IAF

Digitalization in Education Workshop

The Workshop on Digitalization in Education (Malaysia) targets participants who come from Non-Governmental Organizations throughout Kuala Lumpur and Selangor. We also have international students as participants from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. The Covid-19 pandemic makes us realize the importance of digitalization in education – where we can see there are still a lot of weaknesses in implementing online learning in Malaysia.

Among the activities that we do was a discussion of the reality of digital education in Malaysia. It includes the discussion on how the government should address the issues accordingly. For example, they should help needy students by giving them gadgets to participate in online learning. The accessibility of the Internet in Malaysia also one of the most pressing issues during the pandemic. The story of Veveonah; a student in Sabah that needs to climb the tree and stays in the forest is an example of the connectivity problem in Malaysia.

I have shown how the Khan Academy (https://www.khanacademy.org/) manages to give such a big impact on the digitalization of education. With his limited resources, the founder of the academy manages to revolutionize the meaning of free digital education. It proves that with high determination and support, one can gives such a big impact in the world. I hope the story of Khan will inspire the participants to do something innovative and helpful in terms of digital education.

What is the obstacle that we need to remove before talking about digital education? Who is the main stakeholder? A questions that I asked the participants.

Afterward, this workshop also discussed what projects can be done to help digital education in Malaysia. There were a lot of ideas from the participants – including creating a YouTube channel, website, or even tutoring system. On the next day, the discussion began with the question of how we can promote digital literacy in Malaysia? Most of the participants think it needs to be done immediately, and then no one should be left behind by being competent in the world of digital. The completion of the discussion end and conclude, it needs to start with the education system. The participants also held a forum among themselves, and finally, a call-to-action session was conducted to determine the direction of the participants.