Artikel Bahasa Inggris tentang Pendidikan

(Peran TIK dalam Pendidikan)

image source: elearningindustry.com

New but Old Trend in Education

Nowadays, our lives are practically dependent on the ubiquity of Information
Communications Technology (ICT). The dependence on ICT is so huge so that some people
become more frantic if they leave their smartphones at home than if they forget to bring their
wallets.
Data from the Communications and Information Ministry shows that Internet users in
Indonesia increased from 74 million people in 2013 to 111 million in 2014. In 2015, the
ministry is aiming for 50 percent of the total population, i.e. about 125 million people, having
access to the Internet.
In Indonesia, Internet penetration has been mainly used for accessing social media.
Market research firm eMarketer recently released a report about Facebook (FB) users around
the world. Indonesia ranked third among countries with the highest number of Facebook
users, below the US and India.
However, Indonesia has the highest numbers of FB users who access the site via cell
phones, reaching 88.1 percent in 2014 and set to rise to 92.4 percent this year.
User access to other social media such as Twitter, Instagram and Path are predicted to
show similar patterns.

The proliferations of the Internet and social media unfortunately has not extended to the
education sector. ICT has not become a backbone of improving the countrys competitiveness
through education.
The World Economic Forum ranks Indonesia 77th out of 144 countries in terms of
technological readiness, behind Malaysia and Thailand.
The Culture and Elementary and Secondary Ministry recorded that only about 50 percent
of the 234,919 primary and secondary schools in Indonesia had access to the Internet in mid
2014.
Schools in eastern parts of Indonesia were those with the biggest lack of ICT
infrastructure. Whether the 50 percent of more fortunate schools with Internet access already
utilize ICT effectively in the classroom is the main question here.
Advancement of ICT should ideally be able to revolutionize education. Technology brings
new sources of learning beyond teachers. In addition to the existence of teachers, the divide
between students and subjects is further narrowed by the availability of educational content
through ICT.
A revolution in education is also possible through ICT, as students can learn at the
appropriate speed according to their capacity. Interactive digital content allows students to
pick particular topics that they want to explore more. In a nutshell, there is a democratization
of the learning process.
It is still a long road to revolutionize education in Indonesia through ICT. In addition to
building technology infrastructure across the countrys islands, ICT literacy for teachers,
parents and students is also of importance. ICT hardware and software installation in schools
is relatively straightforward, but if the prevailing educational philosophy still resembles that
of the old paradigm, we are constrained from reaping the full benefits of ICT inclusion in
education.
An example is the respective methods of teaching math and English (the mastery of these
two subjects is often used as a proxy in determining the level of future competitiveness).
Today, many elementary and secondary schools in Indonesia still teach math with the old
paradigm. Students are still requested to memorize complex mathematical formulas and to
perform lengthy, time-consuming manual calculations.
These schools still use the same philosophy to teach math that was used when computers
and the Internet had yet to be invented.
With the ubiquity of computers and ICT, students can actually be exposed to answering
more practical life questions, such as how many people live in my town today and what will

the number be 20 years from now? or what are the ideal lengths of roads in my town so that
the average speed of vehicles does not fall below 20 kilometers per hour?
Students are then encouraged to develop their own mathematical models and assumptions
based on the parameters required to solve the model (mortality, fertility, migration, number of
vehicles sold, etc.) and they are free to choose the available ICT applications to compute the
answer, just like they would outside the classroom to tackle their everyday problems. They
can work individually, in groups, persuade one another with logical arguments and send
group findings to the teacher as the judge.
As for English, ICT should not only be used to download traditional materials, text-based
approaches, and to memorize tenses and grammar. It should also be used to download
listening-based materials and approaches, to engage students with dynamic activities that
adjust to individual performance and preferences.
ICT should enable a variety of learning strategies, including voice recording and
playback, speech recognition and sentence construction exercises.
The focus on oral skills develops the fast processing and pattern recognition skills
necessary for fluency and more efficient reading and writing.
Language learning, like learning to play a musical instrument, requires practice. ICT
facilitates the necessary practice to achieve fluency. The competence of teachers is therefore
critical to the mission. Of the total of about 3 million teachers in Indonesia, there are only
about 10,000 who have received ICT training. The importance of capacity building to
upgrade ICT literacy of teachers cannot be overemphasized.
The way forward is to integrate ICT seamlessly into the curriculum, instead of viewing it
as an add-on, or worse, as an ad hoc event. As Jennifer Fleming put it, teaching in the Internet
age means that we must teach tomorrows skills today.
Question :