ERIC Number: EJ1173783
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017-Sep
Pages: 18
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0033-1538
EISSN: N/A
Acquisition of Computer Literacy Skills through Self-Organizing Systems of Learning among Children in Bhutan and India
Mitra, Sugata; Dangwal, Ritu
Prospects: Quarterly Review of Comparative Education, v47 n3 p275-292 Sep 2017
This article describes a study under the Reaching the Unreached component of the Chiphen Rigpel project between the governments of Bhutan and India. This initiative is an attempt to provide computer literacy to children of Bhutan through setting up "hole in the wall" (HiWEL) Playground Learning Station(s) (PLSs). The study described here involves 14 sites (the experimental group), where PLSs are installed, and another 8 sites (the control group) without PLSs, but having similar demographic and socioeconomic profiling as the experimental group. This article compares the acquisition of computer literacy of school-going children in India with those in Bhutan. Results indicate that Bhutanese children have acquired computer literacy on their own and that their level of computer skills acquisition is similar to that of Indian children when the scores are normalized. This study was done over a one-year period, with results reported for eight months. In addition to verifying the earlier Indian results, this article hints at the fact that, irrespective of ethnicity, culture, and country, an identical--and possibly universal--self-organized learning mechanism seems to work with children vis-à-vis the Internet.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Computer Literacy, Cross Cultural Studies, Cultural Differences, Computer Uses in Education, Educational Technology, Access to Computers, Experimental Groups, Control Groups, Internet
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Bhutan; India
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A