THE ROLE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN LEARNING TEACHING ACTIVITIES

In this 4.0 era technology is developing very rapidly which is also accompanied by the development of knowledge. Both of these work together with the aim of improving the quality of education as expected. These developments have also impacted on the ease with which people can obtain and disseminate information globally without limits. The mindset and lifestyle of the majority of the people currently want activities to be carried out flexibly and practically, including in learning activities. Learning activities in which there are interactions between instructors and learners, are generally carried out in a classical or conventional manner. The activity of pouring knowledge by educators on their students with conventional methods is mostly done face to face and is the main method in education. Learning that is still limited by space certainly feels less flexible and conditional in the current era. With the advancement in technology, learning activities do not have to be done at school but can be done in a different place known as distance learning.

Distance learning (distance learning) is a learning activity carried out by teachers and students in separate locations or educational services carried out without face to face (Munir, 2009: 15). Thus teachers and students can learn anywhere, anytime, with cost and time efficient. Learning with this method was once used by groups of adults, but now it has covered all groups. Media such as computers and internet networks as an important part so that distance learning activities can be carried out. Distance learning activities are not only used by formal education, but have begun to be used in non-formal institutions, such as studios, and tutoring. Media that can bridge two-way interactions in distance learning activities, one of them with applications such as whatsapp, youtube, zoom, skype, google meet, etc. The online media is changing the pattern of communication of delivery of material, learning between students and teachers, students and lecturers as if they were close and certainly more efficient.

In the midst of the co-19 pandemic that is being experienced by the whole world, human activities are hampered and cannot even function as it should. Educational activities at all levels from kindergarten, elementary to university are not carried out face-to-face, but are carried out at home. Not only that, discussion activities in government also carried out remotely. This was done to break the covid-19 chain that occurred. With such conditions, the use of applications as a solution so that activities can still be carried out. In learning activities that take place while at home, each person uses a different application and of course every media used has its own features, such as zoom and skype that both provide face to face features (video calls), Google classrom and whatsapp which provides chat services. At this time the graph of the use of video conferencing applications is skyrocketing, this statement is in line with the posts delivered on the https://techno.okezone.com website that the volume of video conferencing searches and meetings has increased by 1000% over the past year and there has been an increase of one million users in the last two days.

On the basis of this it can be seen that information technology plays an important role in helping human activities, not only contributing to the interests of development but also in the field of education and teaching that will produce the next generation of the nation with a global vision.