Enhancing the use of school net for learning and teaching

Abstract

School Net is a network connecting secondary schools in Sri Lanka, which has been setup to support effective use of information and communication technologies (ICT), particularly the Internet, for enhancing primary and secondary school education, and for encouraging greater communication and co-operation among school communities. In school learning environment, teachers play a central role and the objective of this research is to assess whether School Net has made a positive impact to enhance this role. The evaluation of impact of School Net on teachers and the strategies they employ to facilitate the environment is critical.

The research made use of a questionnaire to identify areas where School Net could have made a difference and includes an in-depth analysis of the level of significance of such impact. The analysis shows few relationships that need to be highlighted as improvements in the areas could lead to a more efficient and effective use of School Net for teaching/learning activities.

Number of hypotheses which lead to the development of the questionnaire was evaluated based on the collected data. These evaluations, detailed analysis of the results as well as a set of recommendations are presented in this thesis. Three of the relationships that came into light are highlighted due to their significance: The medium of information used in School Net, School Net utilization in provinces, the use of School Net based on gender of teacher.

There is an identifiable relationship between the use of the School Net and medium/media used in it. All three languages (i.e. Sinhala, Tamil and English) should be used for the contents of the School Net while localizing the operating environment of the School Net. This indicates the importance of local language use in ICT. The teachers who have undergone ICT training use the School Net more than the others, indicating the need for well structured training programs.

Even though the study provided greater insights into the ways School Net is currently being used in Teaching/Learning activities in Schools, it should be noted that the sample size does not permit to generalize conclusions. A detailed survey, which takes into account provincial aspects, needs to be undertaken as a continuation of this work.