Curtin Malaysia’s SPACE conducts public workshop on online collaborative tools

Miri – 25 April 2023 – The School of Pre-U and Continuing Education (SPACE) of Curtin University Malaysia (Curtin Malaysia), in collaboration with Pustaka Miri, recently conducted a public workshop on ‘Basic Online Collaborative Tools’, which was attended by 21 participants from various secondary schools and colleges in Miri.

The schools and colleges were SMK Baru, Kolej Vokasional Miri, SMK Dato Permaisuri, Kolej IBS and SMK Taman Tunku.

The workshop, which was aimed at providing an introduction to online collaborative tools as virtual platforms for facilitating communication and collaboration among online users in real time, was held at Pustaka Miri and was conducted by lecturers Hii Kiew Ling and Kamaroizan Mohamad from SPACE’s Department of Science and Technology.

Kamaroizan said online collaborative tools in educational settings allow students and teachers to work as partners on given tasks, and share and communicate their ideas in real-time. Teachers are also able to provide feedback on completed task by students and suggest follow up actions. Resources from these interactions, such as teaching materials and session recordings, can be distributed and converted into many different formats for the students to access after the session is over.

Hii and Kamaroizan introduced the participants to two applications, Jamboard and Padlet, that make these online collaborative tools more effective for learning and teaching, creating real-time collaboration between teachers and learners, and facilitating simultaneous interactions from different locations.

Padlet is a digital platform that allows users to create and collaborate on a virtual bulletin board. It is designed for students and teachers to share ideas, resources, and multimedia content in a single space. Users can also organise their content using various formats such as grids, lists, and freeform layouts, which can be exported into various formats and embedded on websites.

Jamboard, meanwhile, is a digital whiteboard tool developed by Google and designed to facilitate collaboration and brainstorming. It allows users to create and work on a shared whiteboard, where they can draw, write and add various multimedia elements such as images and sticky notes. These can then be exported into various formats for distribution.

Hii and Kamaroizan also shared examples of how online collaborative tools are used in their classes for their Foundation in Engineering and Science units, and how they were critical for online learning during the pandemic.

The participants were later given the opportunity to try the tools for themselves through various practical activities.

The workshop was part of a series of cultural awareness workshops and talks initiated by SPACE in collaboration with Pustaka Miri this year in the lead-up to Curtin Malaysia’s 25th anniversary next year. Two earlier workshops conducted in March and April covered Sarawak and international games and videography.

Further workshops relating to digital and media literacy, cultural awareness, skills development, financial literacy, STEM, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are scheduled to be held between up until December. The next workshops will  be on ‘Critical Thinking and Problem Solving’ and ‘The Importance of Savings’ on 6 May and 20 May respectively.

The objectives of the workshops and talks are to engage people in the Miri community and help them acquire new knowledge and lifelong learning skills for the workplace and daily life. All are facilitated by lecturers and professional staff of Curtin Malaysia.

Students, members of associations, staff of government departments and agencies, and others in the Miri community are welcome to join the workshops which are free of charge.

More information on the workshops and talks can be obtained by contacting SPACE’s administration team by email to cm.space@curtin.edu.my or Pustaka Miri by phone at 085-422525.

For more information on Curtin Malaysia, visit www.curtin.edu.my or look for Curtin Malaysia on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn or TikTok.

Kamaroizan introducing the participants to various online collaborative tools

Hii explaining features of different collaborative tools

Group photo of the workshop participants and facilitators