Validity and Reliability RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
ICT. In addition, as the school‟s purpose Al- Azhar BSD has purpose to produce graduates who are able utilize Information
and Communication Technology ICT.
Moreover, the purpose in English seems to be a big deal as well in Indonesia context in which English viewed not as a
second language yet as a foreign language. One of the central issues in all the debates about English has been its purpose in
schools: in short, what it is for. On the one hand, there are people who believe that its primary purpose is functional: to teach the
basic skills of reading and writing, including handwriting, spelling, grammar and punctuation, and to prepare young people
for their adult roles as citizens and employees.
The reviewer hardly to find kind of testing proposed in this curriculum, and another shortage found in this curriculum is
about the materials. It means, there is no short example of the materials that will be taught to the students. And there is no both
gradation and selection of the material in order to make the teacher has it easier to choose the best fit material to be taught.
Here the writer tried to conduct curriculum analysis since it goes in line with the idea proposed by Lawton mentioning that
“the claim of teaching to be a profession lies in the ability and opportunity for teachers to exercise their judgement over the
critical tasks involved in their role, namely curriculum and teaching
.”
2
Regarding to the statement above, the writer tried to figure out the curriculum content used in Al-Azhar BSD by
which then he tried to bring the concept into practice. Here, the utilization of Edmodo micro-blogging for teaching writing. The
notion about the use of Edmodo micro-blogging to be used as a
writing tool which is hoped able to meet the student‟s need and encourage students to write.
In this context, although the utilization of ICT has been proposed in the school vision and mission but it fails into practice
since its integration was merely occurred in teaching learning activity. Teachers seem to fail in taking manifestation of the ICT
utilization due to the inadequacy of skills for using ICT and
2
David Hopkins, A Teacher’s Guide to Classroom Research New
York: McGraw-Hill Education Open University Press, 2008, p. 39.
particular techniques for integrating it into the classroom activities. It is challenging since they should employ instructional
strategies that help students construct meaningful understandings.
Furthermore, according to Anthony, the subject of English aims to provide a multi-layered array of skills and understandings
relating to the English language.
3
And to answer that challenge, one way for schools and classrooms to address complex skills is
by deploying technology in the classroom to support active, student-centered learning. In student-centered classrooms the
goal of education is to create independent, autonomous learners who assume the responsibility for their own learning.
4
In addition, the use of technology in the classroom permits many of the key instructional variables to be placed in the hands
of the learners. Web-enhanced learning assumes that the learner is not a passive receiver of information and uses inquiry or
exploration methodologies to allow the student to generate knowledge. Therefore, teachers should employ instructional
strategies that help students construct meaningful understandings of the information they find.
5
Here the writer proposed that the use of Edmodo micro- blogging which can also be viewed as a social networking
technology has some potential features to be used as a learning tool, and this goes in line with Jacobs mentioning that “Social
networking technologies are powerful tools for enhancing the process of learning to be, of defining our identities. Digital social
networks are now an essential part of the experience of everyone under the age of 20. Digital social networks may be the biggest
game changer in learning and what it means to be educated. And yet the power of social networks to influence the nature of
3
Anthony Adams and Sue Brindley, Teaching Secondary English with ICT New York: McGraw-Hill Education Open University Press, 2007,
p. 51.
4
Steven C. Mills, Using the Internet for Active Teaching and Learning New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc., 2006, p. 3.
5
Ibid., p. 31.
learning and teaching is barely understood by institutional leaders.
6
To sum up, the utilization of social networking technologies such as Edmodo micro-blogging is useful for enhancing writing
activity yet unfortunately its potential features is merely understood by the school authorities. This is the phenomena that
the writer found in Al-Azhar BSD, and it is therefore the present study is hoped to be useful for answering the gap between
school‟s curriculum and teaching learning activity since “teacher research is not an end in itself, but is inextricably linked to
curriculum change and the adoption of new teaching strategies.
7
As the writer had both conducted curriculum analysis and the preliminary research, it is therefore some problems can be
identified with which then tried to be found its solution. Students are used to using internet to access social media like twitter,
facebook, and blog. Students tend to get bored when teacher deliver the material conventionally.
Based on the preliminary research conducted by the writer toward those phenomena he found that, in majority the tenth
grade students are familiar in using not only gadgets but also they are getting used to using blog and have been using the blog such
as wordpress.com, blogger.com, and tumblr.com to get connected with their friends.
The main problems can be identified are; 1 students felt anxious when writing in English, 2 they used gadgets for
writing activity, 3 they thought that writing, especially in English, was such a daunting task to do. Furthermore the
researcher found out the causes of the problem. They are also written in the table below. The result of pre-research activities
was described in table 4.1.
6
Heidi Hayes Jacobs, Curriculum 21 Essential Education for a Changing World Virginia: ASCD, 2010, p. 86-87.
7
David Hopkins, A Teacher’s Guide to Classroom Action Research
New York: McGraw-Hill Education Open University Press, 2008, p. 40.