Bloggers' Kapihan 2.0: Blog Ed 101.
First and foremost, I wanna thank Shari for this amazing opportunity. It is really an esteemed privilege for me to share the BlogEd 101 discussion table with some of our prolific bloggers who participated. My most deepest thanks also extends to the Bloggers' Kapihan Crew (Benj, Bikoy, Ederic, Jhay, Mong, Sarah, Shari, Tonyo and Vencer), Alliance of Concerned Teachers representatives and to the guest speakers; Sir Danny Arao, Sir Martin Perez (my apologies for repeatedly calling you Sir Ganns, hehe :|) and Sir Tonchi Tinio of ACT.
I was seating beside Mi (of Miii.net, a fellow blogger/student of Education) and earlier got the chance to discuss Education matters with her. It was really nice to be with you there and I hope to see more of you in the next blog happenings to come.
To the event's hosts Bikoy Villanueva (of Bikoy.net, nice to finally have met you) and Benj Espina (of Atheista.net, who thought I'm not an atheist anymore just 'cause I used the word 'blessing', hehe too bad I still am and will always be. I knew that you might have a reaction on that from the moment I spoke that word. I used it unconsciously out of the blue just 'cause I'm hell nervous and just 'cause the word exists, linguistically. Besides, 'blessing' can also pertain to something else. ^_^)
There was a dismal turn out of attendees as the sophomore jinx seem to have plagued the event but of course, the show must still go on. It's actually understandable since the preparation wasn't enough, it's finals week so most student-bloggers are busy cramming and because of lack of interest to others. It's sort of a 'blessing' or a good thing for me that there are only a few of us who were there since my nerves is pretty much all over the place. My point is, I messed up but at least I tried to bounce back higher. Well, I guess I did.
So what had transpired in the conference then? Well, we had three formidable resource speakers who presented their discussion on "Web-authoring/On-line Journalism", "Blogging as a medium for instruction" and "DepEd's Cyber Education Project" respectively. The latter being the most controversial and the most talked about. I was asked to be the student-reactor to basically address my views or simply, my reaction on what the speakers had disclosed. I'll be honest to admit that I'm tired sleepy at that moment (and definitely not so well prepared) but the hype and importance of the discussion kept me awake. Kudos to the speakers for their enlightening way of delivering their subjects. Needless to say, but it was point blank and I enjoyed every minute of it.
The next series of paragraphs below consists of my more 'organized' thoughts as a student-reactor of the seminar. I swear, I could've said it better had I not stuttered. Man, it feels really different once everyone's eyes are on you. I badly need to improve my speaking stance and confidence.
ONLINE JOURNALISM AND WEB-AUTHORING
I seriously couldn't give a substantial response on Prof. Arao's topic since I'm not really versed with it. But I have to say that I felt really assured that hard-coding from notepad is something that's normal and that he's actually promoting it as the basic. I mean, I don't really know how to use any WYSIWYG (pronounced as 'why-see-wig') such as Dreamweaver and MS FrontPage (well with this one, I tried but I find it stupid). I've always hard-coded my earlier layouts and I always do the tweakings in notepad and I thought I'm silly by doing it. This is also first to my knowledge that UP offers an Online Journalism subject, yeah call me pre-historic on that level but UP never cease to amaze me with their refreshing ideas.
BLOGGING AS A MEDIUM FOR INSTRUCTION
Even before this Bloggers' Kapihan discussion, I already thought of incorporating blogging in my teaching and introducing my students to blog too. That's why it felt really nice that I share the same ideas with an educator like Sir Martz with how we could use blogging as a medium to educate learners. I actually have a lot of things in mind on how I could use the blog as a teacher, and I know most of it may appear to be too 'idealistic', since I am not really into the process of teaching yet so as for me to find out the best practical uses of internet blogging in my field. 'Blogging' is also an educative process. We can be educated in blogging just as the simple 'tying of our shoes' educates us. I believe that in providing the best education, it is best that we should learn to adapt to current trends that instead of using this new media, or in specificity, blogging about nonsense things, why not use it as a formal means of proper education? Blogging nowadays isn't just a digital library or a fortress of knowledge and fresh ideas and researches, but it is also a society of its own. It is a society in a sense that it has representations from different sectors of our 'off line' world like medicine, religion, politics and of course education. It is a society because it acts as a tunnel that voices out opinions and thoughts of different folks from different walks of life. For me, blogging will give the students a good platform of involvement to be a part of an aware society. It will also be a good training ground for them to think liberally but responsibly. I just hope that my students will not be too politically-correct though.
As an English teacher, I could ask my students to blog their essays, reviews, reactions and term papers so that the rest of the world can view it and they can share ideas over it as well. Chances are, my students will be doing their best in writing their articles since they know that a lot of possible readers may step on it and read it. It could even hone their untouched potentials further in writing too. Also, I plan to display the best work of my students in my own blog in an aim to motivate the others to perform better. I also couldn't help but agree more with Sir Martz when he told everyone that his blog is an extension of his classroom discussion (and an extension of him as teacher) for I personally think that it's really a brilliant idea. I mean blog discussions through comments are comparatively an online forum (or chat, so to speak) where a 'democratic virtual classroom' can be observed since the nature of the discussion itself is interactive. Meaning, the teacher won't be in to imperially command or pose as an authority figure that will intimidate students, ergo hindering them to participate. Everyone will be given a fair chance to speak and to raise a well-thought response or argument over a certain subject matter.
There are still a number of ways out there where we could employ blogging to facilitate learning but I still carry a load of hesitation and I'm a bit alarmed of its adversary effects like internet addiction, copy-pasted works, porn sites and online games. I won't elaborate on this further for we very much know what the after maths of these are. Anyway, I'm still glad Sir Martz was able to address these concerns as well. I'll just discuss more about these on a separate post.
DEPED'S CYBER EDUCATION PROGRAM
Initially, I stood on neutral ground with this issue. Simply because I thought that it's gonna be an 'interactive' learning given that internet access of schools will be the by-product of this project. I find it also useful for those who're in the suburbs that they wouldn't walk for miles anymore just to come to school and study. But I was wrong, so wrong. First, because Sir Tonchi divulged that it's just gonna be a 15-20-minute broadcasted lecture from a master teacher based in their central office in Pasig City, hence, the students won't be able to ask questions if they didn't understand the lesson very well, unlike in a conventional classroom setting. Second, the installation won't evidently be in places that has no access to electricity. The students from remote areas with no electricity will still walk (even farther) the miles just to reach a school with electricity where they could watch the broadcast. Talk about convenience eh?
The CEP will cover 90 percent of the public schools nationwide. Okay, so that's great, it's nation wide so it's pretty much everywhere but what language would they use to address the lessons considering we have 100+ languages (not dialects according to Ms. Mi hehe) here? Not everyone is fluent with neither Tagalog (Filipino) or English, especially the native learners.
The DepEd must be daydreaming when they said that with this innovation, a student will save more than 10 pesos from renting in internet cafes. I mean be realistic and don't be so illogical. You can't go on with that generalization since there are only a handful of students (in public elementary and high school especially in provinces) that has (or can) an access to the internet. Most of them are still primitive with it. Even in a supposed city like Antipolo where we have a house, I still need to walk for like 3 kilometers to find myself a computer rental shop and it's not even what I could call decent.
Here are the points that I raised during the open forum:
Focus on the essentials first. I strongly agree with Shari (or Sharon? hehe :P) that we should teach the learners first with the basics like reading and writing. We still have a considerable amount of illiterates here who doesn't know how to read, write and even both. Let's deal first with the essentials that forms the very foundation of our learners before we even venture to some other complicated means and measures. We surely have far more important Education-related problems to take care of like incompetent teachers, erroneous textbooks, better compensation and benefits for teachers, upgrading of school facilities, more schools and classrooms and the list goes on. I think that with this CEP train, the Department of Education or Sec. Jesli Lapus is really confused with "delivering information and delivering or imparting LEARNING". They should be seen differently.
"CEP is the best thing that will happen in Education". This very ambitious project is said to amount to like $400M+ and the DepEd's trying to justify this by claiming that we'll save billions of pesos in the long run, say in the next 25 years or so. That's a very long period of time and it is very likely that this project will fail and be put to waste (yet again) given our current situation and circumstances. We can't afford and we shouldn't let this to be another case of Bataan Nuclear Power Plant or Pasig River Ferryboat. The very fact that the bulk of the money that we're gonna spend for this proposal is coming from another loan from World Bank is already a valid reason, enough for us not to push through with it. We all know the implications of borrowing money since we've been at it for so many instances already. We borrow the money, we pay by partials, it's payable for years and each year amounts to a corresponding interest and so the next scenario's gonna be an endless fight of paying debts and interests.
So I say SCRAP THE Cyber Education Program! Because we're not prepared yet, it's too risky, it's gonna be another problem and let's turn our heads first with the unsolved ones.
* Related Links:
>> Burador na Pambungad ng Pananalita sa Bloggers' Kapihan 2.0 ni Ederic Eder
>> Bakit dapat nating tutulan ang Cyber Education Project (CEP) ng DepEd at Malacañang? ni Mr. Tonchi Tinio
>> Teaching and Web Authoring
by Prof. Danny Arao
>> Googling Sir Martin
by Sir Martin Perez
>> Corrupting Each Other Eh? by Bikoy.
>> Pictures of the said event, just click this link.
>> Blog Ed 101: Blogging and Education
PS.
Thanks to Benj (hahaha I liked your straightforwardness!), Kuya Tonyo (nice ideas!), Kuya Jon (very welcoming and cool Mom you have there!), Kuya Ederic (thanks and you're dedication to BK is really admiring to see), Shari (once again thank you and I had an awesome time!) and JM (hehe yet again, I enjoyed it) for keeping me company during the post-event. I so appreciate it.
Thank you again to the Bloggers' Kapihan Crew for having us there and to the following sponsors: DigitalFilipino.com Club, Philippine Genre Stories, Pinoy Webhosting Solutions, Phil-hosting.net, New Beginning, Ladygadfly, Jaypee Online, The AniTOKiD.
Labels: Blogbites, Educare, Lalon Day-Day
~Link love ^^