Learning Media

TEACHING MEDIA

1.        Definition of Learning Media

The word media comes from the Latin “medius”, which literally means the middle, intermediate, or introduction. Association of Education and Communication Technology (AECT) (1986: 43) gives the definition of media as the transmission system (material and equipment) are available to convey a particular message. Another opinion suggests that the media is a tool that is used to convey the message of a communicator to communicant (Suranto, 2005: 18). While Trini Prastati (2005: 3) gives the meaning as any media that can distribute information from the recipient to information resources.

Heinich and colleagues (1996: 8) defines media as an intermediary that transmits information from the source to the recipient. Thus television, movies, photos, radio, audio recordings, images are projected, printed materials, and the like are classified as medium. If the media carry messages or information that the intent and purpose of teaching the media is called a medium of learning.

More specifically in Trini Prastati Briggs (2005: 4) says physical media as a means to convey the content or learning materials. Infrastructure can be a book, a tape recorder, tapes, video cameras, films, slides, photographs, images, graphics, television, and computers. Agree with the above opinion, Qiyun Wang & Cheung Wing Sum (2003: 217), states that in the context of education, the media commonly referred to as a learning facility that brings the message to the learner. Media can also be said as forms of communication both printed and audio-visual and equipment, so that the media can be manipulated, seen, read and heard.

Thus it can be said as a medium of learning tools graphic, photographic, or electronic, that can be used to capture, process, and reconstruct visual or verbal information. Media is a source of learning components or physical vehicle containing instructional material in the students' environment that can stimulate students to learn.

So in conclusion, media education is the medium that carries the information or messages as a source of learning, whether in the form of software and hardware. Examples of educational media are drawings, photographs, sketches, diagrams, charts / charts, graphs, cartoons, posters, radio and others.

2.        Various Kinds of Learning Media

Bretz media divide into three kinds of media that can be heard (audio), media that can be seen (video), and media that can move. Visual media are grouped into three, namely visual images, line (graphics), and verbal symbols. In addition to the media classifies into three types above, Bretz also divide the media into media transmission and recording media (Trini Prastati, 2005: 9-10).

Schramm (1977: 21) distinguishes the media according to the number of audience it serves to be: mass, classical, and individual. Which include mass media to include television, radio, and internet. Media for classical is OHP, blackboard, slides, videotape, poster, photograph, and others. While the individual media can be hand out, phone, and Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI).

Heinich (1996: 8) describes in his study media includes: nonprojected media, projected media, audiomedia, motionmedia, computer mediated instruction, computer-based multimedia and hypermedia, radio and television media. Nonprojected media such as photographs, diagrams, displays, and models. Projectedmedia consists of slides, filmstrips, overhead Transparencies, and computer projection. Audiomedia the form of cassettes and compact discs, while motionmedia the form of video and film.

Azhar Arsyad (2007: 29) classify learning meda into four groups, namely media technology results print, audio-visual media technology results, the results of computer technology media, and print media combined results and computer technology.

While Seels and Glasgow (1990: 181-183) based on the development of advanced electronic technology to share media, ie traditional media and media technology with cutting-edge technology. Media with traditional technologies include: (a) projected a silent visual projection of an opaque (non see-through), overhead projections, slides, filmstrips, and (b) are not projected in the form of visual images, posters, photographs, charts, graphs, diagrams, exhibits , board info; (c) consist of recording audio discs and tapes; (d) multimedia presentation is divided into multi-slide plus sound and image, (e) the projected dynamic visual form of films, television, video, (f) the print media such as textbooks, modules, programmed texts, workbooks, journals, newsletters, and hand out; (g) including puzzle games, simulation, board games; (h) can be a model of reality, specimen (sample), manipulative (map, miniature, doll).

While the media with latest technology can be divided into: (a)-based telecommunications media such as telekonfrence and distance learning; (b) consists of a microprocessor-based media CAI (Computer Assisted Instruction), Games, Hypermedia, CD (Compact Disc), and Web-Based Learning (Web Based Learning).

Media are more actual classification proposed by Lee & Owen (2004: 55-56) with eight types of delivery media. Eighth media are instructor-led, computer-based, distance broadcast, web-based, performance support systems (PSS), and electronic performance support systems (EPSS).

Based on various media mentioned above, suggests that the media constantly learning developed over the progress of science and technology. The development of instructional media also followed the demands and needs of learning, according to the circumstances and conditions.

a.        Learning  Print Media

Print media in fact includes reading materials in Indonesia. Reading materials are still few in number when viewed from the needs. Moreover trends and stimuli for the readers still lacking.  Though the act of reading is an important enough for us / students. With our regular reading / students can absorb the ideas, theories, analysis or findings of others. And also through the activities of the reader can follow any new developments occur. In addition to covering literature, print media display certain symbols. Print media is basically just display certain symbols are letters (sound symbol) (Ali, 1984). From a variety of print media mentioned above, the authors take three (3) types among others:

1)        Learning with Books

The most common medium encountered in school learning is still the book. As a learning medium, the book can be characterized by the primary feature of its technology (that is, stability), by its symbol systems (printed text, pictures, and graphics), and by the way it influences specific processes (reading).

Book is an important tool for the continuity of the learning process. Because the book is essentially the use of media in teaching and learning process is intended to facilitate student learning (Purwodarminto, 1986).

The primary symbol system used in books and other print media consists of orthographic symbols that, in Western culture, are words composed of phonemic graphemes, horizontally arrayed from left to fight. In most printed school media, this arrangement is stable—unlike the marquee in Times Square, for example, which uses the same symbol system but a different and transient technology. The stability of the medium has important implications for how learners process information from books and magazines: it aids in constructing meaning from the text.

In general, reading progresses in a forward direction and at a regular rate as the reader moves along, readily constructing a mental representation that relates the information in the text to an existing mental model. But on occasion, reading processes interact with prior knowledge and skill in a way that relies heavily on the stability of text to aid comprehension and learning. While poor readers are often thwarted by the effort required to decode the text,(13) fluent readers use the stability of the text to avoid reading failure: encountering longer or novel words, these readers will slow their rate, go back to review a word as an aid to recalling a meaning for it, or review a phrase or sentence to determine the meaning of the word from context.(14) Even readers with highly developed reading skills and elaborate memory structures rely on the stable structure of print to process large amounts of text in familiar domains: a study by Charles Bazerman, for example, revealed a strategy by which seven physicists read selectively and for a particular purpose by scanning print rapidly and using certain words to trigger decisions either to skip over familiar information or to move back and forth carefully within a text and across texts to add to their understanding of their field.(15) Most readers, then, use the stability (technology) of the printed text to process (read) its content (symbol system) and thereby construct or elaborate on a mental model.

What happens when pictures or diagrams are introduced into this medium? What is the cognitive effect of these symbol systems in combination with text? And how does the stability of these symbols, as presented in books, interact with processing? A large body of traditional research suggests that using pictures in combination with text generally increases recall, particularly for poor readers, if the pictures illustrate information central to the text, when they represent new content that is important to the overall message, or when they depict structural relationships mentioned in the text.(16) Analyzing this research according to the perspective of this column suggests that the use of both symbol systems in a stable medium facilitates a particular kind of processing, particularly for learners who have little prior knowledge of the topic.

Several studies indicate that readers use pictures to create or to evoke preliminary mental models that guide subsequent reading and assist in the construction of more elaborate and interrelated models.(17) Other studies suggest that the use and effectiveness of pictures are related to prior knowledge: more knowledgeable readers tend to build mental models from existing knowledge and to elaborate on them using information from the text, while less knowledgeable readers tend to rely more heavily on pictures or diagrams to construct mental representations of new information.(18) Younger children, who may not have sufficient prior knowledge from which to generate elaborate mental models, may benefit most from pictures to aid this process.(19 )The stability of the medium allows the kind of serial, sequential, back-and forth processing between specific information in the text and components of the pictures that facilitates the construction and elaboration of mental models.

2)        Learning  With Magazine

Reading a magazine mean studying written works by field experts. Reading magazines is a way or something means to maintain their own level of knowledge as well as to add new knowledge. Magazine is a means to arouse the interest of students to a problem in the past or the present. The magazine includes a variety of events both on the development in the field of education, also contains about articles on historical events in the past mass. This is supporting material for students in learning activities at school.

3)        Learning With Newspaper

While newspapers are also a means of supporting the subjects of history, because the newspaper is a way to add new knowledge to the students.

b.       Learning Sosial Media

Social media may thought of as communication tools that allows users to create, modify, and/or distribute content. And rather than being a broadcast model for one-to-many, such as a typical web page, social media are more of a many-to-many model that allows a conversational format for people to create, share, and remix information.

Social media includes such tools as blogs, microblogs (e.g., Twitter & Yammer), file sharing (e.g., Flickr & SlideShare), Virtual Meeting Places, (e.g., Adobe Connect & Elluminate), social sites (e.g. Facebook & MySpace) and wikis.

Social media has provided a virtual bridge by acting as the common environment in a social learning episode. This virtual bridge allows the learners to interact with each other in much the same manner as they would in a common environment, thus they are virtually able to observe and learn from others. Space has shifted as they now do not have to be in the same physical location..

The consensus is that social media are dramatically changing the relationships of individuals to society. Credited with phenomena that range in scope and scale from toppling governments (Moldova), to unleashing mass mobilizations (protest in Iran, humanitarian aid in Haiti), to uplifting individual artists from constraints of social class (the UK’s singer Susan Boyle), the media that flows over digital social networks offers individuals and communities opportunities to communicate with broad global reach as well as with personal intimacy. For the first time, people can ‘see’ each other’s worlds across previously socially defined boundaries, one to one across time and space, or one to millions. These outcomes are not due to the technology alone. The ‘Web 2.0’ features that have enabled this are not just the technical implementations themselves, but the frameworks of ‘participation’ and ‘sharing’ they enable, structure, and call upon us to enact (Lewis, Pea, Rosen, 2010).

The authors go on to note that by building these social media tools, people are able to transform their environments and restructure the functional systems in which they act and learn (Vygotsky, 1978; Wartofsky, 1983).

Probably the main question to ask is, “Are social media tools just as good in a social learning situation as the common environment they are replacing?” Just as the common environment is a medium that allows learning methods to take place, these tools are also media that carry the learning methods. And as the research has shown, it is the learning methods that matter the most, while media are selected for their ability to effectively and efficiently carry the learning method (Clark, 2001). Thus, just as long as a social media tool can transport the learning method, then it should have little or no effect on the learning.

c.         Learning with Multimedia

Little research has been done on learning with multimedia environments, primarily because the field is still evolving and most efforts within it are focused on development. However, multimedia present the possibility of combining in a single instructional environment all the technologies, symbol systems, and processing capabilities of the individual media described above. Examining how we might use each of these aspects individually and in various combinations to facilitate learning is an important direction for current and future research.

Computer technology plays a central role in multimedia environments: the computer coordinates the use of various symbol systems and processes information it receives, collaborating with the learner to make subsequent selections and decisions. This role is essentially the same whether the specific multimedia format in use is interactive video or hypermedia of the best known examples of the interactive video environment is the "Jasper Woodbury Series,"(36) which provides realistic contexts to help middle-school students learn complex problem solving in mathematics. Each videodisc provides a series of stories about Jasper Woodbury (who is approximately the same age as the target students) that contain both the problems to be solved and data that can be used in the solutions. In one story, for example, Jasper takes a used boat for a "test drive" and decides to buy it. The problem, briefly stated, is that the boat's running lights do not work and Jasper must determine if he can get the boat to his home dock before sunset. The students are left to solve the problem, using major questions embedded in the story itself: does Jasper have enough time to get home before sunset? enough gas? enough money to buy the necessary gas?

Students work in groups to determine the solution, encouraged by the teacher to generate subordinate questions and to identify the information needed to solve them. They review segments of the videodisc to search for information and to separate relevant from irrelevant facts; use the facts to solve the subordinate problems; and then relate these partial solutions to the overall problem. Early research on the influence of "Jasper Woodbury" on learning is encouraging.(37)

What contribution did the videodisc make to this learning? Several contentions are suggested. First, the capability of the video to use multiple symbol systems to present complex, dynamic social contexts and events might have helped students construct rich, dynamic mental models of the situations. The detailed, dynamic nature of these models might have allowed students to draw more inferences than they could from mental models constructed from text or still pictures.(38) As we have already noted, such structures are more memorable than those constructed with text(39) and rely less on information in students' heads(40) which is likely to be incomplete or inaccurate for students with limited prior knowledge. The video also preempts demands on reading ability, allowing students who have not yet automated their reading skills to focus their cognitive resources on the problem-solving task.

Second, the videodisc contains a great deal of information crucial to the solution of the problem: information about distances, available money, and other relevant conditions is embedded in objects and maps and in what people say, do, and think as the story is enacted. The random access capabilities of the computer-controlled videodisc allow students to pause, review, and search for information they may have missed or forgotten. Identifying needed information and extricating it from a context is an important component of learning to solve problems, and the ability to do so contributes to successful transfer and performance in actual situations.

Finally, and most important, the visual and social nature of the story, as presented in this environment, is likely to activate relevant prior knowledge that students can use to solve the problem. Further, because of the scope of detail and relationships the environment provides, students are likely to find many ways to connect their new learning to their existing representations. 'This, in turn, increases the likelihood that similar situations will evoke the appropriate solution procedures in the future. Over time and similar experiences, these learned strategies will become connected to a range of mental representations, promoting transfer of the strategies to a variety of problem situations.(41)

As a distinct type of multimedia, hypermedia shares the technology and symbol systems of interactive video environments but embodies processing capabilities that suggest an important difference for learning. The nonlinearity of hypermedia—that is, the capability of this technology to allow learners to create associational links within and across text, images, and other symbol systems—facilitates cognitive flexibility because it allows a topic to be explored in multiple ways using a number of different concepts and themes.(42) This exploration should result in the development of integrated, flexible knowledge structures interconnected by crisscrossing conceptual themes that facilitate the use of this knowledge to solve a wide range of problems. Each concept can subsequently be used in many different ways, and the same concept can apply to a variety of situations.

Some hypermedia systems allow learners to add their own information and construct their own relationships. As Gavriel Salomon points out, such systems can reflect the processes learners use when constructing interrelationships in their own mental models and thus encourage them to think not only about ideas but about how they are interrelated and structured.(43) More important, such systems can provide explicit models of information representation that learners can use as guidelines for constructing their own internal models.

While there has been only limited research in hypermedia to date, preliminary findings are encouraging.(44) Despite the appeal of hypermedia, however, it is important to note some potential disadvantages for learning as well. In hypermedia environments, users are frequently required to decide what information to select and in what order; building such sequences is likely to be particularly difficult for novices, who lack the extensive and well-organized mental representations that would allow them to locate appropriate information and integrate it with their prior knowledge, experience, and opinions. Getting "lost in hyperspace" and failing to find or recognize relevant information are other potential problems, particularly for novices, as is spending inordinate time and cognitive energy processing information that is not relevant to their purposes.

In summary, the technology of integrated multimedia environments brings together the symbolic and processing capabilities of all the various media described above. Interactive videodisc environments may help learners build and analyze mental models of problem situations, while hypermedia environments may help learners build links across information presented by different symbol systems and construct meaning based on these links. Plausible rationales have been given for the expected effectiveness of such environments, but much more research is needed to understand—let alone forge the relationships that proponents of these environments hypothesize

1)        Learning with Computers

Computers can be distinguished from the two previous formats by what they can do with information—that is, by their ability to process symbols and symbol systems. The prototypic "information processors," computers can transform information in one symbol system to that in another and they can "proceduralize" information.(30) In its transforming function, a computer with a voice synthesizer can change typed text (i.e., print) into speech; using an integrated software package, it can transform numerical values into charts and graphs. In its proceduralizing function, a computer can operate on symbols according to specified rules: for example, it can rotate a graphic object on the screen according to the laws of physics. Through both functions, a computer can help students construct links between symbolic domains—like graphs and equations—and the real-world phenomena they represent. So it is the processing capabilities of the computer, rather than its symbol systems per se, that enable this medium to make its primary contribution to students' construction of their mental models.

Students are frequently unable to connect their symbolic learning in school to "real world" situations,(31) but the transformational capabilities of the computer can help them make this connection. For example, several studies have shown improvement in graph-interpretation ability for students working in microcomputer-based laboratories.(32) These laboratories use sensors connected to a computer to collect data (e.g., on temperature and motion); the computer transforms the data, displaying the information as graphs rather than numbers. The transformation capabilities of the computer thus make immediate and direct the connection between the graphic symbols and the world they represent. Seeing this connection aids in the development of students' ability to read graphs—that is, to transform a graph into a description of what it means in the "real world."

Perhaps even more importantly, the processing capabilities of the computer can help novices build and refine mental models to be more like those of experts. Much of the research in this area has involved physics, in which series of studies have established the nature of experts' knowledge: it is extensive, organized into large chunks that are structured around the laws of physics, and includes information both about the formal laws of physics themselves and about how and under what conditions these laws apply.(33) Novices' knowledge, however, is not only less extensive but is organized differently: it might include only physical objects like blocks and pulleys, fragments rather than interrelated sets of concepts, and "laws" that are incomplete or otherwise incorrect.(34) When trying to solve problems, then, novices often construct mental models that are incomplete, inaccurate, or otherwise insufficient.

How might the processing capabilities of computers be used by novices to aid them in building more expert-like models? First, the computer can graphically represent the formal, abstract entities that novices do not normally include in their models. The computer, for example, can use an arrow to represent "force"—that is, an influence that changes the movement or shape of an object—a construct that has no concrete referent in the physical world. Second, the computer can proceduralize the relationships among these graphic (and other) symbols and display the results of those procedures. It can change the shape or direction of the arrow to represent what actually occurs, according to the laws of physics, when force is increased, decreased, or applied from different directions. Furthermore, the computer allows learners to manipulate these symbols and observe the consequences, successful or unsuccessful, of their decisions. Through a series of such experiences, novices may become aware of the inadequacies of their own mental models and move progressively toward more elaborate, integrated, and accurate ones.(35)

Thus, the processing capabilities of the computer can influence the mental representations and cognitive processes of learners. Their transformation capabilities can connect symbolic expressions (such as graphs) to the actual world. Their proceduralizing capabilities can allow students to manipulate dynamic, symbolic representations of abstract, formal constructs that are frequently missing from their mental models in order to construct more accurate and complete mental representations of complex phenomena

2)        Visual media

Grtafis visual media including media, which serves to distribute the message and the source to the receiver. Messages to be delivered poured into visual communication symbols. Understanding of visual media is: "the overall picture of something described in a form that can be visualized (Suparto, 1982). From a variety of visual media mentioned above, there are three kinds of visual media in accordance with historical subjects activities are:

a)        Picture / Photo Picture / photo media is the most commonly used. Images is a common language, which can be understood and enjoyed everywhere.

b)       Chart / Chart Trend charts including charts and chart media is a diagrammatic representation. Where the chart can be interpreted as a visual symbol (visual syabel) for forging, comparing and contrasting the reality or reality-reality (Soeparto, 1983).

c)        Map and Globe Globe  is a painting of the earth's surface is reduced, making it resemble from its original form. Basically the map and globe serves to present the data and the location (Sadiman, 1986)

3)        Audio

Radio plays an important part in developing people’s imagination, in creating pictures in the mind through the power of words, it stimulates the imagination to fill in the visuals, etc. The listeners see the drama in their heads. Thus, when radio is used in the classroom it helps students to promote their imagination, to voice their creativity. A lot of radio programs contribute to language learning. Besides getting new information and entertainment, in language classes radio helps the pronunciation, the intonation, the pitch of voice, etc. These might be successful if we undertake adequate preparation and design carefully graded tasks. Students gain a feeling of satisfaction from having understood something of an authentic broadcast, we can see the joy in their faces. They develop greater confidence in their ability to cope with English as it’s spoken outside the classroom. Albanian students may use BBC World Service news bulletin, Voice of America or other foreign radio stations. In case students have no possibilities, the teacher may record the news bulletin, transcribe it and prepare to explain any difficult vocabulary that may come out. Then the teacher may ask the students if they have listened to the news in Albanian the day before, because nearly all the news, especially international news, is almost the same. So if the content is somewhat known to the students, they will be more motivated and the success of the task will be easier. In the classroom the students may be put into groups to discuss what is going on in the world and what they predict they are going to listen to. The teacher or one of the students may write all the predictions on the blackboard. The first step might be to listen to the headlines, several times, as they are short, but convey a lot. Then the teacher may ask the students to identify which of the stories they predicted are included in the headlines.

Then ask the students various questions about, what has happened? Where did it happen? How many different stories have you heard for the same event? etc. Then let the students listen to the news bulletin 2-3 times and then give them time to discuss about the above questions. In the meantime the teacher may explain any key vocabulary. We know that it is difficult, but if we can make copies of the news bulletin, it would be possible to organize follow-up activities. Students may transcribe certain stories, use dictionaries to check the meaning of unknown words, group words according to various fields, etc. They may also compare the language of the news bulletin with the language of a newspaper of the same date and the same topic. So, we can organize listening and reading comprehension activities. At last the students may report on what they have listened to. There might be tens of different activities using radio in the classroom. We have practiced these procedures with such topics as: The War in Iraq, Pollution and Environment, Global Warming, Weather Report, Poverty, Holidays, etc.

4)        Audio Visual

Most people today watch about three to five hours of television a day. ‘Defenders call TV a window on the world, a magic carpet of discovery. They claim that it enlarges both knowledge and understanding. Defenders say it encourages a new way of thinking, with interlocking hopes, needs and problems. Critics call it the idiot box. They say it promotes mindless viewing of mindless programs. Critics say it stifles creativity and promotes distorted thinking. Social observers often urge parents not to use television as an electronic baby-sitter’. (Beckert, 1992) “It’s no use complaining that children today would rather watch TV or videos than read”.( Philippa Thompson, 2000) We the teachers should try to exploit students’ viewing habits as a starting point for developing more active literary skills. The teachers need to know the interests of the students and what they like most to watch in order to keep high their motivation, undertake different duties, fulfill various assignments and feel the success. In a questionnaire the students were asked which TV station they watch most and why? Most of the students replied that they preferred to watch Top Channel because they like it very much. Here are some of the considerations that the students wrote:

a)        It has a lot of information

b)       It is a powerful and trustworthy station

c)        It is attractive, entertaining, informative, serious

d)       It gives quick and exact information in different fields

e)        Fix fare is one of the most watched programs

f)         News is of high quality, quick and fresh

g)       The staff is very professional and well qualified

h)       It uses an advanced technology

i)         It gives a lot of interesting documentaries

j)          It has a wide range of programs, etc. etc

These considerations show that the students watch that TV channel that meets their interest. Through their answers we see that the students really think about what they watch. We also see what they are interested in and so, we should try to exploit those TV programs to promote students’ learning.

TV programs may be used as warming-up activities, pre-activities for the coming issue, assupplementary materials for a certain topic, for up-to-date information, to update the information in the textbooks, etc.

Documentaries are also educational. Documentaries on Wildlife, on Civil War, on Discovery Channel, and others, have opened valuable windows for our students. Through them our students can learn about languages, cultures, science, etc. Some of these documentaries, if carefully selected may be used successfully in the classrooms and be a part of the curriculum. They may help students to better understand the subject. As we cannot use TV information when it is given, we can bring this information into the classroom through videotaping various TV programs for later use. Often activities using television, video and movies overlap, there is not a strict division among them.

3.        Functions and Benefits of Learning Media

Levie & Lents in Arsyad Azhar (2007: 16) suggests four functions of instructional media, especially visual media, namely the function of attention, affective function, cognitive function, and compensatory functions.

Functions of visual media attention is at the core, which is interesting and directing students' attention to concentrate on the content related to the meaning of the displayed visual or text accompanying the subject matter. Media image or animation that is projected through the LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) can focus and direct their attention to the lessons they will receive. This affects the mastery of the subject matter better by the students.

Affective functions of visual media can be seen from the level of emotional involvement and students' attitude when listening impressions of the subject matter, along with visualization. For example, the video shows simulated image archive management activities, video use office machines, and the like.

Cognitive visual media seen from scientific studies that suggested that the visual symbol or picture facilitate the achievement of the aim of understanding and recall of information or messages contained in the image. While the compensatory function of learning media can be seen from the findings that visual media helps understanding and retention of content for students who are weak in reading.

More specifically, the Kemp & Dayton (1985: 3-4) identifies eight benefits of media in learning, namely:

"(1) the delivery of lectures to be more raw, (2) learning tends to be more attractive, (3) learning to be more interactive, (4) the length of the learning time can be reduced, (5) the quality of student learning outcomes be improved, (6) learning can take place where and at any time, (7) a positive attitude toward learning material and the students' learning process can be improved, (8) the role of the teacher can be changed into a more positive direction. "

Because of the many benefits derived from the utilization of instructional media, then the teacher as a source of information carrier for learners should be aware of the importance of the use of media in teaching.

Support the above opinion, Sudjana & Rival (1992: 2) states that instructional media useful in the learning process in order to:

a.        Learning more remarkable that foster student motivation.

b.        Learning materials will be more easily understood by students.

c.         Become more varied teaching methods so as to reduce boredom learn.

d.       Students are more actively engaged in learning.

While Arif S. Sadiman, et al. (2006: 17-18) describes the use of instructional media as follows:

a.        Clarify the presentation of the message.

b.        Overcome the limitations of space, time, and the senses.

c.         Overcome passivity, so that learners become more independent in spirit and learning.

d.       Provide stimulation, experience, and the same perception of the learning materials.

Based on the various opinions on the above, very useful instructional media in teaching and learning. In general, beneficial learning media to facilitate interaction of faculty and students, with the intention of helping students learn optimally, In general, the benefits of a medium of learning is to facilitate interaction between teachers and students making learning activities more  effective and efficient. While the benefits of learning media

in particular are

a.        Delivery of learning material can be made uniform With the help of instructional media, different interpretations among teachers can be avoided and can reduce the information gap between students.

b.        The process of learning becomes more clear and interesting
Media can display information through sound, image, movement and color, either naturally or manipulation, thus helping teachers to make learning come alive and not boring.

c.         The process of learning becomes more interactive With the media will be active two-way communication, without the media while teachers tend to speak in one direction.

d.       Efficiency in time and labor With instructional media learning objectives will be easier to achieve the maximum with minimum time and effort.

e.        Improve the quality of student learning outcomes Instructional media can help students learn better absorb the material, because if you only hear the verbal information from teachers, students lack an understanding of the lesson, but if enriched with activities to see, touch, feel and experience for yourself through the medium of student understanding will be better. Instructional media can be stimulated in such a way that students can make learning more freely anywhere and anytime without depending on a teacher. With instructional media will be able to cultivate a positive attitude toward the material and students’ learning and the learning process becomes more attractive to encourage students to love science and love to find their own sources of knowledge

a.        advantage of Learning Media by Social Media

1)        The Positives of Social Media Use for Students

While Reiner makes many valid points for negative effects of social media on students, particularly their level of academic risk taking, he fails to acknowledge some very positive effects that might make participation in social media a real benefit for students. While all of these may not be the mainstream ways that students use social media, they are important benefits that can be realized if educators are willing to embrace disruptive technology in their classrooms.

·           Social Constructivism – In the age of Wikipedia, knowledge is increasingly becoming a social construction rather than the domain of an individual expert. Social media provides an easily accessible tool for helping students to work together to create their own meaning in academic subjects, social contexts, or work environments. Social media platforms are regularly used in business to enhance the connections between workers and to allow for seamless collaboration across distances. Supporting the development of this skill for students prepares them for real working experiences.

·           Breadth of Knowledge – While "shallowness" of knowledge and connections was listed as one of negatives of social media, the flipside of that shallowness is the broadness of the knowledge and connectedness that students can experience through social media use. It is now easier than ever to know (or find out) something about almost anything in the world through connected media. Additionally, students can be connected to a broader base of opinions and world views through instantaneous global connections.

·           Technological Literacy – All social media relies on advanced information and communication technologies that seamlessly work to build and support technological literacy. Simply put, one cannot be engaged in deep and meaningful uses of technology without developing the sorts of rich 21st Century skills such as information evaluation, troubleshooting, mediated communication,  and others that will enable connected learners to become valuable contributors to a connected global economy.

All three of these aspects of social media use are excellent matches to employer expectations and help to develop the 21st Century skills that students will need to be successful in a globally connected economy.

2)        The Negatives of Social Media Use for Students

·           Distraction – In his article, Reiner is talking not about the momentary distraction of an isolated text message, but rather the way in which social media involvement provides an acceptable diversion from intellectual pursuits. Essentially, he is arguing that it is socially safer to stay connected to peers through always-on social media, than it is to put oneself out there by having a legitimate opinion about a serious topic and disconnecting from the social networks long enough to put it out there.

·           Pressure to Conform – Reiner cites examples of students confiding in him that one of the main reasons behind their 24/7 connection is a fear of not keeping up with peers or appearing "like a loser in public," as one of his students confided in a class journal.

·           Risk Aversion – Reiner is unclear about whether students’ aversion to taking risks is a symptom of social media use or is directly caused by it, but the point is no less important either way. Social media engagement supports a culture of avoidance which operates in direct opposition to the idea that students need to take risks and fail in their academic endeavors in order to become successful innovators.

·           Shallowness – This is an addition to Reiner’s points, but social media does promote a kind of intellectual and social shallowness that could have long-term negative consequences for learners. Twitter, text messages, and other social media tools focus on brief, quick, "shallow" interactions that do not encourage either deep social engagement or intellectual exploration. There is, after all, only so much information that can be obtained in 140 characters. While the option to dig deeper may be present through embedded links in Tweets, for example, there may be little reward in pursuing those connections for students.