Access to Knowledge through Computer Education

Sabuj Sangha has been working on Education and Protection for quite some time now and therefore ensuring the retention of students in school and reduced the drop outs at a significant level. But now the Organisation is looking much beyond to bring into the flavour of digital era to the rural areas by introducing computer education in the School. Therefore, ‘Access to Knowledge’ is being introduced in the Upper Primary School (KSSN) of Sabuj Sangha.

Learning has got three aspects and they are the learning of the principal, teachers and finally the learning of the students. The principal and the teachers are incessantly involved in the computer education and percolated their thoughts towards digitisation to the students from class III to class VIII. The principal is leading the entire process and continuously motivating teachers to use computers as the part of teaching methods.

The teachers are gradually unfastening their outlook towards inviting computer education and look at it as one of the most significant subject in the regular curriculum. They are constantly motivating students so that they could get used to the computers as they are with their daily diet.

The interactive sessions are taking place regularly and students are taking immense interest in it. It is a new challenge being posed deliberately by the Organisation to the students and teachers in the rural segment so that they could utilise the advantages of technologies like the urban schools are presently doing. Nowhere should they develop any kind of complexities regarding their adverse situations of not getting proper access to the technology as the urban children do.

Access to computer is actually signifies access to knowledge here and that’s the core purpose of the Project. The students are eventually learning to transform information into knowledge with the guidance of the teachers and that’s the core aim of the Project.  It is expected and ensured that gradually the computer knowledge will inculcate confidence, increase communication skills, imbibe leadership skills and quite obviously the computer literacy will build up technical skills too among the rural children. 

The students have learnt about the system software, application software and utility software and their classifications. Also the students got brief idea about Microsoft Windows and different parts of computer and different icons like ‘Computer,’ ‘Network,’ ‘Recycle Bin, ‘ ‘Internet Explorer,’ ‘My Documents,’ etc and how to open those icons. Also, students got to learn about the usage of minimize, maximize, close and restore buttons. They were also introduced to ‘Title- Bar,’ ‘Control Box,’ ‘Menu Bar,’ Status Bar,’ ‘Tool Bar’ and ‘scroll Bar’, ‘Paintbrush’ and different parts of computer namely ‘UPS’,’CPU’,  ‘Mouse’, ‘Keyboard’, ‘RAM,’ ‘ROM’ etc in details. They learnt to create folders and sub – folders and naming and renaming them; the difference between files and folders etc. Except from all technical knowledge of theory and practical, they students have been taught about the use of computer in daily life. This learning has been extended to other learning such as introduction to Notepad, command of logo like FORWARD, BACK, LEFT, RIGHT, PENUP, PENERASE, CLEARTEXT, CLEARSCREEN, HIDETURTLE, SHOWTURTLE etc. For higher classes like in class VII, students are learning about Microsoft Word and different tools of Word and how to use it; in addition power point is also being introduced.

Towards the end of the session, the teacher holds a practical examination to evaluate the pupils’ knowledge on computer. The teacher is satisfied with their performance. He also takes a remedial class for the children with some problems.   

The playing of some visual multimedia CDs based on various educational content are also going on to continuously nurture the skills of critical and analytical thinking among the students and such audio – visual representations actually helped them to get more and more attached to education and learning.

The computer education is playing a vital role in increasing the quality of education I the rural areas and in this context Sabuj Sangha is playing the role of a catalyst to attract students to come to attend school regularly and retaining them as well. The application of audio – visual is drawing children to school since they are finding easier to remember things now and their analytical power is increasing gradually as they watch things and explain on their own. They have started thinking more now and teachers are facilitating the entire process. The teachers and students are dedicated to the optimum use of available technology in the School.

Idea of technology is a critical part of modernity which has been deeply tied to India’s discourse of development. Today, the rural parts of India are having great expectations from technology to reduce poverty and open urban opportunities, including from those who has never used a computer before. Computers are playing a much larger role than just as a delivery mechanism for digital educational material since they represented an inspirational artifact to children and parents alike.