A Study On The Differences And Balancing Strategies Of IT Education In Rural And Urban Areas

In the present century, it is the focus of education all over the world to popularize IT education and cultivate innovative talents with high information literacy. Since the year 2000, when the National IT Education Conference of primary and secondary schools was convened, IT education in primary and secondary school had developed well and fast. However, due to the unbalanced economic development and the particular requirements of this course, distinct differences between the urban and the rural IT education do exist.The present research mainly focuses on three aspects. First, to find out the differences of junior-middle-school IT education between urban and rural areas; Second, to analyze the causes of this unbalanced development; and at last, based on the previous relevant research in this field, to further explore how the gap can be narrowed.I have distributed the questionnaire among the junior middle schools of rural and urban areas in WeiHai, Shandong. There are two kinds of questionnaires: for teachers and for students. Questionnaire for the teachers includes five aspects: teachers' basic information, the school facilities, the teachers' self assessment on class teaching, the current state of teaching and research, teaching resources. While the questionnaire for students include three aspects: basic information, assessment on teachers'teaching and IT accomplishments. Through the analysis of the collected data, I have summarized the differences of junior-middle-school IT education in urban and rural areas, which lie mainly in the field of teaching resourses and teachers'qualities.Based on the literature research and the result of the questionnaire, I have analyzed the causes of the unbalanced development as follows: economy, concept, teachers, culture. I have also given some suggestions hoping to solve this problem: improving hardware equipment, advancing IT teacher qualities, accelerating the transition of IT education conception and promoting resource sharing.This thesis aims at deepening the application research in the balanced development of IT education on theoretical and practical levels. Hopefully, it will provide education managers and teachers certain perspectives, so as to achieve a balanced IT education in urban and rural schools earlier.