Computer Technology: The New Face of Philippine Education

Filipino culture places a high value on education. For the majority of the Filipinos, the only best thing for a child to acquire and secure a better future is through education. So, they want more effective education system.  (Arimbuyutan, 2007)

Because of the use of computer, we find ourselves in the  midst of a powerful information revolution. Combined with the significant restructuring in education occurring in this country, the way we handle computer in the classroom is changing as well.  (Forcier, 1999)

 An article in the newspaper said that computer can be a teaching aid for the educator, a partner in schools’ activities especially in paper work. Also through it, the educator can easily visualize and explain topics to the learners. (Education and Culture Journal–ICT , 2011)

Education Secretary Jesli Lapus recently called on education officials not to resist change and instead optimize the power of technology to make quality education accessible to as many learners anytime, anywhere. Lapus said that more than the limited resources, the resistance to change is the
main obstacle in taking full advantage of technology in Philippine education.
          
“Our fear for change prevents us from moving forward. It limits us to the same solutions—solutions that have not given us the desired output we so desperately need at this critical hour,” Lapus noted.  (DepEd teachers Blog\News\Opinion\LEt Results\Event, 2008)

                       

            According to a survey, Filipino schoolchildren are computer literate as almost three-fourths (74%) have access to the Internet. But schoolchildren in the Visayas and Metro Manila have greater access than their counterparts in the Cordilleras and Mindanao as approximately 9 out of 10 schoolchildren in these areas are Internet users. (Sarmiento K, 2007)  

The latest Synovate Media Atlas study conducted nationwide from July 2008 to June 2009 reported that Internet access in the Philippines stands at 40 percent with the younger segment turned out to be the highest at 60 percent.In the Greater Manila area, 46 percent of respondents have access. Data was gathered from 8,028 respondents aged between 15 and 64 across all socioeconomic groups.  (Sarmiento K, 2007) Because of these information, truly the computer invaded the education and trying to make the learning more easier and more accessible anytime and anywhere. The is why the computer is now a new face of education. It is possible that more of the learner will undergo into an online education specially those students that is far from the school proper.

Online education seems to be a relatively positive development for learning and teaching, although it certainly raises some questions about how it might affect individuals, organizations, and society overall. It should open up new opportunities for students and teachers as well as educational institutions.  (Kearsley, 2000)

The first part of the twenty-first century has produced the first visions of a fifth generation—based on autonomous agents and intelligent, database-assisted learning—that we refer to as the educational Semantic Web. Note that each of these generations has followed more quickly upon its predecessor than the previous ones. Moreover, none of these generations has completely displaced previous ones, so that we are left with diverse yet viable systems of distance education that use all five generations in combination. Thus, the field can accurately be described as complex, diverse, and rapidly evolving.

However, acknowledging complexity does not excuse inaction. Distance educators, students, administrators, and parents are daily forced to make choices regarding the pedagogical, economic, systemic, and political characteristics of the distance education systems within which they participate. To provide information, knowledge, and, we hope, a measure of wisdom, the authors of this text have shared their expertise, their vision, their concerns, and their solutions to distance education practice in these disruptive times.

Often, potential learners will seek out online learning opportunities to create or enhance career goals. As educators, we may want to view the educational experience outside the context of career development, but as stated previously, the learning experience is not about us. The fact is that learners bring that context to their educational decisions, and we need to understand that they do so. Online resources designed to assist learners to determine their own interests and skills, and then provide a career map aligned with educational programs, is a reasonable expectation. After all, most of these learners will experience several career changes—some of them quite significant—throughout their working lives  ( Terry Anderson, Fathi Elloumi , 2004)