Recreating the classroom

MANILA, Philippines - The popularity and widespread adoption of the tablet computer has reinvented our computing experience not only from an entertainment or even gaming standpoint but more importantly, from the way we consume information toward learning.

As physical tomes give way to e-books, it appears that more young scholars will soon dispense with heavy lifting. Indeed, a growing number of schools are already equipping their students with e-readers — swapping heavy pulp with thin, smart devices.

This makes the Vibal Group’s partnership with information and communications technology (ICT) solutions giant, the Shenzhen-headquartered Huawei, timely and sensible.

“The collaboration signifies Vibal’s firm commitment to continue to push the education community to adopt new technologies, resulting in more effective learning methods in the country,” said Vibal Group VP for marketing Jules Corotan.

Far from just transforming books, Vibal and Huawei are looking at evolving the educational ecosystem into a more effective, convenient, and conducive one for learning — not to mention teaching.

Students of the future need no longer be confined within walls. Teleconferencing enables students (and lecturers) to participate from remote locations. Huawei highlights its videoconferencing product portfolio that allows high-definition meetings and classes through immersive telepresence peripherals such as cameras, displays, and microphones.

The Vibal Group further enlists the technical proficiency of its partner should schools decide to upgrade its education infrastructure. The proprietary V Smart School software can piggyback on a school’s existing server.

Should the school start from scratch, Vibal offers an affordable “startup edition,” good for 50 users for a “pilot digital classroom” at P50,000. On the other hand, a complete start-up package dubbed the Pilot Classroom of the Future includes 40 tablets, a school server, wireless network, a mobile cart (which charges up to 50 devices and secures all pertinent electronic devices), and a projector. Costing P750,000, Corotan maintained that, actually, more than 40 students can benefit from the system as it can be wheeled from classroom to classroom.

The school server does the grunt work of storing and pushing video, books, music, and documents to school devices; hosting assessment database and other third-party content; deploying and updating apps in the student’s device; publishing content; connecting to the school’s student information system; connecting to the Vibal Education Cloud; and supplying learning analytics.

Aside from the infrastructure, Vibal makes available an array of peripherals to enable and maximize the use of tech.

Kobe Cao, Huawei government and public sector sales director, said in a speech that “future society requires lifelong learning,” and that ICT is overseeing its facilitation.

“Education is changing from teacher-centric to student-centric, and ICT (is enabling) personalized, collaborative learning,” he added.

Meanwhile, Dr. Leticia Catris, dean of the College of Flexible Learning and ePNU (Philippine Normal University), added that shifting to “a classroom without walls” works in concert with improving the educational system — such as the K-12 program. Filipinos, she averred, should be lifelong learners who are “function, literate, and holistically developed.”

Huawei Philippines director David Zhang insisted that the establishment of an intelligent classroom, campus network, and cloud for an educational institution is expected to improve teaching efficiency by 30 percent, while cutting provision time by 70 percent and operating expense by 30 to 50 percent.

The Huawei solution, he added, can be deployed in one day, and dispenses with an on-site IT engineer as remote maintenance is possible.

Corotan reported that all of the Vibal Group’s textbooks have been digitized, and that websites like filipiniana.net and wikipilipinas.org have the content. “It’s really very rich,” he said.

The Vibal Group, he added, is equipping one classroom per geographical region with tablets and a server backbone, in cooperation with the Department of Education.

When asked by The STAR if this signals the demise of the physical textbook as we know it, Corotan maintained that the Vibal Group is not rushing toward it. “We leave it to schools whether they are ready or not, but whatever solutions they need, we can give to them.”