Sharing Student Projects

Islamic boarding school or pesantren is a religious education institution in Indonesia where students live in a provided hall for a long period. To get them focus on religious learning while protecting them from moral threats, students’ access to internet is restricted or even disabled. This raised questions of how students develop their digital literacy in such kind of environment. This research aims to investigate to what extent pesantrens support the development of digital literacy for their students, as indicated by the availability of digital learning resources, such as digital facilities, digital accessibility, and digital competences. This is built upon Luckin’s learner-centric ecology of resources model, which illustrates learning as an interaction between learner and the surrounding environment. Furthermore, this research also aims to distinguish different behaviour between pesantrens based on types and educational level. This study was carried out through survey method and questionnaire was developed to collect the data. Fifty teachers from different pesantrens across the country were involved as the participants, who were asked about digital literacy situations within the schools. The data indicated that pesantrens had accommodated students with digital facility in moderate level and incorporated digital competences into their teachings. However, digital accessibility in pesantrens was still limited. The data also illustrates different patterns in pesantrens based on type and level of education, where certain types and levels apply a more restrictive policy than others.

This study concluded that pesantrens had done the filtration process of their learning resources of digital literacy. Apart from pedagogical motive, this filtration was mainly driven by sociocultural factor, as they draw a huge concern on negative contents on the internet. Notably, with this limitation, students had a little opportunity to develop their digital literacy. Thus, it is crucial for pesantrens to review their policy to foster their students’ digital literacy.