Ever since the Movement Control Order (MCO) and Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO) were introduced, the school education has changed from face-to-face teaching to online teaching. Thus, the relationship between teaching and learning has changed dramatically. This may be an important opportunity to promote education reform in Malaysia. Therefore, the question lies in whether or not our educators are ready to face the opportunities and challenges under the new norm - suspending classes without stopping learning?

UTAR and the United Chinese School Committees’ Association of Malaysia (Dong Zong) co-organised a special online teaching (e-teaching) workshop on video software Zoom and Microsoft Teams to help the teachers from Chinese independent high schools to master the necessary online learning resources and tools. The online workshop was conducted by UTAR Centre for Curriculum Development and Innovation Head Ts Dr Chen Kah Pin, on every Saturday for two weeks. It started on 2 May 2020.

Dr Chen said that, while ensuring the orderly progress of education, the large scale online teaching during this epidemic had formed a new learning ecology. He introduced two common ways of online teaching, namely synchronous and asynchronous teaching, and said, “The synchronous teaching requires teachers and students to be present online simultaneously. The teaching process will be carried out through live broadcast platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams, providing an effective way for teachers to interact with students in real time. While asynchronous teaching allows teachers to record in advance and upload teaching videos before the class. This method is convenient for students to study and review at any time.”

“As a tool for online teaching, Zoom and Microsoft Teams have their own specialisation which allows teachers to teach online easily. In terms of functionality, Microsoft Teams has many functions that can support the actual needs of teachers’ online teaching compared to Zoom or other professional video software. Microsoft Teams allows users to access files in the cloud, share files, create questionnaires and test questions, and use Microsoft Office software such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint and others to enhance the teaching and learning experience,” he added.

Furthermore, he also demonstrated and explained the functions and usage of Zoom and Microsoft Teams platforms besides providing solutions to problems encountered by participants during their teaching progress. The workshop received great responses from the educators of Chinese independent high schools around the nation.

Online learning is gradually becoming the mainstream of education. Hence, UTAR is following the pace of trend to specifically create a platform for collecting and organising information about online learning resources and tools to help teachers obtain useful teaching information and also provide convenience for the general public to view and learn more about e-learning. To know more about UTAR e-learning, please visit https://e-learning.utar.edu.my/Overview.php.