Indonesia
In the COVID-19 pandemic era, learning activities cannot be done face-to-face (offline), but they must be done virtually (online). Therefore, lecturers have the challenge in organizing creative and fun learning with students, so that they can create effective and efficient learning. This was the background for the Department of Language Education Faculty of Cultural Studies (FCS) Universitas Brawijaya (UB) to organize online events about learning together which was held on Thursday (2/11/2021).
The event which took the theme “Learning and Technology Integration” was attended by lecturers of FCS UB and moderated by Wiranto Aji Dewandono, M.Pd. The organizers presented two speakers, namely Dian Novita Dewi, M.Li., and Devinta Puspita Ratri, M.Pd.
The moderator opened the event by explaining the purpose of this event. The moderator revealed that this event aimed to increase or develop the lecturers’ capacity, especially in the field of using online learning media applications.
“This event will be very useful for the preparation of lectures that will be held in this even semester,” said the moderator.
The event continued with remarks from the Head of the Department of Language Education: Dr. Sony Sukmawan, M.Pd. He explained that the role of lecturers in online learning is to build ‘faces’ virtually because students get to know and understand more about the lecturers’ personalities with learning media that are displayed and prepared during the learning process.
“The student’s assessment towards the lecturers is on how we prepared to teach and present learning materials according their (students’) interests,” said Sony Sukmawan.
The first material was delivered by Dian Novita Dewi. She said that online learning is more tiring, and also seeking student attention is very difficult for the lecturers.
“So, the strategy taken is to use applications that make students interested in learning,” she said.
In this occasion, Dian presented material with the title “Interesting Learning on Listening and Reading: why not?” She explained how to optimize the use of the Google Classroom application for listening and reading to attract more students. To attract students’ attention, she also demonstrated how to make a game using the Kahoot application and the Padlet application to support reading, writing, listening, and speaking learning activities.
The second material was delivered by Devinta Puspita Ratri, who explained how to optimize the Google Add-on form in online learning. In detail, Devinta demonstrated the use of a form builder for making effective quizzes or questions. Furthermore, she also explained how to use Control Accepting Responses and Notification Forms.
Devinta also explained how to use web extensions, with the learning feature. It was followed by optimizing the features in the zoom application, namely the share screen whiteboard feature to interact with students.
In closing, the moderator said that there will be session two which is planned to be held on Wednesday (2/17/2021). [DP/DTS/MSH/PR FCS]