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VIRTUAL CLASS REQUIREMENTS AND ITS APPLICATION IN

INDONESIAEnjang A.Juanda, Armein Z.R.Langi, Kuspriyanto and Kudrat Soemintapoera

Departemen of Electrical Engineering-Bandung Institute of Technology

Jalan Ganeca 10 Bandung, West Java, Indonesia, 40132

Email: [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract

Virtual class has a flexible and promising usability, especially for self study and various aspects of self or

organization enhancement on human resources. Special application of this virtual class is in supporting distance

education/ training. Virtual class for Indonesia is compulsory if Indonesia wants to significantly develop its

peoples and soon parallel (in their competencies) with other country's peoples. This paper describes the nature

of virtual class, the supports and reviews from its experts, issues about it in Indonesia and way to conceptually

establish this "institution".

Keywords: Virtual Class, Distance Learning, Distance Training.

1. Introduction

Revolution in education and training is ongoing and

will be more clearly felt if multimedia computing and

communication (infrastructure) become more enable

and sophisticated[1]. In her valuable comparison

between the old paradigm of higher education needs

and the perceived new one , Kathy Tiano[2] wrote, for

example: Take what you can get vs Courses on

demand, University as a city vs University as an

idea, Delivery in classroom vs Delivery

anywhere, etc. This phenomenon will sure be

embodied as time to crept.

Virtual class as the main topic of this writing[3] refers

to the use of computer-mediated communications

(CMC) in education. Related terms for broader scales

are Virtual School, Virtual College and Virtual

University. Each of those can support distance

education [4].

Virtual class can overcome both distance and time

constraints. It can be: self-scheduled, self-motivated,

self-paced, high retention, continuous availability, and

non threatening learning environment. Globally it also

has been claimed to be a tool for increasing

enrollment, improving access to education, cutting

per-student costs, and accommodating student

diversity [5]. Recently its market is increasing. But

the major problem is its mature preparation as a mustand infrastructure support as a pre-condition.

The vulnerable things in education are variations in

class volume, teacher/trainer/instructor quality,

teacher/trainer /instructor personality or performance,

and the completeness of its apparatus support. The

problems can be overcome by qualified preparation

and setting of all possible aspects of teaching-learning

ingredients that in nature can be usable even updated

iteratively through CMC.

The CMC that has prospective usability and

popularity even powerful is the internet or World

Wide Web (WWW). This notion, strengthened by The

Pew Internet & American Life Project [6] surveydiscovered that Internet has infiltrated everyday life

for most Americans, and has had a serious impact on

major life decisions.

Recently in Indonesia Internet or WWW and its

community has been growing as mushroom is

growing in rainy season (let alone if Indonesian

economic has recovered). This situation is conducive

to create education and training field through CMC,

like this virtual class. Therefore we are developing a

virtual class in a project intended to accelerate

educational processes.

Virtual class, however, should be explicitly

understood. As also defined by Hiltz and Turoff

(1993):

The virtual classroom is a teaching and learning

environment located within a computer mediated

communication system. Rather than being built of

steel and concrete, it consists of a set of group

communications and work "spaces" and facilities

that are constructed in software; thus it is a

"virtual" facility for interaction among members of

a class, rather than a physical space.[7]

It means that this (virtual) institution is a kind or

similar to a module that representing a major module

in all human resources preparation aspect or

development of human's knowledge and skill aspect.

In his conclusion Murray Turoff (1995) has wrote

that:" The resulting system must be viewed as a

toolkit that gives the instructor full control of whataids and techniques to employ in delivering their

course"[4]. Therefore this institution can be specially

or independently developed and upgraded wherever

and whenever. Virtual class can be used by whoever

wants it, whenever and wherever they like. Therefore

virtual class must be created and developed as good as

possible, as powerful as possible.

2. Its Pros and Cons, Imperative and Real Need.Here we want to take a glance on the pros and cons

regarding distance education in Indonesia.

Several notions can be noted here, for example:

1. Minister of National Education of Indonesia,
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Malik Fajar: " We do not prohibit tele education,

but tele class". [8].

2. Director General of Higher Education of

Indonesia, Satryo Somantri B., told that in respect

to tele education he supports it because each has

permanent units e.g. through teleconference,

multimedia and module. He has said too that, ithas no problem "...that carried out through module

sending, teleconference, multimedia, and the

others, that is what we want".[8].

3. Soekartawi, Director of SEAMEO, said that tele

education:" Not only for ASEAN region but also

become the world trend. Tele education will

become future educational model".[9].

4. Arief Rachman, said that not to be slaved by

technology, .the moral basics must be prepared.

[10].

5. Tubagus Ronny Nitibaskara, Non Government

Higher Education Coordinator, III Area/ Region,

Jakarta, said that it still has weaknesses, forexample about the originality of the participants

and free (un paid) books that in the fact violates

the copy right [11].

In the other side, Beare (1989), Beentjes & Van der

Voort (1988), Neuman (1992), Seculas et.al.(1992),

Koumi (1994) and Baltova (1994) (from Tian

Belawati) [12] said that, it has been proven that with

the help of these media, teaching at distance can be as

effective as in conventional face-to-face classroom.

Even Turoff [4], said that:" Our objective is not to

merely duplicate the characteristics and effectiveness

of the face to face class. Rather, we can use the

powers of the computer to actually do better thanwhat normally occurs in the face to face class".

The experts's major notions are the pro's notions.

In the real life, the computer and its multimedia

technology (specifically CMC technology and/or ICT

(Information and Communication Technology)) is

imperative or intrusive. Its community and/ or

consumers are growing rapidly. Therefore educational

and training world must be alert and self prepared to

welcome or otherwise can be ruined by its flood. So,

it is natural even exact to say that: " Indonesian do not

dismiss all Internet distance-learning programs simply

because of the problems caused by a few suspect

institutions"[13].

3. Indonesia Requirement on Virtual Class.

Based on imperative global competitiveness, nearly

ubiquitous electronic communication infrastructure in

most Indonesia area, vast area of Indonesia

archipelago, huge number of Indonesian peoples, lack

educational concrete building availability in

Indonesia , imperative needs of large enough part of

Indonesia peoples, and some other reasons; education

and training or generally knowledge and skill

development of human resource via internet or

WWW including virtual class is true and compulsory.

As has been mentioned by Satryo Somantri B. [13],

that " It is timely to develop good distance learning

programs, due to the current development of

telematics in Indonesia (including: e-learning, e-

government, e-commerce, e-health, etc)." Of course

related to this development case, as also explicitly

mentioned on Barbara Mellon's paper [13], recently,

Indonesian academic leaders and consumers urgently

need information on how to evaluate these newprograms effectively. This condition has raised hopes

and fears for many in Indonesian higher education.

Generally the preliminary problems raised are:

The Sources of the educational materials and

program;

The Quality and legitimacy of Institutions;

Certification of programs;

Valid methods of evaluation/testing to ensure

actual student performance; and

Access to technology and the cost of

development/implementation of programs in

Indonesia.

The success of this project will depend on:

infrastructure availability, completeness and the

appropriate of hardware and software, content expert

competencies and availability, good management,

society and government support, and people literacy

of computers [3],[5],[12],[19],[20],[23],[24]. In

addition, it's needs the mature of its preparation from

the beginning through the final elaboration.

In specific, specifications required by the virtual class

are as follow:

Interesting, promising and challenging on its

opening and closing appearances, which is very

important to draw attention of the students. Complete and self contained administrative

procedures, which important to assure its easy

registration and student management.

Complete and clear syllabi and curriculum.

The contents should have following features: Self

sufficient, interesting hypertext manipulation, self

adapting intelligencies, real time and exciting feed

backs, scalable and upgradable, path/ navigation

tractable and controllable [14], and full illustrative

demos.

Good hardware and software support, which will

maintain a good performance of a virtual class.

Continuous monitoring and help using softwareand brain ware (tutors) and guidance and

counseling teachers.

Continuously providing spaces and tools for

users/participants to input their aspirations, ideas,

or questions, which will assures continuation of

the virtual class.

Its outputs are proctored and selected by valid and

reliable final exams.

4. Development Method and Procedure

This topic has to be elaborated deeply and

fundamentally, and if it is needed, radically. In this


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regard there are at least two reasons to mention.

Firstly, it is imperative that the future education and

training or human resources development will highly

depend on computer power. Secondly, this field is

about to play a major role in humanizing a human or

culturizing of a culture.

The methods for achieving objective are by diggingliterature sources whether on educational/ human

resources field or technological base; doing interview

with the experts in educational/ human resources

field; performing cost and benefit analysis; analyzing

hardware and software recently available; and

predicting for the future according to scalability

needs, doing experiment and evaluation, and lastly

doing verification.

By now Indonesia has not yet had a kind of e-learning

or distance learning that have good and attractive

apparatus or its software and hardware. Universitas

Terbuka Jakarta for example as mentioned by Tian

Belawati [15]:" UT's courses are designed primarilyas printed text". In her summary on various researchs,

Indonesian UT's students in their study persistence is

only 4,8 %. It is globally smallest even in Asian

(IGNOU India: 22 %, STOU Thailand: 17 %).

There are several random experiments in the internet

by institutions or by personal (especially for their final

job in their study) directed to virtual class building

endeavours, but they were still lack of conceptual

framework and lack of integration. However those

are valuable attempts in nature, to create virtual class

building needs. And it shows that virtual class in

Indonesia is in the rising time (its era).

Accordance with recent technological development,and community needs on developing or enhancing

their knowledge and skill, study based on computer

and/or its network power will grow significantly.

Therefore constructivist theory of learning from

Bernard will be more implemented by the peoples, "in

which the learner is building an internal

representation of knowledge, a personal interpretation

of experience. This representation is constantly open

to change, its structure and linkages forming the

foundation to which other knowledge structures are

appended " (quoted from Japie Heydenrych[2]).

In the other side Savery and Duffy (1995) had derived

eight instructional principles from constructivism, i.e.:

[2]

Anchor all learning activities to a target task or

problem, moving beyond the simple " it is

assigned" rational for assignments.

Support the learner in developing ownership of the

overall problem or task, rather than simply

focusing on passing the test.

Design authentice learning tasks, ones that reflect

the kinds of cognitive challenges faced in similar

real-world situations.

Consistent with cognitive apprenticeship theory,

design the task and learning environment thatstudents must function in at the end of the learning

experience.

Give learners ownership of the process used to

develop a solution.

Design the learning environment to support and

challenge the learner's thinking.

Encourage the testing of ideas against alternative

views and alternative contexts. Since knowledge is

socially negotiated, depth of understanding canonly be accomplished in social environment where

individual views were measured against the ideas

of others. This can be effectively done in the

context of collaborative learning groups of

learning communities.

Provide opportunities for student reflection on

both content and the learning process.

As a concept, generally this virtual class development

for Indonesia should be carried out through:

1. Implemented political will from the government of

Indonesia

2. Sufficient consciousness of the experts especially

educational or human resources leaders about the

importance of this virtual class.

3. Consciousness of infrastructure providers,

especially at present is PT. Telkom and/ or

Indosat, to setting up its communication

infrastructure for superhighway communication, at

least its equity and its availability.

4. High consciousness of Indonesian peoples about

the power of computer and its network for

educational / training process or learning

resources.

In principle, this virtual class can be developed

through: Literature study, both on educational side

and technological side; Interview with the experts;

Guidance from the seniors in their each expertise;

Comparative study; Experiment through the case

study; and Evaluation and verification.

In the case of course design, for instance, it is

convenient as a general consideration to take as

reference the steps used to describe a system of course

design from A.J. Romiszowski (1981: 20) that consist

of: Analyse system in which trainee operates to

identify tasks performance; Analyse tasks; Specify

required skills knowledge & attitudes; Determine

capabilities of trainees; Identify the educational and

training needs; Develop valid criterion measures oftask proficiency; State detailed learning objectives;

Organise learning resources; Select appropriate

teaching strategies; Motivate students; Field-test and

evaluate criterion measures (to check their reliability);

'Field Test' & evaluate the system; Implement system;

Constantly monitor learning system; and Revise &

adapt[16].

These steps can be divides into sub tasks and/or sub

elements and implemented carefully. In the case of

hardware side, if the project finishs, WWW.NJIT.edu

recommended on its eLearning/ Virtual class, a bare

minimum of PC configuration to successfully

completed this course. We will take a similarstandard, although if it is still possible can be lower,

i.e. as follow: 125 MHz Pentium CPU, 64 MB of
http://www.njit.edu/http://www.njit.edu/


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RAM, 2 Gigabyte Hard Drive, Windows 95, 98, NT

4.0, Sound Card, 56,6 KBPS Modem or Direct

Network Connection, 800 x 600 Display Monitor,

VCR and Monitor [17].

Recommended PC configuration, for its convenience,

the latest public tested PC and its accessories will be

prefered, for example Pentium 4 with 2000 MHz orthe later.

5. Discussion

In the final result, this project intends to provide

enough radical concepts for virtual class building and

for integrated case study implementation on the

internet/ WWW. It is planned that as a case study, this

virtual class concept(ual) will present a subject matter

of Digital Signal Processor Based Design.

The product of this project constitutes the strong

educational concept about this virtual class and a good

and established implementation of virtual class

concept.Although the final objective of this project provide the

complete case (test case) on a subject matter, the

project still has the weakness i.e. it still limited on its

general study and discussion. The next step is to

design the virtual class that satisfies the specific level

of educational grade.

6. Conclusion

1. The need of virtual class for Indonesia related to

global pressure regarding ICT products and its

implementation, the image of Indonesia in global

village, qualified results of educational and

training or human resources acceleration processesendeavour, and the vast area of Indonesia

archipelago that needs effective communication

media to significantly develop its human resources

habitant.

2. It is timely that all of the involved parties in this

virtual class development are united or

collaborative to prepare and continuously enhance

this important modules or toolkits.

3. Development of virtual class will not experience

a decay, but it will even getting stronger in nature.

As a result whoever care and appreciate will

harvest a good result.

4. Virtual class and alike, sooner or later will shift

educational and training or human resources

preparation paradigms. Therefore accomodation

and assimilation must be done by those active in

education and training or human resources field.

7. References

[1]. Jain, Ramesh," A Revolution in Education",

IEEE MultiMedia, January-March 1997, Vol.4,

No.1, 1(1997).

[2]. WWW.TechKnowLogia.org. Heydenrych, Japie,

"Global Change and the Online Learning

Community", Downloaded May 16 (2002).

[3]. Tiffin, John; Rajasingham, Lalita, "In Search of

The Virtual Class (Education in an information

Society)", Routledge, London (1995).

[4]. WWW.NJIT.edu., Turoff, Murray, "Designing a

Virtual Classroom",NJIT,USA (1995).

[5]. WWW.Sisco.com, (2002).

[6]. www.internet.com, Greenspan, Robyn,"CyberAtlas", , May 21 (2002).

[7]. WWW.Cs.jmu.edu/users. Tucker, Bob, "A

Technology Requirements Specification for

Virtual Clases Implemented with Computer

Mediated Communication", Downloaded May

20 (2002).

[8]. Pikiran Rakyat, 28 Februari (2002).

[9]. Pikiran Rakyat, 2 Maret (2002).

[10]. Republika, 8 Maret (2002).

[11]. Kompas, 3 April (2002).

[12]. Tian Belawati, "Enhancing Learning in Distance

Education Through the World Wide Web",

Jurnal Pendidikan Terbuka dan Jarak Jauh, Vol.1, No.1, Maret (2000).

[13]. WWW.usembassyjakarta.org., Mellon, Barbara;

"The Globalization of Education and Distance

Learning: Challenges and Opportunities for

Indonesia", Citation from News USA, Vol 1.

No.1 p.10-11, Downloaded July 8 (2002).

[14]. Schroeder, Eileen and Grabowski, Barbara L.,

"Patterns of Exploration and Leraning With

Hypermedia", J. Educational Computing

Research, Vol.13 (4) 313, Baywood Publishing

Company, US, (1996).

[15]. Http://psi.ut.ac.id/Jurnal/71 tian.htm, Belawati,

Tian,"Understanding and Increasing StudentPersistence in Distance Education: A Case of

Indonesia", Downloaded July 8(2002).

[16]. Romiszowski, A.J, "Designing Instructional

Systems, Decision making in course planning

and curriculum design", Kogan Page, London

(1981).

[17]. WWW.NJIT.edu., Division of Continuing

Professional Education, "What is eLearning ?",

Downloaded, June 3 (2002).

[18]. Minoli, Daniel, "Distance Learning Technology

and Applications", Artech House, Boston-

London, (1995).

[19]. Tobagi, Fouad A., "Distance Education with

Digital Video, Multimedia at Work", IEEE

Multimedia, Spring (1995).

[20]. Oakley, Burks, " A Virtual classroom Approach

to Teaching Circuit Analysis", IEEE

Transactions on Education, Vol.39, No.3, Augst

(1996).

[21]. Sitepu,Vinsensius, G.K..,"Pcplus", Januari

(2002)

[22]. Schreiber, Deborah A.; Berge, Zane L.,"

Distance Training", Jossey Bass Publishers, San

Francisco (1998).

[23]. WWW.eClassroom.com, (2002).

[24]. WWW.eece.maine.edu.com., (2001).
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