MANILA, Philippines - Smart Communications, Inc. held a five-day content and web development training for a total of 154 teachers and students from 40 public high schools nationwide last month. The course is part of the leading wireless service provider’s “Doon Po Sa Amin” (DPSA) project, which encourages teachers and students to use computer and Internet technologies to generate web-based information and educational materials about their respective communities. Participants came from partner schools under the Smart Schools Program (SSP), a community service initiative of Smart. At the end of the course, the trainees were expected to create their school websites. Participants were encouraged to feature unique aspects of their communities to help generate much needed online content on the different areas in the country. This project is in line with SSP’s thrust to promote information and communication technology (ICT) integration in basic education.
Chris Lorenzo, a trainer from Netlearn Ventures, Inc., said changes were made to improve the training course this year. “From three days, we’ve expanded it to five.”
This year, the training was separated into two tracks: content and web technology. This means that participants can concentrate and specialize in just one area — each school has a teacher and a student who learns web content generation, while another teacher-student pair is trained in the technical aspects of web design.
In addition, teachers who are assigned to the web technology aspect can focus purely on web design and also benefit from the cooperation of their student partners, who are usually faster in learning the technical side.
Lorenzo added that with this scheme, the schools will be able to create better and richer website content. Since students have also been included in the training this year, they can better collaborate with their teachers in producing relevant and creative online content about their respective schools and communities.
For the web content track, the topics discussed include how to use the Internet for research, as well as news and feature writing, and photojournalism.
“It’s good to learn the difference between print media and web publishing, and how there’s a certain etiquette that needs to be followed. It’s certainly going to be a challenge since we need to keep our content updated and fresh,” shared Jeff Bustamante, a teacher from Rawis National High School (NHS).