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PHILIPPINES: Island Kids Get Connected

Kara Santos

MANILA, Feb 14 2011 (IPS) - In a remote island community where fishing is the main source of living, one would expect children to be surfing the waves and not surfing the net.

On the beach, the rest of the world comes in closer. Credit: eKindling/Lubang Tourism

On the beach, the rest of the world comes in closer. Credit: eKindling/Lubang Tourism

But for 10-year olds on Lubang Island, 150 kilometres southwest of the Philippine capital Manila and reachable by a six to eight hour trip by sea, their world just became a little bigger.

Thanks to a partnership between non-profit group Education Kindling (eKindling), the Department of Education (DepEd) and employees of the National Computer Center (NCC), 100 laptops were given to aid the education of the island kids. Ninety-five laptops were given to two pilot classes of fourth grade students, four to teachers and one to technical staff.

“To position children for success in the 21st century, we need to rethink, reinvent and innovate education in the Philippines,” says Ryan Letada, Executive Director of eKindling. “The big picture is to transform children into life-long learners that are the problem solvers and leaders of tomorrow’s digital and connected world.”

Roughly the size of a small textbook, the distinct green and white laptops are identified with an icon symbolizing a child made up of the figures X and O. Each laptop comes with built-in wireless access and a computer screen that is readable even under direct sunlight.

Developed by the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) Foundation, the laptops are designed to be low cost, durable, and energy-efficient for children in developing countries to use. The ‘XO’ laptop (previously known as the 100 dollar laptop) has gotten an upgrade in terms of hardware and software.


The XO-1.5 model, which is currently priced at 229 dollars, has a faster processor and more ram (1ghz and 1gb RAM). It also has a dual booting system using the free and open source software – the Sugar desktop environment and Linux GNOME. Each computer comes preloaded with programmes (called activities) relevant for students.

Tessa Yuvienco, eKindling’s Education Director envisions educators and students in the country using these laptops to enhance learning in subjects like English, Maths, Science and Makabayan (Social studies).

“We want to change the mindsets of teachers to teach lessons with real life applications,” Yuvienco tells IPS. “Teachers often rely on word problems found in textbooks but have a hard time connecting math concepts like fractions or percentages to real life.”

Instead of asking students to memorize and recite multiplication tables, using the financial tool “Finance” proves the practicality of learning Math for business.

“During the launch of the project, we asked students to plan a budget for a party using Finance. They itemized their budget, subtracted their expenses and multiplied the number of items they needed using the programme,” says Yuvienco.

To demonstrate a lesson on alternative sources of energy for a Science class, eKindling showed teachers how to use the simple web browser “Browse” to connect to the Internet and show actual photos of what was being discussed to students.

With limited teaching and research materials available in remote schools, eKindling says that the laptops offer a gateway to the world. Since their deployment, the laptops have allowed the children to chat, share information online, compose their own music, edit texts, write stories and enjoy collaborative games.

The activity “Speak” which features a robotic face that voices out any text that is typed has proven popular with the kids and useful for English lessons.

“Teachers can make use of this to show students how to formulate questions correctly,” says Yuvuienco. Demonstrating how it works, the robot replies ‘The earth is the planet we live on’ in response to the typed question ‘Where is earth?’

Another activity “Record” which allows users to take video, still photos, and record voice narration to create multimedia projects has turned students into budding filmmakers and enhanced their story telling skills.

Juan Sanchez, former head of the National Computer Centre who is now Mayor of Lubang Island, says that access to technology can give them isolated places like Lubang an edge.

“By giving children their very own connected XO laptop, we are giving them a window to the outside world, access to vast amounts of information, a way to connect with each other, and a springboard into their future,” Sanchez told media. “It’s not just a laptop project – it’s an education project.”

With the lack of textbooks a perennial problem in public schools across the country, another important feature of the laptop is that it gives children access to thousands of digital e-books.

Yuvienco recently went back to the island to check the progress of students and find out what their needs are so their partners can develop more programmes to fit their needs.

“Our work goes beyond parachuting technologies into classrooms. We’ve gotten feedback from teachers that the students have renewed interest in classes and assignments,” Yuvienco tells IPS.

In the next three years, eKindling plans to deploy 400 more laptops to meet the needs of incoming fourth grade students as the pilot class will get to keep their laptops until the sixth grade.

The One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is a project under U.S. non-profit organisation One Laptop per Child Association Inc. set up by internet pioneer Nicholas Negroponte. The project in the Philippines is one of many pilot projects taking place in Asia and around the world as far as the Americas, Africa and the Middle East. Uruguay was the first country in the world where every primary school child received a free laptop in 2009.

 
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