ICT in rural school education: Impacting on children cognition

Abstract

Intellectual thinking and analytical skills in school children helps them to achieve new heights. Globally Information and Communication Technology (ICT) started playing a key role in school education. In developing countries, it is premium and also having limited human resource. India is not an exception. If the usage and its importance reach to the nook and corner of the country, one can experience overall development of children. The purpose of the study is to understand the role of ICT tools impacting children cognition across rural high schools. The main objective is to study how teachers perceive the ICT integration in teaching process and its effect on students learning and change of their behaviour. The secondary objective is to study students’ opinion on ICT based learning process and its effect on improving knowledge and behaviour. The study has followed the ethnographic research methodology (observation and field research) in fully equipped ICT schools in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, Telugu States of India. The data collection is through a structured questionnaire as well observations with the selected sample population. The sample is qualified students and trained teachers in the government as well private schools where the ICT tools are implementing and strictly following. There are some interesting findings between teachers’ perception and students’ perception towards change in learning process and change in behavior. Originality of the paper is the researchers tried to elucidate the facts about the students’ and teachers’ perception regarding ICT tools in education and their effectiveness in changing the behaviour of the students as well teachers on education.