INTRODUCTION

Educators have been trying to modularize and share learning content since the introduction of online learning. However, they have met several difficulties in both cultural and technological aspect, in order to support learning through the use of reusable, stand-alone, digital assets. Fortunately the advancement of technology especially in web platform (Web 2.0) provides tools for packaging and delivering web-based educational content in easier way. O’Reilly (2005) states six core competencies of the Web 2.0 environment:

· services, not packaged software,

· an architecture of participation,

· cost-effective scalability,

· re-mixable data source and data transformations,

· software above the level of a single device, and

· harnessing collective intelligence.

O’Reilly put special emphasis on the last item, explaining how it seems the central principle behind the success of the giants born in the Web 1.0 era who have survived to lead the Web 2.0 era appears to be that they have embraced the power of the web to harness collective intelligence. The move by some large universities towards digitization and open sharing of content indicates that value is not strictly tied only to content transfer, but rather value comes from a particular learning community that uses content in creative, interactive, and meaningful ways. And this requires more participation, collaboration, and flexibility in creation, adaptation, and use of learning materials. Blogs is one of web 2.0 platform that can be used for educational purposes, for example:

· A group of bloggers using their individual blogs can build up a corpus of interrelated knowledge via posts and comments. This might be a group of learners in a class, encouraged and facilitated by a teacher, or a group of relatively dedicated life-long learners.

· Teachers can use a blog for course announcements, news and feedback to students.

· Blogs can be used with syndication technologies (below) to enable groups of learners and teachers to easily keep track of new posts.

· Blog can be used as a repository platform, to keep and share the learning object material

WEB 2.0 PLATFORM SELECTIONS

A blog is a system that allows a single author (or sometimes, but less often, a group of authors) to write and publicly display time-ordered articles (called posts). Readers can add comment to posts to review, criticize, or praise the content. For blog platform, I have two option of blog system although there are a lot of free blogs providers in the market. Those two platforms are Blogspot and WordPress. Each software has both advantages and disadvantages. After several considerations, I have choosed WordPress as my blog platform. I prefer to choosed WordPress because it has 2 very important features that Blogger doesn’t yet support. The first feature; The WordPress can be set up to automatically ping the RSS and blog feed directory every time we make a new post. This feature is very important to raise the traffic and beside that, backlinks to our site is almost automatically to be created as well. The second feature and the most important feature that is needed for this project; The WordPress allows the use of categories. Categories are a good way to improve the structure of our site both for human visitors and for the search engines. I need this to classify my blog content into several major sciences.

SUBJECT SELECTION

This blog will consist of open content such as learning object material which is intended for the first and second semester sciences major students. Learning object is a shareable and reusable. The blog visitor or the blog reader can use or download the learning object for free. The learning material has several characteristics:

· Self-contained and ‘stand-alone’, so that it can be used independently or in combination (aggregated) with other objects as required.

· Available on demand across different learning systems.

· Containing sounds and/or still images, video clips, and simulations.

· Containing visualizations not exceeding 3 minutes of viewing.

· Designed for 30 minutes of study time.

For packaging format, we use internet standard multimedia content- Flash media (swf file). The learning material itself were taken from my previous project in PANDORA PROJECT (A Repository of Reusable Learning Object for Distance Learning in Asia ). In this project I was assigned as flash programmer. This project was a collaborative works that involved five open universities in Asia: Universitas Terbuka (UT) in Indonesia; Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University (STOU) in Thailand; Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) in Pakistan; and the Phnom Penh International University (PPIU) in Cambodia. The lead institution is UT. This blog will also consist of simple instruction about how to embed this object into some web pages.

CONCLUSION

And the last, this blog is intended to be a model for the implementation of Web 2.0 technology for education purposes. It promotes the trends of open, shareable, and reusable contents. I really hope that the visitor will take advantages from this site and willing to contribute and share their learning content as well. The blog can be accessed at http://lom.dimasap.web.id . The visitors are also permitted to register to the site and become the contributor of my site.

INTRODUCTION

Learning is becoming increasingly easier due to the arrival and the evolution of many new technologies and a numerous of software. Web 2.0 is considered as the second generation of internet usage and Web 1.0 is the first generation. No longer getting one-way communication on the web; now Web 2.0 is about constructing knowledge collaboratively on the web. Web 2.0 is engaging and active compared to the passive and un-engaging Web 1.0 applications which ideal for the virtual learning. This kind of learning are made possible through advancements in technology. Web 2.0 applications (Facebook, MySpace, Blogs, Wiki’s, iGoogle, Flickr, RSS Feeds and YouTube. Etc) are effective teaching and pedagogical tools. These provide a platform for social networking through a medium that allows for sharing, informing, communicating and interacting. Web 2.0 requires active user’s participation in creating content (user generated content). In learning theories, importance of active participation, critical thinking, social presence, collaborative learning and two way communications are also underlined for quality learning (Beldarrin, 2006).

This paper is intended to give an example for how wiki could be implemented to build an online community. Building online learning community is one of the examples of web 2.0 adoption for educational purposes. A constructivist learning process occurs in online community because the characteristics of online community have similarities with the constructivism learning characteristic, for example:

· The member of the community is actively involve

· Online communities usually have democratic environment

· The content is user/member centered and the activity of the member are interactive

· Each member is encouraged to be autonomous and responsible. The community leader only serves as a moderator who manages and filter the flows of information (netiquette , unsolicited content)

WEB 2.0 PLATFORM SELECTIONS

Wiki is a system that allows one or more people to build a large collection of knowledge using process creating and editing pages. The content of knowledge is limited to specific subject that is being a main concern of the online community that builds a wiki site. The most famous wiki is Wikipedia with more than four million entries in four years. There are numerous hosting services that provide wiki service to the Internet user. This service can be obtained free of charge or pay a certain amount of cost depends on the features offered. Nevertheless, wiki services that are most frequently used by regular user are wikispaces (http://www.wikispace.com) and wiki-site (http://www.wiki-site.com ). Wiki-site is a wiki provider that offers wiki service that has the same engine with the well known wiki system – Wikipedia. Wikispaces launched in March 2005 and own by Tangient LLC is a hosting service based in San Francisco, California. Wikispaces provides free basic wikis with WYSIWYG editing to the general public under a Wikispaces sub domain. Wikispaces provides intuitive and easy to understand user interface. This is the main reason why I used Wikispaces for my wiki project.

SUBJECT SELECTION

Subject selection is the important point when want to build an online community. An online community can be formed when there are a number of people who have the same hobby, concern and interest to a specific subject, topic, or a problem and want to group so they can share and build collection of knowledge related to their interest. For this project, I choose Moodle LMS as a specific subject for my wiki. Moodle is one of popular open sourced based LMS (Learning Management System) and it is gaining popularity right now. I have experience using various LMS platforms from commercial to open source base and I found that Moodle is an interesting one. It is free and rich features comparable with commercial LMS. It is also easy to deploy and manage, have simple and easy to understand interface. For the people who have programming skills, Moodle has program library so they can modify, make a modules to enrich its features. And the best thing is its scalability; it fits from 10 to 100 thousand users. I would recommend Moodle for those institutions who want to start e-learning services but only had limited resources (limited funds, etc). Of course, this is based on my subjective opinion after trying various LMS. But unfortunately just the same with another open source software, it lacks witch vendor support. Some potential user may have to think twice before deploying a Moodle or migrating another LMS to Moodle because of that problem. By using a wiki, I hope I can make a simple solution to that problem by replacing ‘vendor support’ to ‘community support’. This wiki will act as a knowledge based management system so the community member can have an online resources repository which can help them solving their problem related to Moodle administration and usage. Internet user who have interest in Moodle can join the wiki by visiting http://wiki4moodle.wikispaces.com. I also provide access to Moodle site (http://learning.dimasap.web.id ). User who have interest in Moodle but do not have enough resources to make their own Moodle site can use this site for free.

CONCLUSION

Collaborative is the main key to make an online community to become more attractive and can survive in the Internet world when specific topic and tools are provided to extend the topic and to transform to other topics that are still relevant. The following are additional key points that are needed to build a good online community:

1. Ease of use. Rather than displaying a complex web page, wiki offers simple and easy to use text editor for day to day use.

2. Rule. Every community needs rules, including an online community. Make the rules simple and clear, and does not tempt people to intentionally violate it.

3. Extend it with real content. It is easier to join an existing conversation rather than make a new one. Build a community with a clear and directed topic.

REFERENCES

Parker, K. R., & Cao, J. T. (2007). Wiki as a Teaching Tool. Interdisciplinary Journal of Knowledge and Learning Objects , 3.

Usluel, Y. K., & Mazma, S. G. (2009). Adoption of Web 2.0 tools in distance education. International Journal of Human Sciences , 2, 89-98.

Learning process that occurs in individual is aiming to get skills, abilities and knowledge. The success indicator of learning process learning can be seen in student’s achievement that qualitatively should be better than the previous state. In order to achieve student’s learning achievement as expected, it is necessary to note several factors that affect learning performances, including: internal and external factors. Internal factors are contained in students, such as: intelligence, talent, interest and motivation. While external factors are factors that come outside of the student, such as experience, family background, school environment and so on.

The development of student’s motivation in the learning process can be referred as a way to improve learning. With motivation, students are encouraged to learn to increase their performance to acquire new KSA. ARCS model approach (Keller, 1987) can be used as motivational design approach when designing e-learning.  Attention is one from four motivational categories described in this model.  For me, gaining student’s attention is basically method or strategies how to make students focus, prepare and ready for information transfer which enable information processing and storing to student’s long term memory. But based on my observation in e-learning environment, gaining attention efforts are problematic.  In face to face environment, teachers can directly monitor their students (activities, performance, etc) and make it relatively easier for them to act in order to intercept the degradation or to keep and enhance student’s attention. Teacher’s action can be jokes, direct question, etc. These are rarely happen in online environment. In fact, I think it almost impossible to directly monitor the changes. In connection with my experience, I found that a lot of  UT’s students are not interested in e-learning  or leave in the middle e-learning session although we offer this services free of charge and gives bonus point to the final grade ( In UT,  tutorial student is not mandatory and only for student’s learning support services. They can get bonus point when joining the tutorial and have good performances the tutorial but if they do not join the tutorial, their final grade are taken from final exam). These facts showed that teachers failed to maintain student’s attention.  Fortunately these problems can be reduced because we continuously improve the system and provide workshop for online teacher.

There are three main concepts under attention category in ARCS model; Arousal, Curiosity, Boredom.  Arousal is human emotional /psychological state or level that refer to how ready people to engage in a behavior. Study shown that people can get optimum learning results when their arousal level is located in the middle of continuum curve while the learning efficiency will degrade when their arousal level is located in both low and high state.  In relation with my experiences, I cannot focus to lecture when I feel sleepy (low level). Usually, I do several activities to get my level back to normal. These activities can be: go to toilet to wash my face, make little physical exercise in the class or hearing teacher’s jokes (some teachers are aware with their student’s level of arousal and will do everything to keep the arousal level in the middle, but some other might not). For the example of high level of arousal, I need to get calm down when doing quizzes because if I’m the middle of panic (high level of arousal), I cannot remember what I have studied before and cannot answer the questions. In online environment providing visual aid, humorous graphics will help to increase arousal level and providing clue or sample for upcoming quizzes or assignments will help to reduce student’s anxiety (lowering arousal level).

Curiosity is probably the main factor why people become the most dominant creature on earth.  Because of curiosity, human have tendency to explore unknown. People discover, learn, and create things to make life easier. So what is curiosity anyway?  Based on my perception, curiosity can be defined as desire to know or need for knowledge. Curiosity is definitely one of several factors that influence learning although there were debates to decide whether curiosity is a motive or drive. Now new question arise, is curiosity positive influences or negative influences for learning? Now we back to the question why human need to learn. In nature and in basic condition human need to learn in order to survive and somehow curiosity is not good for survival because curiosity can place human in dangerous conditions. At first, learning and curiosity might look oppose one to another but to recognize dangerous conditions, human engages learning  then to have drive to learn it needs curiosity.  In the end, curiosity combines with tendency to learn is what teachers want and looking for from their students.  In connection with creativity, I think the connection is clear; Creativity is curiosity to explore innovative thoughts.

According to Wikipedia, boredom is an emotional state experienced during periods lacking activity or when individuals are uninterested in the opportunities surrounding them.  This can be associated with failures of attention. Although boredom may reduce learning outcome but sometimes this can be used in motivational design strategies. From my own perspective, boredom can enhance productivity and encourage creativity.  For example in my workplace, I have to do several tasks repetitively every days and this make me bored. Because I’m a programmer then I found a creative way, I created a program that will do these tasks automatically so I can do another tasks in the same time. Boredom also can be used as a signaling tool when I need to work, rest and play.  In connection with learning process, I think teacher can ‘play’ with student’s boredom level to maintain their attention. By knowing student’s boredom level, teacher can create strategies to present the learning material. The key knows when to start and when to stop. Which concepts are relevant to the topic? I think all of these concepts are relevant because these are interconnected and influence each other. By studying and understanding these concepts will provide me good foundation how to maintain and enhance student’s motivation

What the Research Says

I used attention, curiosity, arousal, boredom, and e-learning design as keywords when searching articles from Google and I found several interesting articles and concepts. First, lesson must gain and sustain learner’s attention. Berlyne (1965) and Kopp (1982) in their research provided an illustration the importance of implementing various tactics to gain and enhance learner motivation. These tactics can be the use of interesting graphics, animation that introduces incongruity or conflict, mystery or unresolved problem to arouse second level of curiosity and other techniques to stimulate sense of inquiry. Another important aspect is variability, No matter how interesting these tactics are, when being used repeatedly, these will lead to boredom and learner will lost their interest. Cheung et al. (1999) in their study implemented ARCS model in the instructional design of distance learning program resulting decrease in students drop out rate.

Recently, several studies about arousal (e.g., Currin, 2003; Dirkx; Hara & Kling, 2000; Wang & Kang, 2006) have shown the central role of arousal to any learning efforts and outcomes, especially in online learning. Another study (e.g., Kort, Reilly & Picard, 2001) also reveals the importance of the emotional states of learners and its relationship with effective learning.  Isen (2000) found several findings that underscore the important effects of emotions on learning.

Curiosity can be divided into two kinds: sensory curiosity and cognitive curiosity. Sensory curiosity occurs when physical factors attracts learner’s attention. These factors can be; change in voice volume, tones, etc, while cognitive curiosity is a desire for more knowledge (cognitive structure modification).  Most educators would agree that curiosity support learning and fostering attributes of curiosity in learner is an important task. But it is probably easier to state rather than to accomplish.  Based on instructional design approach, Arnone (2003) proposed strategies to foster these attributes. These strategies are:

1. Curiosity as a Hook. Use curiosity as primary motivator at the beginning of lesson
2. Conceptual Conflict. Introduce a conceptual conflict when possible. Learners will feel compelled to explore the conflict until it is resolved. When the student has resolved the conceptual conflict, he/she will sense a feeling of satisfaction.
3. An Atmosphere for Questions. Create learning atmosphere that make learners feel comfortable to raise questions or expressing their thoughts.
4. Time. Allow adequate time for topic exploration.
5. Choices.  Give learners options to choice topic within subject area.
6. Curiosity-Arousing Elements. Introduce one or more of the following elements into a lesson to arouse curiosity: Incongruity, Contradictions, Novelty, Surprise, Complexity, and Uncertainty.
7. The Right Amount of Stimulation. Be aware about the amount of stimulation may affect learner’s arousal.
8. Exploration. Encouraging learn through exploration.
9. Rewards. Exploration is self-rewarding; study has shown that give extrinsic rewards to intrinsically motivating may reduce their interest in future activity.

10.  Modeling. Model curiosity. Ask questions. Engage in specific exploration to resolve a question posed, and demonstrate enthusiasm.

Conclusion

I think Attention category in ARCS model is very important. Students need to be ready before they start to learn. Their curiosity need to be gained and enhanced because curiosity supports learning. It also needs to be emphasized that people learn effectively when their arousal level is located in the middle of continuum curve.  In order to keep their arousal level, stimuli to the learner should be given wisely. Too few stimuli will lower learner arousal level (sleepy, bored, etc). Too much stimuli will increase learner arousal level which can increase learner anxiety and can reduce learning effectiveness as well. I don’t have experiences in teaching and only have background in computer programming. Before this I only expected that problem in our e-learning system that I have mentioned before are mostly caused by technical problem (students don’t know how to operate e-learning system). Now I realized that we might have motivational design flaws in our e-learning system. By studying this subject much further I hope that I can contribute to the improvement of UT’s E-learning system.