PLDT’s Infoteach fosters mentorship among teachers
In the digital age where information is power and readily available at one’s fingertips, recognition and demand for continuing education has been higher than ever. PLDT, the country’s leading telecoms and digital services provider, is helping Filipino educators expand their mind even further with its Infoteach Outreach program.
The program, implemented through PLDT’s community relations arm, imparts computer training skills to its teacher and student beneficiaries, allowing them to remain abreast of or learn new digital skills. Included among its module topics is digital literacy for lifelong learning.
“For the Philippines to truly be a learning society, we must all take part in being an educational provider. Learning is a lifelong process that can help improve the lives of our countrymen in the long run. PLDT is dedicated to nation building, and we will keep on providing opportunities for continuing education,” said Mike Mejia, area manager of PLDT Laguna, who represented Evelyn Mamauag-del Rosario, head of PLDT community relations.
Getting this year’s program underway, a two-day training for the master trainers of the 17 participating Department of Education (DepEd) Divisions was held last September at the University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU) headquarters in Los Baños, Laguna. The master trainers which consist of an ICT coordinator and a teacher from each division, will mentor other teachers who will then serve as the instructors of the beneficiaries from the participating schools in their division.
Dr. Melinda dela Pena-Bandalaria, professor of communication and dean of the Faculty of Information and Communication Studies, UPOU, developed the training curriculum and was the one who facilitated the training. At the end of the training, participants presented their training plans and their own contributions to the capacity building of their co-teachers.
One of the participants is 35-year old Vicente Demiden, the IT officer for DepEd Division of Silay City, who has been an educator for ten years and has served as a school ICT officer prior. For him the challenge before in bringing ICT is that a lot of schools are not yet connected.
“The program is very helpful for teachers and students. More so for the teachers, there is now integration of technology in their lessons and some of them cannot cope because they did not have these computer subjects before, when they learned about Infoteach Outreach they were very excited and a lot of them signed up,” Demiden said.
Looking forward to teaching his fellow teachers, Demiden has already started preparing the program and modules for the teacher participants from Silay.
A new feature of Infoteach Outreach for this year is the inclusion of Alternative Learning System (ALS) learners and the out-of-school youths (OSYs), through the Community eCenters, as beneficiaries.
“We are grateful that this year ALS is part of the Infoteach Outreach program and that our learners have the chance to get involved in ICT, not just the formal school students. They can use the skills they learn from the program for when they graduate. ALS has a computer-based component and this helps give them [the learners] an edge, in a way it is a review for them,” said 29-year old Stephen J. Balmes, ALS coordinator for DepEd Division of Iloilo City.
The digital literacy component of the program opens up to the participants access to the Massive Open Distance eLearning (MODel), the massive open online course (MOOC) platform of partner UPOU, and the online courses of other partner Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), both of which were anchored to Infoteach Outreach’s training module as another new feature of the 2015 program.
The 2015 Infoteach Outreach Program will be implemented in 36 municipalities under 20 DepEd schools divisions. These municipalities are: Calamba City; San Pablo City; Nagcarlan/Alaminos, Laguna; Quezon; Tuguegarao City; Angeles City; San Fernando, La Union; Baguio City; Pili, Camarines Sur; Vigan City; Talisay City (Negros Occidental); Silay City; Antique; Oton Iloilo Province; Iloilo City; Davao City & Muntinlupa City.
Three DepEd divisions — Capiz, Bauang, La Union, and Bacolod City — no longer participated in the training, having been trained the first time Infoteach Outreach was implemented in their respective areas.