Harnessing digital tools in collaborative inquiry for contemporary interpretation of the Pancasila

Abstract

Twenty-three teachers, representative of Indonesia’s religious and cultural diversity, were recruited in an online interregional collaborative inquiry (OICI) of the Pancasila - Indonesia’s founding values. This undertaking matches calls from the highest levels of Indonesian government for a Mental Revolution, encouraging citizens to dig into cultural roots to address sectarian conflict. Google Hangouts On Air afforded teachers joining video calls on their digital devices with screensharing of ‘Conflict Resolution Education Module’ [25] and a facilitator fostering discussion. A Google Classroom afforded asynchronous sharing. The inquiry evolved organically fitting technology mediation to daily living. Harnessing social media to teacher learning facilitated an enactment and deeper understanding of the Pancasila and peace. This paper reviews computer-human interaction (CHI) related to recruitment and engaging in the OICI, contributing to the growing field, by describing ‘control, context and communication’ constructs negotiated to enable empowering digital transformation for teacher needs. As such, it documents a component of the research project still underway, that studies the teachers’ OICI experiences and how this supports or hinders contemporary interpretation of the Pancasila.