This research article focus is particularly on the usage of internet for preparation of B.Ed projects for the teacher trainees under Kakatiya University region of Telangana State, India. For this, the investigators used the Normative Survey method of research. For data collection, the researchers used the well prepared questionnaire developed by the researchers. The stratified random sampling technique was used for selection of sample of 288 Teacher trainees comprises both male and female from different teaching methodologies. The data is systematically classified and tabulated according to the established objectives of the study. The results revealed that, majority of the teacher trainees are using the internet to identify the social mapping, information of different societies in the world, extract logos, cultural symbols, dance / art / festivals / classical music, to know the diseases, games, sports and physical education etc. And also, the trainees use the internet for case sheet, psychological tests and treatments, school and student development activities and cocurricular activities.
Today, there is no field of activity where computers are not being used. From space travel to booking railway tickets, International business transactions to small trading activities are all being carried out with the help of computers. The use of computers in scientific and research fields has resulted in new many inventions and discoveries. Man is now able to do and achieve many things, which were earlier considered as practically impossible. The use of computers is no longer confined to laboratories and research centers alone. Computers have almost become omni present and a part of on daily lives. They have completely changed our working style and way of understanding things.
Computers have become increasingly important in School over the past decade. As well as supporting specific IT teaching, they are used in developing basic skills, such as reading and number work, to support data handling in science, explore and research using multimedia reference, and, increasingly, to access the internet.
Teachers and Teacher Educators use computers and information technologies to improve their role in the Educational process. Computer tools are used to free the time for instruction of professional development by using email and internet to communicate with experts, colleagues and the outside world. Increasing professional development activities makes easy for distance education courses, accessing educational research, and accessing classroom materials such as lesson plans.
McClintock (1988) states that, “The education influences of computers should be measured along duration of at least one or two centuries, if not considerably more. Unfortunately, we cannot wait this long to validate the value of computer”.
The wide spread use of computers has led to a new “Computer culture”. The boom is computer industry had directly or indirectly led to the growth of many dependent industries like the hardware and software. This opens many new job opportunities to the younger generation since computers influence the educational system. In requirement for computer-trained professionals, many educational institutions have started offering computer courses.
In India, Intel teach to the future was launched on 28 February, 2008. It was a World wide effort to help both inservice teachers and pre-service teachers integrate technology into the classroom. The program enables preservice teacher educators and teacher trainees to discover how to create technology enhanced units in collaborative teams and develop tools that motivate students and help them become self-directed learners. They will understand how to use powerful productivity software, multimedia tools and the internet to promote inquiry-based learning.
To develop the technical ability among teacher educators, Intel signed a MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with universities in Telangana state to provide training and resources for their use in their pre-service courses. Teacher trainees work in teams as they use technology to top vast reservoirs of information from the internet and digital sources, and develop lesson plans that meet challenging standards while promoting critical thinking and help students to grow and succeed with the speed of technology.
Integration of technology supported project based learning in the colleges of education enables teacher educators and teacher trainees to turn the power of computer technology into teaching / learning tools that would captivate students, motivate them and ultimately make them self directed learners:
NCTE has suggested Projects for getting skilled experience from primary level to higher order learning to maintain good relation with his community and solve his own problems to live independently. The Universities enhancing the learner to get real perception by doing different projects at various levels of courses including B.Ed level. The teacher trainees have to undergo to acquire different skills / learning experiences in the project of B.Ed programme to enhance the skills. The following 7 projects are introduced at B.Ed level:
1. Community Studies Project (Practicum of Paper-I).
2. Cultural Studies Project (Practicum of Paper-I).
3. Case Studies Project (Practicum of Paper-II).
4. Health and Physical Education Project (Practicum of Paper-II).
5. Computer Education Project (Practicum of Paper-III).
6. School Studies Project (Practicum of Paper-IV).
7. Personality Development and Communicative English Project (Practicum of Paper-V).
By doing these projects, the teacher trainees participates in the group and community activities:
Computers will stand for the accuracy and reliable. It collects the information from different sources worldwide. Every teacher trainee is using computers for browsing internet for an up-to-date information and to download necessary information from different parts of world in completion of their projects.
Few research works were found in the field of Computer Education which is probably the most important area concerned with School Education. But, the limited amount of research empirically examined on the attitude / views / opinions of teachers, teacher trainees towards the Computer Education project.
Means (1995) presented an article “Transforming with Technology”. This article discusses the importance of having a school wide approach to implement the technology in all courses for all students. This key to successful technology use is to incorporate it frequently and consistently across the curriculum.
Becker, Wong and Ravitz (1999) have discussed the Co- NECT teachers and students use of word processing more than any other type of software; in fact their use of word processing was not substantially greater than teachers' use of that type of software in other school settings. However, Co-NECT teachers and students use five types of software substantially more than other teachers; spreadsheet/ database software, the World Wide Web, presentation software, electronic mail, and multimedia authoring. They were more likely than other teachers to report “learning to work collaboratively” as an objective for their students’ computer use (53% vs. about 25% nationally).
National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES-1999) has documented the large increase in access to computer and the internet in the nation's public elementary and secondary schools in USA. This increases to led a need to understand the extent and types of teacher’s use of computers and the internet, as well as teacher's perceptions of their own preparedness to use those tools in their classes.
In the subsequent survey investigated by the NCES (2000) stated that, the teachers were asked to focus specifically on the variety of potential uses of computers or the internet in the classroom. 23% of public school teachers reported that, feeling well prepared and an additional 10 percent reported that, feeling very well prepared to use computers and the internet in their teaching.
Sarsani and Laxma Reddy (2005) conducted a survey with a sample of 168, from the B.Ed colleges. It was found that, the colleges did not have adequate resources, they were not used optimally for various reasons. In majority cases, adequate numbers of computers were provided. There was no internet facility and the required software is not available. The instructional support was not adequate and experts were not invited to deliver lectures.
National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES- 2006), investigated that, 66% of public school teachers reported using computers or the internet for instruction during class time. 41% of teachers reported that assigning students work that involved computer applications such as word processing and spreadsheets to a moderate or large extent; 31% of teachers reported that assigning practice drills and 30% reported that assigning research using the internet to a moderate or large extent.
Rajalakshmi and Anadan, (2010), presented the investigation was to find out the level of opinion of the teacher trainees towards the utilization of ICT in classroom instructions and learning in teacher training institutes. The study was confined to ICT such as Computer, Power point Presentation and internet. Significant positive opinion was observed among the teacher trainees towards ICT with various dimensions such as Computer, Powerpoint Presentation and Internet.
Bhalla (2013) found that, teachers were using computers for restricted time duration and for performing limited number of tasks, accordingly, teachers seemed not to have sufficiently integrated computers across the curriculum.
They often used computers to plan their teaching, to update their knowledge, to prepare additional instrumental material. They sometimes used computers for their small classroom presentations, preparing test papers; for students' creative work, assignments, simulation, and games.
(1) Do the teacher trainees use computers and internet for their projects of B.Ed. course?
(2) What are the specific purposes of using internet in different projects?
The present study is aimed to find out the usage of internet for writing the projects of B.Ed programme by the teacher trainees with the following objectives:
To find out the usage of internet by the teacher trainees for different projects such as: (1) Community Study Project, (2) Cultural Study Project, (3) Case Study Project, (4) School Study Project, (5) Health and Physical Education Project, (6) Personality Development and Communicative English Project and (7) Computer Education Project.
Normative Survey method is used in this study.
A tool is constructed to find out the opinion of teacher trainees on the usage of computers in preparation of B.Ed. Projects. The investigators pursued a lot of literature on the Computer Education, test construction procedures and achievement tests. The tool was constructed after discussions with Computer Education subject lectures of B.Ed. colleges, experts in the field of computers and Education. The tool is constructed on the basis of activities included in 7 Projects. All the precautions were taken by the investigator to minimize the common errors that normally occur in the questionnaire to be reduced. A total of 128 items from 16 topics / concepts of B.Ed. project contents with Yes (or) No type answers were developed. A Pilot Study was undertaken to verify the applicability of the items.
The sample for the present investigation has been drawn from 6 Colleges of Education (B.Ed. Colleges) under Kakatiya University, Jurisdictional Area. A stratified random sampling technique was employed in the selection of 288 teacher trainees consisting both male and female from different teaching methodologies.
The researchers visited the Colleges of Education for the collection of the data with the permission of the head of the institution. All the teacher trainees were given booklets as a tool. The researchers explained briefly why the questionnaire is being administrated and emphasized the personal value of the tool for each trainee teachers, so that, the teacher trainees will not accept them initially; but, also put their best efforts. The purpose of conducting the study and special instructions were given orally to the group before starting to mark on the questionnaire. Trainee teachers were asked to read the instructions given in the booklet and researchers clarified the doubts of the trainee teachers during the seasons. The trainee teachers assured that, the responses will not be disclosed to anyone.
A test however, does not possess universal and eternal validity. It may be valid for the use in one situation, but, invalid if used in another. A test, which helps in making one decision in a particular research situation, may have no value at all for another. The tool was given to the experts in the field for their judgment of items included in the tool. On the basis of their suggestions, the tool was finalized. In the present study, the repeated measures are not possible to test the consistency of the results. But, the analysis of data shows that the trainee teacher responses has consistency.
The content validity refers to the degree to which a test samples the content area, which is to be measured. Content validity is essentially based upon the judgment of the experts. In the case of present questionnaire, a systematic effort was made by the investigator to examine the tool items related to the objectives of the study. While preparing the test, the investigator consulted the experts and test specialists in the field of computer education for careful analysis of instructional objectives and the actual subject matter studied. Thus, it can be reasonably assumed that, the tool has content validity.
The first essential quality of valid test is that it should be highly reliable. According to Guilford (1950), who defined the validity as “the degree to which a test measures what it measures”. This can be also stated in terms of, how well they obtained the scores and measures the test of true score component. To establish the validity of the items of the tool, it is calculated with chi-square (χ2) test and presented in Tables 1 to 7.
The data is systematically classified and tabulated according to the established objectives of the study. The interpretations of the results are presented in the Tables 1 to 7.
Table 1 represents that, majority of the teacher trainees are using computer for different purposes in Community Study Project such as to download the information (87.8%), to identify the social mapping (75.7%), for collecting required information of different societies in the world (73.6%), to know the different communities, tribes, societies, culture and tradition of the world (73.3%) and to know the literacy rates/Government developmental activities/information of schools and colleges (72.9%). They also used the computers to know about Science and Technology evolution (69.1%), to know the different standards, faculty norms, origin, development status of the different Universities/Institutions/Organizations (58.3%), to know more projects which are developed world wide (56.9%). The χ2 - values of the sample analysis is presented in the Table 1. The χ2 values denote the highly significant trend of opinion on usage of computers for different purpose by the teacher trainees at 0.01 level. Hence, it can be interpreted that, the opinion of the teacher trainees is significant on the usage of computers in community study project.
Table 1. Teacher Trainees' Opinion on Usage of Internet in Community Study Project
Table 2 represents that, majority of the teacher trainees are using the Computer for different purposes in Cultural Study Project such as to extract Logos, Cultural Symbols (89.2%), to know the different Dance/Music/Art/Festivals/Folk /Classical music (83.7%) and to know the Historical Places/World Wonders (83.7%), to know the different musical Instruments (74.3%), to collect history documents, rich culture, social contributions (74.0%) and Computers are used to know the different architectures of different countries (74.0%). They also use the Computers to collect the different cultural forms and social groups (71.9%) to know the comparative study of dance forms of different nations (67.4%), to know the different strategies of the different Religious trends (62.5%), to know the comparative study of marriage system in India/Abroad (59.7%), to observe cultural heritage of different nations, Communications (58.7%). The χ2 values of the sample analysis are presented in the Table 2. The χ2 values denote the highly significant trend of opinion on usage of computers for different purposes by the teacher trainees at 0.01 level. Hence, it can be interpreted that the opinion of the teacher trainees is significant on the usage of computers in cultural study project.
Table 2. Teacher Trainees' Opinion on Usage of Internet in Cultural Study Project
Table 3 represents that, majority of the teacher trainees are using Computer for different purposes in Health and Physical Education Project such as to know the information about diseases (92.7%), regarding Games, Sports and Physical Education (89.6%), to emphasize the Importance of Health (86.5%) and to show the images, symbols, associated with the Health (85.1%). They also use the Computers to impart the value of nutritious food (80.6%), to know the National, International Organizations Principles and Awareness Programs (80.6%), to give precautions to the prevent diseases (70.5%), to bring awareness about the Health (69.4%), to know the more details about the Medical Acts (60.1%) and to evaluate the Human Body (58.3%). The χ2 - values of the Sample analysis presented in the Table 3. The χ2 - values denote the highly significant trend of opinion on usage of computers for different purpose by the teacher trainees at 0.01 level. Hence, it can be interpreted that the opinion of the teacher trainees is significant on the usage of computers in Health and Physical Education project.
Table 3. Teacher Trainees' Opinion on Usage of Internet in Health and Physical Education Project
Table 4 represents that, majority of the teacher trainees are using computer for different purposes in Case Study Project such as to prepare the Case Sheet (70.9%) and 2 Psychological Tests and Treatments (64.2%). The χ2 values of the sample analysis presented in Table 4. The χ2 values denote the highly significant trend of opinion on usage of computers for different purpose by the teacher trainees at 0.01 level. Hence, it can be interpreted that, the opinion of the teacher trainees is significant on the usage of computers in case study project.
Table 4. Teacher Trainees' Opinion on Usage of Internet in Case Study Project
Table 5 represents that, majority of the teacher trainees are using Computer for different purposes in School Study Project such as to know the school development activities and student development activities (75%), Curricular and co-curricular activities which planed by the Institution (74.7%), to conduct online tests for admissions in the schools (70.5%), to student support services and their achievements (65.6%) and to know the National and International awareness programs in school curriculum (64.2%). They also use the Computers to design various school records designed for specific purpose (62.5%) and to know the preserved school history (57.3%). The χ2 values of the Sample analysis presented in Table 5. The χ2 values denote the highly significant trend of opinion on usage of computers for different purpose by the teacher trainees at 0.01 level. Hence, it can be interpreted that the opinion of the teacher trainees is significant on the usage of computers in school study project.
Table 5. Teacher Trainees' Opinion on Usage of Internet in School Study Project
Table 6 represents that, majority of the teacher trainees are using Computer for different purposes in Personality Development and Communicative English Project such as to write resume / bio-data with MS-Word (87.8%), using spell check option in the MS-Word (85.1%), using computers to collect more information regarding review the articles/reference books (81.3%), to know more vocabulary /new vocabulary (76.7%) and to use the synonyms, antonyms and Thesaurus (75.7%). They also use the computer peripherals in the schools for effective teaching (71.2%), to know the Role model teachers biography (63.9%), to search the creative activities organized by the teacher trainees in the Colleges of Education (61.8 %). The χ2 values of the sample analysis presented in Table 6. The χ2 values denote the highly significant trend of opinion on the usage of computers for different purposes by the teacher trainees at 0.01 level. Hence, it can be interpreted that, the opinion of the teacher trainees is significant on the usage of computers in Personality development and Communicative English project.
Table 6. Teacher Trainees' Opinion on Usage of Internet in Personality development and Communicative English Project
Table 7 represents that, majority of the teacher trainees are using Computer for different purposes in Computer Education Project such as to Prepare Statistical data with the help of MS-Excel option (94.8%), to Prepare slides in the Power point option (94.4%), using Computer to prepare the Statistical data (93.8%), to Prepare College/ School timetable (89.6%) and view the Print Preview (88.9%). They also use the Computer to adjust the tittles to center and justify (86.1%), they will use Computers to add new rows / new columns to given Statements (84.7%) and to prepare notices/brochure/invitations (77.8 %). The χ2 Values of the sample analysis presented in Table 7. The χ2 Values denote the highly significant trend of opinion on usage of computers for different purposes by the teacher trainees at 0.01 level. Hence, it can be interpreted that, the opinion of the teacher trainees is significant on the usage of computers in computer education project.
Table 7. Teacher Trainees' Opinion on Usage of Internet in Computer Education Project
The following conclusions are revealed for the study,
The results revealed that, majority of the teacher trainees are using computers for different purposes in preparing B.Ed projects. Most of the trainees used the internet for almost all the projects at B.Ed level, to identify the social mapping, information of different societies in the world, extract logos, cultural symbols, Dance / Art / Festivals/ Classical music, to know the diseases, games, sports and physical education. And also trainees use internet for case sheet, psychological tests and treatments, school and student development activities and co-curricular activities.
It clearly indicates that, majority of the teacher trainees are using internet facility for their computer project at optimum level. If the Colleges of Education provide good computer lab with internet facilities, the trainee teachers will start working in integration with ICT in the classrooms and update their knowledge for their future career. Internet access provides the teacher trainees to strengthen their presentation skills to keep abreast of the new methodologies in teaching and to explore themselves to know the latest developments in the world.
Managements have to organize training programmes/ workshops by inviting subject experts in computer education field to acquaint the teacher trainees with sound knowledge in computers and access to internet. Otherwise, teacher trainees may be logging behind in computer skills in important areas of computer applications and fail to teach effectively in the classroom. They may not do justice to their teaching profession in future.
It is strongly recommended that every College of Education should provide Computer laboratory facilities with internet and good instructional software for teacher trainees. They should be given ample opportunities in computer lab for completion of their project work by providing sufficient computers and allocation of more time even after college working hours. The most important in maintaining the lab is Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) must be provided without fail to strengthen the quality of teaching and learning process.
Qualified teacher educators must be appointed to guide the trainees to make the best use of computers in both theory and practical.
Every teacher educator should be concentrated on their subjects by applying Computer Skills to strengthen the subject knowledge as well as the technical knowledge in the teaching-learning process. And model lessons with multimedia presentation must be prepared for the trainees.
