The SCL has been helping OSY’s of Smokey Mountain, in partnership with the DepEd’s Bureau of Alternative Learning Systems (BALS), towards passing an equivalency test for their high school diploma.  SCL adopted traditional-style classroom settings and used printed booklets in educating the youth with limited success.  When Fr. Ben Beltran, Smokey Mountain’s parish priest and founder of SCL, received second hand computers loaded with basic skills learning software, he put them to good use by placing them in the classrooms.  As a result, students came more regularly and were able to finish their lessons and half of them were able to pass the equivalency tests.

Seeing the advantage of computer-based learning on the students’ motivation and achievement, he initiated the eLearning Project last year with the goal of converting the printed booklets used by the students into multimedia, interactive modules.  It was at this juncture that Fr. Ben met Dr. Dylan Dizon, a US-based university professor who has intensive experience in the use of computers in education and in the development of digitized learning modules.

EDO is funded in part by CFA, SCL, international aid organizations, and local NGOs.  It has 35 full-time and part-time staff members composed of content experts, graphic artists, and multimedia specialists who produce CDs and DVDs of learning modules in English, Math, Science, and Makabayan.  Noteworthy are the 12 graphic artists who are deaf but have found themselves a medium for expressing their creativity.  I’ll save discussing them and the rest of the EDO staff for later.

To date, 40 modules on various subject matters have been completed with the aim of completing 150 modules by the end of the year.  And simultaneous with the production of the interactive modules are the training of teachers on the effective use of the learning modules.

Teacher-training is an important component of the project to familiarize the teachers with how the modules were developed and how to use them effectively so that the student, though not expected to learn everything in the modules, would be motivated to pursue the course.   Teachers are encouraged to undergo the training sessions because Dr. Dizon has observed from sessions previously conducted that most of the teachers who attended lack basic computer literacy skills needed to effectively conduct the program and including DepEd personnel.

Since it’s too early to measure the project’s impact, Dr. Dizon shares this story of how one teacher trying out the module came late for a meeting because the students didn’t want the sessions to end when before she had difficulty making them attend class that she even had to look for them.  This considering the fact that she only has two modules she uses repeatedly.  It seems the kids don’t mind using them over and over that by the time they get a new set of CDs, they would have mastered the lessons already.

The project has targeted out-of-school youths because according to statistics their number is greater than those who are in school and for Dr. Dizon, this is a matter not only for the Dept. of Education to address calling the less than 1% of the total DepEd budget allocated for alternative education as a disservice, but also a matter of national concern and national security.

He cites studies in brain research showing that if kids are not taught the basic skills before they reach puberty, they lose out on developing their critical thinking skills by the time they reach puberty.   And when they do not possess critical thinking skills, these OSYs become adults who cannot make informed decisions.  And with 16 million illiterates, I shudder at the thought of the country’s future.

In spite of the project’s novelty and nobility, it has received criticisms calling it a waste of time since the students won’t be going to college anyway.  But Dr. Dizon thinks otherwise.  While it might be true that most of them won’t be going to college, Dr. Dizon says the knowledge and life skills they would have acquired from the modules will help them think such that when they become farmers, they will be good farmers or when they become fishermen, they will become good fishermen applying what they have learned on the weather, the soil, etc.

EDO recently signed a memorandum of agreement with the Knowledge Channel allowing EDO to include excerpts from the more than 6,000 titles of videos in Knowledge Channel’s collection into the modules and the station in return will broadcast the integrated modules and convert them into DVD format. 

Private schools interested to acquire the interactive modules can buy them at prices way below commercial interactive CD-ROMs. However, the interactive are free for public schools and mission partners of SCL.

Let’s support this project by either buying the modules or becoming SCL’s partner in educating out-of school youths.

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The Archdiocese of Manila’s project of exhibiting the winning digital art works is still looking for a sponsor to print and mount the art works.  The exhibit will be shown in schools around Metro Manila after which it will be brought to the different dioceses of the country.  So imagine the potential market that awaits a willing sponsor.  Do not hesitate to get in touch with me at openingpagemb@yahoo.com or drop by my website and leave a comment or message at http://techiepeachy.blogspot.com.