Abstract

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in agricultural education has paramount importance to bring reality to the teaching- learning process. In spite of committed efforts, the utilization of ICT tools in agricultural education is still not reaching the expectations of the stakeholders. Ample numbers of ICT tools were also been regularly designed and refined to suit the teaching-learning process in agricultural education. But the focus on the valid gaps for underutilization of ICTs has not been made by the researchers in the agricultural education system. To explore such gaps and to bring a modest approach to the faculty members to learn and efficiently utilize the ICT in their teaching endeavor, the present study was taken up under ICAR extramural research project during 2016-17 with the objective of assessing the extent of utilization of ICT by the faculty members in the State Agricultural Universities. The study revealed that there was 35.08 per cent awareness 29.45 per cent of accessibility 26.47 percent of knowledge, 23.38 per cent of application proficiency and 22.28 per cent of the frequency of usage by the faculty members on all ICTs. Highest utilization of ICTs was under Tools and Peripherals followed by Programs, Web Browsers and Search Engine’, Personal Mails, Online Transactions and other components. Nearly half of the faculty members had a moderate extent of ICT utilization followed by less and extent of ICT utilization. Under ‘tools and Peripherals’, Computer, Printer and Pendrive; under ‘Web Browsers and Search Engines’, Google, Google Chrome and Microsoft Internet; under programs Microsoft Office, Adobe Reader and File explorer; under ‘Personal Mails’ Gmail, Yahoo mail and Rediff mail; under social networking sites Facebook, Youtube and Whatsapp were the top three ICTs used by the faculty members. Among the different academic activities, the ICTs were majorly used for Enrichment of subject knowledge, a collection of course materials, Class Room Presentation and other activities by the faculty members in SAUs.

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