ABSTRAK
This research reports on identifying: 1) how Edmodo can be used effectively in improving students’ writing skill, and 2) to what extent can Edmodo improve students’ writing skill. Action research was the method of this research. It took four stages of research started from planning, acting, observation and evaluation. This research consisted of two cycles and each cycle consisted of four meetings. This research was conducted in SMK N 3 Surakarta in class XI Multimedia 2 in the academic year of 2015/2016. The research started in September 16th- November 21st 2015. The data collected in this research were qualitative and quantitative data. Qualitative data were gathered using observation, interviews, questionnaire, field notes and photographs. While quantitative data were gathered using pre-test and post-test activities. The qualitative data were analyzed using Miles and Huberman (1994) data analyzing which consisted of three concurent flows of activity: data reduction, data display and conclusion drawing/ verification. On the other hand, descriptive statistic was used to analyze the quantitative data by comparing the mean score of writing test ( pre-test and post-test) . The results of this research show that the implementation of using Edmodo (1) can improve the students’ writing skill effectively by taking some considerations, and (2) can improve students’ writing skill to what extent of being conducive in classroom situation; the students are actively and attractively participate during teaching learning process. Some considerations are exercises and practices in writing, good students-teacher interaction, adjustment of class situation, etc. The improvement also can be seen in the students’ achievement of English writing and the classroom situation. The improvement of students’ achievement was showed in the students’ score of writing. The pre-test mean score was 57.25, and it improved to 67.37 in post-test 1. In addition, the mean score of post-test 2 improved to 73.84. The classroom situation during teaching learning process was more conducive after the implementation. The students became active in classroom discussion and eagerly delivered their opinion. They also attractively involved in English class which can be seen through the students’ willingness in learning English. Finally, it can be concluded that utilizing Edmodo to help improve students’ writing skill is beneficial. The researcher is hoped that this research can help other researchers to enrich their knowledge about media used in teaching writing and to strengthen their willingness in conducting the same research by using Edmodo in the future.
Keywords: writing skill, Edmodo, classroom action research