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UNAIR NEWS – Nowadays, there are many kinds of social media in the cyberspace. But from many of them, there is not none which uses real identities of the users. Furthermore, there are not any social media which contributes in educational sector.

For that reason, Technology and Information System Development Center (PPTSI) of UNAIR cooperated with PT Jaringan Pintar Indonesia (JPI) to launch a website www.makinpintar.com. The launch was held at Airlangga Convention Center (ACC), Campus C Unair Jl. Mulyorejo Sutabaya on January 25. The launch was attended by thousands of students from many middle schools in East Java and even from DI Yogyakarta.

Contents of the site include teachers, schools and studentss’ blogs which was initiated by UNAIR in 2001. Each blog contained teachers, schools and students’ writing with their real identity. When each author modifies their blog, the post will be shown automatically on page www.makinpintar.com. Of course the users have to make an account on each blogs; teachers on guru-indonesia.net, students on siswa-indonesia.net and schools on sch-id.net.

The website was developed to diminish gap of education among Indonesian regions. It was stated by the head of UNAIR PPTSI who is also the initiator of the website, Dr. Soegianto Soelistiono, Ir., M.Si, in press conference attended by PT.JPI Director, Bintang Juliarso, and Managing Director Bagas D. Bawono.

“We want to contribute to Indonesian educational equalization acceleration. We also observe the dynamics of social media which is so overwhelming. So I concluded that this nation is relying on information system, even though some regions are familiar with technology and others not. Online system is an inexpensive way, but social media now does not concern with Education and has not been regulated,” Dr. Soegianto said.

Up to this point, according to Dr. Soegianto, there are 23 thousands users of teachers’ blog, 6 thousands users of schools’ blog and 65 thousands users of students’ blog. So his division does not have any difficulties on contents availability.
Other than being supported by bloggers’ contents, schools e-books are also provided by Ministry of Education and Culture, and events are also updated by the events’ hosts themselves.

Bagas D. Bawono, Managing Director PT. JPI added that the website can be used to rank the posts based on users. It means, there is a feature on the website to show which post mostly accessed. In the future, online learning will be provided on the page, and features such as conference and teleconference will be added.

To ensure the users’ safety, website www.makinpintar.com has provided thre kinds of filters. First, this social media is regulated and guaranteed the validity of users, the teachers, students or schools. Second, there are many operators supervising posts uploaded on the site. Third, is the user itself.

In this digital era, the users can detect which page has been accessed more, so it is potential for ads. But, his company up to this point has not thought of commercializing this.
“It’s still early and we haven’t thought of its business side. We want to prioritize our features to be useful, trusted and easily managed, so each user can be members and enjoy the contents made by high school students and teachers. We haven’t thought that far (business),” Bintang said. In addition, the website is also blind user friendly. Blind users can access the features by using audio supports. (*)

Author: Defrina Sukma Satiti
Editor : Bambang Bes