schoolscolleges2020 hed news


DIGITAL LEARNING. Representatives from Smart Communications, Xavier University - Ateneo de Cagayan, and the Department of Education of Cagayan de Oro City watch a few videos on the School-in-a-Bag Project, a portable digital classroom designed to facilitate learning in basic education in remote areas without electricity. Photo by Jerome Torres. 

Smart Communications, Xavier University - Ateneo de Cagayan, and the Department of Education of Cagayan de Oro City signed two memoranda of agreements on School-in-a-Bag Project to make digital learning more accessible to far-flung communities and in the Alternative Learning System classes.

School-in-a-Bag is a portable digital classroom designed to facilitate learning in basic education in remote areas without electricity. Powered by Smart’s mobile technology coupled with an innovative 21st century teaching pedagogy and K+12 content to enable learning, this project is set to benefit the partner Lumad communities of XU and the ALS classes of the city.

“This is very much part of our outreach and mission as a university of men and women for others,” said XU president Fr Roberto C Yap SJ during the signing ceremony on Thursday, February 16. “We’ve been focusing a lot in our service learning program, hence, we’ve said that we have to use the competence of our units. This program fits with the thrust of XU.”

Three School-in-a-Bag packages were donated by Smart — one for the XU Night School headed by Jerome Torres and the XU Teachers’ Guild, and two SIABs for the two districts of CDO represented by schools division superintendent Dr Ma Elena M Borcillo.

The XU School of Education serves as the monitoring body for the use of the learning tools in the two districts of CDO.

Each learning tool package contains a solar panel for electricity, laptop, tablet, cellphone, pocket WiFi with starter load, Led TV, and learning modules, among others.

“We are very happy to share with you our School-in-a-Bag program. ... The reason why we are partnering with Xavier University is the [ALS] night school. We wanted a model for the ALS setup, on how we could use the School-in-a-Bag for the Alternative Learning System,” shared Judee Chaves, Smart's junior manager for public affairs.

“We wanted to add the ingredient of digital learning to the ALS modules in different communities and we are also encouraging the use of the Dynamic Learning Program methodology which can be integrated into the ALS curriculum,” she said.

Classes can also use the Batibot mobile application pre-installed on the e-tablet. Developed by Smart, in partnership with the Community of Learners Foundation and OrangeFix, this is the first learning app in Filipino that is aligned with the national kindergarten curriculum of DepEd.

The Batibot app features fun games that can help children in kindergarten up to Grade 3 learn basic concepts like matching, sorting, and grouping items. Through the app, they are shown how to identify shapes, colors, numbers, the alphabet, and letter sounds. The children can also practice tracing letters with the proper strokes.


LEADERS. (From left to right) Cagayan de Oro schools division superintendent Dr Ma Elena M Borcillo, XU president Fr Roberto C Yap SJ, and Smart's junior manager for public affairs Judee Chaves sign two memoranda of agreements on School-in-a-Bag Project to make digital learning more accessible to far-flung communities and in the city's Alternative Learning System classes. Photo by Jerome Torres. 

In 2011, Cagayan de Oro’s public school system was the first to receive the Dynamic Learning Program methodology, designed by Dr Christopher Bernido and Dr Ma Victoria Carpio-Bernido, to be applied from kindergarten up to high school.

“We got the Center for Educational Management to pretest 9,000 students for English, Science, and Math. Came December 2011, there was [Tropical Storm] Sendong and three schools were washed away. We thought that DLP was at lost. Came March [2012], the 9,000 students for English, Science, and Math got a highly significant increase in learning. We hope that if not in the regular classes, we can do the DLP in informal classes through ALS and with the help of Xavier University,” said Deivid Rioferio, Smart's supervisor for community partnerships.

“Through XU, we were able to tap into the mission schools of the Jesuits — the Miarayon schools in Talakag, Bukidnon and the St Isidore High School in Zamboanguita in the outskirts of Malaybalay City,” he added.

The XU president reiterated his gratitude to Smart for being one of the university's active partners in pushing for digital inclusion in the peripheries.

“Pope Francis keeps on telling us to go to the peripheries and this is the definition – no electricity, very remote area. We thank Smart. It’s a real impetus for us. Thank you for supporting us and we also like working with DepEd on this program. Another impetus for us is the Philippine Jesuit Roadmap where we would like to focus on helping Indigenous Peoples communities. I hope this grows because we share the same mission for service learning," Yap said. ∎ (Report by Stephen Pedroza)