Yasier Fadilah
A student of English Education Department, University of Kuningan, Indonesia
“Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important,” said Bill Gates.
It definitely true, technology is just a tool. Technology is very close to us. It becomes the common thing in our daily life. Indonesian people is an active user of technology in the world. I dare say that we live in a digital generation that has changed our behavior. We can’t stop this change, we have to adapt with it. Not only for young people but also old ones.
Technology has changed many sectors in our life like education, science, politics, economics, finance, etc. Commonly, we use technology like computer, tablet, smartphone, handphone, etc. Especially, we use smartphone or handphone to communicate with each other. We use it almost everyday. Is there someone who doesn’t have handphone?
Technology such as smartphone is an alternative tools to increase our potential. I imagine that one day, anything can be operated by using smartphone. In fact, we have experienced this change. There are Grab, PayTren and Traveloka. Those all can be operated through smartphone. As a user, we shouldn’t let smartphone controls our life. But, we should use it effectively to make our life much better.
Handphone was a great things in the past years. But now, it has been transformed to smartphone. Because smartphone offers many advantages to the user. There are some features and applications that can be installed into smartphone, like messenger apps and social media apps.
Actually, it’s a good opportunity to be smarter by using these apps in the smartphone. Although, it depends on our purpose. But, rather than using messenger just for chit chat, we can use it to discuss an important thing like a school subject or social project. Rather than using social media to post our life problems, we can use it to share a positive information or positive documentation. So that many people will learn together. It will create a desire to collaborate together to make a great positive impact. Then, learning and sharing become easy. Our knowledge becomes beneficial for others. Perhaps, it will change people’s life to be better by doing this act.
Learning is made easy. We are able to be smart. We are smart people. That’s why we have to use smartphone wisely. Because actually we are smarter than smartphone. We need to focus on people potential. We have to know how to be a good smartphone user. Especially for teacher and student.
There are so many things that we can explore when smartphone meets education. Learning outside the class will be exist. The teachers can make a particular group in messenger apps like WhatsApp. They can review the previous subject in that group. Even, they can share videos or pictures that relate to the subject. So that, the students will be easier to remind the subject. If they don’t understand, they will directly consult to the teacher.
In this case, smartphone is not only for teacher and student, but also for parent. There can be an opportunity for parent to monitor the progress of their children. We need a collaboration between teacher and parent. Build a long term relationship until the student graduate from school. Because a good communication is needed, especially in education. When the parents cannot meet the teacher, they can use smartphone to talk about the student progresses.
As we know that there are some conflict between teacher and student in Indonesia. In my opinion, one of the problem is because of bad communication. So, we have to minimize this gap. And smartphone comes to fix it. After that, the distance and communication are not a problem anymore. So, you are more than just a smart phone!
