Educational Technology Theoretical Description

19 this case, the teachers can see who has logged in and what activities that the students have done, or what documents and forums they have accessed. Berking and Gallagher 2013, p. 6 state that, “A Learning Management System LMS is a software package used to administer one or more courses to one or more learners”. In other words, Learning Management System LMS is used by some learners to learn some courses in the same place. Besides, according to Gallagher 2007 describes a Learning Management System LMS as typically web-based system that allows learners to authenticate themselves, register for courses, complete courses and take assessment as cited in Berking Gallagher, 2013, p. 6. It means that, by using this web the learners are allowed to register and join themselves in order to get the material or complete some tasks here. Learning Management System LMS is an enterprise level, a server-based software system used to manage and deliver learning of many types through a web browser, particularly asynchronous e-learning. They also generally include the capability of tracking and managing many kinds of learner s‟ data, especially for the learner s‟ performance. Many training organizations rely on their Learning Management System LMS as a single point of access for all their e-learning contents and student records. They are the keys for enabling technology for- anytime, anywhere access to learning content and administration Berking Gallagher, 2013, p. 6. According to Cobb and Steele 2013, Learning Management System LMS is a software for delivering, tracking and managing training and education. 20 It means that, this software provides some facilities for delivering, tracking and managing some materials to the learners. In addition, Learning Management System LMS is an application that provides a comprehensive set of tools for educators to manage learning resources, administrative functions, assessments, and grading Richard, 2010, p. 2. In this application, there are some tools which help the educators to manage the learning process easily, to give some materials and tasks, and also to assess the learners‟ tasks. The category of Learning Management System LMS includes applications which consist of a variety of names, including virtual learning environments, course management systems, and collaborative learning environments. According to Richard 2010, the different commercial and open-source platforms also vary in terms of capabilities and features p. 2. Based on those definitions about Learning Management System LMS, it could be concluded that learning management system LMS is an application that provides some facilities to support the learning process and it is designed to help teachers manage online educational courses. In this case, students do not only see course content, such as documents, audio and video, but also do activities such as quizzes, questionnaires, and tests, or use communication tools like discussion forums or text and audio chat. One of the applications that provides those facilities is Edmodo. According to Duncan and Chandler 2011; Halm et al. 2012, state that Edmodo is a private social platform which provides a secure space for teachers and students to connect and collaborate as cited in Mathupayas, 2013, p. 2. In 21 this case, students and teacher are linked together in private room and teacher can easily monitor their students‟ interaction. Moreover, according to Cauley “A guide to explain it a ll,” n.d., Edmodo is an educational website that takes the ideas of a social network and refines them and makes it appropriate for a classroom p. 1. On the other hand, Edmodo is a social media platform often described as a Facebook for schools. Edmodo enables exceptionally secure cloud- based collaboration. A teacher, school, or district can manage a system that provides the best features of the cloud while practically eliminating the anxiety that teachers associate with students on the internet easily. Based on those definitions, it can be concluded that Edmodo is a private social network which is designed in a secure learning platform for students and teachers. Edmodo is primarily a tool for within class communication, but it also provides several ways for teachers to communicate with other teachers. In addition, Edmodo is used by the students to share their ideas freely and the teacher can monitor them easily. In this research, Edmodo is used to help the first grade of junior high school students in developing their writing skills through writing descriptive text. The teacher used Edmodo as a teaching medium to learn writing descriptive text because the teacher realized that the students consider writing as difficult skills. Usually, most of the students used Google translate in making English writing assignment. Therefore, the teacher should have an appropriate medium to teach writing and Edmodo is one of the teaching media which is suggested to be used in English teaching. According to Campos and Garaizar 2010; Galan 2011, state that social networks dedicated to education 22 such as Yammer, Edmodo or Ning are suggested to be used in order to support the learning process as cited in Mathupayas, 2013, p. 2. Since Edmodo is still new for the students, the teacher should explain the functions and the procedure of the use of Edmodo in writing descriptive text clearly at the beginning. Remembering that the students are growing up with digital media in this globalization era, most of them are familiar with Internet. Therefore, the teacher has decided to use Edmodo in teaching writing because the design of Edmodo is similar to Facebook where the students are already familiar with. However, Edmodo is more secure for teaching and learning because there are no other websites which are not related to education offered in Edmodo and the students can only enter the room in Edmodo by entering the code which is given by the teacher so that the students can focus in learning. The use of Edmodo is aimed to connect between the teacher and the students even they do not meet directly. Since they are connected to each other, it helps the teacher to help the students in developing the students‟ writing skills because the teacher can give some feedbacks to them directly. Moreover, the students also can communicate to their friends in order to give some comments and suggestions in order to make their writing better.

3. Writing

According to Walvoord 1985, writing is a useful tool for discovering and thinking p. 1. Writing can be a vital connection on which education, culture, and commerce in the society depend. Sampson 1985, p. 26 states that writing might 23 be defined, at a first approximation to communicate relatively specific ideas by means of permanent, visible marks. The term permanent is included in this definition because people would not normally count, for instance, the sign language used by the deaf and mute as an example of writing. More problematic is the term „specific‟. This word is included in order to eliminate cases where ideas are conveyed to be called as writing. Therefore, in 1985, Sampson states the proper definition of writing as a system for representing utterances of a spoken language by means of permanent, visible marks p. 26. Hyland 2002, p. 6 states that writing is a textual product and a coherent arrangement of elements structured according to a system of rules. When people are writing texts, there are a lot of considerations and rules; one of them is that texts should have a structure, they are orderly the arrangements of words, clauses, and sentences. By following the principles which guide the correct arrangement of elements, researchers can encode a full semantic representation of their intended meanings. According to Shannon and Weaver 1963, the function of the idea of the text can be carried contextually, embodying the mechanism view that human communication works by transferring ideas from one mind to another via language as cited in Hyland, 2002, p. 7. It means that people can transfer what people thought through writing. Moreover, based on Richards 2003, writing is the process whereby a person selects, develops, arranges, and expresses ideas in units of discourse p. 28. 24 Hyland 2002, p. 7 states that for many years, writing is virtually an extension of grammar and often used simply to develop a general understanding of language. Grammar is very important in writing because the use of incorrect grammar will deliver a different meaning to the reader. Therefore, researchers should pay attention on what they are writing so that the readers can receive and understand the message which the researcher wants to convey. According to Bazerman 1988 and Hyland 2000, through features such as references to prior research, technical lexis and familiarity with particular argument forms, researchers work to establish a coherent context and enrich propositional meanings as cited in Hyland, 2002, p. 8. In other words, the researchers should have competence towards what they write. Therefore, the readers can get the meaning and the content of the texts easily. Based on Hyland 2002, pp. 8-10, teachers‟ responses about writing in this perspective tends to focus on correction and identify problems in the student‟s control of the language system. Many students can construct syntactically accurate sentences and yet are unable to produce a written text with the correct grammar. Simply, students do not just need to know how to write a grammatically correct text, but how to apply this knowledge for particular purposes and contexts. According to Halliday‟s concept of register, this concept seeks to explain the relationship between text and context and suggests that the situations which determine how text meanings are interpreted differ according to their field, tenor and mode as cited in Hyland, 2002, p. 16. Register consists of sets of texts. People recognize as having meanings in common with each other, and as sharing 25 the same context of situation. A term is used to describe the specific situation in which people use language. Based on Derewianka 1990 as cited by Knapp and Watkins 2005, the model of genre proposed for teaching practice can be drawn as follow: GENRE PURPOSE Tenor Field Mode Register Text Figure 2.2 Derewianka’s Genre Model Source: Knapp Watkins, 2005, p.23 Hyland 2002, pp. 16-17, describes genre as abstract, socially recognized ways of using language. Teaching genres involves increasing learners‟ awareness of the conventions of writing to help them produce texts that seem well-formed and appropriate to the readers. On the other hand, Knapp and Watkins 2005 state that genre is place occasion, function, behavior, and interactional structures: it is very rarely useful to think of it as a kind of „text‟ p. 21. Therefore, genre is classified according to their social purpose and identified according to the stages they move through to attain their purpose. There are five generic processes in writing; describing, explaining, instructing, arguing, and narrating. However, Knapp and Watkins 2005 described that the genre which is related to description 26 is one of the fundamental functions of any language system and one of the first skills emergent language-users learn to control p. 97. According to Mardiyah, Saun, and Refnaldi 2013 descriptive text is a kind of text which has purpose to describe a particular person, place or thing in details p. 281. Based on the some definitions of writing skills the researcher concludes that writing skills referred to writing proficiency because in this research the researcher only focuses on grammar, spelling, minimum requirements, and organization of the text through writing descriptive text. In developing the students‟ writing skills, students should write and revise it repeatedly before it is finally submitted. According to Arroyo 2015 through coursework, students have opportunities to write papers over an extended period of time; such written work certainly attests to students proficiency when given space and time to plan, draft, and revise. Moreover, Krashen 1984 states that there is also evidence that the more students write, the better they make written compositions as cited in Magno, 2008. Hopefully, by revising their writing repeatedly, it helps the students to develop their writing skills through writing descriptive text.

B. Theoretical Framework

This research is discovering the students‟ perception on the use of Edmodo in writing descriptive text. Hopefully, the students can reveal their perception on the use of Edmodo in writing descriptive text so that all of the questions can be answered well. K nowing the students‟ perception on the use of Edmodo in writing descriptive text is important because the findings of this research can be a good