Awarness and use of ICT among the college teacher: A study during the orientation programme

About 71 College teachers participated in the Orientation programme at UGC-Academic Staff College, Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University were given pretested structured questionnaire with four point scale to elicit information on awareness and use of ICT among the teachers. The results revealed that the mean scores of teachers for the use of computers for teaching, research and extension was 56.18%, use of internet was 61.3%, use of web 2.0 tools was 50.35% and awareness regarding e-resources was 38.59%. Further analysis indicated that only 7.04% teachers were making use of computers for teaching and 22.53, 25.35 and 22.53% teachers were using computers for writing articles, reports and research papers, respectively. Only 11.26% and 12.67% of the teachers used computers for data tabulation and statistical analysis respectively. About 25.35% were using internet for correspondence and 28.16% for updating their subject knowledge. Among the teachers, those were very well aware of web 2.0 tools, about 8.45%, 7.04%, 18.03%, 15.49% and 23.94% were very engaged in blogs, twitters, You tube, instant messaging and face book respectively. With respect to awareness regarding e-resources, only 16.90%, 12.67% and 8.45% teachers were well aware of e-journals, e-books and Digital libraries. Only 1.40 to 5.63% teachers were aware of Open courseware, Consortia, Subject gateways, Inflibnet initiatives, e-databases, National Knowledge Network and Electronic Theses and Dissertation Repositories. The gender, age, teaching experience and stream did not affect the ICT awareness. However, teachers inhabiting urban area and having Ph.D. degree were inclined more for ICT awareness. After attending Orientation programmes, the ICT awareness scores of the teachers were found to be significantly (p<0.01) increased. It can be concluded that the Orientation Programmes organized by Academic Staff Colleges can go a long way in generating ICT awareness among the College and University teachers.