THE ROLES OF ICT IN CULTIVATING THE CHARACTER OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

Hak Cipta © 2017 oleh Penulis (dkk.) dan Jurnal Sosial Humaniora (JSH) *This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Subject Areas: Education Abstract The use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in all levels of education has been implemented broadly for years. This paper aims at reporting the power of ICT in cultivating elementary school students’ character. The recent study, basically, is twofold: First, to find out elementary school students’ perceptions towards the use of ICT in the form of short videos and Hot Potatoes in the classrooms; second, to investigate the positive character of the students appearing during the implementation of ICT. There were 45 fifth graders of an elementary school joining the project. They were treated using ICT in the classroom, and they were encouraged to express their opinion dealing with the use of ICT in the classroom. The findings of the present study suggest that teachers should facilitate their students with ICT for it is necessary to build positive student character, and it motivates them to be more curious in the teaching and learning process.


Background of The Study
Indonesia is considered as a Country having suave inhabitants. Nevertheless, the multidimensional crisis in 1998 led this country into a very bad condition. One such parameter is that the poor character of its people. Chotimah (2011) states that the crisis has resulted in the decreased self-confidence and self-esteem of Indonesian young persons. The youth easily get any kind of information without filtering wisely the information they have got. The fast spread of the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) enables them to access the world, especially via internets such as YouTube and television. Thus, it is important to protect them to behave in negative manners and empower them to cultivate good character.
Basically, the term 'character' simply means attitude or behavior. A man having good character is the one who is empowered with good behaviors. Thus, the act of empowering children with good character must be done through character education. The term ' character education' began popular in the 1900's when Thomas Lickona introduced his books entitled The
Experts believe that the ages of 0 -10 are golden moments to build one's character. The necessity to build their character is absolutely needed to prepare good young generations. At those ages, elementary school students at the age of 6 -12 need to be treated wisely. Thus, education is an answer to prepare them to be good citizens with the positive character in the future. Besides, elementary school students enjoy games and ICT. Thus the two things must be combined in order to maximize the outcomes of education, including character building of the students.
The use of ICT in all levels of education has been employed broadly for years. Somehow, some people believe that ICT only deals with 'computers and computing related works' (Amin, 2013). On the other hand, UNESCO (2002)

Findings And Discussion
The data were collected from an interview with the students after the implementation of ICT in the classroom and with the teacher after the implementation of the model (see Figure 1). In addition, fieldnotes and observation were also administered to observe the students' character during the interventions. Implementing ICT, the teacher-researcher also collected the students' perceptions towards ICT by asking the class directly related to what they felt about Hot Potatoes and short videos, while another researcher observed the class and examined students' character.

The Classroom
The first question of the present paper deals with the perceptions of the elementary students towards the use of ICT in stimulating their character.
Answering the question, the students had different ideas, but in general, they expressed positive perceptions. When the teacher-researcher was introducing Hot Potatoes, the students looked motivated to understand more not only the content but also the program. In this case, the researcher did not focus on the ability of the students in completing the task but how they performed in joining the class.
It is in line with the findings of a study conducted by Guerza (2015) which claims that ICT pedagogies could cultivate positive opportunities for learners to engage in the teaching-learning process. Miyazoe The comments show that they have positive perceptions towards the implementation of ICT in the classroom. Besides, they have more motivation in learning since one of the characteristics of young learners is that they will be productive if the class is conducted while playing.

Character Appearing In The Classroom
The kinds of character observed were based on those proposed by Kemendiknas (2011)

Conclusions and Suggestions
The results of the study revealed that ICT motivates the students to enjoy the class. Sulistyo (2016) also proved that teaching and learning process in integration with ICT allows the students to be more motivated in the classroom, and the class becomes more interesting (Miyazo and Anderson, 2010).
Besides, the students looked more enthusiastic to learn more since ICT leads the class to be more varied and interesting. For them, the class looks like learning while playing or vice versa. ICT also makes them more curious in the teaching and learning process. In short, they have positive perceptions towards the implementation of ICT in the classroom. This study, of course, has some limitations such as a small number of elementary students involved and limited time to apply ICT, so it is suggested that more researchers conduct better comprehensible studies in order to provide better new insights related to character education for children.