Educational Innovation Anticipating Spread of Covid 19
At the end of 2019 the world was shocked by a new virus that was starting to infect almost all people in the city of Wuhan, in China. For the first time, China reported the existence of this new type of virus on December 31st, 2019. The World Health Organization (WHO) in China received notification of a highly contagious type of respiratory disease. Starting from a local case, this new Corona virus, which has since, become known as Covid-19, spread throughout the world very rapidly. The spread of this virus took place by way of transmission from imported cases and also through local transmission. After China, many other countries in Europe, America and Asia have been infected by this very serious virus.
Indonesia is one of the countries in Southeast Asia that has been affected by Covid-19. Indonesia first discovered that there were people infected with the virus on March 2, 2020. The government immediately took serious steps to slow the transmission and spread of this virus. Such steps include large scale social restrictions, regional isolation, temporary stops of land and air transportation, restrictions on socio-religious activities and the practice of working / studying / praying from home. Almost all aspects of people's lives have been affected by the spread of Covid-19. Educational institutions have not been spared. Schools and campuses in Indonesia have been doing distance learning since the end of March in what is modernly known as #StudyFromHome.
Teachers and students carry out distance learning with an online system. This turned out to be not so easy to do. New adjustments needed to be made between teacher and student. The education office in each region (Dinas Pendidikan) in Indonesia even issued technical instructions on the learning process at home for class activities, graduation and admission of new students. In this situation the teachers are expected to be able to provide their innovations in conducting distance learning activities. Definitely, the teacher is not on holiday; the teacher continues to monitor the students who carry out learning activities at home.
Online learning is implemented in a variety of ways by the teachers in the midst of this outbreak. Teachers are learning new ways, as well as doing a lot of adjustments and modification to be able to deliver their lessons online via videos, teaching recordings and through the use several online teaching support applications. Some digital platforms now provide free online teaching tools that can be used by teachers and students at home. Some of them are using Google Classroom, Google forms, videos from YouTube and now TVRI provides daily learning for school children. Some international platforms even provide access to free learning resources such as the National Geographic Explorer Classroom, NASA at Home, Ivy League Courses and Jstor. With these platforms, teachers are more assisted in carrying out distance learning activities. Another innovation is to utilize social media, for example, like going live on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter to YouTube.
In carrying out this learning process, teachers are not only expected to provide interesting learning content but also be able to guide students on how to learn, including learning by using the internet. Unfortunately this new system is not in line with the ability of teachers to understand the concept of online learning. There are many challenges in the field such as limited internet access and the ability of teachers to operate technology which also contribute to the problems faced by teachers today. Moreover, teachers and students who are far away in rural areas have limited internet access. This makes it difficult. There needs to be a greater role for the government in helping education workers deal with problems in the field, for example, providing internet quota subsidies or the provision of learning resources that can be accessed for free and easily.
Bibliography
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Muhaemin, Abdul. 2020. “Proses Pembelajaran Daring di tengah Antisipasi Penyebaran Virus Corona Dinilai Belum Maksimal”,
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Mykhailshyn,H., Kondur, O., Serman, L. 2018. Innovation of Education and Educational Innovations in Conditions of Modern Higher Education Institution. Ukraina: Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University.
