UNS – The International Office of the Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta held a Webinar entitled ‘A New Normal: What Will the Future Look Like?’ on Wednesday (21/5/2020) morning.
In the Webinar, the UNS International Office, specifically, invites SMA Pradita Dirgantara to discuss the new order in community life after the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic ends.
The two main speakers are invited by the UNS International Office for this occasion. They are Dr. Candra Chahyadi from Eastern Illinois University, the United States of America (USA), and Dr. Ruth Tacneng from Universite de Limoges, France.
Furthermore, the Webinar is also attended by the Rector of UNS UNS Prof. Jamal Wiwoho, Vice Rector for Partnership and Planning Affairs, Prof. Sajidan, the Head of International Office UNS, Irwan Trinugroho, Ph.D., Attaché for Education and Culture of the Indonesian Embassy in France, Prof. Warsito, Attaché for Education and Culture of the Indonesian Embassy in the US, Popy Rufaidah, and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force (KSAU), Marsekal TNI Fadjar Prasetyo.
The Webinar was opened by the Head of Dharma Pertiwi, Nanny Hadi Tjahjanto. In her opening remark in front of the 300 Webinar participants, Nanny Hadi Tjahjanto mentioned that the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting almost all aspects of community life either in economics, social, and culture.
“Globally, COVID-19 has infected almost 5 million people. Many countries are responding by implementing lockdown policy on their region. This leads to various changes in all aspects of our life. Many things changed drastically in our life, be it behavior or trend, which will come,” said Nanny Hadi Tjahjanto.
The drastic change as mentioned by Nanny Hadi Tjahjanto is in line with the statement given by the Marsekal TNI Fadjar Prasetyo, who said that the drastic change in community life is resulting in a higher awareness to wash their hands, wear masks, keep their distance, and staying at home higher.
As the Head of the Indonesian Air Force Unit, Marsekal TNI Fadjar, asserted that viewing from the defense and security during the COVID-19 pandemic standpoint, the Indonesian Air Force is ready to carry out the tasks given by the state to support the government to face the Covid-19 pandemic.
As the first speaker, Dr. Candra Chahyadi delivers his material entitled The Future of Higher Education Industry 4.0. As an Indonesian citizen who worked as an educator in the US, he mentioned 5 (five) main points of the foundation in the higher education sector is responding to the industrial revolution 4.0. Among others is the high opportunity for education, diverse alternative on specialization, lower human interaction, highly competitive environment, and homogeneity in Human Resource (HR).
“Since COVID-19 struck, in the beginning, even though there are regions that implement lockdown policy, people are happy because they can stay connected through teleconference facilities such as Zoom meeting. However, currently, people are no longer happy because they are bored with the Zoom Meeting. In the future, higher education is predicted to be fully implemented through the online system. But I am not quite confident that the lecture will be fully online, because many people consider offline class is better than online class,” he said.
Although on one side there are many people who choose offline face to face lectures, on the other hand, Dr. Candra Chahyadi considers that the costs incurred in online learning are more economical compared to face to face lectures, which is 75%-100% higher than online lecture. The online lecture will also facilitate the students because they are no longer need to go abroad for studying in university/school because all lectures can be accessed easily online.
The online lectures also need to be supported by sufficient network infrastructure such as availability and accessibility of the internet network. This topic was alluded to by Dr. Ruth Tacneng, who said that during the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a significant increase in digital media access. This was observed from the intensity of internet usage in various countries in the world such as Indonesia, Lithuania, South Africa, and the United States.
Another matter observed by Dr. Ruth is regarding the effort to improve online learning that needs to be supported with the use of data science such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. Dr. Ruth also said that in the future, it does not rule out the possibility to combine both face-to-face learning and online learning.
“Later on a learning system known as ‘blended learning’ will emerge, this is the combination between online and classroom face to face lectures,” explains Dr. Ruth. Humas UNS/Yefta