Lesson Learnt from the Uses of Blog Multiply.com in Teaching Process at UPSI Malaysia

TEACHING ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

Year of 2008 was over. In the year 2009 the author was sent by the head of the Department of Biology at the faculty of Science and Technology of UPSI an email,Dr. Hasima Alimon. In that email, Dr. Hasima asked the author to teach students together with a young lecturer, Mrs. Nurul Bariyah.They were teaching around 6 classes, each consisted of 30s meaning around 190 students. The students came from departments of Physics, Biology, Chemistry and  Information Technology. The author then ask the students to have good ethics toward environment. How to do that? He then asked them to join a multiply.com. The reason he asked them to do so is that every student must spend less and use less. Spend less is carried out by creating and join a system that is not using more papers when submitting papers and when transferring knowledges through lecture's notes. Using blog of multiply.com  students are just spending money for electricity.

In classes the author was teaching that are classes of Monday evening 8-10 pm, Tuesday afternoon 4-6 pm, Wednesday afternoon 4-6 pm, Wednesday evening 8-10 pm, Thursday afternoon 2-4 pm and 5-7 pm he then asked students to make blog multiply.com. By using that system my targets were also set to save more money then the first semester. In this semester (January till April 2009) the number of students are around 300 students. Assuming that each student requires around RM 200 to spend for all lecturer notes, making reflections, making videos, writing reports for all laboratory work. That means for this semester all of the students must spend around RM 60,000 for assignments. By having a blog multiply system then the money was not spent at all.

MULTIPLIER EFFECTS OF BLOG SYSTEM

Apart from providing better system for teaching-learning blog multiply.com has a lot of good effects realized or not realized by users. Blog multiply.com as it were is used as a trading shop in a virtual world. One does not need a passport to go anywhere in the world provided in locality there is an internet system being used. Imagine that one day the author is out of station for one reason. He then set a virtual class in the air port using a wireless system in the KLIA airport. In the post he said that he was very sorry that he could not meet the students due to the fact that his members of family were ill and taken into hospital in Palembang Indonesia. The author asked the students to "attend" the class by clicking the post of "Kelas maya" (distance class). In Palembang the lecturer (the author) was seeing the students attending the class and was communicating with students. There the author was very happy to the facts that all students that attending the class were there in his house. None of the students was "crossing" the borders of Indonesia-Malaysia having their passport in their hand. In fact all students of his class have never been abroad before.

Other good effects of multiply.com are that most students who are diligent to go around contacts that are in inbox site. By doing so they are having the opportunities to get along widely. The world does not seem to have borders at all. Several students have wider contacts including America, Europe, Australia, Africa and Asia. Using blog multiply students are also able to share their journals, photos, poems, videos, links and others.

Another effect of blog system in teaching is that it can save the environment. How? There is no exact amount of money can be saved, amount of paper can be avoided, and amount of VCD can also be used unnecessarily. In this opportunity he still used the assumption of the students that he was teaching that semester. One student can save an amount of RM 200. The fact that UPSI at that time (2009) having 20.000students meant that that year alone from their spendings if they apply this blog system could have saved around RM 4 millions. Imagine for the whole Malaysia if this blog multiply.com system applied how much money could have been saved, similarly for the whole world will then have an astonishing figures. Less money spent for that kind of usages will increase the budget for improving the welfare of the people everywhere now in other parts of the world. Workers and experts in the uses of ICT in teaching such as Pandey (2005), Bates (2005) and Fuller (2002) have been in line with lessons learnt from the uses of blog Multiply in teaching process at UPSI. So much has been learnt of the goodness of blog Multiply such as better communication and interaction between lecturer and students, among students and outsiders. Easy assessments and environmentally sound system were other benefits of blog Multiply uses in teaching. Most students agreed with this system of teaching.

CONCLUDING REMARK

Applying a blog multiply.com in teaching processes at UPSI Tanjung Malim Perak Malaysia has offered a lot of advantages and benefits. Apart from making the system of teaching effective, efficient and the uses of blog multiply.com system help save a lot of money by students. Saving money means that less paper and VCDs are used. Less papers and VCDs used means that less rubbish is thrown into the environment. Less rubbish thrown and less money spent mean that environment is also less polluted and damaged. It is thereafter that such system will be better if applied in widely not only within each department, faculty, university, nationally, but also internationally. Beside those, a number of lessons learned from this blog usages were widely realized. First, students and lecturer can communicate two way 24 hourly regardless their places of residences. Second, students can have wider contacts not limited to the lecturer and other students but to the bloggers in the whole world. Third, this system of teaching is an environmentally sound system for it is paperless and thereafter help save the environment. Fourth, lecturer can easily assess his or her students’ performance academically and non-academically. Fifth, each student has their own website during and after the teaching processes which enable any body to communicate each other in the future. Lastly, this system of teaching using this ICT (blog Multiply) has been proved to be the best method of teaching among other methods and highly recommended by students who have utilized the system since 2008.

REFERENCES

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APPENDICES

Appendix 1.The homepage of a student’s blog

Appendix 2.Stage of joining a group of interest by students

Appendix 3.Group members

Appendix4. Announcement of students’ marks