Institutions Visited:
- Radio Nikoya FM, Banda Aceh
- CCC (Communication and Cultural Center), Banda Aceh
Both are located in Jalan Nikmat No. 12, Keutapang II – Darul Imarah
Aceh Besar, NAD
Phone +62 651 7433 233
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Purpose of
Mission:
To train local radio announcers in the use of information and communication technology and operating software and Internet connection available at the Communication and Cultural Centre (CCC) including Desktop Publishing, Newsletter making, Weblog Creating, Internet research and Web designing.
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The Training:
The training took place from 13 to 17 January, 2007 in the Communication and Cultural Centre (CCC) in Keutapang near Banda Aceh and lasted from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, with breaks for lunch and prayer. Two staffs of Radio Nikoya FM acted as local committee.
I conducted the training for its first three days with three different topic each day: Desktop Publishing, Newsletter making and Weblog creating; While day four, the training on Internet Research was conducted by Roesmanto of Nurul Fikri Foundation and day five on Web Development was conducted by Sirojul Munir of Nurul Fikri Foundation.
To prepare for the training, I produced training kits for the ten participants, consisted of the training agenda, handouts, evaluation form, CI Newsletters, CI Book, notebook and pen as well as a CD containing the soft copies of the handouts, the training pictures and the software for individual learning. Copied CDs were given to both Radio Nikoya FM and CCC future students and trainers to utilize.
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The Participants:
The background of the participants varied but eight of them were radio announcers from Banda Aceh and other cities in NAD including two radio announcers of Radio Nikoya FM, while two of the participants were representatives of the CCC.
The list of participants for the video training:
| No | Name | Representative | City |
| 1. |
Abu Bakar |
Radio Nikoya FM |
Banda Aceh |
| 2. |
Andre Taufan |
Radio Cindy FM |
Langsa |
| 3. |
Dede Riyadi |
Radio Fatali FM |
Blangpidi |
| 4. |
Khairul Razi |
Radio Dalka FM |
Meulaboh |
| 5. |
Maman Firman Syah |
Radio AS FM |
Sigli |
| 6. |
Muhammad Baiquni |
CCC |
Banda Aceh |
| 7. |
Muhammad Zulfahri |
Radio Gipsi FM |
Langsa |
| 8. |
Mustafa Saputra |
CCC |
Banda Aceh |
| 9. |
Teuku Andiansyah |
Radio Baiturrahman FM |
Banda Aceh |
| 10. |
Van Alvin |
Radio Nikoya FM |
Banda Aceh |
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Training Content:
The training that took place at the CCC offered the participants basic knowledge of the use of ICT for the benefit of their selves and also the institutions where they work.
· Day 1: Introduction to Desktop Publishing
The participants were introduced to the software that would be used, Macromedia Freehand MX, basic principles of design, types of design layouts, 10 ways to combine texts and pictures, articles and advertising design layouts. At the end of the day, approximately two-hour time was provided for the participants to practice the knowledge the learned in class by making simple designs of articles and/or advertising by their own.
· Day 2: Making Newsletter: the application of Desktop Publishing
On the second day, the participants applied further the ability of operating Macromedia Freehand MX. After very short and brief explanation about the steps to take to make a simple four-page newsletter, ten participants were divided in to two group of five. The groups started making the newsletter after lunchtime to finish their group newsletters in four hours time. Each group chose a group leader to delegate the job for each group member to take pictures of the group members, to make the forewords for the newsletter, to create logo of the newsletter, to write articles and to search pictures and articles in the Internet. At the end of the day, the two groups successfully produced two simple four-page newsletters.
· Day 3: Creating Weblog in the internet
During day 3, the participants were shortly and briefly introduced to Weblog and they directly registered and obtain Weblog accounts from a free Weblog provider, WordPress.com. After getting their individual accounts, the participants started polish and furnish their own Weblog uploading their personal pictures and articles, contact details as well as managing their dashboard including the skin template selection, sidebar widgets arrangements and how to appear their Weblog in Google search engine. The participants were also explained the side functions of Weblog as Interactive Curriculum Vitae for them.
· Day 4: Using the Internet for research purposes
The participants were taught how to optimize the use of the Internet for the purpose of research, to get individual email account, and to create group email to keep each other in contact. At the end of the day, participants had created their own group email through Yahoo group email and they created one group email to keep them stay in touch with each other after the training ended. Furthermore, the Internet research practice gave opportunities for the participants to make random research through the search engine, for example searching for the Weblog the created the previous day.
· Day 5: Developing and designing website
On the last day, the participants of the training learned how to operate software, NVU HTML Editor Software) to create a website and they also learned how to develop and to manage the contents of their websites. Finally, they had created their own individual websites and they launched it through Geocities to be searchable in its search engine, for instance geocities.com/muhammad.baiquni
At the end of the day, the ten participants were given certificates of attendance of the five-day training on the use of ICT for radio announcers. ___________________________________________________________________________
Training Methodologies:
The goal of the training was to strengthen the knowledge and the abilities of participants to optimize the use of the Internet connection facilities in their institutions, to introduce design software for creative purpose to make newsletters, brochures, flyers for creative events and programmes, and to improve their creative sense to utilize the Internet for promotion purpose. Each day of the training, participants produced different upshot according to the topic-of-the-day. What they produce on the training are as follows:
1. Day 1: 10 designs of articles and advertisings
2. Day 2: 2 simple four-page newsletters
3. Day 3: 10 Weblog addresses
4. Day 4: 10 Yahoo group emails
5. Day 5: 10 individual websites
Proactive and creative learning was a principle methodology of the training. The trainers guided directly the steps taken through a projector, while students directly followed the steps in their own computers during the lecturing session. It is taken so that the student could directly practice; it is also the reason why the number of the participants was only ten to fit the number of the computers available at the CCC. It is found out that it is the most effective way to learning about ICT. During the practical sessions, participants were given flexibility to practice what they had learned in the lecturing session. They were allowed to explore their own proactive and creative thinking at the same time given intensive assistance of the trainers for consultations, ideas and brainstorming to further explore their works. The training participants were enforced to learn one different topic in the five-day training and produce simple outcomes each day as the temporary results of their learning process to further practice and furnish after the training programme.
Participants were also given free time after the scheduled training hours to practice by themselves at the CCC for about an hour or two. Besides that, they were also given time for consultations outside the training sessions so that they could get more information on the training materials to later develop the skills and knowledge by self-learning and –practice.
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Difficulties Arising:
There were several difficulties arising during the training, from the limited number of computers to the Internet connection speed.
First, the computer availability at the CCC did not fit the number of the participants. There were only 8 computers that could be used for 10 participants and eventually 2 participants of CCC were using laptop during the training. Besides that, one computer did not work properly so one participant who worked on that computer dealt with multiple computer shutdowns everyday. There was also a computer CD-Rom that couldn’t read a CD during the installation so the software used for Desktop Publishing should be installed using a Flash Disk while another computer couldn’t read Flash Disk.
Second, the Internet connection at the CCC was a way too slow all of a sudden when participants uploaded pictures and articles at the same time during the making of Weblog and also on the fourth and the fifth day when participants used the Internet connection very often. This problem slowed down the speed of the learning process. Thus, participants should upload pictures and files in turn, couldn’t be done at the same time.
Third, there were two times electricity power shutdowns during the training. The first happened on the first day that lasted for about five hours. The participants couldn’t concentrate on the training as they could directly practice as the trainer taught. For about five hours there was only theory learning without practice. Therefore, the training agenda was rescheduled and ended quite late. The second happened on the last day for about only 10 minutes but it quite distracted the training process, participants stopped the practice as the power shut down.
Fourth, the air conditioning of the room did not enough to cool down the room, the 10 participants and the trainer. It distracted the concentration of the participants and the trainer as they kept sweating in the room. To get over this, some windows were opened and a fan was turned on to make the room more comfortable during the learning process.
Fifth, the room space and room size were not that appropriate to conduct training with more than 8 participants. One participant sat separately from others and didn’t get convenient projector to follow the lecture, while one participant sat too close to the projector and viewed the projector too close. The room size is too small to locate the projector to get maximum vision that was properly seen by all participants from the front row to the back.
Furthermore, participants also filled evaluation forms. Even though the comments were basically positive but most of the participants suggested longer duration of the training and asked for continuing training programme that offered higher learning of the training topic. Additionally, some participants who came from outside Banda Aceh and stayed in the accommodation provided during the training programme commented to look for another more convenient accommodation for the next training programme.
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Findings:
· There is a vast enthusiasm of the participants to advance their design skills, whether it’s for making newsletters or promotion contexts in terms of the improvement of their ICT knowledge. It was shown by the eagerness of the participants to take advantage of the training session to practice and to make design experiments by their own. Even they took spare time to practice outside the class sessions.
· Most students wished further training programmes to advance the knowledge they gained in this training and intensive training programme on a specific topic in longer period of training duration.
· Some participants admitted that it was the first time for them to work with the Internet, to work on graphic design and how to optimize the use of Internet connection.
· Training programmes should have provided two days time for each topic given; one day for theoretical knowledge transfer and another one day for further practical experiences.
· There is a distinct basic skill between the participants who came from Banda Aceh and other cities outside Banda Aceh that should have been identified earlier through a skills evaluation form to later adjust the methodology of the training.
· Below is the overall scoring of what participants thought towards some points:
| Desktop Publishing | Newsletter Making | Weblog Building | Internet Using | Web Desinging | |
| Purpose clarity | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Materials usefulness | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Handouts helpfulness | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Speed of the lectures | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Duration of the training | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Facilities satisfactory | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Most useful materials | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Trainer’s performance | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
Rate: 1 = Not good, 2 = Fair, 3 = Good
Evaluations of the participants were mostly positive. Participants knew the purpose of the training clearly and they also figured out that the materials of the training were useful for their practices
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Main Results:
· Ten participants learned the basic level of graphic design using Macromedia Freehand MX through one-day training on Desktop Publishing and then directly applied the knowledge on the second day by making group Newsletter. They also created individual Weblog in the Internet besides learning how to conduct Internet research and how to design and develop a Website of their own.
· On the first day, ten participants could successfully create their own simple designs of news articles or advertising in form of brochures or flyers. So there were ten designs that were created by the ten participants on the first day training.
· On the second day, ten participants were divided into two groups of two to create simple design of group newsletter. At the end of the day. The two groups successfully designed two simple four-page newsletters.
· On the third day, ten participants created individual Weblog in the Internet that is later used for their personal purpose to promote their selves, their radios, their cities, etc.
· On the fourth day, ten participants created group emails though Yahoo Groups! to keep them in touch with each other after the training programme.
· On the last day, ten participants designed their individual sites that were launched in Geocities.
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Recommendations:
· Maintaining contacts with the participants of this training and to follow their skills development on the materials trained so that whenever conducting continuing training programme on the specific topic or intensive training programme, we could invite them again to join the training so that they can upgrade their basic skills.
· Conducting continuing training programmes on the same topics for the same participants could give good quality outcomes for the training series. The next training could be organized in every two months regarding intermediate and advance training levels, so that the real results could be barely seen.
· Advancing the participants of this training means to produce new trainers that could later train other participants in their networks as they have got their skills and they are ready to be trainers for new participants. By giving them training for trainers programme, the current ten participants are prepared to conduct their own training programmes for another knowledge transfer in order to produce 100 more trainers.
Some improper computers at the CCC should be repaired and the Internet connection speed should be increased to facilitate better the upcoming training programmes held at the CCC. Besides those matters, to anticipate another power shutdown by PLN, CCC should prepared proper generator set to support the power when the electricity shuts down. This will affect the entire flow of the training, as we experienced five-hours power shutdown when we couldn’t do anything but talking about theoretical matters while the training required direct practice while guided by the trainers.
