ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE EDMODO USAGE IN LEARNING ACTIVITIES FOR ENGLISH LITERATURE STUDENTS

The increment of concern in the use of online learning tools into English Language Teaching to adopt the Industrial Revolution 4.0 has inspired this study to examine students’ thoughts on Edmodo, as one of the online learning tools, at the English Literature department within the University of Bangka Belitung. Edmodo is used by the researchers to discuss the students’ attitude in improving their English skills. Data were collected by means of questionnaires and interview. A Likert scale questionnaire was administered and open-ended interviews were conducted to get more information from the students. Data were qualitatively and quantitatively analysed by using SPSS v.22 Software. The results reveal that the Edmodo usage is aiding students’ cooperation in small group discussions, reflecting that teaching and learning activities established on the ground of communicative teaching method were able to improve cooperation and communication, raising students’ motivation to take part and involve in various learning and also empowering them to be selfdetermining and be more responsible for their own learning. This study is an endeavor to attract more researchers to do further investigations on this area within the Indonesian English learners at the university level.


INTRODUCTION
Language learning plays a vital role in the process of acquiring a second language knowledge for the students in higher education. It is the responsibility of the teachers to produce the good quality of their teaching because they should combine the offline classroom with the online classroom in this hi-tech era. Consequently, they must keep abreast on the increase of interest to harness online learning tools into English Language Learning to espouse the Industrial Revolution 4.0 because Information Technology (IT) has turned into a preeminent topic of the twenty-first century education. The latest development of IT has revamped the form of learning in countless ways. The English teaching and learning process has changed from the classical method (person to person classroom interaction) to the utilization of different computerized telecommunications (online learning interaction).
Since the last fifteen years, there have been increasing attempts on the part of university teachers to involve their students in the blended learning process to assist teachers in observing students' performance. When the students are given the opportunity to have autonomous learning, they can improve their performance effectively (Addison, 2011). Therefore, the integration of the traditional meeting and the online meeting has developed into a hefty requirement of the modern education.
There are thousands of free online social learning programs and educational tools which can be used as auxiliaries for teachers and students to empower independent learning and innovative teaching in delivering coursework in higher education such as Facebook, Twitter, and others. In the beginning, social networking was solely regarded as a tool to communicate with friends but nowadays they have been used as the online learning tools for sharing information (McClain, Brown, & Price, 2015). One of the most practical online education resources is Edmodo which is used as the focus of this study. It can be easily accessed by using a variety of devices including PC (Personal Computer) or cellular phones.
Edmodo is a free and secure online learning platform provider designed by Jeff O'Hara and Nick Borg in 2008 and people can easily connect to this platform by surfing the web at www.new.edmodo.com (Manowong, 2016). Edmodo used to be very similar social networking platform to Facebook with the blue colour but this time the outlook of the new Edmodo is mostly with the yellow colour. It is considered to be more personal and safe online learning platform and is a platform specifically designed for educational purposes because it is only the teacher who possess the access to design and maintain the virtual classroom and only students in that class are given the group codes can access and interact in the groups. Edmodo is also easy to use and the teachers who are not used to operate it can carry out learning through this online learning tool (Kongchan, 2012). Moreover, it can also generate students' communication and collaboration, increase their participation in learning, and improve their performance and learning achievement (Olson, 2014;Gomez, 2014) Recently, Edmodo has become a very popular online learning tool among many available technological educational tools. It is much more private and safer for a learning environment and only teachers are able to create and manage accounts. This online learning platform can be reached by using any electronic appliance with an internet connection. Teachers easily create tasks, put scores, keep and send teaching materials, making a class program or learning schedule, making class polls and set up a small group discussion (The Edmodo Teacher Guide, 2018). Moreover, Edmodo also gives an easy access for parent in order to follow the students' progress. All in all, if Edmodo is successfully applied for learning process, it will be a useful addition to classical teaching and learning method since this online learning platform can combine the features of social networking, course management systems, and online learning.
Edmodo has special features to support learning activities. This online learning tool organizes its tools according to what teachers and students need. The first feature is "assignment" used by the teacher to assign tasks to students so they can do it at home. The feature is provided with deadlines of submission and the students can submit the assignments to their teacher by attaching the files. In addition, the 3 The Journal of English Literacy Education, Vol. 7, No. 1, May 2020, pp.1-10 P-ISSN 2355-7486, E-ISSN 2621 assignment also has a "Turn in" button which indicates that the students have completed their assignment. The teacher can put the scores directly and send the results to the students. The score given will automatically be saved in the grade book feature. The next features are "File and Links" and "Quiz". In File and Links, both teachers and students are able to easily submit information by using this feature. The file attachment can be sent in a form of .pdf, .doc, .xls, .ppt and other types. Teachers can use the Quiz to give online scorings by using many alternative assessments like short answers, multiple-choice questions and true or false. The quizzes can only be created by the teacher and the students finish them to get the score. The feature allocates time limit for the students to do the quiz. The score computation for the quiz or assignment is conducted automatically.
"Polling Polls" feature is also created by the teacher to check students' opinions and responses about the courses that they have done. "The grade book" is utilized by the teacher as a score bank. Scoring the students' assignments is conducted by the teacher in this scoring worksheet available. Automatic filling of values can be conducted by observing the students' performance. The teacher regulates the assessment of students' learning outcomes. Teachers are able to determine the maximum score for each course and the overall score is automatically counted by the machine. The feature can be observed by students in graphics, lines, pie charts and other forms.
"Library" is operated as a feature to keep many different learning resources such as ebooks, Power Point Slides, Worksheets, etc. By using this feature, the students can easily download digital learning materials. They can be forwarded and sent to another class or group. The best thing is that the students can also add more learning supplements to the library so they can access from Edmodo.
"Award Badges" feature is used to give students an award in the form of badges. The awards are given by the teacher to the students who have shown their good progress or obtain the best scores. The last feature is "Parents Codes", this feature serves to give access to parents for monitoring the students' performance and achievements. Parents can get the access code from the teacher.
Edmodo successfully reached the most prominent learning online platform because it has been used by thousand teachers from 50 countries around the globe (Enriquez, 2014). Edmodo has been operated in everyday teaching and learning activities by million users all over the globe (Edmodo Website, 2019). The latest research in various educational levels have shown that Edmodo is a very effective online learning tool to be used to support classical teaching method (Al-Said, 2015;Al-Kathiri, 2015;Enriquez, 2014). Yet, Edmodo is still little known in the university level, and it is not generally operated at this educational level to aid everyday English learning process in Indonesia. Thus, this research purports to seek out students' attitudes on operating Edmodo as an online learning tool to English classes at the English literature department in Bangka Belitung.
The integration of Edmodo into the learning process can be pedagogically useful. It enables the achievement of effective learning because this online learning tool provides a positive impact on student involvement. Furthermore, students can also appreciate the social learning environment. Edmodo can motivate students to study since it is considered to be fun and useful when used in a learning environment. From the teacher's point of view, Edmodo can also be a great help to reduce the work 4 of teachers by making the learning process more effective and organized (Wallace, 2014). The objective of the present study is to examine the students' attitude at the university level over the Edmodo usage for English learning at the department of English literature in Bangka Belitung, Indonesia.

METHODOLOGY Subjects
The participants were 105 English Literature students studying at the University of Bangka Belitung. They were all Indonesians aged from 18 to 21 years old from five different classes enrolled during the academic year 2018/2019.

Design and Procedures
Before starting the first meeting for each course, the researchers set up virtual classroom in Edmodo for teaching English at Universitas Bangka Belitung. Then, Edmodo was introduced to the students and they were asked to access it from their PC or download the free application on their cell phones from the Google Play Store. They signed up to the class by typing the code given by the teacher for different classes. The students operated Edmodo on a daily basis to see and download learning materials, check the scoring system, and interact in the small group discussion. In the last meeting, they were asked to fill in a questionnaire to give their opinions on how effective is Edmodo operated in the English learning.

Data Collection and Analysis
To conduct this study, the researchers distributed questionnaires to 105 students in order to collect the data at the last meeting of a course. The questionnaire was filled in by the students during their break time. The questionnaire lists 15 statements which were written to see students' attitudes towards the Edmodo usage in the university level by using a five-point Likert scale drawn from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree. The last question requires students to put their final score on how effective is the utilization of Edmodo in English learning programs by using a scale from 10 to 100. The data from questionnaire were analyzed with descriptive statistics by using SPSS. To support the quantitative data from the questionnaire, then an interview was conducted to add more information from the students.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
The data drawn from the questionnaire were analysed by using an SPSS v.22 statistical software. The analysis of the data was conducted based on the research questions stated previously. The questionnaire explains the students' attitude of considering Edmodo as an effective and useful online learning tool used in English learning classes. It also describes students' attitude on the benefits of integrating Edmodo in English learning activities and also the challenges of harnessing Edmodo as an auxiliary tool to combine offline English classes with online English classes. Therefore, students' attitude toward Edmodo usage in English learning activities can be analysed. Table 1 below describes the students' thoughts on the Edmodo usage for English learning as an online tool to enhance their English skills. The result reveals that the majority of the students (n: 67) agreed that "Edmodo is useful to improve student's 5 The Journal of English Literacy Education, Vol. 7, No. 1, May 2020, pp.1-10 P-ISSN 2355-7486, E-ISSN 2621 learning", while 6 students were against this statement. In addition, most students rated 7.5 out of 10 for the Edmodo usage effectiveness in English learning programs. Notably, it can be seen that the percentages of the students thought that Edmodo is effective to be used both during the offline class and the online class taken from these relating statements are 8 (45.7%) and 9 (54.29%).

Agree
The findings show that the university students give a positive attitude towards the effectiveness and the usefulness of Edmodo usage in English learning programs to improve the students' learning activities. (Al-Khathiri, 2015;Al-Said, 2015;Enriquez, 2014). It results in the effectiveness of Edmodo usage in English learning for English literature students at the University of Bangka Belitung. It is in line with the interview results in which the students thought that the Edmodo website provides an opportunity for them to learn English online outside the regular class times. For example, a student mentioned that he can personalize his own pages and upload photos and videos. Furthermore, he commented:

"I love to learn via Edmodo because I can gain much knowledge by learning through this online learning tool. I can improve my English skills and I can also leave comments about my classmates' work and I can personalize my own pages and upload photos and videos."
Table 1 above also shows the results of fourteen statements written in the questionnaire relating to the benefits of operating Edmodo in the English literature department within the University of Bangka Belitung. Mostly, the students shared the same opinion over Edmodo ability to motivate the students to be attentive and active in studying English, the scores are 74% and 79% respectively. This is so since the students love the features of the small group discussion that can give a fun learning condition. Notably, most students are not scared of making mistakes in grammar when they have the small group discussion or presentation because they create a friendly class atmosphere and give a constructed feedback to each other (Al-Kathiri, 2015;Al-Said, 2015;Enriquez, 2014;Gomez, 2014). Therefore, it can be inferred that Edmodo provides a friendly learning environment for students to express their arguments. Besides, students think that Edmodo can create and improve the communication skills between students with students and students with teacher. It is in line with the result of the interview. One interviewee commented on her experience in using Edmodo: "I have used Edmodo since I was in Senior High School. I am motivated when working on this online learning environment because I can actively communicate with my classmates through a small group discussion within Edmodo". Furthermore, students agreed that the integration of Edmodo in English learning activities enables them to easily access the course materials anytime and anywhere (54%). Not only having access to the course materials but also constantly contacting 7 The Journal of English Literacy Education, Vol. 7, No. 1, May 2020, pp.1-10 P-ISSN 2355-7486, E-ISSN 2621 their lecturer by sending direct messages via the application can assist them in their learning processes (61%). What can be drawn from these results is that Edmodo can play a significant role in encouraging students to take more responsibilities for their own learning and to be autonomous learners. The students' autonomous learning can be achieved through continuous exposure to vivid interactions and intensive connection within the Edmodo virtual environment at anytime and anywhere. More importantly, most students nowadays are fascinated with using social networking applications, and they constantly and independently access and participate in them via their own mobile device. (Al-Khathiri, 2015;Enriquez, 2014). It is in line with the result of the interview reflecting the easy access to Edmodo usage. A student commented "I am fascinated with the use of Edmodo in learning English because the learning materials are available in the folder that was provided by the lecturer that can be downloaded by students. It makes us easy to study English".
Based on the interview analysis explained in Table 2, some advantages and disadvantages arise in learning through Edmodo. Technically, obstacles occur on telephone devices and internet connection that students use. While in essence, the teacher must oversee the use of Edmodo by students to remain within the academic scope. Edmodo gives us an easy access to communicate with our classmates and our lecturers to discuss about the course via online learning activities.
The activities like discussion and assignment are taking a long time to finish.

2
The reference materials from the internet such as links of materials by lecturers are useful in understanding the course.
Students without access to the internet are difficult to keep up with this online learning tool.
3 Edmodo helps us to communicate using English outside class.
The instruction of how to operate Edmodo is hard to comprehend for us. 4 The small group discussion in Edmodo encourages us to freely express our arguments.
Edmodo is a hi-tech learning tool and it needs a lecturer who is up to date with the current technology. If the lecturer lacks skills in operating modern devices, online learning will not run smoothly.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
From the results of the questionnaire and interview analysis, some conclusions can be drawn. Students at the university level have a positive attitude of Edmodo usage for English learning. Students feel that it is easily accessible and used and they think learning through Edmodo is interesting and more fun so they are able to be actively involved in learning. Edmodo usage in English learning at the university level can improve the process of language learning skills. Edmodo is considered a fruitful online learning tool to study English because it is the global education network which provides students with communication and collaboration to reach their full learning potential (Addison, 2011;Al-Kathiri, 2015;Al-Said, 2015;Enriquez, 2014;Gomez, 2014;Kongchan, 2013;McClain et.al, 2015;Olson, 2014;Wallace, 2014).
Through Edmodo, students also feel various positive effects. The benefits of Edmodo in learning include improving student communication and collaboration, increasing student learning motivation, increasing student involvement in learning, and improving student performance and learning outcomes (Al-Kathiri, 2015;Al-Said, 2015;Enriquez, 2014;Gomez, 2014). Shortly, this study has investigated students' attitudes over the usage of Edmodo in English classes at the English department within the University of Bangka Belitung. Overall, the students show positive attitude and most students think that Edmodo has broaden their learning opportunity and has encouraged them to be active in English learning activities (McClain et.al, 2015;Wallace, 2014). Furthermore, Edmodo provides them with autonomous learning so it makes them become responsible learners (Al-Kathiri, 2015;Al-Said, 2015;Enriquez, 2014;Gomez, 2014).
Edmodo is like any other learning tools, it can be merely an online learning platform to motivate teachers changing their teaching style or it can be a very effective tool to put learners in collaborative learning and activate their cognitive skills (Olson, 2014). This online learning tool gives teachers and students with a positive learning environment distantly because Edmodo provides students the bridge to communicate with their classmates and teachers in a distant learning environment (Addison, 2011). Moreover, the Edmodo usage in English learning can educate students to behave in a virtual classroom and communicate actively with each other with a system that has guaranteed the security that can train their independence in English learning. Basically, this tool will give a friendly user experience for teachers who consider themselves as a computer illiterate (Al-Kathiri, 2015;Al-Said, 2015;Enriquez, 2014;Gomez, 2014). Edmodo provides teaching and learning experience for students to be more active and responsible in finishing their tasks. Based on the results of the study, the students were interested in taking a part in online learning by using this tool and their motivation to study and get a high score increased significantly (Al-Kathiri, 2015;Al-Said, 2015).
From the results of the questionnaire and interview analysis, there are several suggestions that can be given. It is recommended to researchers in the same field to study the utilization of Edmodo in improving other aspects such as high-level thinking skills, social attitudes, and other aspects that have not been mentioned in this study. It is recommended to the lecturers to use this online learning platform as one way to integrate technology in learning. The learning process through Edmodo should also be carried out with full supervision so that it remains effective and 9 The Journal of English Literacy Education, Vol. 7, No. 1, May 2020, pp.1-10 P-ISSN 2355-7486, E-ISSN 2621 carried out optimally. It is recommended to the community, especially parents of students to participate in this online learning tool. The role of parents is important in controlling and monitoring the students' learning activities so that the use of technology can give positive impact. In respect to the study limitations, the video conference was not conducted through Edmodo. Therefore, more studies should focus on conducting video conference, and it should be done by examining all features within Edmodo at the Indonesian university level. It is suggested that the teachers provide a strong internet connection to create an effective and efficient online learning environment. Thus, the university is responsible for providing wi-fi with a strong internet connection for students and lecturers. It is believed that the Edmodo usage in English learning environment will improve the quality of teaching and learning process at the university. To sum up, the Edmodo usage can improve collaborative communicative English learning between lecturers and students because they cooperatively interact with one another and focus on the achievement of educational target. This study is an endeavor to attract more researchers to conduct further study on online English learning within the Indonesian English learners at the university levels. international journal of information and education technology, 4 (4), 293-296.

About the Authors:
Herland Franley Manalu is a lecturer and the head of English Literature Laboratory within Universitas Bangka Belitung. Diana Anggraeni is a lecturer and the head of English Literature department and Asrul Munazar is a lecturer of the English Literature department, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Bangka Belitung.