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How about a school that you can take anywhere? As long as there is a computer that can read a flash disk, you can.

In a post about a big dream, several ideas were presented for a free elearning school. A commenter wisely asked what I have been doing since that time. Though there were some advances made in the areas of networking and knowledge build-up, there were significant manifestations of progress.

Until now.

Last Saturday, I made a presentation about entitled e-Learning: Open, Free and Portable. Here is a short summary.

About 10 years ago, e-Learning existed. The main problem then was the use of expensive software and proprietary content. Almost always, budget was a constraint.

Fast forward to 2008.

e-Learning is Free. The proliferation of free and open-source software has benefited all sectors of society, including and most specially education. While commercial tools are also available, dependable and arguably affordable, there exists a whole gamut of no-cost applications downloadable and free. Even support and help can be had from the forums and communities. The following “suite” can already create engaging content.
Moodle - Learning Management System
GIMP - Image Editing
WINK - Screen Capture
Audacity - Audio Recording and Editing
Though varying degrees of expertise and skills are needed, the mere availability of the software is an enabler to developing countries like ours.

e-Learning is Open. The internet has made available an abundance of knowledge never before seen in our history. With a click of a mouse, millions of pages worth of information is freely available. With MIT leading the way in sharing their resources through the MIT Open Course Ware project, many universities have followed suit. There are some projects that I know of commissioned by CHED which will be released through a similar vehicle. The people behind Wikipilipinas are to embarking on a repository of OER (something I wanted to do with eLearningport.com, which will now become a connector of sorts).
With content being open and shared, education can now be a distributed faster, better and more efficiently.

eLearning is Portable. Internet access, or rather the lack of it, is one of the barriers to eLearning. While doing eLearning online clearly has great benefits, it may be necessary to develop courses that do not need connection to the web, or at least constant connection.

School inside!

eLearning is portable, Now, you can put your school in a flash disk.

The point that I wanted to get across was really the last one. Instead of using a presentation software for by visuals, I used Moodle in a USB drive. I got StickyMoodle from VLEMiddleware which packaged all the requirements for a Moodle installation.

A portable school. School in a flash. Education in your pocket. Learning with a stick.

What a concept!

Wouldn’t it be great if those who couldn’t go to regular school be able to have the chance to get an education too?

Filed under Bright Ideas, TEaCHandLEARN, Tech

Last Saturday, I spent some time with the board members of a progressive school in Quezon City. We all had our woes and were discussing the situations our people were facing. Life is hard and prices have risen. The topic then turned to what the meeting was about in the light of these crises. If we were to think about it, working for the school pro bono, spending our time and money for something we are not paid to do seems illogical. If we were to use this line of thinking, what we were doing (school improvement) was a waste of time if you think in terms of personal revenue we’d get from the time we spent there.

We asked ourselves if we can think of more profitable ventures compared to a non-profit school and the answer was an easy affirmative. It was prime real estate. Residential or business units can be put up in no time. And that’s just for starters.

But then, we returned to our grounding. We wanted to make better lives for our children, for society - no matter what common sense might dictate. If we surrender what little hope we have, then God help us. We were not ready to just give up. Logic may dictate that what we do will not put our country (or world for that matter) and situation where we want it to be. But Hope prevails; that we can make it better, no matter how samll. We have hope in other people with like minds, that they are doing the same, to transform the present to a much brighter future.
It is the same with all people who work and strive to make their lives better. We have to have hope in a better future, no matter how bleak the present is. We must seek to rise above our current state and look to a brighter tomorrow.
We have to have hope. But it should be accompanied with action. The real question then becomes

“What can we do in times like these?”

Filed under POSITIVE MINDSET

• Comment

More than just a geek’s or tinkerer’s hobby, open-source is running the internet and other machines. From eLearning to productivity software, it has been steadily (or has) gone up to mainstream usage.

From an email sent by Francisco Francisco “Francis” E. Sarmiento III, MD, Program Manager, International Open Source Network

he ASEAN+3 node of the International Open Source Network (IOSN)
invites you to the Philippine Open Source Summit to be held on 23-24
June 2008 in Cebu City, Philippines with the theme, “Understanding the
Business Value of Open Source.”

We welcome you to visit the official summit website at http://oss.ph
for more information.

Registration details at http://www.oss.ph/registration.php

We look forward to see you all in the summit.

MABUHAY (Long live) from the Philippines!

There are open source solutions to many of the our technology needs, for governments especially. Just a thought, is open source taught in the schools or just mentioned in passing? If we can make our mark in open source support, programming and management, I am sure a lot of opportunities will come our way.

Filed under Events

• 3 comments

Diyosa at Conspiracy

Diyosa

Conspiracy Garden Cafe

10PM, 19 May 2008

Filed under Events, Music

• Comment

Go to the Naga City market. On the level (is it second or third) where the chapel is, something smells fishy. It reeks, it stinks.

But in a weird kind of way, you’ll like it. It’s called “badi” in Bicol or “tuyo” in Tagalog.

Dried fish.

Some of them can really get slaty, though there are unsalted variants. When you do get the more salty ones, I would advise you to wash them (that’s what we do) to lessen the salt strength. I’m willing ot bet soaking them in vinegar would also do the trick, specially with the dried squid. I suppose frying them and adding sugar would give you a sticky, pungent but tasty provincial fare.

Does that make you salivate and want to reach out for sinangag and suka or kamatis?

The smell is not as bad as it seems. Just imagine yourself eating breakfast on a drizzling cold morning. Goes well with black native coffee.

Filed under General Interests, InForNation

• 1 comment

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