Communication & Technology
Volume 1, 2009
Content
1. Augmented Reality Basic Reading Courseware for Down 1

Syndrome Learner: A Preliminary Analysis. (read…)
Roslinda Ramli & Halimah Badioze Zaman
2. LR-Transformer: Java Code Transformation By Reducing Line 15

Of Codes. (read…)
Ismadi bin Md Badarudin, Nor Fazlida Mohd Sani, Mohd Zul
bin Mohd Yusoff, Syarbaini bin Ahmad & Gawed Nagie
3. Pembangunan Sistem Carian Maklumat Islam Menggunakan 26

Kaedah Pengekstrakan Kandungan Web. (read…)
Evfi Mahdiyah & Juhana Salim
4. The Use of Mobile Phone And PDA Among Students In Private 38

Higher Education Institution. (read…)
Hasnuddin Ab Rahman, Jamaluddin Badusah & Rosdy Wahid
5. An Investigation Of The ICT Challenges And Practices Of 50

Malaysian Smart School Teachers. (read…)
Thang Siew Ming, Puvaneswary Murugaiah, Pramela
Krishnasamy, Azizah Yaa’cob & Hazita Azman
The Editorial Office would like to express our heartfelt appreciation to all the
reviewers and contributors involved in publishing this journal.
http://www.kuis.edu.my/ftsi/myjict/ i
MyJICT – Malaysian Journal of Information & Communication Technology (Vol. 1, 2009)
Editorial Board
Malaysian Journal of Information, Communication & Technology
Volume 1, 2009
Reviewers
Saedah Siraj (Prof., PhD)
Sharul Azman Mohd Noah (Associate Prof., PhD)
Nor Laila Md Noor(Associate Prof., PhD)
Jamaluddin Badusah (PhD)
Syahrul Nizam Junaini
Editor in Chief
Khirulnizam Abd Rahman
Secretaries
Nor Jannah Jaafar & Azfi Zaidi Mohd Sofi
Editors
Juzlinda Ghazali, Siti Nor Ahmad, Mohd Ridzal Mohd Yusof,
Hasnuddin Ab Rahman & Norfaizuryana Zainal Abidin.
Contributors
Roslinda Ramli & Halimah Badioze Zaman.
Ismadi bin Md Badarudin, Nor Fazlida Mohd Sani,
Mohd Zul bin Mohd Yusoff, Syarbaini bin Ahmad & Gawed Nagie.
Evfi Mahdiyah & Juhana Salim.
Hasnuddin Ab Rahman, Jamaluddin Badusah, Rosdy Wahid.
Thang Siew Ming, Puvaneswary Murugaiah, Pramela Krishnasamy,
Azizah Yaa’cob & Hazita Azman.
Editorial Office
Faculty of Information & Science Technology,
Kolej Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Selangor (KUIS),
Bandar Seri Putra, 43600 Bangi,
Selangor, Malaysia.
Tel : +603 8925 4251
Fax : +603 8925 4473
Hotline : +6012 903 4614
Email : myjict@kuis.edu.my
http://www.kuis.edu.my/ftsi/myjict/ ii
AUGMENTED REALITY BASIC READING COURSEWARE FOR DOWN

SYNDROME LEARNER: A PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS
Roslinda Ramli1 & Halimah Badioze Zaman2

1
Department of Multimedia
Faculty of Technology and Information Science
Selangor International Islamic University College
Tel : 03-89254251, Fax : 03-89254473
roslinda@kuis.edu.my
2
Information Science Department
Faculty of Information Science & Technology
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Selangor
Tel : 03-89216349, Fax : 03-89256732
hbz@ftsm.ukm.my
Abstract
Augmented reality (AR) is a promising technology which allows seamless user
interaction between the real and virtual objects. Interaction with real environment
and virtual object generated by computer makes the technology is very interesting
to develop educational application which allows manipulation and visualization.
AR is created has given big impact to educational world because its capability in
enriching educational experience for children, enhance user experience and
enhance collaborative task. Indeed, this technology has important implications to
Down syndrome learners as they are identified as visual learner and also provides
a learning environment that matches their learning styles. This paper briefly
presents the benefits and findings from a preliminary analysis on problems in basic
reading teaching and learning of Down syndrome learner and the capabilities of
augmented reality for basic reading learning. We did a preliminary analysis by
carrying out survey using diagnostic test on one sample Down syndrome student,
interviews and class observation involving five teachers and ten students from
special education classes at one government school in Bandar Baru Bangi and
Kiwanis Down Syndrome Foundation, Petaling Jaya. The key findings from
analysis are types of problems faced by the students in basic reading learning and
the potential of AR technology in designing Augmented Reality Basic Reading
Courseware to increase students' interest in learning basic reading via an
interesting experience. Therefore, the researcher hopes that the findings from that
information will help us in designing augmented reality basic reading courseware
to be developed and will be successful by fulfilling the objectives of target user and
effective as teaching and learning aid tool. Research conceptual framework is also
explained in this paper as research guidelines. Designing augmented reality
http://www.kuis.edu.my/ftsi/myjict/ 1
courseware is crucial as a platform to provide a tool as an effective way of

delivering basic reading teaching and learning to Down syndrome learner.
Keywords: Augmented reality, special education, reading, Down syndrome
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Augmented Reality is a promising technology which allows seamless user

interaction between the real and virtual objects. AR is a growing area in virtual
reality (VR) research. In contrast with virtual reality, which refers to a situation in
which the goal is to immerse a user in a completely synthetic environment,
augmented reality refers to a situation in which the goal is to supplement a user’s
perception of the real world through the addition of virtual objects (Azuma 1997).
Recent studies show that AR holds great promise for a wide range of applications in
medical, military, services, architecture and entertainment. For example, in the
medical field, AR visualization has been suggested and investigated for ultrasound
imaging (Bajura et al. 1992; State, Chen et al. 1994) and image guided surgery
(Lorensen, Cline et al. 1993; With respect to entertainment, AR technology has
been used to create special effect for creating illusion (Pyros & Goren 1995) and to
enhance gaming experience through the development AR games (Liarokapis 2006).
Advances in technology together with affordable cost had enabled the use of
innovative teaching and learning tools for education. Augmented Reality (AR) is a
medium which overlays virtual objects on top of a person’s local real world
environment (Chen 2006). It is a new technology that generates three-dimensional
(3-D) virtual objects, and provides an interactive interface with which people can
work and interact simultaneously both in the real world and 3-D virtual objects.
Thus, it makes AR an interesting technology for developing educational
applications that allows manipulation and visualization (Ucelli 2005). Augmented
Reality (AR) which is a variation of VR had been used in education and had
demonstrated high potential to enhance students’ learning experience. Latest
development involves augmented reality mainly because of its capability in
supporting user interactions between the real and virtual objects at the same time.
This characteristic enhances users’ performances as the interaction becomes more
realistic and intuitive (Chen 2006).
In education, AR user can gain benefit from AR as this technology is providing user
friendly interaction method with better understanding of the concept taught (Dayang
et al. 2007). According to Billinghurst (2002), the educational experience offered by

augmented reality is different for a number of reasons including; support of
seamless interaction between real and virtual environments, the use of a tangible
interface metaphor for object manipulation and the ability to transition smoothly
between reality and virtuality. In reading, AR has also proven beneficial to students;
referring to MagicBook developed by Billinghurst (2001). AR view in MagicBook
is an enhanced version of a traditional 3D “pop-up” book. Users can change the
virtual models simply by turning the book pages and when they see a scene they
particularly like, they can fly into the page and experience it as an immersive virtual
environment The computer has become invisible and the user can interact with
graphical content as easily as reading a book. Initial work suggests that the
MagicBook technology has also strong application potential for scientific
visualization (Billinghurst 2001).
AR is also beneficial to individuals with learning disabilities or intellectual

disabilities (Correa et al. 2007). Initial work suggests that they are effective in
facilitating the students with learning disabilities by allowing stimulating creativity,
concentration, memorization, visual and auditory perception and motor
coordination. A number of AR have been developed to support people with learning
disabilities in encouraging social interaction among them via gaming (Brederode et
al. 2005).
As in the field of reading, AR has been implemented in MagicBook (Billinghurst

2002), Storytelling (MacIntyre 2001;2003) and Digital Storytelling (Bimber 2003).
Nevertheless, to date, there is currently no augmented reality for basic reading
courseware for Down syndrome learner implemented in Malaysia. This research
aims to design augmented reality basic reading courseware to cater for Down
syndrome learner as well as the special education schools as a whole. In this paper
we present findings from a preliminary analysis of problems in basic reading
teaching and learning of Down syndrome learner at special education schools and
creating a research conceptual framework for development and studying of the
effectiveness of the courseware.
2.0 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
For this preliminary analysis, the purpose of the study is to:

• Identify the characteristics of Down syndromes students.
• Identify the teaching and learning problems of Down syndrome students.
• Identify the problem of reading learning of Down syndrome students.
• Making the questionnaires on basic performance of students.
• Perform class observation and interviews with Down syndrome students and
special education teacher to identify the problems in reading learning using
existing method.
• Survey the Malay Language syllabus for learning problems in special education
school.
• Survey the potential and capabilities of AR technology in reading teaching and
learning.
• Create a research conceptual framework for performing the next research.
3.0 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE
Overall, this research also gives several contributions as the followings below:
a) Helps the educators and students in solving reading problem in Malay

Language by using the AR technology to improve the students’ understanding
during teaching and learning process.
b) Designs and provides Malay Language diagnostic test to see the student’s
previous learning knowledge and capabilities.
c) Designs a research conceptual framework.
3.0 TEACHING AND LEARNING OF READING
This section discusses the problems in teaching and learning of basic reading and
we also present the results of preliminary analysis carried out at special education
school and Kiwanis Down Syndrome Foundation Centre (KIDSF).
3.1 Problems of Basic Reading Teaching and Learning of Down Syndrome

Students
Speech and language is a major problem of many people with Down syndrome
(Jenkins 1993). In Malaysia, there are many students with learning disabilities who
still cannot read (Yahya 2003). In addition, our society presumes that Down
syndrome learner cannot learn to read. However, according to Down Syndrome
Foundation President, Prof Madya Dr. Zainiyah it is found that few Down
syndrome students can learn reading like normal students. Learning problem for
students with learning disabilities like dyslexic and Down syndrome is unique but
the problem that hinders the learning can be corrected (Doman 2005).
The problem that is faced by Down syndrome students is particularly on how to

relate in whatever they have learned with the big picture. In teaching and learning of
Down syndrome learner, it has to be considered the contexts that they are familiar
with their daily life. Buckley (1999) suggests that joint attention session can be used
to ensure that they can quickly understand the meaning of the words.
Recent studies have demonstrated people with learning disabilities show deficits in
attention, perception (with better visual perception than auditory), language,
memory and a lack of interest in educational contents (Vera et al. 2007). They find
it difficult to cope with abstract concepts and to generalize and apply acquired
knowledge to other environments and also have a different cognitive style with
differences in their cognitive processes and strategies (such as poor private language
and difficulties when thinking for and about themselves (Vera et al. 2007). Those
people with Down syndrome show, in addition to their learning difficulties, a
weakness in their auditory channel. Poor auditory short-term memory may have
effect on sentence processing and hence the learning of grammar and syntax from
listening particularly difficult for the child and may explain why most children with
Down syndrome are still speaking in immature keyword utterances in their teens.
They also find it easier to manage with written language than with spoken language.
Among the preferences or strong points of people with learning disabilities, together
with their preference for the visual channel, they also show great curiosity for the
objects of their environment (Vera et al. 2007).
The use of phonetic method which is the traditional method of reading caused the
students to feel bored and lose interest because they don’t understand the meaning
during reading session using phonics method. Phonics method teaches sounds to be
associated with letters and combinations of letters.
The reading work is not going on in isolation from a whole range of other games
and activities designed to help the child to learn the meanings of the words and how
to use them in communicative interactions (Buckley & Bird 1993). For all children,
understanding of the meanings of words and the ways in which they are used
develop slowly.
3.2 Findings from Preliminary Analysis
A preliminary analysis was carried out to identify problems and to determine the
requirements to overcome these problems. In order to evaluate the basic
performance of student, four research instruments were done over the 6 months
such as survey, class observation, interviews and document analysis.
We did class observation and also interviews at Kiwanis Down Syndrome

Foundation Centre (KIDSF), Petaling Jaya and Sekolah Kebangsaan Jalan 6,
Bandar Baru Bangi. In Kiwanis Down Syndrome Foundation Centre, the teacher
reports that students are easily bored in their learning. Therefore, they cannot pay
attention for a long period of learning session in classroom. During class
observation which consists of ten students, it is found that some students moved
around the class and sometimes went outside the classroom. So, the teachers have to
get the students to sit properly in the class. Table 1 shows details of problems faced
by students.
The interview with special education coordinator teacher at one government school
in Bandar Baru Bangi showed that there is currently no reading courseware used in
schools. Additional problem according to Malay Language teacher is lack of a
teaching aid material. We performed a document analysis of Malay Language
performance report (Table 2) on a Down syndrome student. The student is
recommended by the teacher as she had a positive attitude, was hardworking and
friendly with anyone. The report indicated that the student can recognize letters and
write letters but she was unable to read.
An interview with Educational Technology Division, reported that there is no

courseware development for special education especially for Down syndrome
except there is one courseware in Kemahiran Hidup for special education.
Furthermore, the problem faced by Special Education Department (Table 3) is that
the curriculum of primary and secondary schools are the same and the teachers have
to be creative in preparing the teaching material to ensure the students understand
the learning materials.
Table 1: Problems in basic reading teaching and learning of Down syndrome

Item Problems
Student Difficult to give attention during teaching and
learning session.
Down syndrome is a visual learner
Teaching Method Traditional teaching method-teachers need to repeat
the same teaching material for many times
Teaching and learning via flashcard, picture book
and demo from teacher-Teacher needs to repeat the
demo so many times to ensure that they understand.
Material No courseware used
Table 2: Document Analysis:Reading Problems

Item Score
Do an easy instruction 5
Name the small letter 4
Name the big letter 4
Read kv 1
Read kvk 1
Write letter by tracing dotted line 5
Recognize letter and colour the same letter 5
Recognize picture and write the right vocal letter 1
Recognize picture and rewrite letter to make meaningful word 1
Coordinate dotted line and naming animal 4
Draw line 5
Read short passage 1
5=Very Skillful, 4=Skillful, 3=Moderate, 2=Unskillful, 1-Very Unskillful
Table 3: Special Education Department

Item Problems
Currriculum Special education curriculum for primary school and
secondary school is using the same curriculum.
Material Interview with officer – There is no CD or
courseware for Down syndrome students.
Survey in Educational Technology Division - There
is no CD or courseware for Down syndrome
students.
A survey is performed to gain a general understanding of how well students

performed relative to his/her performance in reading as well as to assess their prior
knowledge. This survey also aims to assess their understanding of reading in Malay
Language. This survey was based on Malay Language topic of Curriculum PKBP.
One of the assessments carried out is the diagnostic test. The test is a process of
collecting information about a student that is used to form judgments and make
decisions concerning the student. Two types of assessment are used, which are;
i. Formal assessment
ii. Informal assessment
During the reading diagnosis, both formal and informal test are used. Formal test
accessed the student’s reading level and identify areas of reading strengths and
weaknesses while informal assessment offered information on the child’s language
ability. The results of reading assessment are categorized according to the

following:
i. Characteristics, behaviours during reading session and student interest
summarized in Table 4 (performed on subject samples in one school in Bandar Baru
Bangi area in Selangor)
ii. Down syndrome student and language components problems in Table 5
iii. Reading analysis in diagnostic test based on Malay Language topic of
Curriculum PKBP (shown in Table 6).
Table 4: The Characteristics, behaviour during reading session and interest of Down
syndrome student
Student Name Characteristics Behaviour during Interest
reading session
Afiah (not the Has a positive Show interest in Drawing &
real name) attitude, reading, Coloring,
Friendly with Not focus more Music
others, than 10 minutes
Concentrate
during doing her
work
Table 5: Language components problems

Student Speaking Writing Listening Spelling Level of
Name Reading
Afiah Can speak Can write by Can listen Cannot Cannot
but copying or the spell read
sometimes tracing from instructions
not loud the words given
and clear given
Table 6: Reading analysis:Score Percentage Based On Malay Language Topic of

Curriculum PKBP
Topic Score (%)
5 4 3 2 1
Very Skillful Moderate Unskillful Very
Skillful Unskillful
Alphabet reading 100% - - - -
-Small letter
-Big letter
Syllable reading - - - - 100%
-Spell kv
-Spell kvk
Word reading - - - 25% 75%
-Read kv+kv
-Read kv+kvk
Sentence reading - - - - 100%
Alphabet writing 66.7% - - - 33.3%
Syllable writing - - 33.3% - 66.7%
Word writing - - - 33.3% 66.7%
Write and - - - - 100%
arrange sentence
Comprehension - - - - 100%
Result from diagnostic test has found from the questionnaires that a researcher done
in order to support the result. The results of students’ reading show that the student
has problems and weaknesses when learning to read particularly in syllable (100%),
word reading (100%) and sentence reading (100%). For the students’ writing, the
positive results are achieved for alphabet writing (66.7%) while moderate results are
obtained for syllable writing (33.3%). This shows that the student has weaknesses in
terms of syllable writing. It is concluded that the student does not performed well in
reading skills of syllable, word and sentence. The results also indicate that the
student is good in recognizing letters but sometimes are confused with letters ‘b’,
‘d’, ‘v’ and ‘y’. This student cannot relate the letter name with the graphics. When
using flash cards (which shows the picture and text), the student can read with the
support of pictures. The student is unable to read text when no pictures are
provided. This indicates that she is a visual learner. These findings are used in
designing and developing AR courseware for Down syndrome students.
4.0 RESEARCH CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Overall, this research will follow three process levels such as Preliminary Analysis
Process, System Development Process and Testing and Evaluation System
Processes. This can be seen in Research Conceptual Framework in Figure 1.
Level I : Preliminary Analysis Level

Preliminary Analysis Process involved several interview with special education
coordinator teacher and special education teachers who primarily teach the research
sample, that is Afiah who will be using the system that will be developed. The
interview with Afiah’s parents is also done in order to know her learning problem;
learning method which is being practiced at home; acquiring Afiah’s profile and the
level of her reading ability. This preliminary analysis is also involved the research
on past researches that were carried out on reading using PBK or computer aided
learning for Down syndrome children. A detailed research needs to be done in
analysis phase to ensure that the courseware development is followed with the right
and exact specifications.
Level II : System Development Process

System Development Process involved four processes such as Analysis, Design,
Prototype Development and Implementation that will be developed. Analysis
process needs researcher to fix teaching and learning theories and also methods that
can be included in system design that will be developed; survey and investigate
Whole Language Philosophy that is used as a basic approach in courseware and also
techniques and pedagogy which related to Whole Language Philosophy that can
help effective learning to Down syndrome children. Augmented reality technology
method is studied to produce learning environment which afford to attract and give
better understanding to students. On the other hand, Design process concentrated on
design and creating ID model which is suitable for system that will be developed.
Model of courseware development and forming convention and standard for system
are also developed. Development process involved preparing learning material for
reading which is suitable for Down syndrome learner; development of storyboard
and flowchart system for system programming implementation. For implementation
process, it involved process of introducing the usage of software to the research
sample, Afiah in order to know the errors that possibly done during the utilization of
that system.
Level III : Process of System Evaluation and Testing

Process of System Evaluation and Testing involved evaluation on the strength and
weakness of the system that will be developed. The evaluation will be performed
based on deep observation method towards research sample. Software Checklist

Instrument is developed for that purpose. Questionnaires about the usage of system
will also developed to get the feedback from teacher and parents about the software
that has been developed.
Figure 1: Research Conceptual Framework
5.0 PROPOSED AUGMENTED REALITY BASIC READING

COURSEWARE FOR DOWN SYNDROME STUDENTS
As an attempt to help Down syndromes students in learning to read, there is a need

to develop the augmented reality basic reading courseware which incorporates
features and elements of the Whole Language Philosophy. Whole Language is a
concept that embodies both a philosophy of language development as well as the
instructional approaches embedded within and supportive of that philosophy. This
concept includes the use of real literature and writing in the context of meaningful,
functional and cooperative experiences in order to develop the students’ motivation
and interest in the process of learning (Bergin & LaFave 1998). Thus, the research
has chosen the sight words from the daily life environment as the 3D environment
and will be known as AR SindDown. In addition, the characters, words learning and
surrounding materials of the virtual environment will be mapped to “real” objects in
our daily life to allow users to feel a sense of immersion as they navigate and
interact in the virtual environment. Not only would the AR SindDown help Down
syndrome students, it would also serve as a platform to trigger off ideas to Ministry
of Education Malaysia to develop subjects for Down syndrome students. The
development of the AR SindDown and augmented reality features and components
will not be discussed in this paper and will be discussed in future works.
6.0 CONCLUSION
This research is studying the learning based on computer using augmented reality
technology for basic reading for Down syndrome students where it can give benefit
to overall Down syndrome students and special education teachers. These research
findings will be analyzed and compared to the existing learning method. With this
research it is hope that it can afford to attract the students’ interest and improve the
students’ understanding in reading process. Learning based on augmented reality
technology is created to improve the effectiveness and capabilities of learning by
using teaching aid tool which effective to Down syndrome students and then will
trigger off ideas to the Ministry of Education Malaysia in encouraging research in
other subject areas as a teaching and learning aid tools for Down syndrome students
particularly and special education school generally. AR technology enables the
students to make a visualization and manipulation on teaching and learning
material. This can afford to provide learning which is meaningful and full of
experience to students.
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RL-TRANSFORMER : JAVA CODE TRANSFORMATION BY REDUCING

LINE OF CODES
Ismadi bin Md Badarudin1, Nor Fazlida Mohd Sani2, Mohd Zul bin Mohd Yusoff2,
Syarbaini bin Ahmad3, Gawed Nagie2
1
Department of Computer Science and Mathematics,
Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM)
2
Department of Computer Science and Information Technology
Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM)
3
Department of Computer Science,
Selangor International Islamic University College (SIIUC)
syarbaini@kuis.edu.my
Abstract
A transformer is generally developed with an intention to transform program code
to be more readable and simple thus reducing computation time at the compilation
level. The RL-Transformer (Reduce code Line of Transformer) mostly focuses to
novice programmers who write the program to merely obtain the output without
taking into account a good structure of program. The RL-Transformer is able to
transform a set of Java codes by reducing the lines of code, and the result can
significantly contribute to the program codes readability and computing
performance. This project scope is to simplify the code statements that involve
primitive data types, string and single while() loop statement following the Java
language conditions. The RL-Transformer has been tested and successfully
achieved the objectives. In this project, an experiment was conducted based on 15
samples of program, and then the empirical finding was reported by showing the
robustness of the transformer.
Keywords: Readability, simplicity, code transformation, software engineering,

programming language
1.0 INTRODUCTION
The most important criteria for judging a programming language are the ease of
reading and understanding the program code. It also relies on reliability that must be
considered in the context of the problem domain. For example, a program that
describes a computation is written in a language not designed for such use, the
program may be unnatural and convoluted, making it usually difficult to read. The
simplicity of a programming language strongly affected its readability. A language
that has a large number of basic constructs is more difficult to learn that one with a
smaller number of them [Robert W. Sebesta, 2008]. Code transformations are

routinely used to improve the performance of programs for both scalar and parallel
machines. The main issues to transform a code are related to readability, flexibility
as well as computation time [Deborah, 1997]. By identifying various properties of
code-improving transformations, such as their interactions, costs, expected benefits,
and application frequencies, informed decisions can be made as to what
transformation to apply, where to apply them, and in which order to apply them.
The order of application is important to the quality of code as transformations can
interact with one another by creating or destroying the potential for further code-
improving transformations. For example, the quality of code produced would be
negatively affected if the potential for applying a beneficial transformation was
destroyed by the application of a less beneficial transformation. Certain types of
transformations may be beneficial for one architecture but not for another. The
benefits of a transformation can also be dependent on the type of scheduler
(dynamic or static) that is used [Watts et al. 1992].
In modern high level languages, a large part of source code consists of data
declarations. The improper declaration and manipulation of program date lead to
data anomalies. These anomalies may lead to serious software functionality
problems at run-time.
To overcome the problems particularly towards improving Java codes written by

novice programmer, we proposed a tool named Reduce code Line of Transformer
(RL-Transformer) that act as code transformation. According to Deborah (1997)
one approach that can be taken to determine the most appropriate transformations
and the order of application for a set of programs is to implement a code
transformer program (optimizer) that includes a number of code-improving
transformations, apply the transformations to the programs, and then evaluate the
performance of the transformed code. She adds that, actually implementing such a
code-transforming tool can be a time consuming process, especially when the
detection of complex conditions and global control and data dependency
information is required. In this paper, we only focus on the code transformation by
reducing the line of code in which our hypothesis will improve the code readability
and computation time at the compilation part.
We choose Java as the tested code in order to gauge the effectiveness of the
proposed tool because of Java is among the most popular programming languages
today. It is used by almost fields for various teaching and learning, applications
development, web pages support and others by academicians, students and lecturers,
programmers etc. This owing to Java as a general-purpose object oriented
programming languages that supported by a machine-independent byte code

representation. Thus, they can run anywhere on the Internet using Java-enabled web
browsers on multi-vendor and stand-alone personal computer or workstations
(Boujarwah, 2000].
2.0 RELATED WORKS
There are several studies about the dilemma of novice programmers in

understanding and writing program. Perkins and Martin (1989) reported that
students have fragile knowledge of basic programming concepts and a “shortfall in
elementary problem-solving strategies”. An entire volume of papers, called
‘Studying the Novice Programmer’, also documented the difficulties of learning to
program (Soloway and Spohrer, 1989). First, in 2001, the ‘McCracken’ working
group assessed the programming ability of an international student 2001, the
students were tested on a common set of program-writing problems and the
majority of students performed far more poorly than expected. Then, in 2004, the
‘Leeds’ working group (Lister et al., 2004) studied the code-reading skills of novice
programmers. Data was collected from 615 students, spread across 12 institutions in
7 countries. The students were asked to answer several multiple-choice questions
about short pieces of code. Again the majority of students did not perform well and
approximately 25% of the students appeared to be performing at a level consistent
with guessing.
To cater the novice programmer issues, Masayuki Arai and Tomomi Yamazaki,
2005, have designed a tool which sets problems of tracing a source program for
novice programmers. They claim that (1) the physical actions contribute to learning
novice programs; (2) novice programmers should write and read basic programs
repeatedly. Catching (3) up present content of variables and tracing past content of
variables is important for tracing a source program and (4) Learners should be
unrestricted in space and time. So, the tool can display source codes and a chart of
the program in parallel. Therefore learners can trace with both the program codes
and the chart.
3.0 OVERVIEW OF THE JAVA FEATURES IN DECLARING VARIABLES

AND USING REPETITION STATEMENTS
Java code is one of chosen programming languages that receiving wide attention
from both industry and academia. It was based on C++ and was originally intended
for writing program that control consumer appliances. Java is fully supported by
Object Oriented Programming (OOP) and being used for developing applications,
web pages and others. In this chapter, discussion focuses on the declaration of
variables and some different declaration examples that are permitted in Java.
Besides that, we discuss differentiate of the while statement and for statement with
same output purposes and decide the better one.
Variable
A variable has three properties which are a memory location to store value, the type
of data stored in the memory location and the name used to refer to the memory
location [Thomas, 2006]. Thus, before using a variable, a process of declaring and
assigning a value to it need to be done. In variables declaration, user can declare
variable depends on their style that are allowed by Java language, as a result giving
a ease of writing program but at the same time the issues of readability.
Data types in Java are divided into two categories; the primitive data types such as
Boolean, byte, char, short, int, long, float and double and non-primitive types. So
classes which specify the types of objects are reference types. A primitive-type
variable can store exactly one value of its declared type at a time. For example, an
int variable can store one whole number (such as 7) at a time. When another value
assign to that variable, its initial value is replaced. Primitive-type instance variables
are initialized by default – variables of types byte, char, short, int, long, float and
double are initialized to 0, while variables of types Boolean are initialized to false.
Instead using the default value, user can specify their own initial value for
primitive-type variables, however local variables are not permitted to initialize by
default [Dental, 2002].
Loop Construction
Java provides three loop constructions, these are the while( ), do and for( )
constructs. Each provides the facility for repeating the execution of block of code
until some condition occurs. We show the distinction of while( ) loop and for( ) loop
in terms their syntax and number of line statements used in which both generate a
same output as the table below.
Table 1: General structure of while and for.

General while( ) loop General for( ) loop
While (boolean_condition) For (init_statement; boolean_condition;

repeate_statement iter_expression)
Loop boby
Example while( ) loop
int x=0; Example for( ) loop
While (x < 10) {

System.out.println(“value is “ + x); for (int x=0; x < 10; x++) {
x++; System.out.println(“value is “ + x);
} }
The while( ) loop needs 5 line The for( ) loop needs only 3 line
statements to solve the above problem. statements to solve the above problem.
4.0 THE DESIGN OF RL-TRANSFORMER
In this case, some novice programmers have various styles to write program without
following the proper steps in which their aim is to solve the particular problems,
consequently, leaving the program code is unreadable and spend high cost for
computation time. Let us show a program code written by a novice programmer as
the Figure 1.
Figure 1: Program1.txt file
The code in Figure 1 are program statements to compute the sum of two numbers
and display on the screen the value of sum for each of iteration. The codes were
successfully run without any error. However, there are at least two bad coding
practice in the program which are (1) the variables declarations are located
somewhere in the program that make the program difficult to be read, (2) many
lines are used to declare the variables in which can be simplified, this situation will
increase computation time during compiling process.
To solve the above problems, We developed a prototyped transformer named the

Reduce Line Transformer (RL-Transformer) with two main objectives are (1) To
simplify the code by using transformation technique, (2) make program more
reliable and efficient. In order to achieve these two objectives, firstly the RL-
Transformer acts to combine the same data types that are written in different line
together and secondly, to convert from the while() loop statement to the for() loop
statement.
Visual Basic was used to develop the RL-Transformer. Visual Basic is one of
popular programming languages that can be implemented in Graphic User Interface
environment. It has capability to read text files, besides that can determine every
line and word as well as to store data in array elements which are the main
requirements of codes towards developing RL-Transformer. The RL-Transformer is
purposely built to read only codes written in the Java program with an assumption
that the codes have been successfully compiled prior to the running of the RL-
Transformer. The figure1 is considered as Java code that has no error after
compilation process. To transform a new code, there are two steps will be
implemented by the RL-Transformer; (1) create a temporary file to eliminate
indentation (refer to figure 2), (2) RL-transformer creates a new text file containing
the simplified code of program (refer to Figure 3).
Figure 2: Temporary.txt file
Figure 3: Program1xyz.txt file
The Figure 4 clearly shows that program1.txt has been transformed to

program1xyz.txt by reducing the line code with number of line is 32 and 11
respectively.
Figure 4: RL-Transformer
5.0 EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
The objective of design is to determine the capability of RL-Transformer to manage

basic program code written by student. We collected 32 programs code that consist
of several problem solving of Basic Programming course of Computer Science &
Information Technology, UPM, Malaysia students. An experiment has been
conducted involving 15 out of 32 programs that were randomly chosen in a
laboratory which has the same computers performance. The selected programs
contain 25 – 50 lines with various writing styles; have been compiled with no
syntax error and executed without logic error. Every single program was tested
using the RL-Transformer and the observation technique was used to determine the
transformation of code by involving primitive data types, String and While() loop.
6.0 RESULT
The Table 2 shows there are 15 programs written by novice students in which all
programs used data type and it out of 15 used while() loop statement. The RL-
Transformer transformed the 11 programs code that using primitive data types,
String with no syntax error and without changing the quality of output. The prog3
and prog6 remain the number of code line after transformation since they practiced
the good style. They managed the same variable in one line and use of for() loop
rather than while() loop. Another 3 programs (prog9, prog11 and pog14) used
while() loop, both show reduce the line code numbers. The Prog9 (one while() loop)
showed successfully transform, but the prog11 and prog14 produced a syntax error
since they used more than one while() loop in their programs. Another program
named prog10 has no error after transformation process but produce different output
in which we consider as a logic error.
Table 2: Result of the testing.

Primitive String While While Syntax Logic remarks
data type 1 2 error error
Prog1 X X No No
Prog2 X X No No
Prog3 X X No No Same
number
of line
Prog4 X X No No
Prog5 X X No No
Prog6 X X No No Same
number
of line
Prog7 X X X No No
Prog8 X X No No
Prog9 X X X No No
Prog10 X X X No Yes Reduce

line but
has logic
error
Prog11 X X X X Yes Yes Reduce
line but
has
syntax
error
Prog12 X X X No No
Prog13 X X X No No
Prog14 X X X X Yes Yes Reduce

line but
has
syntax
error
Prog15 X X X no no
In this experiment we conclude that the RL-Transformer is able to simplify the

programs involve the data types and single while() loop. However, several
limitations as stated in chapter 7 will probably resolve in the next version of RL-
Transformer. We consider the constraints as a future work that is discussed in
chapter 7.
7.0 FUTURE WORK AND CONCLUSION
There are several restrictions as stated below, and to be the RL-Transformer is more
reliable and robust, some refinement of code need to be carried out for future works.
- Dealing only with primitive data types and string.
- Not all while() loop can be converted into for() loop.
- Some of the program is not cater space or indentation
- No semantic involve analysis in transformation process
The RL-Transformer is able to transform program code towards simplifying the line
of code. In the code examples (figure 1) and transformed code (figure 4) explicitly
showed that lines of code have been reduced from 32 to 11 and resulting in a
reduced computation time in compilation process. It was also proven by empirical
finding which are 80% of tested code have been transformed successfully and have
no syntax and logic error. Moreover, the involvement of immense program code in
large project, as a theory will contribute more significant effect to time
performance. To prove it, an experimental analysis will carry out as another
direction of further work.
8.0 REFERENCES
A.S Boujarwah, K. Saleh, J. Al-Dallal, 2000. Dynamic data flow analysis for Java
Programs. In Elsevier - Information and Software Technology Journal, 755
– 756.
C. Thomas Yu, 2006. An Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming with Java,
McGraw Hill, 4th edition, 81-85.
Deborah L. Whitfield and Mary Lou Soffa , 1997, University of Pittsburgh, ACM
Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems, Vol. 19, No. 6,
November 1997, Pages 1053–1084.
Dental, 2002. Java Hoe to Program, Pearson-Prentice Hall, 6th Edition, 96 – 97.
Lister R., Adams, E. S., Fitzgerald, S., Fone, W., Hamer, J., Lindholm, M.,
McCartney, R., Moström, E., Sanders, K., Seppälä, O., Simon, B., Thomas,
L., 2004, A Multi-National Study of Reading and Tracing Skills in Novice
Programmers, SIGCSE Bulletin, Volume 36, page. 119-150.
Masayuki Arai, Tomomi Yamazaki, 2005. Design of a tool which sets problems of
tracing a source program for novice programmers, Recent Research
Developments in Learning Technologies (2005), page 1-4.
McCracken, M., V. Almstrum, D. Diaz, M. Guzdial, D. Hagen, Y. Kolikant, C.
Laxer, L. Thomas, I. Utting, T. Wilusz, 2001, A Multi-National, Multi-
Institutional Study of Assessment of Programming Skills of Firstyear CS
Students. SIGCSE Bulletin, 33(4):125-140.
Perkins, D. N. and Martin, F., 1986, Fragile Knowledge and Neglected Strategies in
Novice Programmers. In E. Soloway and S. Iyengar (Eds), Empirical
Studies of Programmers, Ablex, Inc., Norwood, NJ, 213-229.
Robert W. Sebesta, 2008, Concepts of Programming Languages, Eight Edition,
Person International Edtion, pages 8-9.
Soloway, E. and and Spohrer, J. (Eds), 1989, Studying the Novice Programmer.
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ.
Watts, T., Soffa, M. L., and Gupta, R. 1992. Techniques for integrating parallelizing
transformation and compiler based scheduling methods. Proceedings of
Supercomputing ’92. IEEE, New York, 830-839.
SISTEM CARIAN MAKLUMAT ISLAM MENGGUNAKAN

KAEDAH PENGINDEKSAN KANDUNGAN WEB
Evfi Mahdiyah & Juhana Salim

Fakulti Teknologi dan Sains Maklumat, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
43600 Bangi, Selangor.
Telefon : 03-89216179 Faks : 03-89216184
evfi_m@yahoo.com, js@ftsm.ukm.my
Abstrak
Objektif kajian ini adalah untuk membangunkan Sistem Pengindeksan Maklumat
Web bagi menyokong pembangunan Sistem Carian Maklumat Islam yang memenuhi
keperluan pengguna. Kaedah pengindeksan maklumat dipilih bagi tujuan
mengumpul dan mengintegrasikan sumber web Islam ke dalam pangkalan data
secara lebih cepat dan efisien. Proses pengindeksan sumber maklumat web
merangkumi proses pembuangan tag, kata henti, perkataan yang tidak bermakna
dan memfokuskan pada pengindeksan URL, tajuk, meta tag dan kandungan
perkataan daripada ‘body’ atau kandungan keseluruhan suatu dokumen HTML
(laman web) berdasarkan pattern yang telah ditakrifkan dalam aturcara sistem
melalui aplikasi teknik Regular Expression. Secara keseluruhan, sistem
pengindeksan yang dibangunkan dapat mengekstrak kandungan web seperti :
maklumat url, tajuk, meta tag, pautan dan kandungan perkataan daripada laman
web Islam, manakala sistem pencariannya dapat melakukan pencarian maklumat
Islam dengan menggunakan kaedah carian perkataan/frasa pengguna dan
direktori/pautan. Sistem ini dapat memberikan sumbangan kepada
penemuan/pemerolehan maklumat dan hasil carian atas talian tanpa mengira
batasan waktu dan tempat serta boleh di dapati oleh sesiapa sahaja yang
memerlukan maklumat Islam.
Kata Kunci : Pengindeksan maklumat web, meta tag, capaian maklumat Islam
1.0 PENGENALAN
Pertumbuhan yang pantas dan terhasil daripada sumber maklumat di Internet telah
menjadikan Internet sebagai sumber kemudahan maklumat global dan penyedia data
yang penting bagi pengguna. Internet telah menyediakan akses kepada pelbagai
jenis maklumat dan salah satunya adalah maklumat tentang Islam. Menurut Sidek
Baba (2007), teknologi maklumat dan komunikasi (ICT) menjanjikan pembaharuan
dalam penyebaran maklumat. Kajian Nor Shahriza & Norzelatun (2005) mendapati
bahawa Internet telah menyediakan kemudahan akses terhadap maklumat, terutama

maklumat Islam sehingga pelajar dan pihak akademik menjadikan Internet sebagai
sumber rujukan untuk pengajian Islam.
Menurut Mansourian (2007), perkhidmatan Internet telah membawa kepada

peningkatan bilangan laman web yang drastik dan perkembangan ini memberikan
implikasi terhadap fenomena saiz sumber web. Hal ini telah menimbulkan masalah
baru kepada enjin carian dan penstrukturan sumber maklumat web (Shahizan,
2008). Maklumat yang tersedia di Internet, kebanyakannya wujud dalam bentuk
data yang tidak tersusun (Mendez, A. & Monte, M. 2002). Kajian Nurul et al.
(2006) mendapati pengguna menghadapi masalah untuk mendapatkan maklumat
yang tepat dan khusus melalui laman web kerana masalah dalam penstrukturan
maklumat laman web. Menurut Rowley (2001), maklumat menjadi berharga jika
distrukturkan dengan baik. Kekurangan kerja penstrukturan dalam penciptaan,
pengagihan dan penerimaan maklumat, akan menyebabkan maklumat melalui
Internet tidak dapat dicapai apabila diperlukan. Bagi membantu pengguna menemui
maklumat atau kandungan topik tertentu dengan cepat dan mudah, pengorganisasian
dan penstrukturan kandungan maklumat web adalah diperlukan (Sharhida, 2006).
Kajian Rachagan (2005) juga mendapati bahawa melayari laman web dengan
kumpulan data yang banyak, akan menyebabkan ramai individu terpaksa
mengambil masa yang lama untuk mencari, mengumpul dan menyusun data.
Beberapa enjin carian, seperti Google, Yahoo! dan MSN, telah dibangunkan untuk
membantu pengguna dalam menemukan laman web yang relevan secara efektif.
Namun, enjin carian masih tidak dapat memberikan jawapan yang tepat dan lengkap
bagi permintaan yang lebih spesifik mengenai domain tertentu (Gregg, D.G &
Walczak, S, 2007). Enjin carian dan direktori, kerap memulangkan hasil carian
yang berjumlah berjuta pautan laman web kepada pengguna. Ini akan
mengakibatkan kesukaran bagi pengguna untuk menemukan maklumat yang tepat
dalam senarai pautan yang banyak (Rainer, Turban, & Potter, 2007). Pengguna
Internet yang ingin mengesan maklumat berkaitan dengan Islam turut mengalami
permasalahan yang sama apabila mengesan maklumat melalui Internet. Menyedari
masalah ini, usaha tertentu perlu diambil untuk menyediakan pengaksesan atau
capaian yang lebih baik kepada sumber maklumat Islam secara dalam talian dan
membangunkan strategi pencarian web yang efektif, untuk mendapatkan maklumat
yang relevan.
2.0 REKABENTUK KAJIAN
Kajian ini bertujuan untuk memenuhi keperluan pengguna mendapatkan maklumat

tentang Islam secara lebih tepat dan mudah, dengan membangunkan sistem
pengindeksan. Sistem ini akan memanfaatkan kaedah pengindeksan kandungan
web automatik untuk mengumpul dan mengintegrasikan kedalam satu pangkalan
data, pelbagai jenis maklumat web Islam yang telah dikenalpasti kandungannya.
Pangkalan data tersebut merupakan asas bagi membangunkan sistem carian
maklumat Islam yang berasaskan web. Pelaksanaan kajian ini dilakukan melalui
empat fasa :
2.1 Fasa 1 : Perolehan Pengetahuan

Di dalam kajian ini, pengumpulan data diperlukan bagi memahami masalah yang
dihadapi oleh pengguna semasa melakukan pencarian maklumat Islam. Fasa ini
melibatkan langkah berikut: pemerolehan pengetahuan mengenai perkara-perkara
yang berkaitan dengan kajian; menjelajah Web menggunakan enjin carian, gateway,
indeks dan direktori bagi mendapatkan laman-laman web Islam yang telah dikenal
pasti kandungannya; dan memilih laman web Islam yang akan dijadikan data untuk
diekstrak, berpandukan kriteria penilaian laman web yang digariskan dalam kajian
Saemah & Siti (2007) dan Juhana et al. (2007).
Kriteria pemilihan laman web Islam adalah melalui pemikiran kritis terhadap
proses pengenalpastian dan penilaian kandungan daripada laman web berdasarkan
kejelasan sumber, ketepatan, kerelevanan kandungan, logik, struktur yang baik, dan
pencantuman tarikh kemaskini.
2.2 Fasa 2 : Pembangunan Sistem

Untuk kajian ini, penyelidik menggunakan model Prototaip. Pembangunan prototaip
sistem carian maklumat Islam adalah berorientasikan web, yang disebabkan
fungsinya untuk berinteraksi dengan pengguna yang terdapat dalam persekitaran
web.
Sistem ini dibangunkan dengan ciri mesra pengguna. Antaramuka yang ringkas dan
menarik, juga dihasilkan dengan menggunakan perisian Macromedia Dreamweaver
8 dan Adobe Photoshop. Perisian pengaturcaraan PHP 5.2, Hyper Text Markup
Language (HTML), CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) dan Ajax (Asynchronous
Javascript and XML) digunakan sebagai bahasa pengaturcaraan untuk

membangunkan aturcara yang terlibat dalam pembangunan prototaip. Sementara
itu, perisian pangkalan data MySQL 5.0 digunakan sebagai perisian untuk
membangunkan struktur pangkalan data. Oleh kerana prototaip ini berasaskan web,
maka perkhidmatan web diperlukan dan penyelidik memilih Apache HTTP Server
2.2.4 sebagai perkhidmatan web yang dilarikan pada sistem pengoperasian
Windows XP Professional.
2.2.1 Senibina Sistem

Senibina sistem ini terdiri daripada pembangunan antaramuka pengguna, enjin
carian, pangkalan data, perisian pengindeksan kandungan web secara automatik
seperti yang ditunjukkan dalam Rajah 1.
Rajah 1. Senibina Sistem Pengindeksan dan Carian Maklumat Islam
2.2.2 Modul Pengindeksan Kandungan Web

Modul ini melakukan pengindeksan kandungan daripada web iaitu URL, tajuk,
meta tag (tittle, description, keywords), hyperlink, dan kandungan perkataan pada
laman web secara automatik. Pengindeksan kandungan laman web adalah penting
dan perlu bagi mendapatkan senarai kata kunci yang relevan dan mencerminkan
kandungan suatu laman web.
Sistem melakukan pengindeksan URL, hyperlink, maklumat meta tag (tittle,

description, keywords) dan perkataan atau teks daripada kandungan laman web
berdasarkan pola atau struktur dalam HTML yang telah ditakrifkan dalam aturcara
sistem melalui aplikasi teknik regular expression yang merujuk pada pelbagai
format atau struktur hyperlink yang berbeza. Teknik regular expression bagi
penjanaan suatu struktur wrapper yang membolehkan perisian atau penghurai yang
dibangunkan mengenalpasti kesemua tag HTML, maklumat tajuk, hyperlinks dan
meta tag (tittle, description, keywords) sesuatu laman web, sebelum mengindeks
setiap perkataan atau kandungan laman web tersebut.
Contoh penggunaan teknik regular expression yang digunakan dalam kajian

penyelidik bagi menjana struktur format tag HTML, tajuk, hyperlinks, dan
maklumat meta tag bagi laman-laman web ditunjukkan dalam Rajah 2.
Regex untuk tajuk :

"/<title>(.*?)<\/title>/i"
Regex untuk meta tag :
"<meta\s*(.*?)\s*=\s*[\'\"](.*?)[\'\"]\s*(.*?)\s*=\s*[\'\"](.*?)[\'\"]>"
Regex untuk hyperlink (tag <A>)
"/<a\s*(.*?)>.*<\/a>/i"
Regex untuk atribut href (pada tag <A>)
"/href\s*=\s*[\'\"](.*?)[\'\"]/i"
Regex untuk memisahkan string ke dalam array of word
"/[\s.,]+/"
Rajah 2. Teknik Regular Expression bagi menjana maklumat laman web
Proses pembuangan kata henti juga dijalankan pada kandungan web. Penapisan kata
henti dilakukan melalui rujukan pada senarai kata henti bahasa Melayu dan bahasa
Inggeris yang disimpan dalam pangkalan data dalam bentuk notepad. Kata-kata
yang ditemukan di laman web akan dibuat unik, dengan menghapus kata-kata yang
sama. Data meta tag, hyperlinks dan kandungan web yang diekstrak dipaparkan dan
disimpan dalam pangkalan data.
2.5 Fasa 3 : Pengujian

2.5.1 Pengujian Kebolehgunaan Sistem
Pengujian kebolehgunaan sistem dilakukan bagi mengetahui sejauhmana
kebolehgunaan dan prestasi sebuah sistem daripada pandangan pengguna. Objektif
pengujian kebolehgunaan adalah untuk memastikan sistem mesra pengguna dari
segi antara muka dan masa tindak balasnya.
Dalam kajian ini, tahap pengujian sistem dilakukan ke atas sepuluh orang penguji
dan jumlah ini dianggap mencukupi. Menurut Nielsen dan Laundauer (1993), untuk
mendapatkan keputusan terbaik, pengujian haruslah dilaksanakan ke atas tidak
lebih daripada lima orang penguji. Pengujian kebolehgunaan ke atas lima orang
akan menyebabkan 85% masalah kebolehgunaan dapat dijumpai dan pertambahan
bilangan pengujian tidak akan mendatangkan perubahan besar.
Disamping itu, Common Industry Format for Usability Test Reports (Industry
Usability Reporting 1998), telah digunakan sebagai asas dan rujukan di dalam
membuat pengujian kebolehgunaan dan prestasi sistem. Pengujian kebolehgunaan
dan prestasi ini dibahagikan kepada 5 bahagian. Setiap bahagian pengujian
ditandakan dengan P1 hingga P7, iaitu : pengujian untuk kemasukan data pentadbir
(P1), pengujian untuk pengindeksan maklumat web (P2), pengujian untuk
pengurusan maklumat web (P3), pengujian untuk pengurusan kandungan maklumat
URL (P4) dan pengujian untuk pencarian maklumat Islam (P5).
Selain itu, populasi terhadap sepuluh orang penguji ini juga telah dibahagikan
kepada dua sampel dan setiap sampel terdiri daripada lima orang penguji. Sampel
tersebut adalah sampel kawalan (SK) dan sampel eksperimen (SE). Penguji
daripada sampel kawalan telah diberi pendedahan terlebih dahulu cara
menggunakan sistem dan mereka merupakan tutor dan pelajar (master/phd) bidang
IT. Sampel eksperimen merupakan pengguna biasa yang diambil secara rawak
dikalangan pelajar fakulti Pengajian Islam dan pegawai (awam/swasta).
Cara pengujian dijalankan sebagai berikut :
a) Penguji diberikan tugasan pengujian. Tugasan pengujian ini mengandungi
arahan yang perlu diikuti oleh penguji.
b) Semasa penguji melaksanakan tugasan pengujian, masa, kesalahan dan ralat
yang telah dilakukan dicatatkan.
c) Setelah semua pengujian dilaksanakan, penguji dikehendaki mengisi borang
soal selidik.
2.5.2 Pengujian Kecenderungan Pengguna

Pengujian kecenderungan pengguna dilaksanakan untuk mendapatkan maklumbalas
daripada pengguna berkenaan kriteria yang diuji. Pengujian ini juga bertujuan untuk
mengenalpasti dan mendapatkan komen daripada pengguna terhadap sistem untuk
penambahbaikan sistem pada masa akan datang.
Bagi melaksanakan pengujian ini, 20 penguji dari kalangan pelajar dan pegawai
telah dipilih secara rawak untuk membantu pengujian berkenaan keberkesanan
sistem yang dibangunkan. Jumlah ini sudah termasuk didalamnya 10 orang penguji
kebolehgunaan sistem. Pengujian kecenderungan pengguna terhadap sistem
pengindeksan dan carian maklumat Islam dilakukan dengan penguji melengkapkan
borang soal selidik yang telah disediakan. Borang soal selidik ini terbahagi kepada
empat bahagian, iaitu :
a) Bahagian A (antaramuka sistem), mengandungi 4 soalan
b) Bahagian B (kandungan dan kebolehgunaan sistem), mengandungi 9 soalan
c) Bahagian C (teknik capaian), mengandungi 4 soalan
d) Bahagian D (Pandangan dan cadangan daripada pengguji), merupakan
soalan subjektif
Bahagian A, B, dan C menggunakan skala Likert yang mengandungi 5 julat iaitu 1

= Sangat Tidak Setuju, 2 = Tidak Setuju, 3 = Kurang Setuju, 4 = Setuju dan 5 =
Sangat Setuju.
3.0 KEPUTUSAN
a) Pengujian Kebolehgunaan Sistem

Pengujian kebolehgunaan yang telah dilakukan menunjukkan penguji daripada
sampel kawalan mencatatkan masa yang lebih baik berbanding sampel eksperimen
dalam semua pengujian yang dijalankan. Situasi ini berlaku kerana sampel kawalan
terdiri daripada individu yang dapat memahami dan menguasai sistem baru dengan
mudah dan lancar dan sebelumnya telah diberikan pendedahan awal tentang cara-
cara mengendalikan sistem, sehingga mereka tidak menghadapi masalah dalam
melaksanakan pengujian kebolehgunaan sistem ini. Sampel eksperimen terdiri
daripada individu yang tidak berpengalaman dan kurang dapat menguasai sistem
baru dengan mudah, sehingga mereka memerlukan sedikit masa untuk
menyesuaikan diri dengan sistem pengindeksan dan carian maklumat Islam ini.
Jadual 1: Masa (saat) yang diperlukan untuk melaksanakan pengujian

Bahagian Pengujian
Pengujian Jumlah
P1 P2 P3 P4 P5
SK1 16 194 21 48 93 372
SK2 11 146 14 52 82 305
SK3 12 144 16 34 84 290
SK4 13 180 18 43 79 333
SK5 14 189 24 36 84 347
Jumlah SK 66 853 93 213 422 1647
Purata SK 13.20 170.60 18.60 42.60 84.40 329.40
SE1 37 174 44 86 142 483
SE2 45 202 37 96 148 528
SE3 36 188 36 108 171 539
SE4 35 206 41 97 164 543
SE5 32 180 39 102 134 487
Jumlah SE 185 950 197 489 759 2580
Purata SE 37.00 190.00 39.40 97.80 151.80 516.00
Jumlah
251 1803 290 702 1181 4227
SK,SE
Rajah 3 menunjukkan peratusan masa yang dilaksanakan untuk setiap bahagian

pengujian. Merujuk pada rajah tersebut, pengujian untuk pengindeksan kandungan
web (P2) mencatatkan peratusan masa tertinggi iaitu 43%. Pengujian untuk
pencarian maklumat Islam (P5) mencatatkan peratusan kedua tertinggi, iaitu 28%.
Pengujian P5 menghendaki penguji mencuba semua teknik carian yang disediakan
sistem dan melihat terus pautan yang diberikan dalam senarai hasil carian.
Pengujian untuk pengurusan kandungan maklumat URL (P4) mencatatkan 17%
peratusan masa. Ini merupakan proses pengemaskinian data atau URL dari hasil
pengeksrakan. Pengujian untuk kemasukan data pentadbir (P1) dan pengujian untuk
pengurusan maklumat web (P3) mencatatkan peratusan masa yang hampir sama,
iaitu 6% dan 7%, ini menunjukkan bahawa kedua-dua pengujian tidak sukar untuk
dilaksanakan oleh penguji.
6%
28%
43%
17%
7%
P1 P2 P3 P4 P5
Rajah 3 Carta Pai peratusan masa (saat) untuk setiap bahagian pengujian
Secara keseluruhan, kajian mendapati bahawa penguji hanya memerlukan usaha

yang sedikit dalam menggunakan Sistem Pengindeksan dan Carian Maklumat
Islam, walaupun penguji merupakan individu yang baru pertama kali
menggunakannya.
b) Pengujian Kecenderungan Pengguna

Hasil keseluruhan pandangan pengguna terhadap antaramuka, kandungan,
kebolehgunaan dan teknik capaian pada sistem, dinyatakan dalam pai peratusan
persetujuan yang boleh dirujuk pada Rajah 4.
4%
27%
69%
Kurang Setuju Setuju Sangat Setuju
Rajah 4 Carta Pai purata peratusan respon bagi soal selidik

berkaitan sistem
Berdasarkan keputusan keseluruhan soal selidik, dapat dilihat bahawa sebanyak

69% pengguna memberikan jawapan setuju, 27% sangat bersetuju dan 4% kurang
bersetuju dengan semua kriteria pengujian tersebut. Pilihan tidak setuju dan sangat
tidak setuju pula mencatatkan 0%. Kesemua ciri keberkesanan antaramuka,
kandungan, kebolehgunaan dan aspek teknik capaian pada sistem menunjukkan
keputusan yang baik secara keseluruhannya. Hal ini bermakna pengguna puas hati
dengan kebolehgunaan dan keberkesanan yang disediakan oleh sistem.
Hasil kajian turut mendapati bahawa penguji berpendapat sistem ini boleh
membantu dalam proses pengindeksan maklumat web dengan mudah dan cepat,
sehingga proses pengurusan maklumat/data dapat dilakukan dengan lebih baik.
Selain itu, sistem ini turut membantu dalam pencarian maklumat berkaitan Islam
dengan lebih mudah dan tepat. Penguji juga menyatakan antaramuka sistem yang
berasaskan web telah membuat sistem mesra pengguna dan boleh dicapai dimana
sahaja berada.
4. PERBINCANGAN DAN KESIMPULAN
Kajian dan tinjauan literatur yang dilakukan penyelidik mendapati beberapa enjin
carian telah dikembangkan untuk membantu pengguna dalam mengesan laman web
yang relevan secara efektif. Namun, enjin carian yang sedia ada masih mempunyai
kelemahan dalam membantu capaian maklumat secara lebih tepat dan berkesan.
Enjin carian masih belum dapat memberikan jawapan yang tepat dan lengkap bagi
permintaan yang lebih spesifik mengenai domain tertentu (Gregg, D.G & Walczak,
S, 2007). Bagi mengatasi masalah pencarian maklumat melalui Internet, penyelidik
telah menstrukturkan dan menyimpan maklumat web Islam yang relevan ke dalam
pangkalan data melalui pembangunan sistem pengindeksan web. Sistem berkenaan
menyokong pembangunan enjin carian maklumat Islam, bagi membolehkan capaian
kepada maklumat Islam yang terdapat dalam talian dibuat secara lebih tepat, mudah
dan komprehensif.
Kajian ini telah menyumbang kepada pembinaan modul pengindeksan kandungan

web yang mampu mengekstrak maklumat url, tajuk, hyperlinks, meta tag (tittle,
description, keywords) serta kandungan perkataan yang relevan daripada laman web
Islam secara mudah dan cepat. Salah satu fungsi program iaitu fungsi pengindeksan
url menggunakan teknologi Ajax yang dapat meningkatkan keupayaan dan
penggunaan aplikasi web serta menghasilkan laman web yang interaktif. Frekuensi
atau kekerapan perkataan dalam kandungan dokumen web juga turut dikenalpasti.
Sistem ini mempunyai pangkalan data yang mengandungi laman web sumber Islam
yang sahih dan berwibawa. Laman web yang dipilih sebagai data adalah laman web
yang kandungannya bersesuaian dengan kriteria pemilihan sumber atau bahan yang
disediakan melalui Internet. Kriteria pemilihan laman web Islam adalah melalui
pemikiran kritis terhadap proses pengenalpastian dan penilaian kandungan daripada
laman web berdasarkan kejelasan sumber, ketepatan, kerelevanan kandungan, logik,
terperinci, memiliki struktur yang baik, dan pencantuman tarikh kemaskini.
Pemilihan laman web yang tepat menyebabkan sistem dapat memberikan hasil
carian yang tepat dan bersesuaian dengan keperluan pengguna.
Maklumat dan ciri-ciri pada sistem ini adalah berorientasikan pengguna, yang
menyediakan khidmat pencarian maklumat berkaitan Islam. Sistem ini juga
berfungsi sebagai enjin carian khusus bagi bidang Islam. Modul pencarian yang
disediakan, membolehkan pencarian dengan menggunakan kaedah carian
berasaskan kueri / kata kunci dan kueri frasa / Boolean, serta pautan hiperteks
mengikut kategori yang menghubungkan pada topik penting berkaitan Islam. Selain
itu, pengguna juga boleh mencari maklumat dalam bidang Islam melalui
kemudahan direktori, yang merupakan gateway yang memautkan sumber laman
web Islam yang terdapat dalam talian.
Sistem ini secara keseluruhannya dibangunkan untuk membantu orang ramai bagi
mengesan maklumat Islam dengan tepat, mudah dan komprehensif. Sistem yang
terhasil boleh menjadi rujukan mana-mana pihak yang ingin membangunkan sistem
yang seumpamanya untuk kegunaan peribadi atau pun organisasi. Segala proses
dapat dilakukan di mana-mana sahaja tanpa mengira masa hanya dengan adanya
talian Internet tanpa wayar.
5. RUJUKAN
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Technology. A Tutorial Prepared for IJCAI-99
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Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics Part C : Applications and
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Automatik Menggunakan Pendekatam Pengindeksan dan Pembelajaran
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Mansourian, Y. (2007). Web search efficacy: definition and implementation. Aslib

Proceedings: New Information Perspectives. 60(4), 349-363.
Nielsen, J & Landauer, T.K. (1993). A mathematical model of the finding of
usability problems. CHI’93: Conference poceedings on human factor in
computing systems, hlm: 206-213.
Nor Shahriza Abdul Karim & Norzelatun Rodhiah Hazmi. (2005). Assesing Islamic
information quality on the Internet : A Case of Information about Hadith.
Malaysian journal of library and information science 10(2), 51-66.
Rachagan, S. (2005). Rakyat tidak boleh harapkan usaha kerajaan tapis Internet.
Berita Harian, 11 ogos : 10.
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USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Saemah Rahman & Siti Fatimah Mohd Yassin. (2007). Aplikasi Pemikiran Kritikal
dalam Penggunaan Sumber Maklumat daripada Internet untuk Menyokong
Pembelajaran Sepanjang Hayat. ICLL : Proceeding International
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Sharhida Zawani Binti Moh. Saad. (2006). Sistem Carian Sumber Bisnes (SCSB)
dengan menggunakan Kaedah Pengekstrakan Kandungan Web. Tesis
Sarjana Teknologi Maklumat. Bangi: Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.
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http://www.utusan.com.my/utusan/info.asp?y=2007&dt=0621&pub=utusan
_malay sia&sec=Bicara_Agama&pg=ba_02.htm&arc=hive [2 ogos 2008].
THE USE OF MOBILE PHONE AND PDA AMONG STUDENTS IN

PRIVATE HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTION
Hasnuddin Ab Rahman, Jamaluddin Badusah & Rosdy Wahid

Faculty of Education
National University of Malaysia
has1371@yahoo.com, jhb@ukm.my, tobezuka@yahoo.com
Abstract
Mobile phone relatively connected to society and also students’ daily life. The
applications and features in hand phone can boost up and develop the concept of m-
learning. This paper looks at the readiness and the pattern of the mobile phone
usage for learning purposes among students in private higher education institution.
1460 students from International Islamic University College were selected
randomly as a respondent. The paper conclude that majority of the students are
holding the device. Most of them are utilising the basic applications in the hand
phone such as camera, ring tones, MP3, Instant Messaging, radio, call register,
games and Bluetooth. They are less number of students using wireless application
such as TV, e-mail, internet, infrared and recording. Exchanging the information
through MMS and SMS is the most frequent application that been used by the
respondents but not for the learning purposes.
1.0 INTRODUCTION
The growing use of mobile phone and PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) technology
is relatively connected to the society nevertheless students and lecturers. The use of
these two handheld devices are gradually increasing and diversifying across every
sector of education. Lecturers should seek to exploit the potential of the
technologies that their students bring with them and find a ways to put them into
good use for the benefit of learning practice rather than seeing them as disruptive
devices. This paper looks at the readiness and the pattern of the mobile phone or
PDA usage for learning purposes among students in private higher institution.
2.0 MOBILE PHONE USAGE
A 2005 International Data Corporation survey across seven key markets including
Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, China, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan
recorded an increase in mobile phone owners to 90.2 per cent from 80.2 per cent the
previous year (Star InTech, 2006). The statistics show that mobile technologies
today are pervasive as a new medium for communication.
According to the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission’s

(MCMC) Hand Phone Users Survey 2005 (Malaysian Communications and
Multimedia Commission, 2005), as of 31 May there were 16.2 million hand phone
subscriptions on the five digital networks operating in Malaysia. In the first quarter
of 2006, the number had increased to 20.5 million, a 5.3 percent growth rate and
77.7 per cent penetration rate nationwide (Malaysian Communications and
Multimedia Commission, 2006). This shows that there has been an increase in the
usage of Malaysian mobile technologies, especially, hand phones. More than two
million hand phone users in Malaysia last year were 19 years old or younger. Adults
between 20 and 49 years of age make up 12.7 million or 78 per cent of users, but
this group has shrunk by 0.6 percent since 2004, while the numbers of senior users
(aged 50 and above) also dropped 0.3 percent to 1.4 million (Lee, 2006). This
shows that teenagers and adults dominate the Malaysian mobile technologies
market.
3.0 LITERATURE REVIEW
Mobile learning still in its infancy in Malaysia, a deeper understanding of its design
principles as well as of the opportunities arising from it and its limitations is
paramount. This paper strives to examine the effect of mobile phone and PDA in
students learning achievement.
Mobile learning defined and conceptualised in many ways. Some scholars defined
and conceptualised it as a mobility of the learners and the mobility of learning.
According to Kaplan – Leiserson (2005), mobile learning is the opportunity for the
students to access information with their handheld. It is also known as an
edutainment which combining entertainment and education. Mobile learning
devices allow learners to learn wherever they are located and in their personal
context so that the learning is meaningful (Sharples 2000). The use of mobile
devices in learning is referred to as mobile learning (m-learning): this is the delivery
of electronic learning (e-learning) materials on mobile devices such as personal
digital assistants (PDAs), mobile phones and etc. Wikipedia (2008) conceptualized
mobile learning as learning focuses through hand phone.
In 2000 – 2007, many initiatives and research studies have been conducted to
investigate the use of mobile technology in learning. Sharples (2000) and Seppala
and Alamaki (2003) reported that mobile learning as a long run learning and the
opportunity for adult to pursue their study. Whitsed (2004) and Thorton and Houser
(2005) found that medical students and university students in Japan can easily
access the information and WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) through their
hand phone. Pulchino (2006) and Gomez (2007) found that mobile phone is suitable
for mobile learning due to its audio and texts features.
4.0 METHODOLOGY
This research has been conducted in order to examine the readiness and pattern of
the mobile phone usage among students in Selangor International Islamic
University College for learning purposes. The respondents for the study were 1460
students in the particular college. The data is based on self-administered
questionnaires which divided to 5 sections. Section A (Students’ Profile), Section B
(Mobile Phone Device), Section C (Mobile Phone Network), Section D (Mobile
Phone Service) and Section E (Mobile Phone Usage Pattern). The data then
analysed with Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 11.5 based on
frequency and percentage.
5.0 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
This section portrays’ respondents feedback on their readiness and also the pattern
of the usage of mobile phone and PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) for learning
purposes. A question on respondents profile is indicated in Table 1 below:
Table 1: Respondents’ Profile

Respondents’ background F %
Year 1 748 51.2
2 370 25.3
3 276 19.0
4 66 4.5
Gender Male 425 29.1
Female 1035 71.9
Residence Outskirt 672 46.0
Urban 788 54.0
Own mobile phone Yes 1460 100
No 0 0
Number of mobile phones 1 1014 69.5

2 413 28.3
3 27 1.8
4 6 0.4
3G service Yes 308 21.1
No 1152 78.9
Network package Postpaid 66 4.5
Prepaid 1394 95.5
Prepaid monthly costs Below RM30 895 61.3
RM31 – RM60 456 31.2
RM61 – RM 90 54 3.7
RM91 – RM 120 32 2.2
More than 23 1.6
RM120
Internet usage Yes 248 17.0
No 1212 83.0
Out of 1460 respondents, 748 (51.2%) were first year students, 370 (25.3%)
respondents were second year students and 276 (19.0%) respondents were third year
students. Whereas another 66 (4.5%) respondents were forth year students. From
the gender aspect, 1035 (71.9%) of the respondents were female and 425 (29.1%)
were male. 672 (46.0%) respondents were the residents in outskirt area whereas 788
(54.0%) were living in the urban area.
From the aspect of the mobile phone possessing, 1460 which is 100% respondents
admitted that they owned mobile phone. 1014 (69.5%) respondents owned at least
one mobile phone. 413 (28.3%) respondents own two mobile phones and 27 (1.8%)
respondents possess three particular device where as another 6 (0.4%) respondents
have four mobile phones. With regard the 3G service, 308 (21.1%) respondents
were the subscribers of 3G service and another 1152 (78.9%) respondents were not
the subscribers.
From the aspect of the network package, 66 respondents which are 4.5% were using
post paid, where as 1394 (95.4%) respondents were the prepaid users. With regard
to the costs per month, 895 (61.3%) respondents spent below RM30.00. 456
(31.2%) respondents spent around RM31.00 to RM60.00 per month. 54 (3.7%)
respondents spent between RM61.00 to RM90.00 per month for their prepaid.
Whereas another 32 (2.2%) respondents spent about RM91.00 to RM120.00 per
month and 23 (1.6%) respondents spent more than RM120.00 per month for their
prepaid. 83% which are 1212 respondents were not using their mobile phone to
access the internet and only 248 (17.0%) were accessing internet via their phone.
With regard to the features that the respondents used in their mobile phone, Table 2
indicates that mean score 2.72 is for the camera, 2.70 is for the ringtones, MP3
playback is 2.67,mean score for the Instant Messaging is 2.57, radio 2.55, call
register is 2.52, Bluetooth 2.24 and for the video feature mean score is 2.19. The
less features that been used by the respondents were TV which the mean score is
1.52, e-mail 1.61, Infra red 1.64, internet browsing is 1.69, wireless 1.76, picture
download is 1.83, Personal Organizer Functions 1.85 and mean score for memo
recording is 1.93.
Table 2: Mobile Phone Features

Feature Mean Standard
deviation
Camera 2.72 1.00
Ringtones 2.70 .985
MP3 Playback 2.67 1.17
Instant Messaging 2.57 1.15
Radio 2.55 1.04
Call Register 2.52 1.02
Games 2.35 1.01
Bluetooth 2.24 1.04
Video 2.19 .952
Memo recording 1.93 .903
Personal Organizer Functions 1.85 .918
Picture Download 1.83 .943
Serve as wireless modem 1.76 1.00
Internet browsing 1.69 .921
Infrared 1.64 .781
E-mail 1.61 .881
TV 1.52 .946
In the mean comparison of the pattern of mobile phone usage as presented in Table
3, 3.49 shows that respondents utilized their mobile phones to make a phone call.
For SMS the score mean is 3.46, information exchange is 3.19. For the percentage,
out of 1460 respondents, 57.4% were strongly agreed that they use their mobile
phone to make a call and another 29 (2.2%) respondents were disagreed. 820
(56.2%) respondents strongly agreed from the SMS using statement where as 2.2%
(32) respondents were disagreed that they are utilizing their phone for SMS. For
information exchange, 754 (51.6%) respondents were strongly disagreed with the
statement where as 123 (8.6%) were disagreed. The lowest score mean 1.64 is
indicating the usage mobile phone for the contests participating.
Table 3: The Purpose of Using the Mobile phone

Statement/Item SDA DA A SA Mean Level
F F F F Score
% % % %
I am using my 29 50 542 839 3.49 High
mobile phone to 2.0 3.4 37.1 57.47
make a call
I am using my 32 71 537 820 3.46 Average
mobile phone for 2.2 4.9 36.8 56.2
SMS
mobile phone for 13.7 31.7 43.1 11.5
MMS
mobile phone for 27.4 41.8 26.6 4.2
internet access
I made a call to 62 123 754 521 3.19 Average
information 4.2 8.6 51.6 35.7
exchange
average socialize 23.3 32.2 34.5 10.1
deliver speech 10.5 21.6 51.3 16.5
I am using my 774 505 138 43 1.64 Weak
mobile phone to 53.0 34.6 9.5 2.9
participate in
contests
Score mean 2.68
total
(SDA: Strongly Disagree, DA: Disagree, A: Agree, SA: Strongly Agree)
Mean score 3.19 for the usage of the SMS for exchanging information is illustrated
in Table 4 below. 48% (702) respondents were utilizing SMS service for
exchanging information where as 2.2 % (116) respondents disagreed with the

statement. To deliver the speech via SMS, 697 (47.7%) respondents agreed with the
statement and 276 (18.9%) respondents disagreed. Utilizing SMS to socialize, 496
(53.6%) respondents agreed and 404 of them disagreed with the statement. The
lowest mean score is 1.58 indicates the usage of SMS to participate in the contest.
Table 4: SMS Service

F F F F score
% % % %
I am utilizing SMS 86 116 702 556 3.19 High
service 5.9 7.9 48.1 38.1
for exchanging
information
I am utilizing SMS 378 404 496 182 2.31
service 25.9 27.7 34.0 12.5 Average
to socialize
I am utilizing SMS 193 276 697 294 2.74
service 13.2 18.9 47.7 20.1 Average
to deliver speech
I am utilizing SMS 822 472 139 27 1.58 Weak
service 56.3 32.3 9.5 1.8
to participate in
contests
I am utilizing SMS 466 587 340 66 2.01 Average
service to obtain 31.9 40.2 23.3 4.5
ringtones
Mean score total 2.37
Table 5 shows that the highest mean score 2.31 is for the usage of MMS service to
exchange information. 35.5% (518) respondents agreed that they are utilizing their
MMS service to exchange information where as 29.9% (436) respondents disagreed
with the statement. From the aspect of delivering speech via MMS, 523 (35.8%)
respondents were agreed with the statement where as 27.9% respondents disagreed
with the statement. The lowest mean score 1.85 indicates the usage of MMS service
to obtain the ringtones.
Table 5: MMS Service

F F F F score
% % % %
I am utilizing MMS 353 436 518 153 2.31 High
service 24.2 29.9 35.5 10.5
for exchanging
information
I am utilizing MMS 586 523 273 78 1.92 Weak
service to socialize . 40.1 35.8 18.7 5.3
I am utilizing MMS 396 407 523 134 2.25 Average
service 27.1 27.9 35.8 9.2
to deliver speech
service 53.2 36.4 8.9 1.5
to participate in a contest
service 43.2 34.5 18.8 3.6
to obtain a ringtones
As indicated in Table 6, mean score 2.26 is the usage of the internet access to
exchange the information. 488 (33.4%) respondents agreed that they were accessing
the internet for the exchanging information purposes and 391 (26.8%) of them
disagreed. The lowest mean score 1.85 is the accessing the internet for speech
delivering.
Table 6: Internet Access Service

F F F F score
% % % %
I am utilising my internet 416 391 488 165 2.26 High
access to exchange 28.5 26.8 33.4 11.3
information
I am utilising my internet 614 520 251 75 1.88 Weak
access to socialize 42.1 35.6 17.2 5.1
I am utilising my internet 460 540 379 81 2.06 Average
average access to deliver 31.5 37.0 26.0 5.5
speech
access to participate in a 52.0 37.1 9.3 1.6
contests
access to obtain a 43.4 34.9 17.4 4.3
ringtones
6.0 CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the study shows that most of the students possess at least one mobile
phone or PDA. They were utilizing the basic features of their mobile phone such as
camera, MP3 playback, ringtones, and call register. Most of them were using their
mobile phone to make a phone call, SMS, MMS but not for the internet accessing.
Students were rarely utilizing their wireless, internet, e-mail and recording features
in their mobile phone. The sample was tending to use their MMS and SMS services
via their hand held device to exchange information instead of taking part in the
contest. The study also portrays that students were not ready to utilize their hand
held device for learning purposes. This finding provides a new perspective on
mobile phone usage for m-learning among the students. Further research is
encouraged in order to gain a deeper understanding of mobile phone usage for
learning among Malaysian students.
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AN INVESTIGATION OF THE ICT CHALLENGES AND PRACTICES OF

MALAYSIAN SMART SCHOOL TEACHERS
Thang Siew Ming, Puvaneswary Murugaiah, Pramela. Krishnasamy, Azizah

Yaa’cob, Hazita Azman
The National University of Malaysia
thang@ukm.my
Abstract
Teacher professional development is essential to improve and develop new
instructional practices to enhance student learning. Such professional development
is not complete without incorporating technology in teaching and learning. This
paper reports on some initial interviews carried out on a group of teachers from
five selected Smart schools in the Klang Valley on their ICT challenges and
practices. The findings cover aspects on ICT facilities, their support and training,
challenges and concerns. The findings reveal that the five schools are generally
well-equipped as far as ICT facilities are concerned. However, the teachers require
more support in the form of reduction in work load and physical and emotional
support in order to participate more fully in an ICT-driven curriculum. Initial
support by the Malaysian Ministry of Education in the form of basic training has
proven to be not too effective. Thus, it is proposed that the support offered should
be in the form of an interactive model that it will provide the “climate’ that will
propel changes that lead to changes in mindsets, school management and physical
conditions.
1.0 INTRODUCTION
The introduction of Information Communication Technology (ICT) to benefit

teaching and learning in many developing countries over the last decade or so has
largely been based on the assumption that once the hardware is made available in
schools ICT integration will automatically follow. However, in reality this does not
necessarily happen as revealed by studies done in the region; Siti Salim and Mohd.
Nor (2005), Hajar Mohd. Nor (2005), Azizah Ya’acob et al (2005) and Lee (2007).
The integration of ICT into professional practice requires teachers to provide
students with the opportunity to develop the skills required for them to engage in a
progressive society and become life-long learners. It also gives teachers the
opportunity to enrich the learning of content materials. However, the extent to
which teachers can successfully do this is still debatable. Thus, there is a necessity
to provide teachers the supports that will enable them integrate ICT into their
teaching successfully. In order to provide the necessary support there is a need to
identify the factors responsible for teachers’ lack of success to integrate ICT into the
classrooms. Teachers’ efforts to introduce ICT into the school curricula are
hindered by both extrinsic factors and intrinsic factors. Ertmer (1999) describes
extrinsic factors as first-order barrier to ICT integration which includes obstacles
such as the lack of access to required hardware and software, insufficient time for
teachers to plan instruction and to familiarize themselves to ICT and inadequate
technical training and administrative support. Second-order barriers, on the other
hand, are obstacles that impede fundamental change towards ICT integration
(Ertmer, 1999). These obstacles are usually rooted in teachers’ underlying beliefs
about teaching and learning and may not be immediately apparent to teachers
themselves. According to Dede (1998), second-order barriers may be more
difficulties to overcome than the first-order barriers as they are more personal and
more deeply ingrained. These barriers include teachers’ unwillingness to embrace
ICT as a mean towards improving teaching and learning.
2.0 THE MALAYSIAN EXPERIENCE
In the Malaysian context, ICT has been used in teaching and learning, but only to a
limited extent due to lack of ICT facilities. In an attempt to promote greater use of
ICT, the government, in 1999, initiated the Smart Schools project. The first step in
the Smart School initiative (SSI) was the introduction of computers, multi-related
applications, software and courseware into schools, classrooms and the teaching and
learning processes. Four subjects (English, Bahasa Maelayu, Science and
Mathematics) were selected to be taught the smart-way (Ministry of Education,
1997). These schools were expected to serve as the nucleus for the eventual nation-
wide deployment or roll out of Smart school teaching concepts and materials, skills
and technologies. The approach used to integrate ICT into education encompasses
the following five main elements:
(1) Teaching-Learning Materials.
Materials include 1,494 items of courseware and printed matter for four subject
areas: Bahasa Melayu (Malay language), English, Science, and Mathematics.
(2) Smart School Management System (SSMS).
This is software for managing and administering student enrolment, educational
resources, school finances, human resources, external resources, facilities,
technology, and hostel facilities.
(3) Technology Infrastructure.
The infrastructure provided to schools included hardware, software and other
related equipment.
(4) Systems Integration.

This was implemented to ensure integration between the various components and
processes of the Smart School Integrated System (SSIS), between the Smart School
System and other flagship applications, and to ensure data integrity and security.
The SSIS was implemented in the 87 pilot schools at a cost of about RM300 million
(USD78 million).
(5) Support Services.
The support services include Help Desk services, maintenance and support. The
Help Desk is located at the Educational Technology Division of the Ministry of
Education.
(Bismillah Khatoon, 2007)
The approach used by Malaysia in introducing ICT into schools differs significantly
from those undertaken by other countries. In Australia, Britain, Canada, Ireland,
Japan, New Zealand, Singapore and the USA, initiatives for incorporating ICT into
education have tended to be initiated by schools rather than by the national
governments. The schools set the goals themselves, with the governments providing
funds. The SSIS is different in that it is primarily a government-led effort hence it is
supported by relevant government policies and the government sets the vision and
provides the budget with the private sector only providing the necessary expertise
(Bismillah Khatoon , 2007)
Since its implementation, the challenges faced by the SSIS have both been extrinsic
as well as intrinsic. There has been an enormous disparity in the level of ICT
availability and use in schools, especially between schools in rural areas and schools
in urban areas. Another challenge was the lack of Internet connectivity. Without
infrastructure and connectivity, the integrated system (encompassing web-based
courseware, on-line management tools, and technical support) provided by the
Smart Schools project was not accessible to rural schools. This posed a big
challenge for the Ministry of Education. To address this issue, the Ministry
provided schools in remote areas with special training programmes and provided
teachers with notebook computers and with CD-ROMs containing teaching
materials. In addition, the Ministry launched special schemes for the schools and
communities which are located on remote islands and in mountainous districts.
However, the bigger challenge was getting the teachers to use the courseware
effectively and creatively. According to Bismillah Khatoon (2007), common
misconception among teachers was that using the courseware simply means
assigning a topic for students to learn or search. Thus, the teacher merely projected
the courseware on the screen and the students used the courseware without any
guidelines or teacher supervision. At the other extreme, some teachers claimed that
teaching with the provided courseware required more preparation time and more
work and hence the software remained in the box for these teachers. Thus, there
was a need for these teachers to be trained properly. The Ministry adopted a system
designed by Internexia, using as a guide the United Kingdom’s Teacher Training
Agency (TTA) specification. This system was teacher training software to allow
teachers to learn at their own pace, place and time. The software incorporated a
tracking of learning and a self-assessment system, and also mapped the learning
pathway for each teacher. Teachers were expected to complete the training in nine
to twelve months at their own pace. On successful completion, teachers were to be
awarded an internationally recognised certificate of competency. However the
Malaysian Ministry of Education required the training to be implemented through
face-to-face instruction to accommodate the style of learning preferred by teachers.
The system was re-worked and the on-line programme was reduced to a full-time,
10-day, face-to-face training course. The training programme was launched in 2004
and the first phase was to be completed in mid-2007. The advantages of the face-to-
face training programme were that there was no distraction from the day-to-day
teaching activities and there was immediate tutorial support from the trainer,
opportunities for collaborative work with fellow teachers, and a quick evaluation of
progress. However, the disadvantage was that intensive face-to-face training tended
to limit the amount of time for teachers to digest what was imparted to them,
leaving them having to fend for themselves once the training was over when they
had to implement what was expected of them without sufficient continuing on-site
support from the trainer. Schools also viewed such training programs as a
disadvantage for them as they need to source for replacement teachers while they
were away for the course.
3.0 CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES
To ensure successful implementation of ICT in the classroom, the importance of

necessary infrastructure cannot be denied. But this is only the first step. Without
teachers’ full involvement, the initiatives will likely not achieve its desirable goals.
The roles of teachers in the successful implementation of ICT in schools have been
discussed time and again and they cover general broad areas such as those listed
below.
(1) Teachers emphasising on students as learners, rather than as recipients of
teaching which demands a significant shifts in their behaviour and attitude.
(2) Teachers being familiar with ICT tools for accessing learning resources and
information, solving problems and presenting results so that they can impart these
skills to their students
(3) Teachers supporting students in adopting learning skills that would enable them
to learn independently in the future.
(4) Teachers using technology to develop new skills to re-balance the curriculum
and enhance learning but not abandoning subject-based learning in the process.
In order to achieve the above, teachers not only need to be equipped with all the
necessary know-how and skills but also need to be active, enthusiastic, innovative
and fully committed to embrace the new technologies. This is a daunting task. The
intention of this paper is to investigate the ICT challenges and problems a group of
teachers from five Smart Schools face and their readiness to take on the challenge
of embracing ICT in their classrooms.
4.0 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
In order to understand the challenges and problems faced by the teachers and the
extent in which they are ready to embrace the innovation, focus group interviews
(involving four respondents from each school) were conducted in all the five Smart
Schools studied. Each group comprised one English, one Mathematics and two
Science teachers (of different disciplines). According to Morgan (1988), focus
groups are a form of group interview which relies on the interaction within the
group who discusses a topic supplied by the researcher. It was felt that focus group
interview was particularly suited for this purpose and was thus employed as the
main tool for data elicitation. The interview comprised 8 questions on the teachers’
use of ICT in their teaching and learning. The questions regarding ICT use aimed to
explore teachers’ extent of ICT use, the problems they faced, their training in ICT,
the development of ICT materials and school support regarding ICT use. Interview
data from each school were audio recorded and later transcribed.
Descriptive analysis, namely in the form of frequency count, was used to analyse
the data. The analytic procedures involved first conducting a general analysis of the
data, before following up on a specific analysis. The former involves reviewing data
concerning the teachers in all schools, while in the latter analysis, data was analysed
based on schools and subject groups.
5.0 Description of the Schools

Table 1: Profile of the schools
School Established Type Basis for selection of students
A 1971 Non-residential Public Examination Achievement

(All girls)
B 1980 Non-residential Public Examination Achievement
(co-education)
C 1893 Non-residential Public Examination Achievement
(All boys)
D 1958 Fully Public Examination Achievement &
Residential Entrance exam/Interview
(All boys)
E 2002 Fully Public Examination Achievement &
Residential Entrance exam/Interview
(co-education)
All of the five schools selected for this project are schools classified as “A” schools
(i.e. schools that consistently produce good results) by the Malaysian Ministry of
Education. As shown in Table 1, two of the five schools selected for this study (i.e.
schools D and E) are fully residential schools. They are located outside Kuala
Lumpur and the students are selected based on their performance in an entrance
examination. The other three schools are located in Kuala Lumpur. All students
have to pass the public examination before they can apply to them but no screening
process is used to select students. All students living in the vicinity of the schools
are allowed to apply for enrolment into these schools.
6.0 DESCRIPTION OF THE TEACHERS
Each school had 4 teachers from the Science, Mathematics and English Language
subjects. As shown in Table 2 their experiences in teaching range from 28 years to
only 4 months. There is a good mix with regard to teaching experiences. There are
nine teachers with teaching experiences of 10 years and more. Four teachers have
less than 4 years of teaching experiences. Out of these four, two are very new with
only 4 and 6 months of teaching experiences. All four teachers from School E and
teacher B (the only male teacher in the research) volunteered to take part in this
study. The rest were asked by their Heads to do so.
Table 2: Profile of the teachers

School Teacher Gender Forms Subjects taught Teaching
taught Experience
A A1 Female 4, 5 Chemistry 28 years
A2 Female 4, 5 Physics 11 years
A3 Female 3, 4, 5 Mathematics 10 years
A4 Female 1, 3, 5 English 15 years
B B1 Female 2, 5 Mathematics 6 months
B2 Female 4 Mathematics 4 years
B3 Female 3, 4 English 11 years
B4 Male 1, 2 Mathematics 8 years
C C1 Female 4 English 8 years
C2 Female 1, 5 English 14 years
C3 Female 6 Biology 10 years
C4 Female 4 Biology 5 years
D D1 Female 1, 2 Science, 2 years
Mathematics
D2 Female 1, 4 Biology, 4 months
Science
D3 Female 2, 3 Mathematics 5 years
D4 Female 2, 3, 4 English 5 years
E E1 Female 3, 4, 5 Chemistry 14 years
E2 Female 1, 4, 5 Science 6 years
E3 Female 3, 4 English 18 years
E4 Female 1, 2, 3 Mathematics 5 years
7.0 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The following themes were identified through a scrutiny of the transcripts of the
data: ICT facilities; frequency of ICT use; reasons for using ICT; factors hindering
the use of ICT; development of online materials; training; and school support. The
findings are analysed and discussed according to these themes.
7.1 ICT Facilities

With regard to ICT facilities in the five schools investigated, it is apparent from
Table 3 that the schools are sufficiently well-equipped with computer labs, laptops
for teachers involved in the implementation of the Smart School curriculum, LCD
projectors (permanently fixed in classrooms or portable) and Wi-Fi hotspots. These

facilities were provided by the government in support of the Smart School initiative.
Analysis based on schools, revealed that there is not much differentiation in terms
of the type of facilities available. Any disparity, if at all exists; lay in the number of
ICT tools, laboratories, and coverage of wireless areas. Comparatively, School E
seems to be the best equipped among all the five schools as shown in Table 3.
Table 3: ICT Facilities for Teaching and Learning

School ICT Facilities
A 5 computer labs, LCD in all classes and science labs, laptops,

wireless areas
4 ICT labs, laptops, LCD, wireless areas
C 5 computer labs, LCD in Science labs, Math room, English

room, laptops,
wireless areas
D 4 computer labs, LCD in science labs and some classes, laptops,
wireless areas
E 3 computer labs, 3 Active boards,1 multimedia room, computers
in all classes
& science labs, school wireless, LCD in exam classes & half of
Forms 1 and 4
7.2 Frequency of Use

Analysis of frequency of ICT use is based on comparisons between schools and
subject groups.
Frequency of ICT Use by Schools

Table 4a shows the frequency of ICT use among the respondents from the five
schools. Ten out of twenty respondents (50%) use ICT in their teaching and
learning often. Their responses include ‘quite often’, ‘a lot’ and ‘always’. Out of the
five schools, all the four teachers from School E claimed to have used ICT quite
often, followed by two out of four teachers from Schools A and C, and 1 teacher
each from Schools B and D respectively. Six respondents (30%) said they
moderately use ICT , while 4 of them (20%) said that they only use ICT sparingly.
It should be pointed out here that all five teachers from School A are teachers with
much experience and they all volunteered to take part in this project. Another point
to take into consideration is that 3 of the 4 teachers who claimed not to have used
ICT are new teachers. For example, one of the teachers has only been in the school
for 3 weeks prior to the interview. She would probably be using more of it once she
has gained familiarity and access to the ICT facilities.
Table 4a: Frequency of ICT Use by Schools

School Often Sometimes Seldom
A 2 (50%) 1 (25%) 1 (25%)
B 1 (25%) 1 (25%) 2 (50%)
C 2 (50%) 2 (50%) 0 (0%)
D 2 (50%) 2 (50%) 0 (0%)
E 4 (100%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)
Frequency of ICT Use by Subject Groups

In terms of ICT use based on subject matter discipline, it can be gleaned from Table
4b that English teachers use ICT most often while Mathematics teachers use it the
least. It would be interesting to find out the reason for this and this will be
undertaken in a later study. A guess is that it is easier to use ICT to teach a language
than to teach concepts.
Table 4b: Frequency of ICT Use by Subject Groups

Subject Teachers Often Sometimes Seldom
English 4 67% 2 33% 0 0%
Mathematics 2 33% 1 17% 3 50%
Science 5 63% 3 37% 0 0%
7.3 Reasons for Using ICT

With regard to rationale for ICT use, responses provided could be grouped under
three headings: pre-teaching and learning (planning stage), during teaching and
learning and post teaching and learning (evaluation stage) as demonstrated in the
Table 5.
Table 5: Reasons for ICT use

R* S* Pre T & L During T & L Post T & L Others
1 E Internet PowerPoint
information presentations,
online
homework etc.
2 M get students to forced to use
start thinking it
3 S interesting
4 S Internet when real
information experiment cannot
be conducted
5 M reinforcement exercises from
especially for Internet
Science
6 M submit work
online
7 E Internet PowerPoint encouraged

(websites) presentations, to use
8 M PowerPoint
presentations
9 S can view clear promote self-
images learning
10 S PowerPoint
presentations
(promotes
creativity)
11 E for don’t have to send homework
teaching print, copy via attachment
materials (e-mail)
12 E attracts students’
attention
13 M enhance
understanding
14 S for difficult topic
15 S find they find
activities information
16 E find prevent boredom
activities
17 S for lesson tackling difficult online
preparation topics homework
18 S use courseware PowerPoint
presentations
19 M can show 3-D
images
20 E Internet explain certain e-mail their
information things work
R* = respondent; S* = subject, M = Mathematics, S = Science, E = English
It is noted that 8 respondents (22%) use ICT for pre-teaching and learning, 14 of
them (39%) use ICT during teaching and learning and 11 others (31%) for post-
teaching and learning. There were three respondents (8%) whose reasons did not
fall in any of the three groups.
In the planning stage of the teaching and learning process, the respondents
mentioned that they mainly use ICT for finding information and also preparing their
Power Point slides. During the actual teaching and learning process, ICT is used
mainly to aid and facilitate teachers’ instruction; especially when tackling difficult
topics. For instance, one respondent found it was easier to explain the scientific
concept of prism with ICT as multimedia has the capability of providing 3-
dimensional images of the prism. Apart from that the varied features in ICT makes
lessons interesting. Moreover, the use of ICT provokes students to think and
enhances understanding.
Besides using ICT for the planning and while-teaching phases, the respondents also
use ICT to carry out evaluation tasks. Students are either asked to do and send in
their homework online via e-mail to their teachers, or prepare PowerPoint
presentations. They are also required to find information in the Internet. In fact,
according to one respondent, ICT allows her to equip her students with the
necessary presentation skills that they would need during their tertiary education.
Besides the aforementioned rationale for ICT use, three other reasons were also
cited. One teacher found the use of ICT helped promote independent learning. She
mentioned that by providing related hyperlinks about a topic to her students,
students were found to have learned more about a topic concerned on their own.
Empowering students to be responsible for their own learning is one of the aims of
the Smart School initiative (Azian, T.S. Abdullah, 2006). However, two
respondents conceded that they use ICT due to pressure from the administrators and
not because they want to.
When analysed, based on subject discipline, it was found that Mathematics teachers
rarely use ICT in lesson preparation. As mentioned earlier, the most probable
explanation might be attributed to the difficulty in incorporating ICT in explaining
Mathematical concepts.
7.4 Factors Hindering the Use of ICT

Table 6 below summarises the list of factors that hinder the respondents from
utilizing ICT in their teaching and learning process. As can be seen, the range of
factors included those that are student-related, technical, infrastructural, courseware,
and heavy workload of teachers. Heavy workload seems to be the main factor cited.
Fifteen teachers (36%) reported that due to the workload which comprises
administrative, co-curricular duties, and teaching responsibilities, they have limited
time to prepare lessons that incorporate ICT. Another major obstacle is student-
related problems as stated by nine teachers (22%). Students were said to be noisier
and less controllable when ICT was used. Some students even strayed from the
lesson by viewing other sites while others chose to meddle with the computers until
they became faulty. As a consequent, teachers were reluctant to use ICT. Apart
from these, technical and infrastructural limitations were also mentioned. Lack of
connectivity is among the technical problems cited by 8 respondents (18%). Other
technical problems are the lack of compatibility of computer systems and shortage
of technicians. In one of the schools, ICT-based lessons could not be conducted in
classrooms on the top floor due to weak Internet connections.
Infrastructural limitations, as stated by 5 respondents (12%), refer to the limited

number of computers, computer labs and LCD projectors. In other words, in an
average classroom of 30 students with six computers in it, computer usage has to be
shared among five students. In the case of computer lab, computer usage is better,
i.e., being shared between two. However, the flipside is that there are only a few
computer labs in a school. On average, there are about four labs for all students in
each of the 5 schools. Hence, teachers have to compete with one another to use the
labs. Other than these problems, the courseware provided by the Smart School
curriculum is found to be problematic by 5 respondents (12%). One shortcoming is
the lack of proper guidelines regarding its usage. Furthermore, the courseware
designers seem to have focused more on the design and layout of the teaching
material rather than the content. Thus in order to use them, teachers, claimed that
they need to supplement the content. Teachers also cited problems relating to the
lack of individualisation, boring, and unchallenging tasks used in those courseware.

One teacher found the courseware to be impractical for certain subjects like
Additional Mathematics as it does not provoke students to think of the various steps
involved in solving a problem.
Table 6: Factors Hindering the Use of ICT

R* S* Problem Workload / Infrastructural Technical Coursewa
with Time Limitation Problems re
students problem
1 E Can’t Teaching Lack of
control different computer labs
class subjects for
different
classes/ No
time
2 M Too much Too slow
work
3 S No time Not
practical
4 S Many duties Too slow
5 M Cannot
control
class
6 M No time
7 E students Too busy Connectivity
view other
sites
8 M
9 S Connectivity
and
compatibility
10 S No proper
guidelines
11 E students Too busy Limited number Lack of Not
view other of computers technicians challengin
sites, g
talking
12 E Cannot Unavailability
control of labs
class
13 M Cannot Too much Lack of

control work computers
class
14 S Too much
work
15 S Too much Connectivity
work
16 E Too much compatibility
work
17 S meddling Too busy Lack of Time
computers consuming
18 S Noisy, view Too busy
other sites
19 M Class Too busy connectivity
control
20 E Too busy connectivity
7.5 Development of Materials

Table 7 reveals that only 7 out of the 20 respondents (35%) have produced other
materials besides their PowerPoint slides. These include brochures, interactive
courseware, MDeC (Multimedia Development Corporation) materials and video
authoring materials. Only one teacher has indulged in creating software and a portal
for the school as he is an IT expert.
When analysed by schools, School E is the most active in terms of developing

materials as all of them have developed ICT materials. Schools A and D have not
developed any materials thus far. This is probably because the teachers in school D
are relatively new with less than 5 years of teaching experience. They may be
focusing more on their teaching than on developing their own materials. In school
A, on the other hand, although the teachers have not less than 11 years of teaching
experience, they seem to be bogged down with a heavy workload. They have no
time to develop any materials on their own. In other words, it is incorrect to imply
that experienced teachers will develop teaching materials and vice-versa. There
might be other contributing factors that have boosted or hindered the development
of ICT-based materials.
Table 7: Production/Development of Materials

School R* S* Materials
A 1 E Powerpoint slides
2 M Powerpoint slides
3 S Powerpoint slides
B 5 M Powerpoint slides
6 M Powerpoint slides
7 E Powerpoint slides, MDeC
materials
8 M Powerpoint slides, software,
portal
C 9 S Powerpoint slides, brochures
11 E Powerpoint slides
D 13 M Powerpoint slides
E 17 S Powerpoint slides, brochures
18 S Powerpoint slides, brochures,
interactive courseware
19 M Powerpoint slides, brochures
20 E Powerpoint slides, video
authoring materials
7.6 Training in ICT

The ICT training of the respondents is examined from two perspectives; that is the
training they have received and the kinds of training they need as Smart School
teachers.
Training Received regarding the Use of ICT
As far as training is concerned, Table 8a shows that all the respondents have
received training in ICT – whether the training was out-of-school or in-house
training. Outside-school training programmes are those organized for Smart
Schools, such as those by the Ministry of Education (MoE), Professional Teaching
Guide in ICT (BPPT), MDeC and Teaching of Mathematics and Science in English
(PPSMI). Two teachers from School A went for ICT training by external agencies
that are probably government-sponsored. Only one teacher (from School B) seems
to have undergone training by non-government agencies. Besides receiving training
from outside their school, teachers are also trained in their schools. ICT
coordinators in all 5 schools conduct in-house training in the use of ICT. This shows
that the schools are keen to provide continuous training for their staff in ICT.
Table 8a: ICT Training Received

Sc R* S* Outside Training In-house Training
A 1 E Sunway College - use of i) Smart School
spreadsheets, PowerPoint Management System
2 M PPSMI ii) e-portfolio
3 S Smart School Piloting iii) Web logs
4 S INTEL technology centre, PPSMI-
use of notebook
B 5 M i. video clips
6 M Multimedia Development Corp -- ii. animation
preparing interactive activity
sheets, creating websites,
BESTARI training
7 E BTTP – Designing websites
8 M Introduction to Dream weaver,
Intermediate in Dream weaver,
Flash
C 9 S PPSMI, BTTP i. EXCEL
10 S MoE ii. PowerPoint
11 E MoE iii. Word
12 E iv. hyperlink using ICT
D 13 M Basic usage of ICT, like i. “Fear Not IT”
powerpoint ii. Use of videos in
14 S classroom
15 S Basic usage of ICT, like
powerpoint
16 E Basic usage of ICT, like

powerpoint
E 17 S BTTP training, Active Board i. Use of PowerPoint, Excel,

18 S BTTP training, Active Board Publisher, hyperlink
19 M BTTP training, Active Board ii. Developing websites,
20 E BTTP training, Active Board web logs
iii. Integrating IT in T & L
ICT Training Needs

The need for other forms of training in the use of ICT by the respondents is listed in
Table 8b.
Table 8b
Training Needs
Sch R* S* Yes No Don’t
know
A 1 E Sufficient
2 M Sufficient
3 S Sufficient
4 S Sufficient
B 5 M Developing own materials
6 M Developing own materials
7 E Developing own materials
8 M Advanced courses for
Webmaster
C 9 S
10 S Advanced use of ICT
11 E Advanced courses in Word,
Excel, PowerPoint
12 E
D 13 M No idea
14 S No idea
15 S No idea
16 E No idea
E 17 S Hardware maintenance
18 S Hardware maintenance
19 M Hardware maintenance
20 E No idea
When analyzing training needs of the teachers, an interesting pattern emerged. Nine
teachers voiced the need for more training; that is in the development of teaching
courseware, hardware maintenance (trouble shooting, maintaining the hard disc),
maintaining the smooth running of their laptops and others. One of them would like
an advanced course as he is an ICT expert. Four teachers felt the training they have
received is sufficient and there is no need for more training. Five other teachers are
uncertain about their training needs.
When analysed based on schools, teachers in schools B and E wanted more training
while those in school A felt the training they have received is sufficient for them to
carry out their ICT-based teaching and learning duties. Teachers in School E
seemed to go for hardware maintenance, teachers in School B asked for training in
developing materials and two teachers in School A requested for advance courses
on use of ICT software. It would seem there is a great deal of variation in
perceptions of usage and needs. It would appear that most of them have some
training in ICT and its application in the classroom and the extent they are willing to
use ICT in the classroom depend on their perceptions of how useful it is and current
practice and expectations of the schools they are from. However, further
investigation needs to be undertaken on this, in the form of on-site observations and
involvement, to have a clearer idea of the issues involved.
7.7 School Support

School support for the use of ICT by the teachers is viewed from two angles: the
support received from the school as well as the kind of school support needed.
School Support Received for the Use of ICT

The kinds of support the respondents have received from their schools with regards
to the use of ICT in teaching and learning is demonstrated in Table 9a.
Table 9a: School Support Received

Sch Infrastructural Technical Pedagogical Financial
Support Support Support Support
A Computer labs, Technicians, Training,
LCDs, create a Minimal Encouragement
more ICT- problems with
friendly connectivity
environment
(wireless areas)
B Labs, laptops, ICT Mentor Training Purchase of
WIFI in labs, accessories
staffroom, office
C Computer labs, Good Internet Training,
laptops, wireless connections Encouragement
areas
D Laptops, LCD Technician Information
projectors, regarding use of
computer labs, ICT
WIFI in the
whole school
E Labs, laptops, Able technician Training
LCD projectors,
Active boards
As far as support is concerned, Table 9a reveals that all the five schools provide
infrastructural, technical and pedagogical support. Infrastructural support received
by these Smart Schools includes computers, labs, LCD projectors and wireless
areas. Technical support is provided in the form of technicians and Internet
connections. To help the teachers with the use of ICT, the schools provide training
and encouragement. Only school B is aware of the financial support to purchase
accessories as this teacher is in charge of the ICT unit. However, no mention is
made about the financial support obtained to maintain the ICT facilities in the
school.
School Support Needed

The forms of school support that the teachers need is displayed in Table 9b.
Table 9b: Support Needed
School R* Infrastructural Technical Pedagogical Financial
Support Support Support Support
A 1 More computers Reduce To
workload purchase
accessorie
s
2 Reduce
workload
3 Reduce
workload
4 Reduce
workload
B 5 More computers More training
6 Emotional
Support
7 ICT & Content
expert
8 To
purchase
accessorie
s
C 9 More
challenging
courseware
10
11 More computers Technician Better
s courseware
12 Emotional
support
D 13 Repair
computers, new
computers
14 Repair
computers, new
computers
15 Repair Better
computers, new connectivit
computers y
16 Language labs, a More
radio station technician
s
E 17 Reduce
workload
18 Reduce
workload
19
20 More
computers,
laptops
It can be gleaned from Table 9b that 12 teachers (52%) reported the need for
pedagogical support; i.e. lesser workload, training, courseware, mentor and
emotional support. School A seems to particularly need reduction in workload as
that is the main complaint of all the teachers. Emotional support is the second
request and one teacher explained that the teachers had to rely on each other
support, especially in applying and trouble-shooting problems related to ICT.
Eight teachers (35%) mentioned the need for physical support. This is
understandable as the student-computer ratio of in the classroom is about 5:1.
Moreover, as reported by the teachers, many of the computers are either old are
faulty. One teacher expressed the need for a new physical facility; that is, a
language lab and a radio station using ICT. This could be because she has been
exposed to such facilities overseas.
Only three teachers (13%) reported the need for technical support. This is probably
because the schools already have technicians and Internet connections. It could be
that the Internet connections are weak and they can do with more technicians.
7.8 Overall Discussion

This study was conducted with the intention of identifying the factors responsible
for Malaysian teachers’ lack of success to integrate ICT into the classrooms. The
findings reveal that the 5 schools participating in this project are generally well-
equipped as far as ICT facilities are concerned. However the use of ICT is still
lacking in most of these schools except for School E. The teachers of this school
were all volunteers and they consistently used ICT in teaching and even in
developing ICT materials. Thus, enthusiasm and interest seem to be the key
motivating factors to ICT promulgation. Reasons given for lack of use of ICT by
the teachers of the other schools include heavy workload, difficulty in controlling
class and technical, infrastructural and courseware limitations with heavy workload
topping the list. As far as training is concerned the findings demonstrate that all the
teachers have received some training in ICT use and only approximately fifty
percent felt more training is necessary. Generally their perceptions for the needs of
more training and support depend to a large extent on their perceptions of the
importance of ICT to teaching and learning and the current practice and
expectations of the schools they are from. As for support, according to the teachers
more physical support is required but more important are reduction in workload and
emotional support.
8.0 CONCLUSION AND THE WAY FORWARD

Implementation of the ICT-driven curriculum will not be effective without the
cooperation of these teachers as their concerns and perceptions influence the way in
which they implement the SSC (Smart School Curriculum) and this influence the
success of the SSC initiatives. Thus, for the SSC initiatives to experience genuine
significant changes or reforms, support must be given to teachers to help them
improve their involvement and commitment to the use of ICT in their teaching
practices. The support given by SSIS in the form of basic training has been found
to be lacking in effectiveness in achieving the above goals. Hence, it is essential to
consider alternative measures. The findings discussed indicated that enthusiasm
and interest are the key components to success followed by providing the necessary
physical and emotional support and a reduction in workload.
Hence there is a need for change and here I would like to propose a model for
change that is not only more interactive but also has far-reaching implications. It
may not address the physical needs such as providing necessary infrastructures and
reduction in workload immediately but it will provide the “climate’ that will propel
changes that lead to changes in mindsets, school management and physical
conditions. The model proposed is an action research model that draws upon
Continuous Professional Development (CPD) hub and spoke model based on a
critical relationship between a number of school-based cadre of change–agents
(spokes) and a Higher Education Institutions (HEI)-based research team (hub). The
spokes are the four teachers (of English, Mathematics and Science) from each
school from the five schools and the hub is the researchers from the Higher
Education Institute (HEI) research team from three universities: The National
University of Malaysia (UKM), University of Nottingham, UK and University of
Sabah, Malaysia.
The HEI research team will bring together the school-based cadres to share
emerging issues, themes and evaluation. The proposed model is based on the
Improvement Quality Education for All (IQEA) action research framework which
has been extensively used in the UK as a vehicle for school improvement. In the
IQEA project the teachers (in groups of 6-8) comprising subjects in a range of
hierarchy, experience, age etc. meet and work together to bring about changes in
their respective schools by reflecting on and sharing their teaching practices which
include exploring teaching models and looking into practices that work and things
that do not (Hopkins et al. 1996). The online model will lead to the development of
online communities of practices. The sharing of teaching practices is through blogs,
online discussion and video clips of lessons using the Virtual Interactive Platform
(ViP) which is designed to allow the teachers to put in comments to sections of

video clips. These communities differ from the IQEA in two important aspects. The
sharing in the case of the IQEA was mostly face-to-face whereas in this model the
sharing between the teachers will be done online. Second, the goal of the proposed
project extends beyond bringing changes in teaching and learning. It extends to
giving teachers an opportunity to work with ICT from the start so that they are
aware of all the problems involved when they attempt to impart the skills to their
students.
9.0 REFERENCE
Azian T.S. Abdullah (2006). Deconstructing Secondary Education: The Malaysian

Smart School Initiative. Paper presented at the 10th. SEAMEO INNOTECH
International Conference, Quezon City, Philippines.
Azizah Ya’acob, Nor Fariza Mohd Nor & Hazita Azman (2005). Implementation of
the Malaysian Smart Schools: An investigation of teaching-learning
practices and teacher-student readiness. Internet Journal of e-Language
Learning and Teaching, Vol. 2(2). Retrieved March 15, 2009, from
http://www.eltrec.ukm.my/ijellt
Bismillah Khatoon Abdul Kader (2008). Malaysia’s experience in training teachers
to use ICT. In E. Meleisea, (Ed.), ICT in Teacher Education: Case Studies
from the Asia-Pacific Region. (pp. 61-66). Bangkok: UNESCO
Publication.
Dede, C. (2008). Learning with Technology: The 1998 ASCD Year-book.
Alexandria. VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Ertmer, P. A. (1999). Addressing first- and second-order barriers to change:
Strategies for technology integration. Educational Technology Research
and Development, 47(4), 1999, pp. 47-61.
Hajar Mohd. Nor. (2005). Conditions facilitating the implementation of Information
and Communication Technology (ICT) Integration in the Malaysia Smart
School. Unpublished PhD, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor.
Hopkins, D. West, M. & Ainscow, M. (1996). Improving the Quality of Education
For All. London: David Fulton Publisher.
Lee, K.W. (2007) ESL Teacher Professional Development & Curriculum
Innovation: The Case of the Malaysian Smart School Project. Unpublished
PhD, Lancaster University, UK.
Ministry of Education (1997). The Malaysian Smart School Implementation Plan.

Ministry of Education, Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, 1997.
Siti Suria Salim & Sharifah Mohd. Nor (2005). Teachers as Implementers of
Change: The Smart School Experience. International Journal of Learning,
12(10), 2005, pp.197-204.
About the Authors
Thang Siew Ming is an Associate Professor at the School of Language Studies and
Linguistics, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. She obtained her PhD from the
School of Education, University of Nottingham in 2001. Her areas of professional
interest are CALL, Learner Autonomy, Distance Education and Learning Styles,
Approaches and Learning Strategies.
Puvaneswary Murugaiah is a lecturer at the School of Distance Education,

Universiti Sains Malaysia. Currently, she is pursuing her PhD at the School of
Language Studies and Linguistics, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Her areas of
professional interest are TESOL, Distance Education and Strategic Learning.
Pramela Krish is a senior lecturer at the School of Language Studies and

Linguistics, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universiti Kebangsaan
Malaysia. She has researched and published work on online learning. Her research
interests include Distance Language Learning and Technology-based Language
Learning.
Azizah Yaacob is a lecturer at the School of Language Studies and Linguistics,

Faculty of Social Science and Humanities, University Kebangsaan Malaysia. Her
work interest includes English Language Teaching (ELT), Oral Communication and
Distance Learning Education.
Hazita Azman is Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities
and Associate Professor at the School of Language Studies and Linguistics,
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. She holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics from
University of Western Australia. Her areas of professional interest are
Multiliteracies and Education and CALL
MyJICT, Malaysian Journal of Information and Communication Technology, is

devoted to disseminate high quality refereed articles in the field of ICT. It is an
biannually published journal, and also available online for free.
We would like to invite all the researches, academicians, and ICT professionals
throughout Malaysia to contribute to this journal. Send in your articles related to
ICT to the address below, or email the softcopy to us.
Editorial Office
Faculty of Information & Science Technology,
Kolej Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Selangor (KUIS),
Bandar Seri Putra, 43600 Bangi,
Selangor, Malaysia.
Tel : +603 8925 4251
Fax : +603 8925 4473
Hotline : +6012 903 4614
Email : myjict@kuis.edu.my
http://www.kuis.edu.my/ftsi/myjict/
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MyJICT – Malaysian Journal of Information & Communication Technology (Vol.

Malaysian Journal of Information,

1. Augmented Reality Basic Reading Courseware for Down 1

2. LR-Transformer: Java Code Transformation By Reducing Line 15

3. Pembangunan Sistem Carian Maklumat Islam Menggunakan 26

4. The Use of Mobile Phone And PDA Among Students In Private 38

5. An Investigation Of The ICT Challenges And Practices Of 50

AUGMENTED REALITY BASIC READING COURSEWARE FOR DOWN

Roslinda Ramli1 & Halimah Badioze Zaman2

courseware is crucial as a platform to provide a tool as an effective way of

Keywords: Augmented reality, special education, reading, Down syndrome

Augmented Reality is a promising technology which allows seamless user

et al. 2007). According to Billinghurst (2002), the educational experience offered by

AR is also beneficial to individuals with learning disabilities or intellectual

As in the field of reading, AR has been implemented in MagicBook (Billinghurst

2.0 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

For this preliminary analysis, the purpose of the study is to:

3.0 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE

a) Helps the educators and students in solving reading problem in Malay

3.0 TEACHING AND LEARNING OF READING

3.1 Problems of Basic Reading Teaching and Learning of Down Syndrome

The problem that is faced by Down syndrome students is particularly on how to

3.2 Findings from Preliminary Analysis

We did class observation and also interviews at Kiwanis Down Syndrome

An interview with Educational Technology Division, reported that there is no

Table 1: Problems in basic reading teaching and learning of Down syndrome

Table 2: Document Analysis:Reading Problems

Table 3: Special Education Department

A survey is performed to gain a general understanding of how well students

ability. The results of reading assessment are categorized according to the

Table 5: Language components problems

Table 6: Reading analysis:Score Percentage Based On Malay Language Topic of

4.0 RESEARCH CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Level I : Preliminary Analysis Level

Level II : System Development Process

Level III : Process of System Evaluation and Testing

based on deep observation method towards research sample. Software Checklist

Figure 1: Research Conceptual Framework

5.0 PROPOSED AUGMENTED REALITY BASIC READING

As an attempt to help Down syndromes students in learning to read, there is a need

RL-TRANSFORMER : JAVA CODE TRANSFORMATION BY REDUCING

Keywords: Readability, simplicity, code transformation, software engineering,

smaller number of them [Robert W. Sebesta, 2008]. Code transformations are

To overcome the problems particularly towards improving Java codes written by

programming languages that supported by a machine-independent byte code

2.0 RELATED WORKS

There are several studies about the dilemma of novice programmers in

3.0 OVERVIEW OF THE JAVA FEATURES IN DECLARING VARIABLES

Table 1: General structure of while and for.

While (boolean_condition) For (init_statement; boolean_condition;

While (x < 10) {

4.0 THE DESIGN OF RL-TRANSFORMER

Figure 1: Program1.txt file

To solve the above problems, We developed a prototyped transformer named the

Figure 2: Temporary.txt file

Figure 3: Program1xyz.txt file

The Figure 4 clearly shows that program1.txt has been transformed to

5.0 EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN

The objective of design is to determine the capability of RL-Transformer to manage