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By Josefina S. Patron, Ed.D..
Special To The Manila Times
(Editor’s note: The first part
brought out questions that experts have about the Cyber-Education
Project. Part 2 gave the reasons why the Department of Education is
bullish on CyberEd.)
Third of four parts
The design seems to be, as Dr.
Allan Bernardo of De La Salle University said, that teachers will be
focusing on adopting the lectures for local context and to specific
classroom needs. These functions are new to teachers and hence will
require preparation to effectively utilize the lectures and even if
teachers are trained in the technology, the technology becomes
useless if the teachers’ content knowledge is inadequate.
Dr. Avelina Llagas, former
director of the Bureau of Secondary Education, offered the
information that regarding the new curriculum for teacher education,
the first batch will graduate in 2009. There is need to look into
the table of specifications for the licensure examination for
teachers. The pre-service education of teachers includes six units
in Educational Technology. Is this sufficient for teachers using
information communication technology (ICT) in education?
The Department of Education
claims the teachers have been prepared to use ICT based on 89,000
teachers trained by INTEL and 18,000 teachers trained by Microsoft
on the use of ICT. But Carmelita L. Villanueva, consultant to the
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco)
office in Bangkok, which presently coordinates an ICT project in
Quezon City High School, observed that the generic training or mass
training for teachers is not enough. Personalized coaching or
one-on-one training has to be provided.
In relation to teacher training,
Dr. William Torres, Mozcom Inc. president, advocates using ICT for
teacher empowerment. He said the infrastructure development, at the
initial stage, should be biased in favor of teacher training and
empowerment so that the teachers themselves can participate in the
development of the curriculum and teaching materials.
What about the production of the
courseware?
How will the Education department
handle the intricacies of courseware production for CyberEd? Past
experiences underscored the need for close interaction among
curriculum experts, subject area specialists and the production
groups throughout the development and production of each episode of
the telecourses. This importance was shown, for one, in the
development and production of the government interagency project
Continuing Studies Via Television (Constel) teacher upgrading
telecourses in the teaching of elementary science and high-school
chemistry, physics and English, telecast over NBN Channel 4 from
1996 to 2001. These telecourses are still being aired on Knowledge
Channel).
Each episode had to undergo
formative evaluation consisting of preview and evaluation by those
involved as well as field pre-testing with classroom teachers.
Considering the magnitude of the courseware requirements on a
day-to-day basis for the Cyber-Ed Project, did the production
requirements receive appropriate consideration in the project
design?
In this regard, training is
necessary for all those who will be involved in courseware
development and production, and this is not exactly a small matter.
Infrastructure? Why not build on what we have?
As pointed out by Torres, the
country has a thriving telecommunication industry that can provide
the building blocks of a national information infrastructure, which
need not necessarily be used solely for education but also for other
applications such as health and agriculture.
To this, however, Education
Director Jesus Mateo replied that the concern is to protect
education and maybe, when the system is running, other applications
may be considered.
Torres avers that the successful
development of infrastructure evolves over time, with new elements
being built from existing ones, which become self-reinforcing. As
the growth and development of an installed base is need-based, it
brings with it people with skills and expertise and the much-needed
technical support services necessary for its maintenance and
sustainability.
The strategy, according to
Torres, is to talk to the telecom industry as a whole, not to the
vendors individually, and see what the industry can do together.
CyberEd may also tap existing government ICT facilities such as the
Philippine Administrative Network Project of the Philippine
Information Agency and the Bureau of Broadcast Services, which
maintains a nationwide satellite network to service their
information dissemination and broadcast requirements. Facilities and
services of NBN Channel 4 and other agencies may also be tapped in
courseware production.
As recommended in the workshop on
infrastructure, the strategy of outsourcing services to the private
sector whenever possible and interfacing with existing government IT
services and facilities may redound to a much reduced cost for
infrastructure development and maintenance. This may provide a
solution to the observation of Villanueva of Unesco Bangkok that the
Education department’s ICT Unit does not seem to have competence
at present to extend troubleshooting and technical maintenance
support that is needed in school ICT projects.
Torres further proposed that in
building the Cyber-Ed infra–structure, the Education department
could first develop the part that is most important at the start of
the project which could be scaled up later. He maintained that
infra–structure should be developed hand in hand with the other
project components most especially those elements and corresponding
applications that support teacher training, empowerment and
participation in curriculum and materials development.
On the use of satellite
technology, which the department regards as the great equalizer for
schools in remote villages with no access to existing telecom
services, Torres asserted that this is acceptable but it must be
cost-effective. The small group discussion on infrastructure,
however, cautioned the Education department against using the KU
band satellite technology and the technology’s reliability
considering the country’s rainy weather.
Torres strongly recommended using
a seamless hybrid infrastructure, which could include Wimax
technology for use in school clustering. As is generally known,
Wimax technology can provide the last-mile connection for schools
otherwise inaccessible through existing network at a much-reduced
cost.
The planned implementation
schedule of 1,000 schools, as stated in the Education department’s
handout to be set up mostly by 40 teams for the project, may be too
optimistic, according to roundtable participant Virgilio M. Gaje,
project manager of the Philippine Administrative Network Project. It
means almost one school for each team a day. Logistics alone
presents huge obstacles plus coordination, construction and
preparation of Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) platforms, ICT
rooms, etc.
It seems that much work needs to
be done on infrastructure alone.
--With Belina Sb. Capul And Grace V. Agoncillo
To be concluded
(Dr. Josefina S. Patron, Ed.D,
is a consultant to National Broadcasting Network. Belina SB. Capul
is staff director for the Management Information Systems, Philippine
Information Agency. Grace V. Agoncillo is a staff director for Human
Resource Development, Philippine Information Agency. Patron, Capul
and Agoncillo were members of the executive committee of the
November 9, 2007, roundtable on the Cyber-Ed Project convened by The
Manila Times College in coordination with the UP National Institute
for Science and Mathematics Education Development.)
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