Doing Education During Pandemic

Participant’s reflection on Communication Skills Training 2020 batch 1

Currently Indonesia is facing a thrilling situation related with Covid-19 Pandemic. This outbreak paralyzed various aspects of community life, such as education, economics, social and others. The Indonesia government implemented various policies and strategies to break the chain of the spreading virus, one of which was regulation for the community to carry out activities from home, such as work or school from home.

The education sector is affected by this situation, including universities where the lecture process that previously face-to-face was changed to online, and it means that students throughout Indonesia are stay at home. For some students, online study is quite good because they can attend lectures using only gadgets without going to campus, but some students find that it is really boring and some get difficulty because they are in an area that is not covered by the communication network or do not have enough money to buy quota of internet data. I belong to the second group of students who are bored with online lectures, so I try to find various things that can overcome it and I try to do activities that support my study so that I remain productive such as reading books, watching movies, listening music and playing social media .

When I was exploring the internet and Facebook timeline, I saw Stube-HEMAT Yogyakarta’s post that promoted Communication Skills training. I was immediately interested to join because I knew that Stube-HEMAT activity was always inspiring and I could find new experiences. Thanks God that I passed the selection and become one of 3 participants in the first batch of this training. I was accompanied by two good and fun mentors, Trustha Rembaka and Putri Laoli, from Stube-HEMAT Yogyakarta team.

The first day started with the introduction process between participant and mentors as well as explaining the program that will be carried out during the training. The focus of discussion in this training was improving communication techniques by producing something that can educate public about Covid-19. The following days I learned good communication techniques, tips on speaking in front of camera and systematic narrative writing and much more, until finally I and my mentors produced an educational video entitled "Misunderstanding Meaning of Terms Related to Covid-19" which explained terms coming up related with pandemic, such as ODP, PDP, lockdown and other terms. With this title, I have to find valid and accountable source because it was related to public information and education so I sought sources from ministry of health and credible national media. Please watch the video on the link https://youtu.be/oqq6rlPR2eM

This video made me run into various dynamics that changed my awareness, skills and confidence. At first, I thought my communication technique was good enough, but I was wrong because I did basic mistakes without realizing it, such as verbal grafitti, body language and eye focus on the camera. Also, I gained new skills in making videos such as shooting techniques, determining back sound, animation, transitions, determining themes and much more. This training made me realize that the simple things that I did not think before sometimes was very important to learn and it affected myself and society. Now I found interest in making next videos with various topics.

Thank you Stube-HEMAT Yogyakarta for being a forum for students and giving enlightening, especially I was helped in developing my potency so that it could be useful for many people. My hope for the future is many more young people will be interested in similar training and Stube-HEMAT has always been the foremost place that can accommodate, empower and promote potencies of students for Indonesia. (Antonia Maria Oy).