Vol 6 No 1 (2012) Acceleration  and Improvement of the Quality and Quantity of Education Through the Provision of ODL Programs in SEA Countries

Dina Mustafa - SEAMOLEC

Herman herman - SEAMOLEC

Abstract

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has been growing fast since some years ago. Schools, universities and other education center cannot be separated from ICT.  Beside that,  people also need more education to follow the growth of knowledge and information. The  face­ to­ face  teaching­ learning activities  cannot  cope with  the need  of people  who  work  but  want  to  upgrade  their  knowledge. One solution for this kind of people is giving them an open distance learning (ODL) program, such as the Hybrid learning For Elementary Teacher program or HYLITE Program.

Open distance learning is a system in delivering courses where students do not have to be in a regular class. In the HYLITE program, students learn from  self­instructional  learning materials in the form of print or non­print media. They participate in the interaction process with their peer,  the tutors and the learning materials  by utilizing  the Internet. The students also use Internet to get and to submit assignments/quiz/ test and project from  and to the tutors. The interactions  also include participating in interactive video teleconference twice every semester. Students   can   also   meet  the  tutors/lecturers   in   the  face­ to­face residential  program for three weeks. Most of the time students  learn by themselves. One style in ODL is hybrid teaching­learning activity, whereby, periodically students have to be in campus to do face­to­face activities with tutors, which is termed as residential program. The rest of the time students conduct independent  learning supervised by the tutors using ICT and written and other material.

Indonesia practices HYLITE for student's teacher at the consortium of 23 universities in Java and outside Java. Lecturers  used Internet and other ICT to help students in teaching­learning  activities. Both tutors and student study ICT skills, such as MS off ce, email, Internet and creating personal weblog, which can help them in teaching­learning activities. Tutors also developed web­based courses using MOODLE.

The purpose ofthe study is to investigate whether there are any different on students' and tutors perception between  universities   in Java and outside Java in some variables. The results ofthe study only found one difference that is related to the residential program. Students from Java felt the residential activities were too long compare to opinion oftheir colleagues from outside Java. The rest of variables had no differences in the perceptions  of HYLITE program according to respondents in Java or outside Java.