SMART brings education program to higher level, highlights content generation in ICT Congress
“Doon Po Sa Amin” to generate local stories for the Web
[September 9, 2008/ Cebu City] What crawls in Manila but flies in Cebu? The answer is langgam, which means ‘ant’ in Tagalog, but ‘bird’ in Cebuano.
This play on the different meanings of words across various dialects comes up every now and then, not just between Cebuanos and Tagalogs. For sure, we can find other similar linguistic examples.
Now imagine a student group composed of students and teachers presenting this as a language and social studies exercise in the classroom and publishing the output in the web to share with other schools. And imagine almost 350 other student groups working on similar curriculum based projects.
This is precisely the kind of information and data that reflects the stories and resources of our communities that the Smart Schools Program hopes to capture with Doon Po Sa Amin (literally translated as “In Our Place”, a take on a popular folksong), a four-year online user content generation project that encourages teachers and students to utilize computer and Internet technologies in producing and sharing web-based information and educational materials about their respective communities. Components of the project include an online competition, web-related trainings, online promos, and an incentive program.
Launched last June, Doon Po Sa Amin is the main project being highlighted by the Smart Schools Program here at the 3rd National ICTs in Basic Education Congress in Cebu City. The Smart Schools Program is SMART’s flagship community service in education. Through the program, SMART has been providing Internet access, online content and teacher trainings to its 180 public school partners. This year, the program has increased its focus on developing capabilities that will support online content generation among teachers.
Registration for the competition component, the Doon Po Sa Amin Learning Challenge just closed and it attracted more than almost 350 student groups from 83 Smart Schools partners working on projects. Student groups are now working on their web projects, which are expected to be finished by December 2008. Winners will be announced in early 2009. Information regarding the competition can be accessed at www.doonposaamin.ph.
Some examples of projects submitted are as follows: Language and Etymology of Masbate (Language and Literature), Palaw’an Wedding (Arts and Culture), Ormoc City: A Glimpse of the Past (Social Science), Sweet Nilamaw: Cabalian’s Dessert (technology and livelihood), War Against Malnutrition (health and wellness), Numbers Will Tell (Mathematics), and The Sug-ang Stones: A Marvelous Stonescape (Science & Environment).
“The 3rd National ICTs in Basic Education Congress is the ideal venue to emphasize how teachers and students can create content about their communities and become full participants in the rapidly expanding online world through Doon Po Sa Amin. Doon Po Sa Amin is one particular initiative that we think will strongly encourage our teachers and students to participate and collaborate on web projects that can later be information resources for the community
” said Ramon R. Isberto, Smart Public Affairs group head.
“This is effectively promoting technology by ‘learning by doing’,” he added.
Aside from Doon Po Sa Amin, Smart is also promoting the Smart Schools Online Associate and Contributor concept for schools and educators outside of its Smart Schools Program school partners network who want to be part of the community. Online Associates and Contributors will be given free website hosting, access to online learning materials and they will be able to participate in online contests and promotions, including incentive programs for user content generation. Interested parties can just send their letter of intent to smartschools@smart.com.ph.
“We are now bringing the Smart Schools Program to a higher level by stepping up our efforts in the content component of the program. We will be launching other community web projects for people outside the Smart Schools network. All these activities reinforce our belief that technology can effectively be promoted and integrated in the classroom. It also brings us closer to our vision – that of helping establish and support online communities of educators and learners.”” said Darwin F. Flores, senior manager, Smart Public Affairs group.
Doon Po Sa Amin and all projects under the Smart Schools Program are initiatives in support of SMART’s ‘Internet for All’ advocacy.
‘Internet for All’ is a major objective of the company to literally put the Internet into the hands of millions of Filipinos by developing innovations and strategic partnerships that will bring affordable computers and Internet access and easy-to-use and relevant Web-based applications and other multimedia services down to the grassroots.
Smart has been a supporter of the Third National ICTs in Basic Education Congress since it was first organized by the Foundation for Information Technology Education and Development in 2004. The event is attended by educators working in the field of ICTs in basic education and the conference has been a springboard for dialogue on the issues that underpin ICT-enabled initiatives towards educational transformation as well as a venue for showcasing best practices in local and international ICT and curriculum integration.
(Published 15 September 2008, Smart Communications, Inc.)
