Ilinadia Jamil, Nurkhazilah Idris and Fatrisha Mohamed Yussof
Keywords: COVID-19 awareness, video animation, creative approach, self-motivation, open and distance learning
Abstract: The outbreak of Covid-19 (Corona Virus disease-2019) all over the world has caused major changes in the life order of every organization around the world including learning education. The global COVID-19 pandemic has turned student’s lives upside down. Stay-at-home order makes them frustrated and de-motivated in some point. Especially in this sudden outbreak of corona virus pandemic, teaching and learning have been shifted to Open and Distance Learning (ODL) to adapt to the new norm. Concerned that the students may be feeling anxious, depressed or generally powerless, the researchers has came out with creative approach to help them cope with the current reality and express their feeling and creative thoughts on how to deal with pandemic COVID-19 in video animation. Animation has become a powerful tool to boost learning especially during pandemic COVID-19. Lecturers and educators now integrate animation as a visual aid in their course content to facilitate learning and improve performance. This approach to learning has proven over time to be very effective across various fields, including university courses. In response to that Department of Graphic and Digital Media, Faculty of Art and Design UiTM Cawangan Melaka has adapting GDT254 (2D Animation) course content to be reliable with the Pandemic COVID-19 topic. Whereby, students are encouraged to apply their creativities, feels and thoughts on COVID-19 outbreak as well as spread awareness throughout their creative video animations. On the other hand, this study involved several students from Diploma Graphic and Digital Media, UiTM Cawangan Melaka as the respondents. The research instruments used in this study were observation and online survey. The observation found that the students were much more motivated with the topic that related to the current pandemic and the learning process can realistically be improvised even during Open and Distance Learning with the progressive development throughout their video animation. Hence, this approach helped to increase the students’ potential to be more positive as well as upgrading their emotion, health awareness and self-motivation during pandemic COVID-19. In conclusion, animation is a medium whereby encouraging students to explore, express and improve their creative skills, as well as emotion and self-motivation during Open and Distance Learning.
