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Government and private institutions are looking more
seriously into Information Technology (IT)—and more significantly,
on how they can keep up with it. These sectors are looking for ways
to improve their internal conditions, as well as to provide service
to the public.
At the recent Cisco Skills
Competition in Tagaytay City, Elcid Pangilinan, special assistant to
the Secretary of Department of Education (DepEd) and Hector John
Manaligod, instructional computer systems coordinator and faculty
member at the University of the Philippines (UP) College of
Education, discussed the status quo institutions’ progress on how
to make the most of technology.
UP’s ICT-pedagogy system
The UP College of Education aims
to achieve this goal through means of collaborating Information and
Communications Technology (ICT) and pedagogy or teaching style. The
department pushed these goals into action in 2005, when it fused ICT
in its courses.
“Teaching should be
pedagogy-driven, with supplement from ICT,” said Manaligod.
He said that teachers are given
the necessary resources to able to cope with technology. The school
curriculum is also subject to change, to better adapt to technology.
Given the information overload through the Internet, students now
have the chance to learn more than what they get in school.
“Before, the teaching methods
were one-way and teacher-centered. Now, it’s learning-centered,”
said Manaligod.
Activities, Manaligod said, are
more collaborative and project-based, for students to have
interaction. Such includes the use of popular Internet tools such as
Yahoo! Groups at the beginning of the class to encourage
participation.
DepEd and Cisco Partnership
DepEd and Cisco Philippines,
according to Pangilinan, will be teaming up to offer basic
networking skills to technical-vocational (tech-voc) schools in the
Philippines.
The special Cisco training will
be offered to those schools who will qualify for the said program.
And thus, the qualifying schools will be under the Cisco Networking
Academy.
Given the number of dropouts in
high school, the qualified schools taken from the 260 vocational
schools will be able to learn networking and become network support
centers for public high schools.
According to Cisco Philippines,
discussions with DepEd began in October 2007 and presently, the
project is still underway and is expected to be launched in May.
 --Marian
Jean Benetua
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