KUALA LUMPUR: The younger generation’s fondness of using social media applications such as TikTok, Instagram and YouTube to interact and share daily routines has inspired teachers to use these tools in conducting the home-based teaching and learning programme (PdPR).
These tools also keep students from feeling easily bored and unable to flex their limbs while attending sessions through applications such as Google Meet, Telegram and Zoom Meeting, which require them to just sit, listen, and occasionally interrupt when they do not understand something that is being taught.
Beginning last week, Norlida Muhd Pisol, 37, a teacher at Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Tuanku Lailatul Shahreen in Kangar, Perlis chose to use the TikTok application as one of the mediums to teach her history class.
“As many of my students like to use TikTok, I got the idea to use this application as one of the mediums to teach. In short, we need to educate teenagers in the way they prefer,” she told Bernama recently.
Norlida, who has been an educator for the past 15 years, said this learning method was not only easy but also fun, and even students were excited, for example, to give suggestions for song selections to make the PdPR session livelier.
The students’ feedback is that the application is easy to use as they do not need to have large data (internet) compared to other social media applications.
For that purpose, Norlida spent about RM2,000 of her money to buy devices, studio equipment, and to decorate three mini studios in her house so that students do not get bored when watching TikTok.
“I did all this with only one intention — so that students do not lag behind in lessons because for me the subject (history) needs to be taught daily so that they do not forget,” she said.
She takes pride in her TikToknya Cikguida @ ZINSygSakura account which is downloaded and shared not only by her students but also by some students from other schools who are interested in her way of teaching.
One of her students, Nor Arifah Alyaa Mohamad Asri, 16, said she was excited to learn history through TikTok because it was fun, and the historical facts were easier to understand and remember.
“Before this, I was less interested in history but when Cikgu Norlida did it on TikTok like this, it really drew my interest to the subject. I can also replay the complete video with questions and answers according to the chapters,” she added.
Meanwhile, English teacher Emily Syafirah Zamrod, 44, who teaches at a secondary school in Alor Setar, Kedah took the initiative to create ‘English Made Possible with Teacher Em’ on YouTube, to make learning more interesting.
“PdPR uses applications such as ‘Google Classroom’ for direct interaction with students but sometimes teachers have no control over students and they (students) can leave the session at any time when they are bored.
“Therefore, to hold the students’ interest, I took the initiative to create a YouTube channel by producing videos related to the English subject,” she said.
According to her, she can record related videos through YouTube so that students can watch them anytime and anywhere whenever they have internet access.
She was also satisfied when the video was shared by students and teachers from other schools, and until now her YouTube videos have more than 2,200 subscribers with 72,000 views.
In terms of the effectiveness of her videos in improving students’ understanding, Emily Syafirah said there are some students who stated that they have been able to write a good summary in English besides being able to answer all questions in exams after watching the videos.
Following the positive feedback, she is determined to increase the number of videos in her YouTube channel and further increase creativity of the presentation to be more interesting, easy to understand and most importantly not boring. – Bernama
