Inspiratif

Motivational Styles of Instruction

2012-01-17T07:15:00.001+07:00

Presented below are two different instructor styles. Which one do you find more motivating?

Student Interruption

Professor Beats Student

Approachability¹
Most students like to know that their TA is approachable. They want to be comfortable coming to you with a question, and they want to feel that you have some interest in them as individuals. And, of course, knowing your students as individuals will help you as a teacher since you'll have a better sense of their needs and interests – and can shape your classes accordingly.

Learn your students’ names. Even in large courses, it is possible to know many, if not all, of your students by name. Simply making the effort to do so, even if you get it wrong at first, shows students you think they are important.

Come to class early. The time right before class can be an excellent one to talk with students. Some students will come early, and they may have questions about the material. Talking with individuals about what they did over the weekend, or the latest campus news, can be just as useful in building a sense of approachability.

Stay after class. If possible, linger after the class is over – shuffle papers, erase the board. This is another excellent opportunity for students to come up to you and raise questions about assignments, readings, or ideas discussed that day.

Have a sense of humor! Like in the video above, be quirky and have fun with your students. When appropriate, humor in the classroom will go a long way in motivating and engaging your students in the curriculum.

Last, but not least, be yourself. Students recognize when you are authentic and this allows them to feel more comfortable in your presence and motivated to learn.

How to Motivate Your Students²

Students arrive in our classrooms with the full range of motivations – and sometimes with what we see as a remarkable lack of motivation. Motivating students is one of the most challenging things we do as educators, and some of us want to throw up our hands in frustration or proclaim that there is little we can do to motivate students to learn. It is true that students carry with them many past experiences that contribute to their motivation in our classrooms. However, teachers can make a difference, for better or for worse, in motivating students to learn.

Please download the following PDF article to find out how to motivate your students. The article is written to give you a basic understanding of what motivates students and to provide some sense of how you can create this motivation. Keep the following points in mind as you read:

Our ideal goal as teachers is to help students develop the intrinsic motivation that will allow them to become life-long learners.
While this article provides many tips you can use to motivate students, many of the outlined ideas follow a simple rule: respect your students as learners.
Teaching Assistants, because of their closeness to undergraduates, are often in an excellent position to show the respect, caring and concern as teachers that motivate students.
Active learning – engaging students in the class and working with their peers – is an important contributor to student learning.

Different Types of Students or Motivational Issues You May Encounter in Your Courses

goEnglish.me

2012-01-10T08:15:00.002+07:00

Apa kamu sudah pernah belajar bahasa Inggris, tapi ingin tahu lebih banyak mengenai bagaimana orang Amerika berbicara satu sama lain? Kamu ada di tempat yang tepat.

Dengan goEnglish.me, kamu bisa belajar American English online, latihan dan meningkatkan keterampilan bicara kamu, dan berinteraksi dengan sesama pengguna situs ini, semuanya dengan cuma-cuma.

Melalui pelajaran-pelajaran interaktif, permainan dan para pengguna lain goEnglish.me, kamu akan belajar frase American English dan berlatih menggunakannya dalam percakapan sehari-hari. Kamu bisa latihan bicara bahasa Inggris dengan alat pengenalan suara dan dialog interaktif dalam goEnglish.me, interaksi dengan pengguna bahasa Inggris lainnya dalam Forum Komunitas goEnglish.

Kalau ini pertama kali kamu pakai goEnglish, coba gunakan pelajaran Getting Started untuk mengecek apakah komputer kamu bisa mengakses berbagai fitur kami, mendapat petunjuk untuk memasang mikrofon kamu, dan mengikuti kuis untuk mengetahui tingkatan bahasa Inggris kamu.

Ikutlah jadi anggota goEnglish untuk berinteraksi dengan pelajar American English lainnya di forum kami, mengirim komentar bagi situs ini dan mengajukan pertanyaan kamu. Kasih tahu teman-teman kamu, dan mulailah belajar bahasa Inggris seperti orang Amerika hari ini juga!

Pertanyaan dan komentar dapat kamu kirim lewat email ke indonesian@goenglish.me

Ayo Mulai...!, [klik disini]

Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity

2012-01-07T06:06:00.001+07:00

Good morning. How are you? It's been great, hasn't it? I've been blown away by the whole thing. In fact, I'm leaving. (Laughter) There have been three themes, haven't there, running through the conference, which are relevant to what I want to talk about. One is the extraordinary evidence of human creativity in all of the presentations that we've had and in all of the people here. Just the variety of it and the range of it. The second is that it's put us in a place where we have no idea what's going to happen, in terms of the future. No idea how this may play out.

I have an interest in education -- actually, what I find is everybody has an interest in education. Don't you? I find this very interesting. If you're at a dinner party, and you say you work in education -- actually, you're not often at dinner parties, frankly, if you work in education. (Laughter) You're not asked. And you're never asked back, curiously. That's strange to me. But if you are, and you say to somebody, you know, they say, "What do you do?" and you say you work in education, you can see the blood run from their face. They're like, "Oh my God," you know, "Why me? My one night out all week." (Laughter) But if you ask about their education, they pin you to the wall. Because it's one of those things that goes deep with people, am I right? Like religion, and money and other things. I have a big interest in education, and I think we all do. We have a huge vested interest in it, partly because it's education that's meant to take us into this future that we can't grasp. If you think of it, children starting school this year will be retiring in 2065. Nobody has a clue -- despite all the expertise that's been on parade for the past four days -- what the world will look like in five years' time. And yet we're meant to be educating them for it. So the unpredictability, I think, is extraordinary.

And the third part of this is that we've all agreed, nonetheless, on the really extraordinary capacities that children have -- their capacities for innovation. I mean, Sirena last night was a marvel, wasn't she? Just seeing what she could do. And she's exceptional, but I think she's not, so to speak, exceptional in the whole of childhood. What you have there is a person of extraordinary dedication who found a talent. And my contention is, all kids have tremendous talents. And we squander them, pretty ruthlessly. So I want to talk about education and I want to talk about creativity. My contention is that creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status. (Applause) Thank you. That was it, by the way. Thank you very much. (Laughter) So, 15 minutes left. Well, I was born ... no. (Laughter)

I heard a great story recently -- I love telling it -- of a little girl who was in a drawing lesson. She was six and she was at the back, drawing, and the teacher said this little girl hardly ever paid attention, and in this drawing lesson she did. The teacher was fascinated and she went over to her and she said, "What are you drawing?" And the girl said, "I'm drawing a picture of God." And the teacher said, "But nobody knows what God looks like." And the girl said, "They will in a minute." (Laughter)

When my son was four in England -- actually he was four everywhere, to be honest. (Laughter) If we're being strict about it, wherever he went, he was four that year. He was in the Nativity play. Do you remember the story? No, it was big. It was a big story. Mel Gibson did the sequel. You may have seen it: "Nativity II." But James got the part of Joseph, which we were thrilled about. We considered this to be one of the lead parts. We had the place crammed full of agents in T-shirts: "James Robinson IS Joseph!" (Laughter) He didn't have to speak, but you know the bit where the three kings come in. They come in bearing gifts, and they bring gold, frankincense and myrhh. This really happened. We were sitting there and I think they just went out of sequence, because we talked to the little boy afterward and we said, "You OK with that?" And he said, "Yeah, why? Was that wrong?" They just switched, that was it. Anyway, the three boys came in -- four-year-olds with tea towels on their heads -- and they put these boxes down, and the first boy said, "I bring you gold." And the second boy said, "I bring you myrhh." And the third boy said, "Frank sent this." (Laughter)

What these things have in common is that kids will take a chance. If they don't know, they'll have a go. Am I right? They're not frightened of being wrong. Now, I don't mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. What we do know is, if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original -- if you're not prepared to be wrong. And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong. And we run our companies like this, by the way. We stigmatize mistakes. And we're now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make. And the result is that we are educating people out of their creative capacities. Picasso once said this -- he said that all children are born artists. The problem is to remain an artist as we grow up. I believe this passionately, that we don't grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we get educated out if it. So why is this?

I lived in Stratford-on-Avon until about five years ago. In fact, we moved from Stratford to Los Angeles. So you can imagine what a seamless transition that was. (Laughter) Actually, we lived in a place called Snitterfield, just outside Stratford, which is where Shakespeare's father was born. Are you struck by a new thought? I was. You don't think of Shakespeare having a father, do you? Do you? Because you don't think of Shakespeare being a child, do you? Shakespeare being seven? I never thought of it. I mean, he was seven at some point. He was in somebody's English class, wasn't he? How annoying would that be? (Laughter) "Must try harder." Being sent to bed by his dad, you know, to Shakespeare, "Go to bed, now," to William Shakespeare, "and put the pencil down. And stop speaking like that. It's confusing everybody." (Laughter)

Anyway, we moved from Stratford to Los Angeles, and I just want to say a word about the transition, actually. My son didn't want to come. I've got two kids. He's 21 now; my daughter's 16. He didn't want to come to Los Angeles. He loved it, but he had a girlfriend in England. This was the love of his life, Sarah. He'd known her for a month. Mind you, they'd had their fourth anniversary, because it's a long time when you're 16. Anyway, he was really upset on the plane, and he said, "I'll never find another girl like Sarah." And we were rather pleased about that, frankly, because she was the main reason we were leaving the country. (Laughter)

But something strikes you when you move to America and when you travel around the world: Every education system on earth has the same hierarchy of subjects. Every one. Doesn't matter where you go. You'd think it would be otherwise, but it isn't. At the top are mathematics and languages, then the humanities, and the bottom are the arts. Everywhere on Earth. And in pretty much every system too, there's a hierarchy within the arts. Art and music are normally given a higher status in schools than drama and dance. There isn't an education system on the planet that teaches dance everyday to children the way we teach them mathematics. Why? Why not? I think this is rather important. I think math is very important, but so is dance. Children dance all the time if they're allowed to, we all do. We all have bodies, don't we? Did I miss a meeting? (Laughter) Truthfully, what happens is, as children grow up, we start to educate them progressively from the waist up. And then we focus on their heads. And slightly to one side.

If you were to visit education, as an alien, and say "What's it for, public education?" I think you'd have to conclude -- if you look at the output, who really succeeds by this, who does everything that they should, who gets all the brownie points, who are the winners -- I think you'd have to conclude the whole purpose of public education throughout the world is to produce university professors. Isn't it? They're the people who come out the top. And I used to be one, so there. (Laughter) And I like university professors, but you know, we shouldn't hold them up as the high-water mark of all human achievement. They're just a form of life, another form of life. But they're rather curious, and I say this out of affection for them. There's something curious about professors in my experience -- not all of them, but typically -- they live in their heads. They live up there, and slightly to one side. They're disembodied, you know, in a kind of literal way. They look upon their body as a form of transport for their heads, don't they? (Laughter) It's a way of getting their head to meetings. If you want real evidence of out-of-body experiences, by the way, get yourself along to a residential conference of senior academics, and pop into the discotheque on the final night. (Laughter) And there you will see it -- grown men and women writhing uncontrollably, off the beat, waiting until it ends so they can go home and write a paper about it.

Now our education system is predicated on the idea of academic ability. And there's a reason. The whole system was invented -- around the world, there were no public systems of education, really, before the 19th century. They all came into being to meet the needs of industrialism. So the hierarchy is rooted on two ideas. Number one, that the most useful subjects for work are at the top. So you were probably steered benignly away from things at school when you were a kid, things you liked, on the grounds that you would never get a job doing that. Is that right? Don't do music, you're not going to be a musician; don't do art, you won't be an artist. Benign advice -- now, profoundly mistaken. The whole world is engulfed in a revolution. And the second is academic ability, which has really come to dominate our view of intelligence, because the universities designed the system in their image. If you think of it, the whole system of public education around the world is a protracted process of university entrance. And the consequence is that many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they're not, because the thing they were good at at school wasn't valued, or was actually stigmatized. And I think we can't afford to go on that way.

In the next 30 years, according to UNESCO, more people worldwide will be graduating through education than since the beginning of history. More people, and it's the combination of all the things we've talked about -- technology and its transformation effect on work, and demography and the huge explosion in population. Suddenly, degrees aren't worth anything. Isn't that true? When I was a student, if you had a degree, you had a job. If you didn't have a job it's because you didn't want one. And I didn't want one, frankly. (Laughter) But now kids with degrees are often heading home to carry on playing video games, because you need an MA where the previous job required a BA, and now you need a PhD for the other. It's a process of academic inflation. And it indicates the whole structure of education is shifting beneath our feet. We need to radically rethink our view of intelligence.

We know three things about intelligence. One, it's diverse. We think about the world in all the ways that we experience it. We think visually, we think in sound, we think kinesthetically. We think in abstract terms, we think in movement. Secondly, intelligence is dynamic. If you look at the interactions of a human brain, as we heard yesterday from a number of presentations, intelligence is wonderfully interactive. The brain isn't divided into compartments. In fact, creativity -- which I define as the process of having original ideas that have value -- more often than not comes about through the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things.

The brain is intentionally -- by the way, there's a shaft of nerves that joins the two halves of the brain called the corpus callosum. It's thicker in women. Following off from Helen yesterday, I think this is probably why women are better at multi-tasking. Because you are, aren't you? There's a raft of research, but I know it from my personal life. If my wife is cooking a meal at home -- which is not often, thankfully. (Laughter) But you know, she's doing -- no, she's good at some things -- but if she's cooking, you know, she's dealing with people on the phone, she's talking to the kids, she's painting the ceiling, she's doing open-heart surgery over here. If I'm cooking, the door is shut, the kids are out, the phone's on the hook, if she comes in I get annoyed. I say, "Terry, please, I'm trying to fry an egg in here. Give me a break." (Laughter) Actually, you know that old philosophical thing, if a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it, did it happen? Remember that old chestnut? I saw a great t-shirt really recently which said, "If a man speaks his mind in a forest, and no woman hears him, is he still wrong?" (Laughter)

And the third thing about intelligence is, it's distinct. I'm doing a new book at the moment called "Epiphany," which is based on a series of interviews with people about how they discovered their talent. I'm fascinated by how people got to be there. It's really prompted by a conversation I had with a wonderful woman who maybe most people have never heard of; she's called Gillian Lynne -- have you heard of her? Some have. She's a choreographer and everybody knows her work. She did "Cats" and "Phantom of the Opera." She's wonderful. I used to be on the board of the Royal Ballet in England, as you can see. Anyway, Gillian and I had lunch one day and I said, "Gillian, how'd you get to be a dancer?" And she said it was interesting; when she was at school, she was really hopeless. And the school, in the '30s, wrote to her parents and said, "We think Gillian has a learning disorder." She couldn't concentrate; she was fidgeting. I think now they'd say she had ADHD. Wouldn't you? But this was the 1930s, and ADHD hadn't been invented at this point. It wasn't an available condition. (Laughter) People weren't aware they could have that.

Anyway, she went to see this specialist. So, this oak-paneled room, and she was there with her mother, and she was led and sat on this chair at the end, and she sat on her hands for 20 minutes while this man talked to her mother about all the problems Gillian was having at school. And at the end of it -- because she was disturbing people; her homework was always late; and so on, little kid of eight -- in the end, the doctor went and sat next to Gillian and said, "Gillian, I've listened to all these things that your mother's told me, and I need to speak to her privately." He said, "Wait here. We'll be back; we won't be very long," and they went and left her. But as they went out the room, he turned on the radio that was sitting on his desk. And when they got out the room, he said to her mother, "Just stand and watch her." And the minute they left the room, she said, she was on her feet, moving to the music. And they watched for a few minutes and he turned to her mother and said, "Mrs. Lynne, Gillian isn't sick; she's a dancer. Take her to a dance school."

I said, "What happened?" She said, "She did. I can't tell you how wonderful it was. We walked in this room and it was full of people like me. People who couldn't sit still. People who had to move to think." Who had to move to think. They did ballet; they did tap; they did jazz; they did modern; they did contemporary. She was eventually auditioned for the Royal Ballet School; she became a soloist; she had a wonderful career at the Royal Ballet. She eventually graduated from the Royal Ballet School and founded her own company -- the Gillian Lynne Dance Company -- met Andrew Lloyd Weber. She's been responsible for some of the most successful musical theater productions in history; she's given pleasure to millions; and she's a multi-millionaire. Somebody else might have put her on medication and told her to calm down.

Now, I think ... (Applause) What I think it comes to is this: Al Gore spoke the other night about ecology and the revolution that was triggered by Rachel Carson. I believe our only hope for the future is to adopt a new conception of human ecology, one in which we start to reconstitute our conception of the richness of human capacity. Our education system has mined our minds in the way that we strip-mine the earth: for a particular commodity. And for the future, it won't serve us. We have to rethink the fundamental principles on which we're educating our children. There was a wonderful quote by Jonas Salk, who said, "If all the insects were to disappear from the earth, within 50 years all life on Earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from the earth, within 50 years all forms of life would flourish." And he's right.

What TED celebrates is the gift of the human imagination. We have to be careful now that we use this gift wisely and that we avert some of the scenarios that we've talked about. And the only way we'll do it is by seeing our creative capacities for the richness they are and seeing our children for the hope that they are. And our task is to educate their whole being, so they can face this future. By the way -- we may not see this future, but they will. And our job is to help them make something of it. Thank you very much.

Sumber : TED.com

Anak Pintar Rajin Beraktivitas

2012-01-05T06:49:00.000+07:00

TEMPO.CO, Amsterdam - Seorang peneliti Belanda menyatakan aktivitas fisik seorang anak mempengaruhi prestasi akademisnya di sekolah. Penelitian dibuat dengan melibatkan 12.000 anak-anak yang setiap harinya terlibat dalam 14 bidang studi, baik fisik maupun nonfisik di sekolah.

Dr Amika Singh, yang meneliti hubungan antara aktivitas fisik dan kemampuan akademis anak, menjelaskan banyaknya tuntutan untuk berprestasi di sekolah menyebabkan anak lebih banyak menghabiskan waktunya di kelas daripada melakukan aktivitas fisik.

Penelitian pun dilakukan terhadap 14 jenis studi kasus. Penelitian terhadap 12 studi kasus dilakukan di Amerika Serikat, satu di Kanada, dan satu di Afrika Selatan. Penelitian dilakukan terhadap 53 sampai 12 ribu partisipan, berumur antara 6 sampai 18 tahun. Periode pengkajian pun dilakukan antara 8 minggu sampai 5 tahun

Hasil penelitian terhadap studi kasus itu menemukan, selain membantu meningkatkan darah dan oksigen ke otak, aktivitas fisik juga mengurangi stres dan meningkatkan mood anak-anak. Dengan mood belajar yang baik, maka anak-anak dapat menunjukkan sikap yang baik selama di kelas.

"Anak-anak harus beraktivitas minimal satu jam akumulasi dalam sehari demi kesehatannya, namun orang tua juga harus melihat sisi lainnya, seperti jenis aktivitas apa yang harus dilakukan, apa yang orang tua harus lakukan, dan berapa lama," ujar Dr Singh.

Instrumen pengukuran yang valid dan dapat diandalkan juga diperlukan untuk menilai hubungan yang akurat antara studi tersebut dengan hasilnya. Namun sayang, belum ada dalam penelitian tersebut mengenai hasil kajian sistematis yang digunakan untuk mengukur secara obyektif terhadap sebuah aktivitas fisik.

iPads in Classrooms on Long Island

2012-01-04T20:33:00.001+07:00

See how Roslyn High School's tablet experiment is garnering the school worldwide attention.

Mapping made easier with the new Google Map Maker

2011-12-23T09:21:00.001+07:00

With 2012 approaching, we're getting a head start on our New Year's resolution to shed some excess weight and improve our overall appearance. You may have seen our ongoing efforts to improve the look, feel, and user experience across many other Google products to date. And with Google Map Maker available in the United States, Canada, and more than 180 other regions, it's time for another makeover. Today, we’re revealing a new version of Google Map Maker to help users map the places they know best and make their hometowns sparkle on Google Maps.

Start with a walkthrough of the new Google Map Maker

With Map Maker, you can easily help ensure that the changing world around you is accurately reflected on the map. Add your favorite gift shop, the nearest tree farm, or even the golf course where you once got that hole in one. It’s also easier to mark the best route to Grandma’s house and draw better buildings with courtyards and crisper corners. The options are endless when it comes to mapping the places you know and love. Once approved, your contributions will appear on Google Maps, Google Earth and Google Maps for mobile for all the world to see.

You don’t have to be an expert to start using Google Map Maker. High school student and Eagle Scout Tommy Bruce is a mapping superstar who finds mapping fun, fulfilling, and a simple way to help those in his community have the best, most comprehensive information possible. He started by mapping bike trails in his hometown of Mooresville, North Carolina and is now on an exchange program in Puebla, Mexico, mapping unmarked rivers that run through town! After witnessing Tommy’s accomplishments firsthand at the U.S. Geo User Summit, even his mother Margaret began thinking of places that she’s eager to put on the map. Why not make your New Year’s resolution to improve the map for millions of people? Start here.

Meyenangkannya Ilmu Pengetahuan

2011-12-19T07:51:00.000+07:00

Betapa menyenangkannya ilmu pengetahuan. Kepada anak-anak, ilmu pengetahuan disampaikan dengan praktik dan menyenangkan. Karena gembira, ilmu pengetahuan yang diajakan mudah diterima dan dipahami lebih cepat oleh anak-anak.

Mendiknas: Pengamanan Ujian Nasional Diperketat

2011-12-04T07:07:00.000+07:00

&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; Your browser does not support inline frames or is currently configured not to display inline frames.&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Metrotvnews.com, Tuban: Menteri Pendidikan Nasional Muhammad Nuh menyatakan, demi menghindari segala bentuk kecurangan pengamanan ujian nasional tahun 2012, akan dilakukan lebih ketat dibanding tahun tahun sebelumnya.

Hal tersebut diutarakan Mendiknas usai peletakan batu pertama pembangunan gedung SMP di Tuban, Jawa Timur, Sabtu (3/12). Muhammad Nuh mengungkapkan hasil evaluasi menyimpulkan, keamanan menjadi salah satu faktor penyebab munculnya kecurangan dan kebocoran pada pelaksanaan ujian nasional.

Oleh karena itu Mendiknas akan memperketat pengamanan, baik di tingkat pencetakan, pendistribusian, maupun pelaksanaan di lapangan. Sistem pencetakan akan dibuat lebih aman dengan pengawasan langsung dari pusat.(DNI)

The 2012 Google Model Your Town competition is up and running

2011-12-02T08:36:00.001+07:00

A few years ago, Google held a "Model Your Town" competition to encourage people to model their cities for Google Earth and earn a chance to win $10,000 for their schools. The winner of that competition was Jorge de Albertis from Barranco, Peru. Here's a quick video showing off what they accomplished.
---

The 2012 competition is now under way, and the educational prize is now at $25,000! You can learn more on the official competition website or by watching the short video below:---

(via the Google SketchUp Blog)

Google Earth, Aplikasi Yang Cocok Bagi Guru Geografi Pengganti Atlas Dalam Kegiatan Belajar Mengajar

2011-11-29T19:18:00.003+07:00

----

Google Earth adalah suatu aplikasi atau program Globe Virtual, dimana dalam aplikasi ini, kita dapat melihat Dunia atau dapat menjadi seorang penjelajah, astronot yang mampu menjelajahi alam semesta dalam waktu sekejap. Di Google Earth ini juga, kita dapat memperlihatkan rumah, warna mobil, bayangan manusia dan bahkan rambu-rambu lalu lintas. Intinya, dengan Google Earth ini, kita dapat berjalan-jalan mengelilingu dunia, bahkan bisa ke planet lain apabila kita memang benar-benar menguasai aplikasi yang satu ini.

Google Earth untuk selanjutnya dikenal dengan sebutan Globe Dunia pertama sekali dikembangkan oleh Keyhole, inc. Perusahaan yang diambil alih oleh Google pada tahun 2004, dari tahun 2005 setelah dipegang oleh Google, Aplikasi ini telah mengalami perkembangan yg amat luar biasa, dimana versi terbaru adalah Google Earth versi 5.2.1 yang memiliki resolusi dan akurasi yang hampir sempurna, dimana resolusi tertinggi ada pada ketinggian 15 cm (6 inci), dimana hanya Negara-Negara tertentu yang tidak dapat di foto satelit dengan baik yang gambar atau resolusinya jelek. Bahkan Negara-Negara Maju telah ditampilkan oleh Globe Dunia ini dengan tampilan 3D. Bahkan Globe Dunia ini mampu untuk menampilkan bangunan dan struktur (seperti jembatan dan jalan) 3 Dimensi yang didukung oleh aplikasi SketchUp, sebuah program permodelan 3D.

Pertama sekali saya ingin meng-install dan mempelajari Globe Dunia ini, karena saya adalah Guru TIK SMA disalah satu SMA Negeri di Medan. Tanggal 26 kemarin, saya didatangi Guru Bidang Study Geografi, minta tolong diajari bagaimana mengupdate Globe Dunia yg dia punya versi sebelumnya ke versi terbaru. Dengan santainya saya Download versi terbaru, terus saya Run atau Install, jadi dehh…!, tetapi saya terkejut karena Google Earth-nya memperlihatkan Globe atau Peta Dunia. Trus saya tanya “Bu, Ini aplikasi apa?”, jawab Ibu Geografinya “Ini Peta Dunia pak, jadi saya akan menggunakan aplikasi ini untuk bahan ajar Geografi, nanti saya suruh mereka menentukan titik lokasi tertentu di Sumatera Utara, atau mencari titik lokasi tempat tinggal mereka di Medan, jadi mereka tau, kalo Globe atau Peta kan rumit, ini udah online, jadi mereka juga tambah Pengetahuannya!”. Wah, bagus juga pemikiran Ibu ini, dia telah memanfaatkan Teknologi untuk menyampaikan Informasi kepada Siswa/i-nya, walau disekolah kami fasilitas Teknologi masih tergolong minim, dimana jumlah Komputer di Lab Komputernya masih separoh dari jumlah Siswa dalam satu ruangan, Internetnya juga masih dalam kecepatan rendah, apalagi sinyal Wi-fi belum jelas gara-gara pernah “kena petir”, Ibu Bidang Study Geografi ini rela beli Laptop sendiri, beli Modem Internet sendiri demi belajar dan tidak Gaptek alias Gagap Teknologi, Ibu Bidang study Geografi ini berujar lagi, “Di Globe Dunia ini pak, kita dapat menentukan dan melihat bangunan-bangunan yang telah di foto dari satelit”, sambil memutar-mutar Globe Dunia dengan mouse, katanya lagi “seperti ini pak, saya sudah buat lokasi rumah saya, lokasi rumah orang tua saya, dan bahkan lokasi SMA kita ini”. Sambil menunjukkan titik sekolah kami yang telah dia tandai, dan benar saja, lokasi sekolah kami yang tidak jauh dari Kanal Sungai yg panjang itu, yang jalan menuju ke sekolah kami masih rusak itu, tampak jika di Klik dengan jelasnya.

Otak saya langsung berpikir dengan cermatnya, wah ini cocok untuk bahan Artikel di Blogku Kompasiana, hitung-hitung memperkenalkan Google Earth dan juga memperkenalkan fungsinya, sekaligus memperkenalkan sekolahku yg memang kurang terkenal itu. Kok bisa yah, saya orang IT kebobolan oleh Google Earth ini? Memang saya sudah sering mendengar nama Google Earth ini, tetapi baru tau jika Globe Dunia ini ternyata memiliki fungsi yang luar biasa, yaitu:

Bisa kita bayangkan dengan Globe Dunia ini, Siswa atau peserta didik dapat melihat dengan jelas lokasi tempat tinggalnya, dapat menandai kira-kira dimana dia berada, dan bahkan dapat menelusuri daerah-daerah lain dalam waktu sekejap.
Dapat mengetahui dengan persisnya dan up to date dimana beradanya misalnya, Monumen Nasional kita, jika kita menjelajahi Jakarta dengan Globe Dunia, maka akan ditunjukkan foto terkini Monumen Nasional, hasil foto satelit, demikian juga dengan foto terkini kondisi Gunung St. Helens ataupun Gunung Everest dengan menggunakan foto 3 Dimensi.
Guru atau Pengajar tidak capek-capek lagi membentangkan Peta yang berukuran Besar, bahkan Globe yang harus diputar-putar, tetapi si Guru cukup membawa Laptop, Modem Internet, tahu gimana caranya menghubungkan Laptop dengan Layar Infokus (LCD), tahu bagaimana caranya mengkoneksikan Internet, tahu bagaimana mengaktifkan aplikasi Internet Explorer, Mozzila Firefox dan sejenisnya, sudah menginstall Google Earth, tahu bagaimana menjalankan Google Earth.
Siswa lebih aktif jadinya untuk mengetahui rahasia-rahasia didalam Google Earth, Guru benar-benar memegang peranan sebagai Pendidik, karena Guru hanya memberi arahan, instruksi dan mengawasi peserta didik. Pembelajaran telah mengarah kepada Siswa Aktif, bukan Pasif lagi hanya mendengar dan mendengar, tetapi dengan Aplikasi Google Earth digunakan, Siswa diharapkan mampu menunjukkan Lokasi-lokasi tertentu di Globe, tau persis dimana letaknya suatu daerah.
Dengan Globe Dunia, kita juga mampu menjelajahi Langit, Bulan dan Bahkan Mars, syarat utama, harus terkoneksi dengan Internet. Sehingga Siswa tahu bagaimana bentuk Mars yang sebenarnya, bentuk Bulan yang sebenarnya.
Kita dapat menjalankan peran kita sebagai seorang Astronot, karena di Google Earth ada fasilitas Simulator Penerbangan, dimana kita dapat ecek-eceknya jadi Pilot Pesawat Jet Tempur F-16 atau pesawat terbang baling-baling SR22, sehingga memicu daya nalar peserta didik kita untuk lebih aktif menggunakan Google Earth ini.
Di Globe dunia ini, kita juga mampu menambahkan Gambar ataupun obyek di titik-titik tertentu.

Walaupun Globe Dunia ini mendapat reaksi dari beberapa pihak karena masalah keamanan dan privasi, karena dengan Foto Satelit beberapa lokasi tertentu di beberapa Negara yang seharusnya rahasia, terkuak alias dapat diketahui oleh umum sehingga mengancam keamanan sebuah negara tersebut. Namun diatas semua kekurangan itu, Google Earth telah menunjukkan manfaat yang luar biasa, gimana Sekolah-sekolah lain, berminatkah menggunakan aplikasi Google Earth untuk memajukan pendidikan Bangsa Indonesia ? apakah Pelajaran Geografi sudah harus menggunakan aplikasi Globe Dunia ini?

Silahkan download software "Google Earth" [klik disini]

(Sumber : http://www.dbe3elearning.net)

How college prep is killing high school A narrowing focus means more dropouts, says an expert

2011-11-28T08:10:00.000+07:00

What is the purpose of high school? Over the past several years America seems to have arrived at a consensus: The overarching goal of high school is to prepare students for college. The current mantra is “college ready for all,” which means high school students need to be focusing on academic preparation and study skills. It’s a rare issue that crosses party lines — both Republicans and Democrats can win points by pushing for a tougher, more competitive high school education.

Driven by this notion, states and districts around the country have raised high school graduation requirements by increasing the number and rigor of required academic courses and by adding exit exams. Massachusetts doesn’t let students graduate unless they can pass the MCAS exam in English, math, and one science or technology subject. Americans, anxious about their competitiveness, look around the world and worry that, if anything, we’re not doing enough.

But as we push harder to create more demanding high schools that are more focused on college preparation, something is also going wrong.

Emerging research in the education world suggests that a tougher approach to high school academics might leave students no better prepared for college and work, while also increasing the number of high school dropouts. The National Research Council concluded that high school exit exams have decreased high school graduation rates in the United States by 2 percentage points without increasing achievement. In Chicago, a 2010 study found no positive effects on student achievement from a school reform measure that ended remedial classes and required college preparatory course work for all students. High school graduation rates declined, and there was no improvement in college enrollment and retention rates among students who did graduate.

The United States clearly needs more college graduates: We currently rank ninth in the world in four-year college graduation rates for domestic students, and President Obama has set a goal for the United States to be first in the world by 2020.

But we also need something else: more high school graduates, and better-trained ones. And to do that, we need to think differently about what high school should be: not narrowly focused on classroom achievement, but broadly designed to keep more students engaged, reward more types of thinking, and leave young people better prepared, whatever they plan to do.
To college-minded parents and educators, rethinking high school in this way might sound like a scaling back of ambition. But it can also be a more broad-minded, accommodating vision of what school is, and who it’s for. It’s a vision with deep roots in American history, and one that gives more students a chance to lay the groundwork for their futures.

Despite the current focus on college preparedness, American students, parents, and public officials have long seen education as having broader goals. In 1818 Thomas Jefferson stated that the purpose of public education included giving citizens information for transacting business, the ability to express ideas in writing, and an understanding of duties to neighbors and country.

Support for a broad range of educational goals continues to this day. A recent survey of the general public, elected officials, and state legislators by Richard Rothstein from the Economic Policy Institute and his colleagues showed support for eight broad goals for public education, with “basic academic goals” being the highest rated, but generating no more than one-quarter of the votes. Other goals included critical thinking, social skills and work ethic, and citizenship.

The need for schools to do more than prepare students for college is supported by studies about jobs in the future economy. A 2010 report from Georgetown University forecasts that by 2018, 63 percent of all jobs in the United States will require a postsecondary education — but that also means that more than a quarter of all jobs will not require any postsecondary education. Indeed, the Department of Labor Statistics has projected that more than one-third of all job openings in the US economy between 2008 and 2018 will not require a college degree, and in fact will require one month or less of on-the-job experience or instruction to be fully qualified in the occupation.

So for a large number of Americans, a college degree won’t matter at all. What will matter, however, is graduating from high school with a set of skills that they can use to get a job, to keep learning, to live a better life.
A number of economists, including Nobel economist James Heckman, have documented the need for noncognitive or so-called soft skills in the labor market, such as motivation, perseverance, risk aversion, self-esteem, and self-control. A 2001 report from the National Association of Manufacturers found the top skill deficiency in both current workers and job applicants was a lack of basic employability skills such as timeliness and work ethic.

Only 76 percent of public high school students in the United States earn a diploma within four years of entering the ninth grade, a rate lower than 40 years earlier. This translates into more than 1 million students who fail to earn a high school diploma each year. When these students drop out of high school, either from lack of interest or because they can’t pass an academically rigorous exam, they’re losing not only the chance at the diploma they’ll need to get a job, but also any opportunity they might have to acquire those basic skills.
How can we keep those students in school — and better serve them when they stay? Research has shown that the key factor in student success is being engaged. Students who are not engaged are less likely to perform well in school, more likely to fail classes, and less likely to graduate. In the 2006 Civic Enterprises report, The Silent Epidemic, high school dropouts reported that the most frequent reason for leaving school was that classes were not interesting.

America’s education system — and its students — would benefit from developing a broader measure of high school success, one that includes vocational and technical education as well as the arts and humanities.
Research demonstrates that career and technical education — courses that teach applied skills in agriculture, engineering, health science, and the like — increases attendance, raises completion rates, and improves earnings and employment prospects of high school graduates whether or not they attend college. International comparisons further reveal that countries offering more access to vocational options have higher high school completion rates as well as higher scores on international tests.

Such courses, if approached creatively, can also provide another way of teaching rigorous academic content. The University of California, where I work, is helping teachers design so-called integrated technical courses for high schools that meet entry requirements for the university. One example is an auto mechanics course that also teaches students college prep physics, already offered in one California high school.

A more balanced high school education would also offer students the chance to spend time in a workplace, not only learning career-specific skills, but also developing the “soft” skills needed for success. In such schools, graduation requirements could be redefined so students could succeed not just by passing MCAS-style tests, but by demonstrating mastery of an area that most interests them — whether it is math, physics, cooking, mechanics, or sports — while achieving acceptable proficiency in core academic and other areas.

High school, in short, should not just prepare adolescents for college and careers, but for successful lives as adults. And far from backing off modern notions of success, this approach actually embodies new understandings of what really helps people succeed: not just reading and math, but deeper life skills that aren’t reflected on exit exams or college applications.

A long-term study by sociologist John Clausen tracked children born in the Great Depression for six decades and found that those whose lives turned out best — who obtained more education, had lower rates of divorce, had more orderly careers, achieved higher occupational status, and experienced fewer life crises such as unemployment — shared something he labeled “planful competence,” a combination of dependability, intellectual involvement, and self-confidence. Those factors, he found, didn’t necessarily correspond to higher education or test scores. “There’s nothing that predicts better,” he wrote “than what they were like in high school.”

Russell W. Rumberger is vice provost for education partnerships at the University of California Office of the President and author of “Dropping Out: Why Students Drop Out of School and What Can be Done About It” (Harvard University Press).

Bill Gates: "How Do You Make a Teacher Great?"

2011-11-26T07:22:00.002+07:00

Guru Abad 21 : Technology In Education - Why?

2011-11-25T07:25:00.000+07:00

---

There has been a lot of chatter lately about whether integrating technology into the classroom is having an impact on student learning. "Where is the data that justifies the millions of dollars spent on technology?" I urge you to read the September 3rd, 2011 NY Times article by Matt Richtel entitled; "In Classroom of Future, Stagnent Scores." A fantastic article which thoughtfully pokes at many of the uncertainties regarding technolgy that school districts face today.

Many say that students can learn content without technology in the classroom, and I don't disagree. We know this to be true because prior to technology in education students still learned and passed tests. If students can 'succeed in school' without technology, why are we spending so much time, energy, and money to get it into our classrooms? This is a valid question...but one that raises even more questions.

When students were succeeding in school with no technology, we were also living in a world with little technology, and preparing students for life in a world where technology wasn't a part of their daily lives.

An excerpt from Sir Ken Robinson's talk, "Changing Education Paradigms."

"...The problem is they are trying to meet the future by doing what they did in the past. And on the way they are alienating millions of kids who don't see any purpose in going to school. When we went to school we were kept there with the story, which is if you worked hard and did well and got a college degree you'd have a job. Our kids don't believe that and they are right not to..."

When I saw Sir Ken Robinson speak at a recent NYSCATE conference he said something to the effect of, 'Technology isn't technology if it already existed when you were born.' Think about it.... "Wow," I thought. Our children are born in to this, and don't know anything different. To our children, this is just 'how it is.' I am 34 years old and don't think twice about cordless phones or wireless remotes on televisions, but I bet they were a big deal when they first came out.

Of course this will have an impact on how we educate our children. This is not like when they allowed calculators to be used in school!

Take a look at this video from the Pearson Foundation entitled "Learning To Change/Changing To Learn: Student Voices."

What would students just 10 years ago have said if asked how technology has effected their lives and their education?

What will students be saying 10 years from now?

Why should we include technology in the education of our children? Here are some very well thought out answers to that question written by John Page. (John Page is a software designer living in California's Silicon Valley. He is the author of the free online geometry textbook Math Open Reference - Thanks, John!)

Reason 1. Expansion of time and place

In a typical high school a student has access to a teacher 40 minutes per day. That means she has access to that teacher 5% of her waking day, and even that time is shared with 25 classmates. She has access to the Internet 100% of the time. That's 20X better.

Technology is no substitute for an inspiring teacher. However, on-line materials are far more available. Twenty times more.

Using the "textbook plus classroom" approach, the places where learning can occur are limited. On the other hand, a wireless laptop has access to the teacher's course material and the entire Internet almost anywhere. This is also a vastly larger resource than can be practically carried on paper in a backpack.

Bottom line: information technology allows learning anywhere, anytime; not just in one particular classroom for forty minutes a day.

Reason 2. Depth of Understanding

Interactive simulations and illustrations can produce a much greater depth of understanding of a concept. When virtual manipulatives are used in a classroom setting they can go far beyond chalk and talk. Using a projector, the teacher can conduct onscreen investigations and demonstrate concepts far more easily than with just words and arm-waving. For example see Subtended Angles.

Because the students have access to the same tools over the web, they can reinforce the ideas by experimenting with the simulations themselves, any time, any where.

Reason 3. Learning vs. Teaching

Technology allows the tables to be turned. Instead of teaching (push), students can be given projects that require them to learn (pull) the necessary material themselves. Key to this is the ability to get the information they need any time anywhere, without being in the physical presence of a teacher. This project-based pull approach makes learning far more interesting for the student. I have seen firsthand how students cannot wait to get out of regular classes to go to the after-school robotics project.

Reason 4. New media for self-expression

In the old days, students could write in a notebook, and what they wrote was seen only by the teacher. Using modern technology they can: Make a PowerPoint presentation, record/edit spoken word, do digital photography, make a video, run a class newspaper, run a web based school radio or TV station, do claymation, compose digital music on a synthesizer, make a website, create a blog.

Reason 5. Collaboration

A vital skill in the new digital world is the ability to work collaboratively on projects with others who may not be physically close. This can best be done using modern computer tools such as the web, email, instant messaging and cell phone. Rather than laboring alone on homework, students can work in small groups wherever they happen to be and at any time. They are doing this already (it used to be called cheating) - it can now be formalized and taught as a vital skill. Many university projects are undertaken by teams spread around the world. Students need to be prepared for this.

Reason 6. Going Global

The worldview of the student can be expanded because of the zero cost of communicating with other people around the globe. The Internet permits free video conferencing which permits interaction in real time with sister schools in other countries. From an educational viewpoint, what could be more important than understanding other cultures through direct dialog and collaboration?

Reason 7. Individual pacing and sequence

Students are, of course, all different. Information technologies can permit them to break step with the class and go at a pace and order that suits that student better. Without disrupting the class, they can repeat difficult lessons and explore what they find interesting. With time, it will become more like having a private tutor rather than being lost in a large class.

Reason 8. Weight

Three textbooks and three binders easily weigh over 25lb. A laptop computer weighs about 5lb and provides access to infinitely more material via its own storage and the Internet. A 40Gb hard drive can hold 2 million pages with illustrations; the web is unfathomably large. Right now, students are getting back injuries lugging around a tiny subset of what they need in the form of black marks on slices of dead trees. And it's just static, boring text.

Reason 9. Personal Productivity

Students need productivity tools for the same reasons you do. They need to write, read, communicate, organize and schedule. A student's life is not much different from any knowledge worker, and they need similar tools. Even if they are never used in the classroom, portable personal computers will make a student's (and teacher's) life more effective. To cash in this benefit, schools need to go paperless.

Reason 10. Lower Cost

It is not unusual for a textbook to cost over $120, and in community colleges, where they are purchased by the student, they can cost more than the tuition itself.

Through the use of open, free educational tools on the web, the dependence on expensive paper textbooks can be reduced. There is a growing movement to create and publish this type of material through organizations such as OER Commons. OER stands for Open Educational Resources and the idea is to follow the open source model made popular by software projects such as Linux. Material is created by the educational community itself then freely shared.

Today (Nov 2007) a decent laptop can be bought for $399, the price of a few textbooks. Right now we need both the paper books and the computer, but that is simply a transitional phase.

Take a look at this video entitled: "The Evolution of Technology and the Human Race"

The world is not the same as it was 15, 10, 5, even 1 year ago. This is a fact.
It is our job as educators to prepare our students to succeed in the world as it is (will be) the best we can. This is a fact.

With the world changing as it is largely due to technology wouldn't it make sense to include technology in education?

Where does this leave us with proof?
Do we have loads of data explaining why we need to integrate technology into education?
No...not yet. When we do, what form will this data take?

Will we ever have this data?

I don't know, but I'd be willing to bet that if we REMOVED all current technology from education today, there might all of a sudden be plenty of reasons why we all would need it back! Perhaps more immediate answers lie in that scenario.

Obviously - just purchasing technology and putting it into a classroom isn't going to do anything. It's all in how our teachers are using it to facilitate student learning. This is where the problem is. It's past time to address this. Are webinars, PD's and conferences really the answer? Are they working? Are only some working? Are we currently living in a grey area of time where some understand the tools available and some don't? - so many questions. One thing is for sure...Technology is here for good.
(source : http://www.the21stcenturyteacher.com/ )

Pilih Tablet atau Notebook?

2011-11-25T06:02:00.000+07:00

Oleh Kristian Tjahjono

Konsep komputer telah berubah. Jika dulu kita membayangkan sebuah komputer merupakan produk berdesain kotak yang terkesan kaku dan dilengkapi keyboard, lain halnya sekarang. Komputer muncul dalam berbagai bentuk, termasuk dalam bentuk tablet yang mengandalkan layar sentuh tanpa bantuan papan ketik.

Meningkatnya popularitas tablet PC tersebut kini malah dituding sebagai salah satu penyebab melambatnya pertumbuhan penjualan notebook dan netbook. Padahal, rata-rata vendor dan media memosisikan komputer tablet ini sebagai komputer kedua, sebagai pelengkap laptop atau notebook.

Tapi di sisi konsumen, sering muncul kebingungan antara membeli tablet PC atau notebook. Ditambah gencarnya aksi penjual yang mempromosikan barang dagangannya, seringkali konsumen kurang puas akibat salah membeli.

Untuk memastikan Anda dapat memaksimalkan produk yang dibeli, berikut tiga langkah yang dapat dijadikan panduan pengambilan keputusan saat harus memilih antara tablet PC dan notebook.

Kenali kebutuhan Anda

Meskipun sama-sama tergolong sebagai komputer, namun tablet dan notebook dirancang untuk cara penggunaan dan tujuan yang berbeda. Bahkan, kebanyakan tablet PC yang beredar memiliki sistem operasi yang berbeda.

Akibat adanya perbedaan sistem operasi ini, maka aplikasi atau software yang digunakan juga otomatis berbeda. Misalnya, untuk notebook berbasis sistem operasi Microsoft Windows, Anda mungkin akan menggunakan Microsoft Office atau Open Office untuk membuka naskah atau menyelesaikan laporan keuangan.

Tapi di komputer tablet, aplikasi yang digunakan sama berbeda, baik dari segi kemampuan, fitur, dan cara penggunaan. Jadi pastikan kebutuhan Anda akan dapat dipenuhi perangkat yang baru dibeli tersebut.
Perbedaan mendasar lainnya terletak pada penggunaan keyboard. Walaupun Anda dapat menggunakan komputer tablet dengan keyboard tambahan, namun hampir semua aplikasi untuk tablet dirancang untuk memaksimalkan penggunaan layar sentuh.

Jadi jika Anda banyak melakukan input teks seperti mengetik naskah yang panjang, memasukkan data, dan hobi bermain game serius, disarankan Anda membeli notebook. Namun, jika aktivitas komputer Anda hanya sebatas browsing Internet, chatting, mengetik naskah pendek, mencatat buku harian, mendengarkan lagu, bermain game yang santai, serta jarang mengetik, maka tablet PC dapat memenuhi kebutuhan Anda. Pastikan aplikasi yang Anda butuhkan ada di platform yang diinginkan.

Hitung dananya

Begitu sudah mengenali kebutuhan Anda, kini pastikan dana yang dimiliki cukup. Saat menghitung dana yang disiapkan untuk membeli tablet atau notebook, pastikan ada dana tambahan untuk membeli aksesoris pendukung atau garansi tambahan.

Beberapa tablet PC juga telah dilengkapi fasilitas mobile Internet terintegrasi, yang memungkinkan koneksi Internet melalui jaringan koneksi data operator seluler. Untuk notebook, seringkali Anda harus mengeluarkan dana ekstra untuk membeli dongle atau modem USB untuk terkoneksi ke Internet.

Tergantung merek dan spesifikasi, harga tablet PC berkisar antara Rp 1,5 juta — Rp 8 juta. Sedangkan untuk netbook, antara Rp 2,5 juta — Rp 6 juta dan notebook antara Rp 3 juta — Rp 30 juta. Seringkali, perbedaan harga terletak pada merek dan beberapa fitur yang dimilikinya.

Salah satu keuntungan membeli tablet keluaran merek terkenal adalah dukungan purna jual serta nilai jual kembali yang lebih baik. Sedangkan untuk notebook, mengingat spesifikasinya yang cenderung lebih seragam, merek, desain, dan harga akan menjadi pertimbangan yang utama.

Mengingat harga tablet PC yang relatif lebih murah dibanding notebook dan netbook, tidak ada salahnya jika Anda memilih tablet PC. Tentunya jika memang tablet PC dapat memenuhi kebutuhan.

Seberapa tinggi mobilitas Anda?

Mungkin inilah pertimbangan yang paling menentukan. Bagi yang sering bepergian, membawa notebook kadang cukup membebani akibat ukuran dan bobotnya. Apalagi jika Anda membawanya untuk waktu yang cukup lama, menggunakan tas notebook ala kadarnya.

Jika Anda memiliki mobilitas tinggi dan kebutuhan hanya sekadar presentasi atau mengakses Internet, maka tablet PC merupakan pilihan yang bijaksana. Selain ringan, tablet PC juga lebih dingin sehingga tidak menimbulkan masalah jika lupa dimatikan saat berada di tas. Daya tahan baterai yang panjang serta waktu menyala yang singkat juga menjadi nilai tambah yang patut diperhitungkan.

Kesimpulan

Komputer tablet boleh dibilang masih tergolong pendatang baru, sehingga perkembangannya masih dalam tahap awal. Ke depan, komputer tablet akan memiliki kemampuan dan kegunaan yang lebih banyak. Baik notebook dan tablet memiliki keunggulan dan kelemahannya tersendiri, jadi pastikan Anda tidak salah pilih. Selamat membeli.
----------
Kristian Tjahjono, kontributor situs teknologi konsumen yangcanggih.com. Antusias terhadap berbagai jenis gadget, mulai dari komputer, ponsel, sampai kamera digital.

(Sumber : http://id.spesial.yahoo.com)

Junior high app developer is a pre-teen tycoon in training

2011-11-17T11:33:00.002+07:00

He might not be ready to submit a college application, but Thomas Suarez of Manhattan Beach, California is already releasing apps for iOS devices. The sixth grader recently gave a talk at TEDxManhattanBeach in which he discussed his love of computers (he got into them in kindergarten), his plans for the future, and the inspiration he got from the late Steve Jobs.

Suarez has released several apps on the Apple App Store since launching his first, a fortune-telling title called Earth Fortune, in late 2010. His most popular app has been Bustin Jieber, a Whack-a-Mole style game where players squish the disembodied head of Justin Bieber. "I created it because a lot of people at school disliked Justin Bieber a little bit," he told the TEDx crowd.

After teaching himself programming basics in Python, C, and Java, Suarez says he took up Apple's SDK and Xcode. "I've gotten a lot of inspiration from Steve Jobs," he says. Inspired, he started an App Club at his school, because "not many kids know where to go to find out how to make a program." As he sees it, "for soccer, you could go to a soccer team, and for violin, you could get a lesson from a violinist." But even parents might not be a resource, since as he rightly points out, "not many of them have written apps."

The club is working with its teacher sponsor to create iPad apps for education, which will eventually be distributed to local school districts free of charge, and sold to others. Oh, and he's even created his own company, CarrotCorp. It sounds like Suarez picked up a little entrepreneurial spirit from Jobs, as well.

(Source)

UNESCO Video Challenge: "My Declaration"

2011-11-17T06:37:00.000+07:00

What is your idea of cultural diversity?
Create your own visual declaration on Cultural Diversity?

Are you 18 to 24 years old?

Use your creativity and express your personal vision of cultural diversity through a short video based on the UNESCO 2001 Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity!

A public vote on YouTube will determine the five most popular videos. The best video will be selected by an international jury.

The winning video will be broadcast as a promotional tool of the principles set out in the UNESCO 2001 Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity.

More information, [klik disini]

Atau download OFFICIAL RULES [klik disini]

Ikatan Guru Indonesia Buat Sistem Ujian Online

2011-11-14T21:04:00.003+07:00

&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;

Metrotvnews.com, Jakarta: Ikatan Guru Indonesiabekerja sama dengan PT Pesona Edukasi membuat ujian nasional (UN) online gunamencegah kebocoran soal. Sistem ini memungkinkan siswa melihat langsung nilaihasil ujian mereka.

Sistem UN online mengadopsi mekanisme computerized adaptive test yang sudah diterapkan di sistem sejumlah negara, seperti di Singapura, Inggris, Amerika Serikat, Finlandia, dan India.

Pada penerapannya, soal ujian bisa disebar dalam waktu 15 menit ke seluruh Indonesia. Usai mengerjakan, siswa bisa langsung mengetahui skor atas jawaban mereka.

Ancaman hacker telah diperhitungkan PT Pesona Edukasi dan Ikatan Guru Indonesia. Kedua pihak mengklaim ini sudah diantisipasi untuk ancaman tersebut. Kedua pihak menjamin kerahasiaan soal dan nilai siswa tak bisa diganti.

Selain itu, kemungkinan saling contek sangat rendah karena satu soal bisa divariasi menjadi lima soal dan tidak menggunakan kertas. Sistem ini diharapkan bisa digunakan Kementerian Pendidikan Nasional.(IKA)

Tanoto Foundation Gelar Lomba Pembuatan Proposal Pendidikan

2011-11-13T07:38:00.002+07:00

New Page 18
&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;

Metrotvnews.com, Jakarta: Menyambut Hari Guru pada 25 November mendatang, Tanoto Foundation menyelenggarakan Tanoto Education Grant. Acara itu sebagai salah satu upaya mengajak pendidik Indonesia meningkatkan mutu pendidikan di Tanah Air.

Tanoto Education Grant itu digelar untuk para pendidik dengan menyerahkan sebuah proposal dengan tema "Konsep Belajar Inovatif", "Pelatihan Guru", serta "Kebijakan Pendidikan". Proposal itu akan dinilai oleh tim juri yang terdiri dari sejumlah pemerhati pendidikan, seperti Anita Lie, Bambang Indriyanto serta Direktur Pemberitaan Metro TV Suryopratomo.

Pendidik yang terpilih akan mendapatkan insentif maksimal Rp50 juta. Proposal paling lambat diterima panitia lomba tanggal 20 Desember 2011. Selain menggelar lomba proposal dunia pendidikan, Tanoto Foundation juga mengadakan lomba foto dunia pendidikan bagi para jurnalis.(DSY)

Informasi selengkapnya, lihat di websitre, klik : http://www.tanotofoundation.org/

The 10 college majors with the lowest unemployment rates

2011-11-11T06:27:00.001+07:00

College students, take note: There are at least six fields of study whose graduates are virtually 100 percent employed right now. That's right--certain majors, such as pharmacology, produce graduates who face a zero percent unemployment rate.

That's not bad considering last month's joblessness rate for people with a college degree or higher was 4.4 percent.

The Wall Street Journal created an interactive tool where users can search for the average employment rate and median income of people who studied each major. The data comes from the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce, which released a similar ranking of majors in May that we wrote about here.

The Center's previous study found that graduates with engineering and science majors tend to earn significantly more many than graduates with other college majors. (A petroleum engineering major will make 300 percent more over his or her lifetime than a peer who majored in counseling psychology, for example.)
But narrowing the results down to only the employment rate yields a wider range of fields that provide excellent job security. People who majored in some lower paying fields, such as school counseling, face an almost nonexistent chance of being unempl0yed.

Check out the rest of the most employable majors, below.

Majors and their unemployment rate:

Actuarial Science—0 percent
Astronomy and Astrophysics—0 percent
Educational Administration and Supervision—0 percent
Geological and Geophysical Engineering—0 percent
Pharmacology—0 percent
School Student Counseling—0 percent
Agricultural Economics—1.3 percent
Medical Technologies Technicians—1.4 percent
Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology—1.6 percent
Environmental Engineering, Nursing, and Nuclear Industrial Radiology and Biological Technologies—2.2 percent

Filmclub anti-bullying week

2011-11-09T20:59:00.002+07:00

To help teachers explore issues surrounding bullying for Anti-Bullying Week on November 14th, the education charity FILMCLUB (www.filmclub.org) is launching two thought-provoking seasons of films – one for primary and one secondary - in which bullying is a major theme. Hand-picked by experts and accompanied by detailed guides and discussion points, the selection includes classics such as ‘Lord of the Flies’ (1963 version), Ken Loach’s ‘Kes’ and Hollywood comedy-melodrama ‘The Women’ – as well as more recent titles such as ‘Bridge To Terabithia’ and documentary ‘American Teen’.

Members will be encouraged to watch, discuss and review the films following research which shows that watching and discussing films with their peer group is a highly effective tool for developing young people’s emotional intelligence. In a recent survey of club leaders 96% agreed that attending FILMCLUB helps children understand different social and emotional issues and 87% said participation in the scheme enhances participants’ ability to share and debate their conclusions with other students.

Charity Beatbullying has welcomed the idea of schools using film to help tackle bullying: “Bullying effects so many children and young people, our research shows in fact 1 in 3 have to deal with abuse and harassment everyday - this is unacceptable. This is why we are so pleased to be working with Filmclub to help spread the anti bullying message. We hope young people across the country will enjoy these films and work towards helping and assisting their peers,” said Sherry Adhami, Director of Communications.[Source: http://www.education-today.co.uk/]

بث حي لمناسك الحج - Live Hajj Streaming 2011

2011-11-05T21:43:00.007+07:00

Hajj is being performed at the moment in Saudi Arabia. More than 2.5 million (25 lakhs) Muslims are offering hajj this year. Live Streaming is available on HotPakNews, courtesy of Youtube and Saudi Ministry of Culture and Information.

More than 2.5 million pilgrims from all over the world including more than 180,000 Pakistanis are performing Hajj today. Prophet Muhammad (SAWW) delivered his final hajj sermon at Arafat around 14 centuries ago.

What to Do About 'Reverse Brain Drain' in US?

2011-11-04T20:00:00.003+07:00

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
Congress is studying how to change immigration policies in an effort to get more foreign students to stay and work in the United States. Many foreign students come to the United States to earn advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering and math. But many are unable to get a visa to live and work here after they graduate.In two thousand nine, foreign students earned up to two-thirds of the physics and engineering doctorates awarded by American colleges and universities.

Have an e-reader? Download this story as a PDF

Xiao Qin from Beijing is studying for a PhD in computer science at Georgetown University in Washington. He would like to work for Google, Yahoo or Microsoft.

XIAO QIN: "Obviously, we prefer to stay here for several years, but if we cannot get any valid visa we have to leave."

So far no agreement has been reached on how to stop this so-called reverse brain drain. The loss of highly skilled workers usually involves developing countries losing them to wealthier ones.

Critics say immigration policies in the United States are too restrictive. One of those critics is Representative Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat who represents parts of Silicon Valley in California. She spoke at a recent congressional hearing on the issue.

ZOE LOFGREN: "While we once asked the brightest minds in the world to come and make their homes here, we now turn them away. Having educated and trained the world's best students in our universities, we no longer welcome them to enrich this nation."

High-tech companies look for workers at the nation's top universities. Some companies, including Texas Instruments, say it can take ten years for their foreign workers to become permanent residents. Darla Whitaker is a senior vice president at Texas Instruments.

DARLA WHITAKER: "This is not sustainable. It hurts our company and our industry and it places burdens and stresses on our employees."

The United States limits the number of immigrants from other countries on a country-by-country basis. Students from countries with large populations generally have to wait the longest for a "green card," or proof of permanent residency. A group called the National Foundation for American Policy says a highly skilled Indian worker could have to wait up to seventy years.

Vivek Wadhwa studies immigrants who start their own companies. He says the United States needs to change its immigration policies. VIVEK WADHWA: "We're out of touch. We are in a knowledge economy. It is all about competition. If we don't keep these people, if we don't compete, we're going to lose. We're going to become a third world country and they're going to become like us."

And that's the VOA Special English Education Report. You can watch a video on this subject at voaspecialenglish.com. And you can share your own experiences with studying or working in the United States. You can also find transcripts and MP3s of our programs and now PDFs for e-readers. I'm Christopher Cruise.[More programs, click here]

Source : http://www.voanews.com

Dynd's Podcast

2011-11-04T17:31:00.001+07:00

NDE Week 12C: Can You Use the Internet?

Can You Use the Internet? Guests: Denise Collins Language Focus: Review: ability

Direct download: NDE_Week_12C___Can_You_Use_the_Internet_.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:00 PM

Wed, 20 September 2006

NDE Week 12B: Do You Have A Favorite Musician?

Do You Have A Favorite Musician? Guests: Sandy Steele Language Focus: Review: likes and dislikes

Direct download: NDE_Week_12B___Do_You_Have_A_Favorite_Musician_.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:00 PM

Wed, 13 September 2006

NDE Week 12A: Do You Like to Read Mystery Stories?

Do You Like to Read Mystery Stories? Guests: Martha Harris Language Focus: Can and can't, Recreational activities

Direct download: NDE_Week_12A___Do_You_Like_to_Read_Mystery_Stories_.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:00 PM

Wed, 6 September 2006

NDE Week 11C: Can You Play the Piano?

Can You Play the Piano? Guests: Chris Scott Language Focus: Degrees of ability, Music and dance

Direct download: NDE_Week_11C___Can_You_Play_the_Piano_.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:00 PM

Wed, 30 August 2006

NDE Week 11B: Do You Like Baseball?

Do You Like Baseball? Guests: John Harris Language Focus: Like to + verb, Sports Ability: can, know how to

Direct download: NDE_Week11B___Do_You_Like_Baseball_.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:00 PM

Wed, 23 August 2006

NDE Week 11A: What's Your Favorite Food?

What's Your Favorite Food? Guests: Maria Alvarez Language Focus: Like + noun, Food, Classification

Direct download: NDE_Week_11A___Whats_Your_Favorite_Food_.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:00 PM

Wed, 16 August 2006

NDE Week 10C: What Do You Do in Your Free Time?

What Do You Do in Your Free Time? Guests: Henry Thornton Language Focus: Evening and weekend activities, Clauses with When

Direct download: NDE_Week_10C___What_do_you_do_in_your_free_time_.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:00 PM

Wed, 9 August 2006

NDE Week 10B: I'm a Fashion Model

I'm a Fashion Model Guests: Jenny Chen Language Focus: Physical Description, Very vs. Too

Direct download: NDE_Week_10B___Im_a_Fashion_Model.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:00 PM

Wed, 2 August 2006

NDE Week 10A: I Work with Small Children.

I Work with Small Children. Guests: Sara Scott Language Focus: Clauses with When, Tag questions, Parts of the Body

Direct download: NDE_Week_10A___I_work_with_small_children..mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:00 PM

Wed, 26 July 2006

NDE Week 9C: Does It Ever Snow in Florida?

Does It Ever Snow in Florida? Guests: Sandra Harris Language Focus: Weather Conditions, Adverbial clauses with When

Direct download: NDE_Week_9C___Does_It_Ever_Snow_in_Florida_.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:00 PM

Wed, 19 July 2006

NDE Week 9B: There Are Stars in the Sky

There Are Stars in the Sky. Guests: Simon Tompkins Language Focus: Times of Day, Present Progressive

Direct download: NDE_Week_9B__There_Are_Stars_in_the_Sky.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:00 PM

Wed, 12 July 2006

NDE Week 9A: What Do You Do in the Summer?

What Do You Do in the Summer? Guests: Pat Miller Language Focus: Seasons, Months of the Year

Direct download: NDE_Week_9A__What_Do_You_Do_in_the_Summer_.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:00 PM

Wed, 5 July 2006

NDE Week 8C: How Do You Spend the Rest of Your Day?

How Do You Spend the Rest of Your Day? Guests: Martha Harris Language Focus: Adverbs of frequency

Direct download: NDE_Week_8C__How_Do_You_Spend_the_Rest_of_Your_Day_.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:00 PM

Wed, 28 June 2006

NDE Week 8B: How Long is Her Lesson?

How Long is Her Lesson? Guests: Collette Harris Language Focus: Comparison, Frequency, Duration

Direct download: NDE_Week_8B__How_Long_Is_Her_Lesson_.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:00 PM

Wed, 21 June 2006

NDE Week 8A: How Long Does It Take?

How Long Does It Take? Guests: John Harris Language Focus: Duration, Sequence

Direct download: NDE_Week_8A__How_Long_Does_It_Take_.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:00 PM

Wed, 14 June 2006

NDE Week 7C: Do You Teach Every Day?

Do You Teach Every Day? Guests: Sandra Harris Language Focus: Days of the week, Periods of time

Direct download: NDE_Week_7C__Do_You_Teach_Every_Day_.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:00 PM

Wed, 7 June 2006

NDE Week 7B: What Time Do You Get Up?

What Time Do You Get Up? Guests: Bob Harris Language Focus: Time expressions, Habitual actions

Direct download: NDE_Week_7B__What_Time_Do_You_Get_Up_.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:00 PM

Tue, 30 May 2006

NDE Week 7A:The Harris Family

The Harris Family Guests: Bob Harris, Sandra Harris Language Focus: Family relationships, Amount (some, many, most)

Direct download: NDE_Week_7A_The_Harris_Family.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 11:58 PM

Wed, 24 May 2006

NDE Week 6C: What's Your Telephone Number?

What's Your Telephone Number? Guests: Denise Collins Language Focus: Telephone numbers, Office language

Direct download: NDE_Week_6C__Whats_Your_Telephone_Number_.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 1:00 PM

Tue, 23 May 2006

NDE Week 6B: What Are You Studying?

What Are You Studying? Guests: Sandy Steele Language Focus: Present Progressive, University life

Direct download: NDE_Week_6B__What_Are_You_Studying_.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 6:28 PM

Tue, 23 May 2006

NDE Week 6A: What is 2 + 2?

What is 2 + 2? Guests: Richard Chen Language Focus: Basic Math (addition, subtraction, multiplication)

Direct download: NDE_Week_6A__What_is_2__2_.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 6:27 PM

Wed, 3 May 2006

NDE Week 5C: How Much Does It Cost?

How Much Does It Cost? Guests: Maria Alvarez Language Focus: Prices, Clothing

Direct download: NDE_Week_5C__How_Much_Does_It_Cost_.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 3:05 PM

Fri, 28 April 2006

NDE Week 5B: When Does the Train Leave?

When Does the Train Leave? Guests: Pat Miller Language Focus: Clock Times, Duration

Direct download: NDE_Week_5B__When_Does_the_Train_Leave__1.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 3:04 PM

Fri, 28 April 2006

NDE Week 5A: How Many Brothers Do You Have?

How Many Brothers Do You Have? Guests: Pierre Dubois. Language Focus: Counting, Numbers, How Many?

Direct download: NDE_Week_5A__How_Many_Brothers_Do_You_Have_.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 3:02 PM

Wed, 12 April 2006

NDE Week 4C: How Do You Like Your Job?

How Do You Like Your Job? Guests: Maria Alvarez Language Focus: Adverbs

Direct download: NDE_Week_4C__How_Do_You_Like_Your_Job_.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 4:57 PM

Tue, 4 April 2006

NDE Week 4B: I'm 24 Years Old.

I'm 24 Years Old. Guests: Chris Scott, Language Focus: Age (How old), Like + infinitive, Comparison

Direct download: NDE_Week_4B__Im_24_Years_Old..mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 4:49 PM

Wed, 29 March 2006

NDE Week 4A: My Wife's Name is Sandra.

My Wife's Name is Sandra. Guests: Bob Harris, Language Focus: Questions with What Possessives

Direct download: NDE_Week_4A__My_Wifes_Name_is_Sandra..mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 1:41 PM

Wed, 22 March 2006

NDE Week 3C: Where Do You Live?

Where Do You Live? Guests: Henry Thorton Language Focus: Present tense (live), Alphabet and spelling

Direct download: NDE_Week_3C__Where_Do_You_Live_.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 10:39 PM

Wed, 22 March 2006

NDE Week 3B: What Do You Do?

What Do You Do? Guests: Sara Scott. Language Focus: Present tense (do, work), Jobs and workplace.

Direct download: NDE_Week_3B__What_Do_You_Do_.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 10:38 PM

Thu, 2 March 2006

NDE Week 3A: I Have One Child.

I Have One Child. Guests: Richard Chen. Language Focus: Present tense (have), Family members, Adjectives

Direct download: NDE_Week_3A__I_Have_One_Child..mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 10:52 PM

Wed, 18 January 2006

NDE Wkke 2C: Who Is She?

Who Is She? Guests: Pat Miller and Sandy Steele Language Focus: Questions with Who, Negation (doesn't)

Direct download: NDE_Week_2C.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 1:00 PM

Wed, 11 January 2006

NDE Week 2B: Do You Speak Spanish?

Do You Speak Spanish? Guests: Maria Alvarez. Language Focus: Present tense (speak), Languages

Direct download: NDE_Week_2B.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 1:00 PM

Wed, 4 January 2006

NDE Week 2A: Where Is France

Where is France? Guests: Pierre Dubois. Language Focus: Personal pronoun (it), Yes/No questions, Negation (isn't), Countries and nationalities

Direct download: NDE_Week_2A.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 5:46 PM

Wed, 28 December 2005

NDE Week 1C: Is She From Chicago?

Is She From Chicago? Guests: Sara and Chris Scott. Launguage Focus: Present tense plural (be), Personal pronouns (we, they), Contractions

Direct download: VOA-NDE-Week_1C.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 11:53 PM

Wed, 21 December 2005

NDE Week 1B: I'm From Florida

I'm From Florida. Guests: Bob Haris. Launguage Focus:Present tense singular (be), Personal pronouns (he, she), Possessive pronouns (his, her)

Direct download: VOA_-_NDE_-_Week_1_-_Lesson_B.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 5:49 PM

Wed, 14 December 2005

NDE Week 1A: Where Do You Come From?

Where Do You Come From? Guests: Max and Kathy. Present tense (come from), Personal pronouns (I, you), Questions with Where

Direct download: VOA_-_NDE_-_Week_1_-_Lesson_A.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 7:00 PM

Buat Musik Online Lewat Browser

2011-11-04T10:56:00.004+07:00

Membuat musik tidak usah lagi membeli perangkat lunak mahal untuk mengedit, merekam dan 'mixing' musik mereka. Sebab, semua aplikasi dapat diakses melalui browser internet secara gratis, diantaranya sebagai berikut :

1. Otomata

Aplikasi online ini tersedia gratis. Kita dapat menggubah musik hanya dengan mengklik pada sel-sel dalam kotak. Tersedia pilihan sel-sel kiri, kanan, atas atau bawah.

Setelah bermain, lepaskan sel-sel tersebut. Ketika sel-sel menabrak dinding di dalam kotak akan menghasilkan suara tertentu dengan pengaturan tempo dan skala

[silahkan coba, klik disiii]

2. Audio Sauna

Website lain yang mengambil keuntungan dari komputasi awan adalah Audio Sauna. Penggunanya diberikan akses ke alat-alat produksi musik seperti synthesizers, mesin drum dan peralatan produksi audio lainnya.

Tersedia juga keyboard digital, low-pass dan high-pass filter serta saluran mixer

[silahkan coba, klik disini]

3. Audio Tool

Selain dapat langsung mengakses alat-alat produksi digital seperti synthesizer dan mesin drum, Anda bisa merekam vokal dan instrumental melalui aplikasi mikrofon dan mengeditnya di studio digital Audio Tool.

[silahkan coba, klik disini]

4. Tone Matrix

Seperti Otomata, alat ini dirancang menjadi intuitif untuk membangun musik dengan mengklik di ruang jaringan berbeda dalam sebuah kotak. Anda bisa membuat komposisi kompleks seperti yang dihasilkan keyboard biasa.

[silahkan coba, klik disini]

5. Soundation Studio

Digital musik online ini memberi akses ke sejumlah besar produksi. Soundation memiliki sumber daya besar termasuk perpustakaan lingkaran besar serta alat-alat digital untuk mereproduksi suara instrumen akustik.

[silahkan coba, klik disini]

Sekolahnya manusia: sekolah berbasis multiple intelligences di Indonesia

2011-11-03T16:52:00.003+07:00

“BEST PROCESS” – INDIKATOR SEKOLAH UNGGUL

Oleh : Munif Chatib
Konsultan Pendidikan dan Manajemen,
Direktur Sekolah YIMI, Full Day School Gresik

Seorang kawan, Tom J. Parkins, yang akan menamatkan program doktoral di Harvard University meminta bantuan penulis untuk meneliti indikator-indikator sekolah unggul yang ada di Indonesia. Tentu saja penulis dibekali beberapa alat-alat riset, baik yang berupa questioner baku maupun yang harus “disesuaikan” dengan kondisi di Indonesia. Setelah bekerja sama selama 3 bulan, Tom J. Parkins memberikan kesimpulan yang luar biasa!

Indikator sebuah sekolah dapat dilihat dari tiga komponen, yaitu INPUT, PROSES, dan OUTPUT.
Pada komponen INPUT, adalah dititikberatkan pada bagaimana sekolah tersebut menerima siswa baru. Ada dua konsep yang berbeda dalam cara sekolah menerima siswa barunya, yaitu:

Sekolah dengan konsep ”BEST INPUT”

Sekolah yang menganut konsep ”BEST INPUT”, yaitu bahwa siswa-siswa unggul yang diharapkan masuk dan mendaftar di sekolah tersebut dengan cara harus melewati beberapa tes formal dan kognitif. Sekolah tersebut meyakini bahwa keunggulan sekolahnya berdasarkan keunggulan akademik siswa-siswa baru yang lulus tes masuk. Artinya sekolah unggul adalah sekolah yang inputnya unggul.
Ciri-ciri sekolah yang menganut konsep ”BEST INPUT” adalah sebagai berikut:

Menerapkan tes masuk kepada siswa-siswa yang akan mendaftar ke sekolah tersebut. Tes masuk ini bahkan menilai kemampuan akademik siswa dan moral siswa. Diharapkan siswa yang diterima adalah siswa-siswa yang mempunyai nilai akademik positif (baca: pandai) dan moral positif (baca: baik, tidak nakal).
Apabila jumlah siswa yang mendaftar melebihi jumlah kapasitas sekolah, maka siswa yang berhasil diterima adalah hasil sortir dari nilai tes masuk yang tertinggi sampai sebatas jumlah kapasitas yang tersedia. Sedangkan siswa-siswa yang nilainya tidak masuk atau lebih dari kapasitas sekolah tersebut maka dianggap tidak berhasil diterima di sekolah tersebut.
Biasanya sekolah tersebut tidak lagi menganggap perlu tahap proses pembelajaran. Terutama para guru sudah merasa cukup mengajar biasa-biasa saja sebab kebanyakan siswanya pandai-pandai.
Biasanya sekolah tersebut mempunyai guru-guru yang cara mengajarnya konservatif dan tidak kreatif.
Keberhasilan sekolah tersebut pada output lebih disebabkan keunggulan dan minat siswa dan keluarganya untuk dapat berhasil lulus. Sedangkan peranan guru dalam keberhasilan siswanya relatif kecil.

Kritik untuk sekolah ”BEST INPUT”:

Menurut Tom J. Parkins, hampir 99% sekolah di Indonesia dalam model penerimaan siswa barunya menganut ”BEST INPUT”. Hal ini berlaku juga pada sekolah yang dikatakan unggul atau favorit. Hanya beberapa sekolah unggul saja di Indonesia yang sudah meninggalkan konsep ini.

”BEST INPUT” mengkerdilkan fungsi sekolah sebenarnya. Menurut Tom, sekolah pada hakekatnya adalah wadah untuk untuk mengubah siswa-siswa yang belajar di dalamnya untuk dapat berhasil. Jadi sekolah dan guru adalah sebagai ”agen perubah” siswa-siswanya. Sekolah dan guru harus mampu mengubah siswa-siswa yang mempunyai kemampuan akademik dan moral negatif menjadi siswa-siswa yang mempunyai kemampuan akademik dan moral positif. Jadi dapat dikatakan naif sekali apabila sekolah malah tidak menginginkan siswa-siswa yang mempunyai kelemahan yang daftar dan masuk ke sekolah tersebut. Sekolah seperti itu berarti sekolah yang tidak melakukan fungsinya sebagai ”agen perubah”.

Kualitas Tes Masuk pada sekolah BEST INPUT juga perlu dievaluasi. Artinya sangat tidak manusiawi. Menilai kemampuan siswa dengan besarnya angka-angka kognitif pada kualitas pengetahuan yang rendah sangat tidak adil. Penulis pernah menginterview seorang kepala sekolah sebuah SD di Surabaya tentang tes masuk penerimaan siswa baru. Kepala sekolah tersebut mengatakan bahwa di sekolahnya siswa yang dapat diterima di sekolahnya adalah yang mempunyai nilai 75 ke atas. Sedangkan nilai 74 ke bawah tidak diterima. Ketika penulis menanyakan kepada kepala sekolah tersebut tentang sebenarnya apa bedanya nilai 75 dan 74, hanya terpaut 1 digit saja, namun punya dampak yang berbeda. Seseorang tidak dapat masuk sekolah yang diinginkannya hanya karena kurang 1 digit. Tentu saja kepala sekolah tersebut tidak mampu menjawabnya.

Kualitas guru pada sekolah yang menganut konsep ini, biasanya juga rendah atau biasa-biasa saja. Tidak ada yang istimewa pada mutu guru. Bahkan menurut penelitian penulis pada sekolah yang favorit di Surabaya, beberapa guru bahkan dianggap ”gagap teknologi” (baca: gaptek) oleh siswa-siswanya dalam hal teknologi internet. Guru merasa tidak harus berusaha sekuat mungkin untuk mengubah siswanya menjadi pandai dan mengerti banyak ilmu pengetahuan, sebab kebanyakan siswanya sudah pandai. Apalagi biasanya siswa sudah kursus banyak bidang studi di luar sekolah.

Sekolah dengan konsep ”BEST PROCESS”

Sekolah yang menganut konsep bahwa sekolah unggul tidak menitikberatkan pada kualitas akademik siswa-siswa baru yang masuk ke sekolah tersebut. Sekolah model ini dengan suka cita menerima semua siswa dalam kondisi apapun.
Ciri-ciri sekolah yang menganut ”BEST PROCESS” ini adalah sebagai berikut:

Sekolah ini tidak menerapkan tes masuk pada siswa barunya. Biasanya sekolah ini menggunakan sebuah perangkat riset untuk mengetahuai kondisi kemampuan siswa yang masuk ke sekolah tersebut. Perangkat ini dikenal dengan Multiple Intelligence Research (MIR) yang mampu mengetahui banyak dimensi kondisi kemampuan dan kekurangan siswa terutama tentang bagaimana gaya belajar siswa.
Sekolah dan guru pada sekolah ini akan mendapatkan sebuah kenyataan tentang kemampuan akademik dan moral siswa-siswa barunya sangat beragam. Sehingga hal ini merupakan tantangan bagi guru untuk mengubah menjadi ke arah positif. Akhirnya guru-guru di sekolah ini dituntut menjadi ”agen perubah” . Mengubah kondisi akademik dan moral siswa yang negatif menjadi positif.
Menurut Tom J. Parkins, inilah sekolah yang sebenarnya, sekolah yang menerima segala kondisi siswanya. Kemudian kondisi itu dipelajari dan diteliti, lalu dengan data tersebut, para guru mencoba mengembangkan kemampuan siswa-siswanya dengan cara yang berbeda-beda. Sekolah unggul adalah sekolah yang menitik beratkan pada kualitas proses pembelajaran, dan ini ada pada pundak guru, bukan pada kualitas input siswanya.
Guru-guru pada sekolah ini biasanya kreatif, sebab meyakini bahwa gaya mengajar guru tersebut harus disesuaikan dengan gaya belajar siswanya. Tuntutan mengajar dengan pola demikian hanya dapat dilakukan oleh guru-guru yang handal, punya dedikasi dan kompetensi mengajar yang baik. Dengan demikian sekolah yang menerapkan konsep ini, biasanya jadwal pelatihan guru sangat padat. Guru benar-benar diharapkan profesional dan menjadi agen perubah.

Hasil penelitian Tom J. Perkins terhadap sekolah-sekolah di Indonesia adalah sebagai berikut:

INPUT
a. Best Input : 99% Sekolah biasa
b. Best Process : 1% Sekolah unggulPROSES
a. Left Brain : 99% Sekolah biasa
b. Holistic Brain : 1% Sekolah unggul
-
OUTPUT
a. Cognitive Only 99% Sekolah biasa
b. Cognitive (knowledge),
-

Affective (attitude),
Psychomotor (skills)1%Sekolah unggul
-

Riset ini dilakukan pada tahun 2003 dengan meneliti sebanyak 85 sekolah unggul di Jawa Timur, Jawa Tengah dan Jawa Barat.
Kesimpulan dari penelitian tersebut adalah:

Masih sedikitnya (baca: 1%) sekolah di Indonesia yang dikategorikan sekolah unggul, baik pada komponen input, proses, dan output.
Paradigma sekolah unggul di Indonesia masih banyak yang harus dikoreksi dan ditata lagi, terutama pada input penerimaan siswa baru.

———-
Download artikel ini dalam format word document [klik disini]

----------------ooOoo----------------