THE USE OF WEBSITE TO SUPPORT DINTANCE LEARNING DURING THE CORONA VIRUS PANDEMIC AMONG THE STUDENTS OF TAMTAMA VOCATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL

Oleh : Rully Syaiful Akbar, S.Pd.

SMK Tamtama Karanganyar, Kebumen

Rully Syaiful Akbar, S.Pd

       The World Health Organization (WHO) has determined the coronavirus disease originating from Wuhan, China as a pandemic condition with a massive level of ability to spread the virus to the entire world population, including Indonesia. According to data taken from the official website of the Indonesian government (covid.go.id) since August 2, 2020, 216 countries have been infected with the corona virus and around 680,894 people have died. In Indonesia, since August 8, 2020 there have been 320,564 positive cases with 11,580 deaths. From the study of these data, we can conclude that the COVID-19 virus still exists and is very dangerous.

       The government has started making various efforts to suppress the spread of the corona virus with several policies, one of which is implementing PSBB (large-scale social restrictions). These policies have an impact on all aspects of life, including the learning process of students at school. According to Syaiful Sagala, the learning process is a form of educative interaction, which is a form of interaction that is conscious of the goal, meaning that the interaction has a specific purpose. This large-scale Social Restriction Policy forces teachers and students to adapt to pandemic situations and conditions and carry out the learning process in a different way from the usual, namely the distance learning system or online learning process (online).

       Online learning provides opportunities for students to learn with the flexibility of learning time and wherever students and teachers are. Students can interact with teachers using several applications such as classroom, video conference, telephone or live chat, zoom or via WhatsApp group. The online learning process is a learning whose success will be greatly influenced by the teacher's ability to use technology in delivering learning materials.

       The programs or applications that are most often used in distance learning can be in the form of a Learning Management System application provided by Moodle, or a ready-to-use Google Classroom application. By using the Learning Management system application, distance learning will be more organized and in accordance with the learning plans that have been made at the beginning of the school year.

        The use of a personal website is an alternative to share learning materials, especially English. The advantage that is presented from the use of the website is that students can access the material provided by the teacher anywhere and anytime. Students do not need to download material or re-record the material in notebooks because the material presented on the website is online and easy to access.

       Making a website as a learning tool or media can also add insight to teachers in the IT field. Considering the development of the era and the application of the industrial revolution 4.0, teachers are required to be able to follow and be able to master things related to technology in order to be called a 21st century teacher. In addition, to achieve success in implementing the TPACK (Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge) approach the teacher must be able to master many things in the world of technology. Website development requires programming knowledge. The most frequently used to build websites is the PHP programming language.

         For the front-end, there are many free templates available on the internet that can be used as our website. However, in order for this page to be dynamic, there needs to be a php language in it. PHP language is very easy to understand if the teacher really wants to learn it. On the YouTube platform, many free php lessons are provided. or if you want more intensive learning, teachers can pay for online classes to learn php.

          However, in terms of the convenience and benefits provided by the use of websites in learning, it also has some drawbacks. The weakness that arises is that students are required to always have credit or their device is connected to Wi-Fi to access the material provided by the teacher through the website.