iseng aja..

Last Sunday, I watched one TV show (Mario Teguh-Golden Ways), it was a kind of self-motivation training program. It’s a very good show, since there are only a few of qualified TV programs in our country. On that day, the theme of the show was “Frozen”. I only watched it in last 15 minutes. So I didn’t get full information.

Sometimes I couldn’t catch what Mario said. I think he used very complicated language (actually he spoke in Indonesia, but the way he talked is quite hard to be understood for me T_T), so I had to spend more times to understand it (if I’m lucky^^.) Thing that makes this show good is, he usually said some inspiring quotations. Like usual, he used another complicated+confusing sentence (you have to try to watch it, so you’ll know what I felt every week...) According to my understanding, he said that “don’t ever let the lack of respects from other people make us reduce our kindness for them” (jadi jangan sampe kurangnya penghargaan orang lain terhadap kita, bikin kita ngurangin kebaikan ataupun kualitas kinerja kita buat mereka..) Got it? I hope so =)

We always try to be a nice person, whatever the reason. We try to be honest, polite, generous −and a bunch of other kindnesses. Unconsciously, we hope that other people would do the same thing as we’ve done to them, or at least respect what we’ve done. Here is the example; there’s someone who always tries to be honest to other people, because s/he doesn’t want, if someday, someone lies to him/her. But someday, there’s a person who lies to him/her. Of course it will make him/her upset because s/he may feel that s/he is betrayed. I think it will be okay if it happens in a while, but what if it happens for many times? Now s/he’s encountered by two choices, does revenge by doing the same thing as the person has done, tells a lie easily, or just sticks to his/her principle. Life is a choice, rite? Related to Mario’s quotation, I think he will suggest choosing the second. “It’s not about showing your principle, but how you apply it in your life,” one of my lecturers said.

Blogging as Teaching Learning Media

Technology is getting more sophisticated nowadays. It gives a great impact in human life, including educational life. Technology has an important role in helping teachers to make them easier when explaining materials. One of technologies that can be used as teaching learning media is blog. Blog is a website maintained by individual or group. We can post comments, articles, graphics, photographs or even video. Many countries over the world have applied blog as a teaching learning media, for example, Brazil, Argentina and Taiwan.

In Brazil, the teacher usually asks their students to write about themselves, their family or friends. Besides that, the teacher develops test in the blog. Using blog in class is very beneficial. By blogging the teacher can encouraged the students to express themselves. Since they write about themselves, the other students can also read their friend’s write and it makes them learn each others’ life and opinion. So the relationship between teacher-students and student-student can get closer. In other hand, the students’ skill can be improved because they can improve their language skills by doing more practice. The challenges that have to be encountered by the teacher are how to keep interaction high. Besides that, the teacher has to be more creative in maintaining the blog. She has to improve her imagination in order to make the blog is as attractive as possible.

Different to Brazil, teacher in Argentina use blog to carry out the project that has to be done by the students, so they will have a new experience. Besides that the teacher can arrange the course meeting there. Sometimes teacher will take photographs and upload in the blog. She will ask her students to write what they feel about those photos. Students can send text message or voice message to other students in the classroom or even students from other countries. These activities are very useful because they can improve their English language by practicing in listening, speaking, writing and reading. Then by using this facility, students will get the information faster than before.

One of teachers in Taiwan uses the blog creatively. She records students’ presentation using video recorder and upload it to the blog. Then she asks her students to watch their presentation and report their self evaluation, also posted in the blog. Besides that the students are asked to make a peer or self feedback, but it has to be recorded. For improve speaking skill, teacher asks the students to make voice recording assignment. By using blog in the classroom, students can enhance their own skills.

How about in Indonesia? I think only a few teachers who apply this media in their teaching learning process. In general, teachers write the lesson materials in their blog. So the students do not need to rewrite the materials that will be learnt. It is also useful when teacher cannot come to the class. Sometimes he/she asks the students to write the assignment in the blog. The benefits of using blog in class are students can keep studying though there is no class meeting. But there are some challenges that have to be encountered by the teachers and students in Indonesia if they want to use this media. Such as only a few of schools that have equipped themselves with internet, moreover some schools in suburban still do not have any computers. When the schools have provided computers, the problem come from the teachers, some of them are still unfamiliar with high technology such as computer and internet. So, the schools have to provide computer training program for the teachers before applying the blog as teaching learning media.