BLOG FOR PEDAGOGICAL PURPOSES:
A RESPONSE TO DISTANCE-LEARNING POLICY IN
INDONESIAN HIGHER EDUCATION CONTEXT
Yustinus Calvin Gai Mali Satya Wacana Christian University E-mail:[email protected]
Abstract
An increasing number of technology usages in educational sectors are widely regarded as an undeniable fact. Given the importance to the fact, Indonesian government, through its policy established by the Ministry of Education and Culture Republic of Indonesia, has put considerable attention on the usage of information and communication technologies (ICT) specifically to assist the distance-learning (DL) implementation in Indonesian higher education context. This situation indirectly challenges teachers in Indonesia to integrate ICT in order to accommodate the learning policy in the process of teaching and learning with their students. Responding creatively to the challenge, this paper aims to propose the use of blog in teaching writing skill for university students. The paper outlines some technological components of the blog, such as blog entry, reader comment, link sharing, and blogroll. Further, it discusses how the components possibly accommodate the DL implementation in a writing class. As an attempt to provide a justified and trustworthy response towards the challenge, the discussions would be elaborated with relevant literature as well as my reflective experience as a teacher in integrating my classroom blog with my students’ personal blogs particularly in my Creative Writing class at Satya Wacana Christian University. Based on the discussions, this paper would seem to indicate that a blog, equipped with its technological components, could conceivably become an alternative educational technology in facilitating teachers to deal with the learning policy in Indonesian higher education context.
Introduction
An increasing number of technology usages in educational sectors are widely regarded as an undeniable fact. Countries, such as Chile, Finland, Singapore, and the United states, through their set national policies, have considered an essential role that information and communication technologies (ICT) have in the development of their educational systems and in the improvement of their curricula (Kozma & Anderson, 2002). Kessler (2006) emphasizes the importance of computer-assisted language learning in language programs since it has become a standard and an expected part of curriculums. From a different angle, Hegelheimer (2006, p.117) points out that “even though future language teachers will most certainly not be replaced by computers, computer-using language teachers will replace those teachers who do not use computers.” In a more recent year, it becomes a fact that there has been rapid growth in using educational technology through various applications of distance education, Internet access, educational games, and simulations (Ross, Morrison, & Lowther, 2010) and in integration of various technological applications into teaching and learning process (Mogbel & Rao, 2013).
distance learning (DL) implementation in Indonesian higher education context. In that case, I highlight some articles in the learning policy (article one, three, and seven) that clarify the DL concept (Nuh, 2013). Article one in the policy defines DL as teaching and learning process that is done distantly using various media communication. Then, article three in the policy deals with DL characteristics, which some of them cover independent learning (belajar mandiri), using ICT and other educational technologies (menggunakan teknologi informasi dan komunikasi; menggunakan teknologi pendidikan lainnya). Importantly, article seven in the policy clarifies ways how DL is carried out in a teaching and learning process. Some of them are by utilizing learning resources that could be accessed without being in a same place with students, utilizing ICT learning media as anytime-accessible learning resources, and emphasizing ICT learning interaction even though it opens for possibilities to have limited face-to-face learning.
The stated learning policy, therefore, indirectly challenges teachers in Indonesia to integrate ICT in order to accommodate the policy in the process of teaching and learning with their students in Indonesian higher education context. This situation is in harmony with belief that:
“The expanding influence of distance education is encouraging administration and faculty to consider the possibilities for distance-learning technology in higher education (Miller, 2001, p.421).”
Moreover, the challenge is not on infusing a course of study with the latest and the most sophisticated educational technology, but is more on utilizing a technology that suits unique needs and interests of teachers and students (Chaney, Chaney, Eddy, 2010).
Responding creatively to the challenges, this paper aims to propose the use of blog, as an alternative educational technology, in teaching writing skill for university students. The paper outlines some technological components of the blog, such as blog entry, reader comment, link sharing, and blogroll. It also discusses how the components plausibly accommodate the DL implementation in a writing class. Then, as an attempt to provide a justified and trustworthy response towards the challenge, the discussions would be elaborated with relevant literature as well as my reflective experience as a teacher in integrating my classroom blog with my students’ personal blogs particularly in my Creative Writing class F at Satya Wacana Christian University (ET 101 F).
Blog: Definitions and Functions
A blog, an abbreviation of weblog (Crystal, 2006), is defined as “a web application which allows the user to enter, display, and edit posts at any time (Crystal, 2006, p.240).” A blog also looks like a personal website and a public diary that everybody can read (Harmer, 2007). It has been used globally by educators in facilitating their teaching and learning with students in a university level (Harwoord, 2010).
A blog also serves informative and interactive functions. “Teachers sometimes write a blog in order to inform their students how they are doing and what they should do next (Harmer, 2007, p.193).” In ET 101 F, I utilize a classroom blog, which is as a homepage for the class, in order to post some essential classroom information that deals with brief summary on course description of the class, classroom rules, writing assignments that the students have to finish, the score of their written work, and recent class information. Interactively, a blog allows people to write a response towards particular written work they read (Blackstone, 2009). For instance, teachers could leave written responses to written work posted by students in their personal blog. Besides, students could obtain wider opportunities to respond to their classmates’ work and to have regular interaction with their teacher. They, for example, could ask their teacher questions related to their particular classroom activity and classroom assignment. Even, students in my writing class sometimes share their academic problems and ask me to give them some advice.
Importantly, there are advantages of using blog in teaching and learning. Pinkman (2005, p.21) believes that “blogs are authentic, interesting, and communicative resources that can serve a variety of purposes in the foreign language classroom.” A blog also enables communication among its users “without inhibitions and preconceptions that accompany most face-to-face interactions (Ward, 2004, p.4).” Dealing with the writing skill, a blog motivates students to have positive involvement in their writing process (Barrios, 2003; Cottle, 2009; Shifflet, 2008; Trammel & Ferdig, 2004, as cited in Blackstone, 2009). Ward (2004) asserts that a blog gives students with a new reason why they should enjoy writing. The use of blog is also said to provide students with “real learning opportunities to improve their written English as they were asked to read their classmates’ blogs and respond to them (Fellner & Apple, 2006, p.17).” Sharma (2010) as cited in Yuen and Cheung (2013, p.95) points out that “blogs emerged as the most feasible alternative to engage students in writing and reflection.”
Blog, Pedagogy, and Its Technological Components:
blog entry
,
reader comment
,
links sharing
, and
blogroll
A blog with its technological components could conceivably assist teachers in teaching writing skill for their university students. In that case, I would share my reflective experience in integrating my classroom blog with my students’ personal blogs in ET 101 F. Then, I would outline some technological components of the blog, such as blog entry, reader comment, links sharing, and blogroll, to help me in the teaching and learning process of creative writing with my first-semester students. Further, the experience would also be related to how I utilize the blog to deal with a pedagogy concept that particularly views learning as the process to accompany learners, to care for them, and to bring learning into life (Smith, 2012) as well as to propose an idea that learning is not merely a matter of transmitting knowledge (Harmer, 2007).
Further, blog entry could provide possibilities for the students to experience their authentic learning. Mims (2003) asserts that authentic learning could happen when students have an opportunity to make a product and share it to people outside the classroom. Besides, the term authentic is also related to an actual character not imitated ones (Couet, 1996). One of writing assignments that the students have to do is writing a metaphor poem about their parents. Afterwards, they have to post it in their blog, and upload a jpg-picture format of their parents to actualize the poem they have written. In addition to the metaphor poem, blog entry also enables the students to upload a jpg-poster format actualizing a written poem about their Faculty of Language and Literature (FBS). Obviously, by posting their written work to the blog, they could share it online, so people who are outside the classroom and equipped with internet connection could see their work and thus possibly promotes their authentic learning (Mims, 2003).
Reader comment is the second technological component discussed in this paper. It enables readers of the blog to leave some written comments to every post they read and, at the same time, accommodates the interactive function (Blackstone, 2009) of the blog. In ET 101 F, after the students post their poems in their personal blog, it is possible for them to obtain some written feedback from their teacher, classmates, and possibly from people outside the classroom. In addition to the written feedback, the students could obtain constructive encouragement and advice from their teacher and classmates to the poem they have posted in their blog:
Student_1: Ach Achooooon your mom is so beautiful, her smile too :D I like the 2nd line of this poem, I think i need your mom's smile
when i'm sick ehehehe
Teacher: ...Please always love your mother...and don’t forget to say thank you
to your mother! -thanks-
Student_2: Well done Brother :) please brother, love your "DOCTOR" and remember your "DOCTOR" advice okay :)
Student_3: Nicely done. Keep loving your mother bro. Your mother is
everything.:)
Student_4: Always make your doctor proud of you achoonn :D
Student_5: Ooohh your poem is so cute. Your doctor, your nurse how is she do the same thing together. If any patient sick will you release your mom? Doctor / nurse... haha just kidding
Excerpt 1 The teacher and students response towards a student’s poem
(http://creativewrittingachon.blogspot.com/2014/10/metaphor-poemfnl.html#comment-form)
Then, as an attempt to accommodate the interactive function, I integrate blog entry
Figure 1 A part of student-teacher interaction in the classroom blog (http://oursmileenglish.blogspot.com/2014/09/mutiara.html#comment-form)
Highlighting the importance of the interaction, I could always check those who leave comments on the name since my Gmail account, which has been integrated with Google
and Blogger.com, would directly send me notification as soon as a student leaves his/her comments. In other words, the account would provide me with trackback, “the automatic notification to a site that there has been an update or response to a blog posting is known (Crystal, 2006, p.241).” This might be a demonstration that a blog could assist the interaction between a teacher and his/her students. Further, the interactions in the blog would seem to reflect that teaching is not merely a matter of transmitting knowledge (Harmer, 2007) since the students sometimes need to be listened and to be cared of (Smith, 2012).
Link sharing, another technology component that a blog has, enables me to provide online links to some online educational sources that students could access regularly outside the classroom and thus possibly attempts to promote their learning autonomy. Healey (1999) believes that “the increase in online resources accessible from home has made autonomous learning more feasible in many cases (p.401).” In ET 101 F, I have provided some links in which my students could access FBS website and its online announcement board, which updates them with recent news from the Faculty. I also provide some other links to online educational sources that deal with creative writing, poems, and biography.
A blog also has another technological component, namely blogroll. It lists a number of links to other blogs (Crystal, 2006). In ET 101 F, I integrate blogroll and link sharing in order to list my students’ blogs, so the students do not need to memorize their friends’ blog address.
Figure 3 Lists of students’ blogs
(http://oursmileenglish.blogspot.com/search/label/students'%20blogs)
Therefore, when they need to visit their friends’ blog and to leave it some comments, they simply click the links, entitled with the students’ name, posted in the classroom blog. In a sense, link sharing and its integration to blogroll could function as a portal that provides the students with useful access both to educational sources and to their friends’ blogs.
Blog as a Response towards the Learning Policy
As it is reflected in ET 101 F, this paper would appear to suggest that the use of blog equipped with its technological components conceivably accommodates the DL concept as stated in the learning policy established by Minister of Education and Culture Republic of Indonesia (Nuh, 2013). Therefore, this paper also raises possibilities that the blog becomes a response towards the learning policy. First, the blog, through the integration of blog entry and reader comment, enables the students to interact with their teacher as well as with their classmates without being in a same place, in a classroom, and limited to a particular time. In that case, the blog could serve as an asynchronous communication tool that “enables communication over a period of time through a different time-different place mode (Ashley, 2003 as cited in Mogbel & Rao, 2013, p.5).” Second, the students could gain benefits from the blog since it, by the integration of link sharing and blogroll, provides wider opportunities to the students to access independently the online educational sources from which they could obtain comprehensible input specifically to assist them in learning their creative writing.
(Hossain & Quinn, 2012). Interestingly, they could also access their blog from their personal mobile phone, an activity generally known as moblog (Crystal, 2006). Therefore, it is plausible that “anytime and anywhere accessibility was one of the most common advantages of the blog (Hossain & Quinn, 2012, p.4).”
Conclusion
To sum up, the discussions on this paper would seem to indicate that a blog, equipped with its technological components and advantages towards teaching and learning, could become one of alternative educational technologies in assisting teachers to deal with the learning policy in Indonesian higher education context. Even though it is realized that to implement DL using an educational technology in Indonesian higher education context plausibly still becomes a challenging task, this paper is expected to provide alternative ideas for teachers and other related parties in designing and developing their educational technology to deal with the learning policy. Eventually, they are encouraged to utilize a particular education technology that indeed helps them achieve goals of their teaching and learning and should not merely look for the most sophisticated educational technology.
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