Coke’s ed.venture holds IT workshops in public schools

Entering its next phase in the Philippines, Coca-Cola ed.venture, the soft beverage company’s pan-Asian community initiative which has established Internet-enabled computer labs in 15 local public schools, is sponsoring a series of specially designed IT workshops for public schools teachers and public school administrators from various regions in the country.

The workshops are conducted in cooperation with the Department of Education, AMA Foundation and the Foundation for Information Technology Education and Development (FIT-ED), the partner agency tasked by The Coca-Cola Company to administer its Coca-Cola ed.venture program in the Philippines.

The Department of Education provided assistance in the initial screening process of selected public schools and continually assists in disseminating information to participating schools regarding the workshops. AMA Foundation provides the venue, facilities and technical support for all workshops conducted in AMA Computer University campuses nationwide.

Workshop content and objectives are related but distinctly different for school administrators and teachers. For the former, three-day workshops aim to help administrators identify and address issues related to effective and sustainable instructional use of computers and other ICT facilities in their respective schools.

For the teachers, longer (five-day) workshops introduce the concept of information literacy and enable participants to acquire basic information literacy skills. More importantly, the workshops will introduce participants to "educational telecollaboration," an education endeavor that involves people in different locations using Internet tools and resources to work together, empowering students to become active and evaluative learners.

Participants are selected from different public schools with simultaneous Internet-access for a minimum of five computer workstations used for instruction purposes. They need not come from schools with "Coca-Cola ed.venture centers," as the computer labs donated by the soft beverage company are named in the country.

Three workshops for administrators have already been conducted over the past month in Cebu City and Quezon City, with the final workshop for administrators slated in Davao on Oct. 7-11. For teachers, six workshops are scheduled to take place this month beginning next week in Cebu and Iloilo (both on Oct. 7-11), Quezon City (Oct. 14-18, and 21-25), Makati (Oct. 14-18) and Davao (Oct. 21-25).