Sri
Tatminingsih and Denny Setiawan
(Surveys in 10 Big Cities in Indonesia, in the year of 2009-2010)
ABSTRACT
This study aims to
get a general picture of information
literacy skills of kindergarten teachers in
Indonesia.
Information literacy skill is a set of skills to
identify, locate, evaluate, organize, create, use and communicate
information to others, in order to settle and
find a way out of
a problem. For
the purposes of this study
a survey was conducted on kindergarten teachers in
the city of Jakarta, Bogor, Bandung, Serang,
Surabaya, Semarang, Medan, Yogyakarta, Makassar
and Denpasar, with
totally 491 people chosen randomly as respondents. The instrument used in this survey is a questionnaire containing closed and open questions. The collected data were analyzed by performing a percentage of the
number of the answering of
a question or
statement. The results were described in descriptive analysis. The results show
that more than 59% of respondents own information
and telecommunication equipments (such as mobile phones, computers, television, radio, newspapers
/magazines, internet). Meanwhile,
more than 60%
of respondents can operate and use the
equipments but mostly (>
60%) used them just for entertainments and
communicating with others included those in social
networking. The use of information and telecommunication equipments
as learning and teaching
resources particularly the use of
the internet as a source of learning, is still in a very small number that is less than 15% of the respondents. While more than 70% respondents
stated that they acquired the ability to use
these ICT tools
was through learning by themselves
or from next of
kin. The respondents have expectations that they can have a training on
the use of ICT and facilities that are easily accessed correspond to their ability so that they can
develop themselves individually without having to rely on others.
Key
words: information Literacy Skills, Indonesia earlychildhood education teachers
INTRODUCTION
Nowadays,
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has developed rapidly. It causes
a positive as well as a negative impact. Positively, every person can receive
information from various resources without barrier, but negatively, almost
without filter. Hence, anybody needs to
select which information is useful and can satisfy his/her needs of information.
To successfully having desired information, someone needs to comprehend
information literacy. Information literacy can be defined as a serial of skills
needed to identify, find, evaluate, arrange, create, use and communicate
information to someone else in order to accomplish tasks and solve problems.
The implementation of information literacy will be easily if someone has
particular skills, such as 1) recognize his/her need for information 2) know
how to handle information gaps 3) build a strategy for seeking information 5)
compare and evaluate received information 6) organize, apply, and communicate
information to others 7) synthesize and create new information.
A
rapid Information and Technology (IT) development can be seen, such as, through
the appearance of hardware and software in market created in various models and
prices to satisfy the needs of information completely, accurately, quickly,
easily, and cheaply, without space and time limitation. As a consequence, the
need to master IT utilization has become crucial. Some factors are responsible
for this situation, such as: 1) high competition in global market which causing
the speed of having information becomes crucial for individual successful 2)
market that changed rapidly needs to be anticipated by using IT 3) Up to date
science and technology development pursues the use of IT optimally 4) Easy
access for building relationship is badly needed for individual or
organizational development 5) IT has become a trend in global era life.
The facts tell us the crucial of information literacy
skills for someone to make him/her able to win competitions in global era.
Information literacy should
be mastered by people who are engaging in education since they are in junior
high school. However, not just junior
high school students, even most of university students have no information
literacy skills. Ironically, the main goal of education is to make people
skillful in making the best use of information. To be able to be information
literate, someone at least needs to have following skills: determine the scope
of information needed, access information effectively, evaluate information and
its sources critically, use information appropriate to his/her goals.
It
is clear that
in education the ability of information literacy is essential and it must be mastered by
any learners. The ability of information literacy is like a "hook for fishing" for students
so that they can do self-learning (students' freedom to learn). Learners
should learn a method
for browsing information from various sources
of information that continues to evolve. There would be no one today that is able
to follow all existing information.
For instant, today offices produce 2.7
billion documents per year
and one million
publications each year. Therefore, information
literacy is a valuable provision for
the achievement of lifelong learning..
Open University (UT)
is the only State University in Indonesia that organize Distance Education. Distance education is characterized by a physical separation
between teachers and
students. Therefore, UT’s learning systems require students to study
independently. Self-learning requires
students to learn
with their own initiative. UT provides teaching materials that are made specifically to
be studied independently. In addition to using the materials, students can
use multi-media learning
resources such as Computer
Assisted Instruction (CAI) and Audio-Visual
programs..
Early childhood teachers
as the target of UT particularly PGPAUD S1 Program (Bachelor
of Early Childhood Teacher Education Program) are also expected to have literacy skills. These
skills will be beneficial for
themselves as a teacher as well
as a student.
Based on the rational that is described above, this research was conducted, which is aimed at getting a picture of literacy skills possessed by early childhood teachers, especially kindergarten and preschool teachers and how they utilize IT as a professional early childhood teacher.
Based on the rational that is described above, this research was conducted, which is aimed at getting a picture of literacy skills possessed by early childhood teachers, especially kindergarten and preschool teachers and how they utilize IT as a professional early childhood teacher.
DISCUSSION
The
research was
conducted in year 2009-2010 by using survey method with
closed and opened-ended questions
questionnaire. 500 copies of the questionnaires
were distributed randomly to early
childhood teachers in ten major urban
areas in Indonesia,
namely Jakarta, Bogor,
Bandung, Serang, Surabaya,
Semarang, Medan, Yogyakarta,
Makassar and Denpasar,
and were sent back 491 copies to
the researchers. All of them are eligible for further analysis. The reason for taking
the samples randomly is because it is assumed
that big cities have many kindergartens and play
groups.
56% of respondents
were in the age of 29-35 years, 21 % in the age above 35 years, 19% in the age of 23 to 28 years and
14 % were 17 to 22 years old. Largely respondents
worked in Kindergarten
that is 86%. Meanwhile 11% worked
in playgroup and 3% worked in day care. Most respondents, that is 35%, had experience of teaching
more than 15 years, 34% between 11-15 years,
16% between 6 to 10
years and 12% under five years.
Other data related
to the identity of the respondents is about their education,
namely 96% of
respondents were from high school
or equivalent diploma.
THE RESULT OF
THE STUDY
Data about the ownership
of information and telecommunication equipments by the respondents indicated that only 1% of
respondents who do not have mobile
phone and 68% of respondents
have more than
one hand phone. Besides the
ownership of mobile phones, the results
showed that 38% of respondents
do not have computer either PC or laptop, 20% do not
have a radio, 8%
do not have a television set and 30% do not subscribe to newspaper / magazine / tabloid but 75% of respondents often buy
books. The results also showed that only 34% of respondents who subscribe to the internet. From these data, only 2% of respondents who do
not have a cell phone, radio, television and
did not subscribe to the newspaper / magazine
/ tabloid and
Internet.
Literacy skills
who owned by the
respondents can be described as
follows.
The
Use of Computer.
88% of
respondents state that they can use computers,
63% know and understand the menu on the
computer while 37% do not understand the menu, 67% of they who
understand the menu, use some
small part of the menu, 18% use most of the menu, and 5% use all of the menu. 28% of they who are able
to use computer, learned the computer from course, 24% were self-learning,
15% learned from others (friends or
internet cafe), 23% learned from families and 10% learned from other sources. 88% use computers
to type and create
lesson plans. The rest use computers to draw
or create learning media.
The use of
Hand phone
Almost all respondents (97%) stated
that they can use their own hand phone. 92 % of the respondents know all menu
on their hand phone. 61 % of the respondents can utilize all menu on their hand
phone. 20 % of the respondents can only
use their phone just for making a call and receiving as well as sending a short
message service.
9 % of the respondents can use hand
phone by going to a course. 32 % of the respondents learned from their friends.
52 % of the respondents did a self learning to be able to operate their hand
phone. 5 % of the respondents learned from their family members and 1 % of the
respondents learned from other sources. It is interesting that most of the
respondents felt more comfortable learn how to use hand phone from their
friends rather than from their family. Besides, they like to do a trial and
error in operating their hand phone until they are really able to use all the
menu on their hand phone.
90 % of the respondents use their hand
phone just for making a call and using SMS. Only 21 % of the respondents use
MMS. However, only 2 % of the respondents use their hand phone for browsing and
filing data. This study shows us that most of early childhood teachers used
their hand phone according to the main function of the hand phone and they
didn’t use Hand phone for ICT purpose optimally.
The
Use of Internet
Data about the use of the
Internet shows that 63% of the respondents claimed that they are able
to use internet while 37% are not able to use it. In addition to these data, 34% of
respondents use internet in internet
cafes (cyber cafes), 32% at home, 19%
in school and 15%
in elsewhere. This is to say that most respondents use
internet outside their homes.
When they, who are able to use internet, were asked from whom they learned
to use internet, 38% of them claimed that
they learned from their own
families, 45% from
other persons, 4% from a course and 14% learned through self-study. One interesting thing is that the respondents learned
to use internet from others (45%), such as
internet cafe workers, colleagues
or school administrators. 71% of respondents stated
that they use internet to find information, 28% to
establish social relationships, and
6% to do businesses. These data illustrate that
most early childhood teachers
use internet to find information they need (by browsing). This information is not always associated
with matter relating to professionalism as a teacher. Most of them seek information
about life and household
needs.
When respondents were asked
(by using opened-ended question) about
their expectations of their own skills
in the field of information, communication and technology,
the five most answers
are as follows. 30%
of respondents said they do not want to be blind technology people. They are eager to have adequate skills in utilizing
information and communication
technology optimally. 29% of the respondents hope to be able
to master the entire communications
and information technology
devices, especially for their needs as a
teacher, such as utilize ICT
as learning resources and media for learning. 27% of the
respondents said that they want to build a relationship with many people through ICT, 12%
of the respondent want to learn through the use of ICT and 5% stated that they can help their children
in learning, because a lot of children’s homework can
be solved by using ICT.
When they were asked what
efforts they are going
to do and what they have done to improve their ability to use ICT, the most
five answers are
as follows. 60% stated that they have to learn both independently and through educational institutions or learning through
other people like friends, children and others
who can help them learn to use
ICT. 10% stated
that they must often use ICT tools in order to master these
devices. 7% stated that the
efforts they have to do is to have ICT devices so
that they will easily learn and make the
best use of ICT in their lives.
3% stated that they have to be a friend of people who have a
high capability in
ICT so that indirectly,
they will be
influenced by such capabilities. Meanwhile
3% will go to a computer course so that they can
enhance its capability
in using ICT.
When respondents were
asked to give advice related to electronic literacy
skills or ICT
skills of Indonesia early childhood teachers, the fifth largest suggestion
is as follows. 1)
The government should provide them
with training-related skills in the field of ICT. 2)
The government requires teachers to have
ICT skills or
requires ICT skills
for someone who wants to become early childhood teachers
3) the government provides help for computers and internet use not only to elementary
school, junior high school and high school but also to early childhood institutions (including kindergarten and playgroup), 4) curriculum in educational
institutions for teachers
training should contains ICT
skill competencies. 5) The
government should provide free courses
for teachers of early
childhood, especially in ICT
and English language skills.
SUMMARY
To master
information literacy skills is important for early childhood teachers in this
era because the information developed rapidly and can be accessed easly by
using internet. The use of internet is very meaningful for the teachers such as
for making media instruction, for browsing new knowledge dan information and
for building social reletaionship network. In fact, a lot of teachers in big
city have been aware of the useful of internet and computer. How ever they need
help from the government of Indonesia in providing them with computer devices
and skills they need for operating the computer and browsing the internet.
REFERENCES
Wahyudiati. (2008).Urgensi literasi informasi sebagai bekal kecakapan
hidup. http://batikyogya.wordpress.com/2008/03/03/urgensi-literasi-informasi-sebagai-bekal-kecakapan-hidu. Diunduh: 12 Oktober 2009.
Pukul. 17.10
-----------.http://www.bit.lipi.go.id/masyarakat-literasi/index.php/literasi-informasi-kunci-kemajuan-yang-terbuang
. Diunduh: 12 Oktober 2010.
Pukul. 12.34
Artikel ini telah di seminarkan dalam The International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) --> The 24th ICDE World Conference in Indonesia dengan tema "Expanding Horizon-New Approaches to ODL". Bali 2-5 Oktober 2011
