Yusuf, Ss - Post Report

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1.

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Tra ining

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Group.

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adorno7 [email protected]

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APEC

importan t sources in

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January 20 07. Thank y ou for y our cooperation.

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APEC e -L ear ni ng Tr ai ni ng Pro gr am Po st

Rep ort

Name Organization

M. Yusuf

Econo my

SMA Negeri

Position

Indon esia English teacher

70, Jaka rta Att end ed Round

2nd

Tra inee Number

61 06 3

** Please state each of following items.

Each answer mus t be leas t 50 0-word long , otherw ise your specif ic idea or op inion in e-Learning field would be difficult to be analyzed. 1. Which was the most useful conte nt among this AP EC eLea rning Training Program? Or which item has great impact on impro ving your actual work, and why? (Please write at least 500 words each question) The speed of internet connection in Indonesia is the major problem for most teachers to implement e-learning-based teaching and learning materials. The problem lays not in creating the materials but in accessing the tasks/assignments given by the teacher; when students are asked to do a project for example. The delivery of the project would be very difficult if it is done via internet regarding the speed of the connection. It will be worse if the project consist quite a lot of capacity making it very slow for students to upload it and the same thing will happen to the teacher when he/she downloads the students’ projects to evaluate their works. Working online seems to be the most difficult things to do for teacher and students in Indonesia when it comes to the loading and uploading of the tasks. Unlike Korea where broadband internet service is already settled, Indonesia is still struggling to realize this fast internet connection regarding the high cost. Until today it is only a rumor that certain private parties will be investing in this sector. However, it is not expected to be realized by the end of this year. PT Telkom, the Indonesian widest national network company, was reportedly not ready to provide such broadband network (TEMPO, January 22-28 20007 edition) as this will be too costly to change the now-installed network. The involvement of multi media devices is really a challenging job for most teachers in their teaching and learning activities. In order that this can be realized, I personally think Blended Learning is the answer. There are certain activities that can be done off-line. There are others, as long the internet connection support the activities well, that can be

done on-line. Problem Base Learning and Project Base Learning (PBL) are of great importance. Certain samples given by some Korean teachers during the 2nd E-learning Training in Busan, Korea (November 11 – 24, 2006) are good examples that can be relatively easy to do without worrying to much on the internet connection. When it comes to the submission of the tasks/assignments/projects, students can do so in forms of CD or DVD or they can perform their presentation in front of the teachers and other students using projectors (Infocus) which are commonly done in my school at 70 Government Senior High Scholl, Jakarta. Even though it is a rough calculation, I think nearly 100 % public schools in Indonesia are not ready to enhance internet to support elearning in the meaning that all the activities are web-based. SMA Negeri 70, the school where I teach, even do not have a school web site yet. It’s about the policy of the school. How can we build a school-based LMS if the school even does not provide a website as a media for teachers, students, or parents to communicate on line through an institutional web site? Actually, there is a kind of LMS managed by the Jakarta Local Office of Education called SAS (Sistim Administrasi Sekolah = School Administration System). But this is only intended for teachers to make entries of the school syllabus the teacher/s has/have created, teacher’s profile, the scoring system, students’ report book, etc and the student can access such information. This site is not intended to access interactive teaching and learning activities between students and teachers and among students themselves. So by following this kind of system, teachers are ideally busied with the updating of the syllabus, evaluating and reevaluating students’ performance and making the correction of students’ performance in the web, etc. Teachers’ energy, if this kind of system is implemented, will be absorbed in doing evaluation not concentrating in the teaching and learning process. I do hope that ALCoB members from different countries share their knowledge relating to the policy of the Education system in their economies . It would be better if there is an international conference regarding the education system and the policy made by each APEC economy.

2. After the graduation from the APEC e-Learning Tra ining Program, do you continuously commu nicate with other trainees to share the op inion or idea regarding International Education Cooperat ion? If so, what do you think is the most effic ien t wa y to com municate with each other? And what kind of subj ect do you mainly discu ss about? (Please write at least 500 words each question) Ideally, it is quite beneficial for any ALCoB members especially those who have gone through the APEC e-learning Training Program to continuously communicate with others/other trainees to share opinion or idea regarding International Education Cooperation. Internet seems to be the most effective

and convenient way to do so either through e-mail

or by chatting via messengers or other sites. Once again, I have to say that internet connection as the most effective way to communicate on line can be a problem for some trainees. The use of internet in Indonesia is relatively expensive so most trainees in my economy depend on the school’s internet connection. The lack of the number of computers makes it quite impossible for teachers to involve their students in the chatting and e-mail writing as part of teaching and learning activities. So most teachers find it most convenient to communicate with their counterparts from other economies after school where other teachers have already gone home. connection.

Another problem is that not all school install internet

In our economy, we have a site where most Indonesian ALCoB members communicate and share their ideas, experiences, knowledge, etc. We call this site as ALCoB Indonesia. Via this media we benefit the exchanging of information about various issues, from common issues to specific ones such as asking how to run certain programs in the CD Rom. From this community website I could follow the news about the medical treatment one of my friends from Indonesia

had to go through during

the 3rd round e-learning training program. I should express my gratitude for anything the committee did to her. I teach English and I hope I could communicate with other English teachers. Are there any website gathering English teachers in ALCoB? If there are any, would anyone inform me about that web? Actually, there are link sites in ALCoB that I prefer much to communicate but I don’t know why I find it very difficult to log in right after I register. I was always instructed to get back to the main page. Was it related to the internet connection?

3. After the graduation from the Training Pr ogram, ha ve you appl y the theory which you learned from this prog ram to you r actual wor k? Please share your exper ienc e as specific as

possible. For example, the result of apply ing the theory learned from the collaborative stu dy, the result of spreading the accumulated knowledge to your colleagues, learned from this Tra ining Program, and the result of apply ing the theory learned from the Tra ining Program to improve you r own wor ks. (Please write at least 500 hundred words each question) As I have mentioned previously, the speed of internet connection in Indonesia is not as fast as those in countries with broadband internet network. So the sharing of the knowledge we have acquired in the elearning training program can only be done mostly offline. 70 Senior High School, Jakarta (SMAN 70 Jakarta), the school where I currently teach, has no less than 100 teachers. Several days after coming back from Busan, Korea, I shared my experience during the training with my colleagues at SMAN 70 with the help of pictures and other digitally collected information stored in my note book. Those who know about the importance of broadband internet connection were very impressed with the speed of the connection. Others are amazed with all the Korean have achieved, especially those related to the IT technology. Not long after this event, in front of South Jakarta English teachers forum I shared my knowledge on e-learning. With the limitation of IT knowledge of the participants, I come to the conclusion that it is really quite a challenging job to change their orientation from a conventional English teaching approach where face to face (lecturing methodology) sessions dominate, to a more “sophisticated/modern” and collaborative studies. There are many reasons why it is relatively difficult to change the teachers’ orientation. One of the reason is the lack of knowledge in using computer and its application. The lack of interest in using computer and internet connection in their teaching and learning activities explains the reason why this can happen to most schools. The limitation in infrastructures can also be the reason why many teachers are not motivated in applying IT in their teaching. I think our economy should pay much more intention to the emergency condition of providing IT technology in education. With the support of the government, teachers can be easily lead to a new paradigm of teaching and learning activities involving interactive multimedia devices. Strictly-confined with the content of the national curriculum in the teachers’ teaching and learning activities is another

reason why conventional teaching methodology seems to be quite difficult to change. I once shared my knowledge on applying projectbased learning in front of the same teachers forum mentioned above. In this forum I presented some of the results of my students’ projects. At the end, some of them commented that it was quite interesting and challenging. The problem is that most of them do not know a lot about the computer application related to the making of the projects. Instead, their primary interest was knowing the different kinds of texts/genres and the characteristics of each type text. Why? Knowledge about this things is needed for English teachers to prepare the students to face the national examination in which 35 out of 50 questions are reading comprehension questions mostly testing student’s theoretical knowledge on the different types of texts as contained in the national curriculum. Ridiculous? Well, that what happens. Even though each school is independent in creating its own curriculum, practically it should follow the content of the national curriculum to prevent having students fail in the national exam. It has been a long controversy about the implementation of the national exam but it will still be implemented and regarded as the standard for any high school students to complete their studies in this 2006-2007 academic year. Collaborative studies in English learning can, in many cases, form students to work independently. This can be shown by the results of the students projects. Stored in VCD or DVD my students in SMAN 70 have shown their descent capabilities in communicating their ideas in real life situation in English such as interviewing certain interviewees on certain occasions. Due to the speed of the internet connection I find it impossible to insert this video file in this e-mail regarding the long hours to complete the uploading. However if it is needed, I try to send it by post to anyone need them.

4. Do you have any idea or sugges tion to improve con tinuous cooperat ion among tra ine es? (Please write at least 300 hundred words each question) APEC Learning Community for Shared Prosperity. That is what everyone can see when opening ALCoB website. As a getway it is

expected that every ALCoBer has equal chances to develop him/herself to a better person. The gap between certain economies in achieving IT advancement compared with others, in some cases, is quite wide so it is difficult to smoothly transfer any ideas, knowledge, suggestions, etc. from one economy who has very limited infrastructure to another economy either with better, relatively the same or even worse infrastructure. I still remember the lecture delivered by Prof. Young Hwan Kim about the existence of certain communities. ALCoB, like other communities should be maintained in such away that every member has high sense of belonging and responsibility. This can be done by: 1. Continuous involvement of each economy to encourage each member to participate in certain events, either on line or offline through competitions, sharing program, training program, etc. conducted and regulated by any party which has the authority to do so. Fixing the schedule, announcing the events publicly are the most important thing to invite each member involvement. 2. Number 1 above can be similarly applied at regional, and international levels. It should be really kept in mind that any websites responsible for the continuous cooperation among trainees are easy to access, filled with up to date content and program. 3. Teachers exchange program should be intensively and extensively open. Letting those who are very enthusiastic and energetic to have frequent chances to exchange his/her cultural backgrounds to others. Cooperation among economy should be highly intensified. 4. Potential teachers teaching certain subjects should be given more rooms to share his/her ideas with other teachers teaching similar subject. ALCoB website gathering teacher with similar subjects is a must. There should be scheduled offline meetings either locally, regionally, or internationally for teacher with similar subject to share their experiences in applying certain methodologies, approaches, related to various cultural background of each area, region and economy.

5. To prov ide the better prog ram, we would like to ask your comme nt opinion on APEC e-Lea rning Tra ining Program. (Please write at least 300 hundred words each question) Two thumbs up for the committee of last year APEC e-Learning Training Program. You have shown your descent capabilities and skills in arranging international events. It seems that you all never run out of your energy in making that event successful. Anyway, I find that some improvement is needed regarding arrangement of the schedule. I do not know whether it was intentionally done but I find some tours were not conveniently arranged. On certain occasions where I find it was beneficial for the trainees to gather information needed to prepare anything, the report for example, from the internet, certain tours did not seem to be convenient. Consequently, working at the hotel room to gather the necessary information was frequently accompanied by tiredness. It would better for the trainees to have more chances and longer time to access much information and knowledge through high speed internet connection. It is like a heaven for any participants from minimum IT infrastructure economy to have broadband connection. Well that’s all I can comment. Thank you.