3CP Digital Learning, a Gold Award innovation in Virtual Innovation Competition (VIC) 2023 is a collaborative effort of Wakelet Community Members in Malaysia. To know more about the project  please view the Youtube video (https://youtu.be/umcxMcogSD8).  

1. Introduction

       In this era of rapid information technology growth, there is a need for a pedagogical or teaching approach that can appeal to our students. This is supported by Sezen Tosun (2013) and Atchley et. al. (2013) who argued that students nowadays are more inclined to the use of technology in their learning.  Abid Haleem et. al. (2022) further argued that digital learning is the most successful means to provide a rich educational environment since internet communication has the potential to connect people, over enormous distances to diverse information sources.  In other words, digital learning should be practiced apart from the daily teaching at school.  

     According to Abid Haleem et. al. (2022), online teaching would replace traditional teaching due to the convenience and popularity of the Internet for applying digital teaching materials.   Thus, there is a need to use a teaching approach that utilizes digital tools apart from the usual daily classroom teaching. According to Lai et al. (2012),  “Practical teaching strategies should be developed by combining with current teaching trends and extracting the advantages of digital learning to achieve teaching effectiveness”.   In other words, teachers should develop or adapt the current digital tools to suit the learning environment and students’ needs.  

        Due to this, a digital educational programme, 3CP (Curation, Critical Thinking, Collaboration, and Portfolio) was created to suit the student’s needs.  It is a program that includes 4 stages of learning:  Curation, Critical Thinking, Collaboration and Portfolio.  Students are expected to produce different Wakelet collections for every stage.  3CP Digital Learning programme is created as it is a student-centred programme that encourages students to learn on their own using online sources such as Youtube, Quizziz, Wakelet and websites.  Apart from that, the 3CP Digital Learning program also stimulates thinking skills and promotes collaboration among students as they need to work with each other in order to produce the collections.  Finally, this programme also enhances students’ sense of accomplishment as they have to display their certificates and achievements or favourite photos at the last task.  

      The topic chosen for 3CP Digital Learning Programme was based on the theme ‘Family’ as it is one of the main themes for English primary and secondary syllabus.    

Objectives of Project

This research was guided by objectives such as below:  

1. To get the students’ perceptions about digital learning
2. To get the students’ perceptions about the use of 3CP Digital Learning.  

2. Method & Material

The data for this study was collected through participant observation, questionnaire and semi-structured interview.  At least 3 data collection methods were used in order to triangulate the data for the finding.  

Procedure

1^st Task (Curation)

1. Students do a curation about themselves including information about their name, school, favourite food, drinks, hobbies, dream country, pets, songs and others.
2. Students share his or her collection with the educator and the peers once completed.

2^nd Task (Critical thinking)

1. Students create a collection using Wakelet that shows 2 sides of an argument.  
2. Sample of topic includes ‘The Advantages and Disadvantages of Keeping Pets’ and ‘Advantages and Disadvantages of Online Learning’.  
3. Students share his or her collection with the educator and the peers once completed.  

Sample of ‘Critical Thinking’ collection produced by students.

3rd Task (Collaboration)

1. Students create a shared collection with the title ‘My Favourite Songs’. 
2. Students share their collection links with other students.  
3. Students add in information to their friends’ shared collection about ‘My Favourite Songs’. 
4. Students can add information in terms of pictures, Youtube videos or text to their friends’ collection.  
5. Students share his or her collection with the educator and the peers once completed.  

Sample of ‘Collaboration’ collection produced by students. 

4^th Task (Portfolio)

1.  Students do a portfolio about themselves including certificates and favourite photos from competitions into their portfolio.  
2. Students share his or her collection with the educator and the peers once completed. 

4^th Stage:  Sample of ‘Portfolio’ collection produced by students.  

3. Findings

The results from observation, questionnaires, and interviews show that the majority of the respondents preferred digital learning.  Only a few have Wifi problems at home.  On top of that, the majority of the respondents agreed that 3CP Digital Learning is indeed a useful platform for learning. Apart from the fact that it is an interesting platform, 3CP Digital Learning also encourages collaboration and stimulates critical thinking among students.  These findings were supported by Jabbar Al Muzzamil Fareen (2022) who argued that digital learning should not only help students to gain knowledge but also engage in developing their higher-order thinking skills and to indulge in both creative and critical learning skills.  All these are crucial factors in students’ learning.  

4. Conclusion

Digital learning such as 3CP Digital Learning is an innovation in education that can be practised in the teaching of any subject as it consists of crucial stages for learning such as critical thinking, collaboration, and portfolio.  Apart from improving students’ thinking skills, 3CP Digital Learning also encourages collaboration and promote a sense of achievement among students as they need to display their contributions and certificate of achievements in the portfolio section.  Hopefully, 3CP Digital Learning can be widely practised in our country.    

Acknowledgments: Thanks to Wakelet Team of Malaysia for their assistance in this innovation project and all the Malaysian teachers and students who were involved as respondents for this study.  

References

1. Abid Haleem, Mohd Javaid, Mohd Asim Qadri, Rajiv Suman (2022).  Understanding The Role of Digital Technologies in Education:  A Review.  Sustainable Operations and Computers 3, 275-285.  
2. Atchley, W., Wingenbach, G. and Akers, C. (2013).  Comparison of Course Completion and Student Performance through Online and Traditional Courses.  International Review of Research in open and Distributed Learning 14.4. 
3. Jabbar Al Muzzamil Fareen (2022).  Digital Learning in Higher Education:  A Road to Transformation and Reform.  European Journal of Interactive Multimedia and Education.  ISSN 2732-4263.  3(1), e02206. 
4. Lai, Y.H., Huang, F.F., & Yang, H.H. (2012).  The Effect of Nutrition Education System for Elementary School Students in Nutrition Knowledge. Journal of Oriental Institute of Technology, 32, 115-123.   
5. Sezen Tosun (2015).  GlobELT:  An International Conference on Teaching and Learning English as an Additional Language, Antalya-Turkey.  Procedia Social and Behavioral Science 199 (2015) 641-647. 

Written by Shirley Ling Jen