Dedy Gunawan*
In the education sector, as well as in other areas, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is a common element. Many teachers in the world utilize the Internet as a medium of teaching. Schrum’s study in 1998 (cited in Duhaney 2005, pp. 7-8) predicts that many educational institutions will continue to integrate ICT in the class since they consider it as an essential part to reach the academic goals. This may be indicated by students’ curiosity at more animated multimedia, rather than plain texts to retrieve information (Lamb et al. 2007, p. 54). Therefore, though the ICT is relatively difficult to integrate in schools (Hamilton 1998 cited in Lim 2006, p. 97) and many teachers fail to integrate technology in teaching (Dawes 1999; Watson 1997a; Underwood 1997; Steven-son 1997; McKinsey 1997 cited in Kiridis et al. 2006, p 76), ICT, especially the Internet and its resources, is still a significant feature and contributes effectively to teachings nowadays and will continue in the future.
There are many Internet resources teachers can use in classrooms. They range from those that need heavy software programming like Web-sites into the simpler ones like Web-logs (Blogs) and emails. Almost all educational institutions, especially in the developed countries, use Web-sites to support their teaching, while some others accomplish distance learning with an email technology. Many teachers individually develop Blogs and incorporate Podcasts, Wikis, and even E-book to deliver their teaching materials.
This essay is going to present four types of Internet resources -Web-sites, Blogs, Wikis and electronic-mails (emails) and their contributions to an effective teaching. Moreover, it will hopefully give teachers choices of the Internet resources they can integrate in the classroom. The explanation about their contributions and effectiveness in relation to teaching will follow the definitions of each type of ICT.A Web-site is the most popular Internet resource utilized by most education institutions throughout the world. It usually contains mega, even giga, of bites of information. It is equipped with tools such as electronic mail, chat facilities, engine machines, and some links, whereby users can submit and retrieve information collaboratively (Hwang 2004, cited in Naqvi 2006, p. 19). Consequently, it needs higher computer programming skills to build.
Setting up a Web-site is appropriate for educational institutions as it makes teaching and learning more effective and efficient. The Data of Campus Computing Survey in 1995 (cited in Sumner et al 1999, p. 81) shows ‘that 80% of academic institutions either have a Web-page or are developing a Web-page and many institutions are planning to target off-campus audiences using Web-based resources’. It is reasonable because Web-sites have successfully simplified enormous problems educational institutions and faculties faced in the past. Many years ago before Web-sites were invented, for example, a lecture coordinator might find it difficult to provide materials for hundreds of students attending a seminar lecture. The coordinator had to spend extra money, as well as doing any other complicated clerical tasks such as copying materials and putting seminar schedules on notice boards (Lim et al. 2004, p. 39). Today, with a Web-site, the lecture just needs one single click to send timetables and the readings via email.
Teachers, particularly who teach in rural area with minimum support of technology to construct their own Web-pages, could refer their students to get materials from other Web-sites. Web-sites can create any teaching and learning subjects; science, language, social science, and math easy to obtain. Hundreds of Web-sites offer sources of teaching for free, the other hundreds require payments.
A Web-log (Blog) is another type of Internet resource that can be integrated in classrooms. Blogs, according to Wu (n.d., p. 1) are ‘online personal journals that are frequently updated and have existed in the cyberspace community since 1998’. ‘They are simply online diaries, logs of thoughts, reflections, and events in the writer’s life’ (Eastment 2005, p. 358). Some Web-sites give spaces for people to build blogs free of charge and provide the details how to build them. With simple knowledge about computer programming, teachers can create their own Blogs in www.blogger.com or Google’s blogger, for example.Blogs, in fact, are an effective and useful medium to support effective teaching and learning. Johnson (cited by Wu n.d., p. 2), argues by using Blogs teaching materials and assignments can easily be distributed, edited, and deleted. With Blogs, teachers could create links to websites that make it possible for the students to read directly the authentic material, as well as other related articles.
Reading materials can be posted to Blogs very fast, in which students can read and respond directly by the students if they are equipped with a direct comments facility. When blogs are created by an expert in certain disciplines, they could become a source of information for teachers (Clyde 2005, p. 43). Students can post their writings in the Blogs their teachers create. This will give students chances to learn collaboratively by encouraging them to comment on their friends’ writings (Wu n.d., p. 3). Such activities strengthen students’ analytical and critical aptitude (Oravec 2002, p. 618, cited by Wu n.d., p. 3). In other words, students do not merely learn about sentence or paragraph constructions, but also other deeper subject matters such as analytical and critical thinking and social values.
Another thing that educators must realize is that blogs surprisingly provide equality amongst weak and strong students. On his survey, Borja (2005, p. 2) noted a comment from Caitlin Nunberg, a senior teacher in K-12 areas stating that “blogging allows everyone in the class to share their opinion, not just the loudest or most outspoken student”. While this happens, teachers’ subjectivity, if any, will naturally decrease since their eyes will not be covered by oral and physical performance. Eventually, Wagner (2003, p. 132) suggests if teachers and students have established enough in using Web-logs and want to develop the knowledge, they may have to go one step ahead using Wikis.
‘A wiki, which is Hawaiian word for ‘quick’, is a group collaboration software tool based on Web server technology’ (Raman 2005, pp. 311-312). It is, according to Leuf and Cunningham study in 2001 (cited in Raman 2005, p. 312) ‘a freely expandable collection of interlinked Web pages, a hypertextsystem for storing and modifying information –a database where each page is easily editable by any user with a form- capable Web browser client’.
There are some reasons why teachers should consider this technology to be integrated in teachings. Bergin (2002) argues that a Wiki enables prolonged continuous discussions between students and teachers (cited in Raman 2005, p. 313). The opened manner of Wikis facilitate learners to be more enthusiastic in writing because they will not only face their teachers or supervisors but open audience as well, including their classmates (McPherson 2006, p. 70). Allison (2005) found that by using Wikis, students learned collaborative skills as well as grammar and writing strategies among themselves. This strengthens their social relationships (cited in McPherson 2006, p. 70).
The last Internet resource discussed in this essay is an email. Almost every person living in the 21st Century recognizes what an Email is. It is one of the Internet resources that enables people to correspondence with other people without sticking stamps on envelopes and without going to a post office for the delivery. Additionally, it is able to deliver messages in seconds, attach a number of digital pictures, and is available worldwide as long as there is a computer connected with the Internet network.
Phoha (1999, p. 29) states that it is impossible to reach the goal of a course through email because beside students learning styles are so diverse that teaching consists of complicated steps that need various personal contacts between teacher and students. Recent email technology could not support real time interactions as there has not been standardization among email providers. As a result distortions might happens and plagiarisms might be done more easily via email. In these contexts, Phoha’s statement is true as a course goal could not be reached entirely via an email. Good teaching explores and combines many methods, approaches, techniques, as well as mediums of teaching, including email in classroom instructions.
On the other hand, however, an email contributes to the success in teaching. In distance education, for instance, such technology has become the major component and made teaching deliveries become significantly simpler. Besides, it is more economical, practical and undemanding rather than a postal based distance teaching. During his study about the use of an email technology, which employed U.S and Taiwanese university students, Cifuentes (2001, pp. 461-462) noted two of many email contributions in effective teaching and learning that Taiwanese University students could learn authentic English from U.S university students by writing via email and moreover, both Taiwanese and U.S. students are engaged in mutual cultural exchanges.
In summary, although teachers might find difficulty in its integration in classrooms, ICT significantly contributes to an effective teaching recently and will continue in the future. Web-sites simplify many jobs teachers challenged in the past, while Blogs, the simpler form of Web-sites, offer other skills such as analytical and critical thinking, social values, and equity amongst students. Wikis, on the other hands, could facilitate students and teachers continuous discussion. It can motivate students to write and force them to expose into a collaborative learning. Finally, despite that it is not conducted in real time between students and teacher, an email makes distance learning become possible and easier.
*Gunawan, D, currently works for Education Quality Assurance Institution, based in Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia and is Master of Education candidate in Adelaide, South Australia.
