Home « Media releases « Learning ICT onboard a bus

News story

Learning ICT onboard a bus

by Ian Dexter R. Marquez, 5 September 2005

It was agriculture technician Rodrigo Hermosura's first time to enter an Internet café.

Participants to the two-day basic ICT training in Davao pose in front of the mobile IT bus.

Extension workers learn basic ICT onboard the mobile IT bus.

Extension workers learn basic computer operations onboard the mobile IT bus.

By providing the training in a familiar environment — an Internet café — the participants' initial fear of technology is overcome.

"I was a bit afraid because I didn't know how to use a computer," he said. Two days later, he was already surfing the web, sending emails, and chatting with friends and co-workers. He has also learned how to do basic office productivity tasks using the computer.

Hermosura and fifty seven other agricultural technicians from local government units in the Davao provinces recently took a two-day basic ICT (information and communications technology) training to become familiar with using computers and the Internet in the course of their work.

Basic ICT training
The training, a joint effort of the University of Southern Mindanao, Davao del Sur's Office of the Provincial Agriculturist, Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Science and Technology (DOST XI), is part of the Open Academy for Philippine Agriculture (OPAPA), an ongoing program to equip extension workers with modern tools — such as computers and the Internet — so they can take advantage of the explosion of information on the Web.

"We are already 10 years late in information," PhilRice (Philippine Rice Research Institute) executive director and OPAPA advisory council chair Dr. Leocadio S. Sebastian, said, adding that with ICT, "we can now go to any Internet café and download the latest information on rice, and other crops."

PhilRice leads the OPAPA, an ICT-based support system and e-extension project of the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the DOST, together with their bureaus and attached agencies such as the ATI, BAR, BPRE, PCC, ITCAF, RIARCs and RFUs; ASTI and PCARRD; two international organizations, IRRI and ICRISAT ; and four universities, UPOU, CLSU, ISU, PAC, and USM (University of Southern Mindanao).

The training was organized by Dr. Sebastian; USM president Dr. Virgilio Oliva Sr.; Dr. Rosafe Hondrade, head of the USM Public Information, Communication and Extension; PhilRice Midsayap branch manager Dr. Rodolfo Escabarte; Cotabato Provincial Agricultural Officer Ms. Fanny Solomon; DOST XI regional director Dr. Madel Moran-Morados; and OPAPA program director Mr. Roger F. Barroga. Dr. Hondrade is the OPAPA site coordinator for Mindanao. From August to December, the OPAPA aims to train 1000 extension workers in five pilot sites in the country — Isabela, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga, and Davao.

Learning in a real-world environment
Trained in two local Internet cafés and aboard a specially equipped bus, the participants were guided in navigating through two important agricultural websites, the Pinoy Farmers' Internet (www.openacademy.ph) and Rice Knowledge Bank (www.knowledgebank.irri.org). They also visited other useful websites of partner agencies of the Open Academy.

"We simulated a real-world situation for the training," Barroga said. To overcome the extension workers' initial fear of the technology, the training in a familiar setting, an Internet café.

"Internet cafés abound, and are easily accessible," he said. He added that teaching step-by-step procedures — from handling and manipulating the mouse, to creating and saving documents — jump-started the participants' learning on the use of computers.

"We minimized the lectures and concentrated more on actual hands-on sessions," he added.

Training staff from USM, DOST XI and PhilRice were on hand to guide the extension workers in the hands-on sessions. The staff was composed of Dr. Hondrade (USM) and Mr. Barroga (PhilRice) as head instructors; Luis Tamani (PhilRice), Arnel Rodriguez (DOST), Virgilio Oliva Jr. (USM) as session instructors; and assisted by December Gay Carreon (USM), Lorna P Alvarez (PhilRice), Jean Somera (USM) and Jack Herrera (USM).

Mobile IT bus
"For areas with no available computer facilities, we are also deploying a mobile IT bus," Barroga said.

Owned by the DOST Science Education Institute, the bus is equipped with 17 notebook PCs and a built-in audio-visual system, complete with a VHS player, and an LCD projector. Six such buses are deployed nationwide in Davao, Butuan, Los Banos, Laguna, and La Union. Custom-built by Daewoo Philippines, the bus can seat 32 persons and was initially designed for use by elementary and high school students.

The bus, though equipped with notebook PCs, is not "Internet-ready" — it has no network and Internet connection. To connect to the Internet, the bus was parked near an Internet café, where a wireless access point (WAP) was set up. The notebooks were supplied by PhilRice and USM IT personnel with WiFi PC cards to connect to the WAP, which was linked to the café's 256-kbps DSL connection.

Source: Marquez, I.D.R. "Learning ICT onboard a bus." Pinoy Farmers' Internet. 5 September 2005. 10-21-2005. http://www.openacademy.ph/news/news-mobile-ict-training.html