Lesson 10: THE COMPUTER AS A TUTOR

We all know that Philippines is a developing country. There are a lot of places in the country which are not fully formed as urban areas. Facilities and materials of these undeveloped areas are not that high-tech. Upon knowing that there are countries ahead of us with regards to technology, it does not make us sad. Software materials can be spread through technology or if not because nowadays people sell their knowledge, we can buy it. When I was in elementary, I went to an exclusive school. In our computer subject, whenever the class was very attentive and behave, our teacher gave us time to play with the computer. All the games there were very helpful and educational. My favourite game was Mario Teaches Typing. It helped me indeed. Up until now, I still use the right fingers for the right letter in the keyboard. As what we can see now, our kids and the students know about a lot of computer games, they have DOTA, Counter Strike, Ragnarok and Tetris. I believe kids play these games because of relaxation.  They just want to give themselves a break for many other things that they are stressed of. I did not have a laptop when I was in high school but I had my flash disk because I needed it whenever there are projects and I could not print at home. It is still very fresh to me how everything went this high-tech. I had difficulties, in memorizing before about the keys and letters in the keyboard which is part of a computer where ion you can type whatever you want. That time, computer was my tutor. I played Mario and Dolphins, after such I went really fast in typing and now, I no longer look at the keys. In addition to that, if I have something I am not really familiar of like a word or a story, I will just google it or search it over the net. It actually helps he teacher wherein you do not disturb them and as well as yourself because your training yourself how to be independent and believe in your own knowledge.

Lesson 9: COMPUTERS AS INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY

Imagine yourself without technology. Do you feel happy? Do you have more money? Technology is getting into the society and even invading our way of thinking. So, let us say, you do not have a computer, cellular phone, microwave oven and electric stove. Do you think you’re everyday life will be easier? When you have a family member abroad and because you do not a cellular phone, you cannot stay in touch with them as often as you want to. Just like any other means of technology, computer is a very important one. You can do a lot of things through computers. You can make use of the applications in it like the Microsoft word, powerpoint presentation, publisher, excel and you can even add pictures and graphics. In addition to that, you can search on the internet and application that you need like Skype so you can communicate to the other people even if they are a thousand miles away. Computers give us information. They are like humans; they give us new information and usually current issues. Computers give us instruction in the way we can understand them easily, this is because they are made by humans. This information may be helpful or may give us a doubt but nevertheless, they make us feel that everything we worry about has a solution. Using of computers can help you know what is happening outside your country and outside the four walls of your room. It gives you knowledge that you may need for everyday life.

Lesson 8: HIGHER THINKING SKILLS THROUGH IT- BASED PROJECTS

Creativity is a person’s imagination and ingenuity. Whenever a teacher says, I would like you to have this project and please be creative. What comes up to the minds of the students? creative? flowers? colors? it must be different from my other classmates? Nowadays, when a teacher asks a certain project to the students, the students will never be panic. I remember a classmate of mine said, “Project?What? Ahh, everything is all over the net, why get scared little rats?” It is true indeed. What we usually do not have in the old days are already in our online resources. What we got to do is just type a key word of a particular topic we need and there you go, you can see what you need. There are people whom we quoted as “not that creative.” These people are being creative in their own little ways. We have different operational definition of creativity and we have our individual standards of such word. In creativity projects, what we deal with that is how the student would be able to express himself in the certain project. When you divide the class and end up into small groups you help them encounter different personalities and variety of ways of thinking. Let us say we have given creativity projects to each group, how will the teacher know, who did best and who is more creative member in the group? They must be rated individually and as a group.

Lesson 7: IT FOR HIGHER THINKING SKILLS AND CREATIVITY

The new framework on higher thinking skills and creativity mean that teachers need to assist the students only and not making an extra mile of job just to let them excel in school. What we have to do is to train them on the way that they would be able to incline them in studying and be able to apply the knowledge they have every day so they may not forget the learning. Effort of the teacher is always there but teachers should set their limitations. In our modernization, things are getting different and we have nothing to do but to accept and accept everything because we know that a time will come that this new learning today will be a history of tomorrow and predictably another new learning which is more difficult will come up. Complex Thinking Skills are best achieved using educational technology tools. The word complex means difficult. When we know that a thing is difficult or challenging and we are given enough time to solve it, do we do it alone or what do we do? Some may answer that they made a research on it. Do you go to the library? As we can see most students now, do not go on scanning books, they use the internet and surf. So, when we want to achieved complex thinking skills, we need to be submissive to the new learning and new technology. This is the new trend; we do not have a choice but to embrace it. Having a complex thinking skill is having a flexible and creative mind.

Lesson 6: IT ENTERS A NEW LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

When I was young, I thought studying was memorizing but I realized it never was. In my college days, I have this classmate who studies a lot and she was like talking to herself while stating words out of our book. I found her noisy and annoying. She was memorizing things and I did not. I never loved memorizing. When I study, I keep really silent and I read the notes. I just thought, well, we have different ways in studying and probably we were trained on how to study inversely. Memorization is a part of studying it does not really mean when you study, you are immediately quoted as memorizing. We have known of the new learning theories and read it. It does not mean we should stop memorization when we want students to learn, it means that we have to rub on the things that we want our students to learn. They need to be exposed to the activities related to the discussion so in that way, they will not easily forget the new learning.In Filipino tradition, people still have superstitious beliefs and still connect their lives with such. When we have discovered something which is contradicting to others, we tend to keep the discovery and forget it. We are afraid of what the other people would say about us. There will be questions that would boggle up our mind and the society might not agree with us; this is what usually happens to us because as a person we incline on putting ourselves on the safe zone and not going far beyond what we can do. 

Lesson 5: STATE-OF-THE-ART ET APPLICATION PRACTICES

Technology gets life easier. Some says, technology is time consuming and money spending. Everyone spends time and money everyday for living. This means we can spend everything we have for what we like. Technology is never time consuming, it does not get much of your time. With just a little stretch, they can give you want you want and even help you out with your concern about research and any educational issues. It is not expensive. You can buy your own laptop if you want. You can loan or there are a lot of means but I tell you, it is not expensive because you can afford it. Now, you can search online through “pesonet.”Peso net is a type of a computer café where in you can use the computer using a coin. All you have to do is to insert that coin to the open vertical hole near the keyboard. One coin is equal to six minute usage of the computer. If we can spend a lot for our food, we can also spend more than one peso for using computers. Using of media is much entertaining and I salute the teachers who use this upon teaching. Learning is fun but when media is used just for fun alone and it has nothing to do with programmes, it is zilch. For now, teachers in the Philippines are still mastering computer applications. It is still difficult to assess because we are not yet used to it. It is a new learning that all of us have to master. Our incoming learners will be able to get the technology easily because they are already growing with a technologized society and do not have any choice unlike the learners of today that they have known a different way and technology is new part of our courses; technology in the Philippines is still a little thing that must be spread out especially in urban places because there is no way for us to look back to the traditional way of education. Everyone in the world is agreeing to the new way of learning. Future learners will easily accept everything including technology and they do not have to worry because I supposed that on that time, a lot of the oldies are willing to assist them because they know the basics of technology.

Lesson 4: BASIC CONCEPTS ON INTEGRATING TECHNOLOGY IN INSTRUCTION

Internet and computer cafes are one of the many businesses in the Philippines. Most of these cafes are located near to schools or offices. I have once used a computer in a café near our school and I have noticed that most of the users are students. They seemed to be very happy and undeniably noisy all because of a certain game called “DOTA” or Defense of the Ancient. I assumed these students skipped classes just to play that game. There are a lot of factors that made these people decide not to attend classes on that day. It might be because that was the only day they could spend time with peers or that was the day of battle for each team of which they call “tournament.” See how technology changes man’s life and views in life.

 I have heard the news about the plan of Department of Education and I am happy with. It is all about supplying computers to learners. Basically, it is one computer for one school. I know it is not enough but if this is the only thing they could offer, I hope some other countries might be willing to help us. It is not that I do not like the plan of the government. I loved it. At least, they have thought of it and this will surely help the students to have a little background of what computer is though not that great knowledge of course. Since, technology is getting higher; everyone is required to know the basics because from there we will get to learn the hard ones. With this peasant country that we have it is a must for the learners to learn and to be oriented about the lavish technology in schools because we cannot be left behind. We have to align ourselves with others and we have to get to the point where in we can use technology independently because time will come that no one’s going to help us with the basics of any technology that we have. People have to be challenged to apply what they have learned about computers. They need to be well educated about it and they have to explore that computer for them to be able to check themselves if they have understood the lesson. If you have knowledge, apply it. Never keep your idea on things because you will forget it.