Some thoughts about ICT, OSS and learning

I was in the PLUG Christmas Party/General Assembly which was last Saturday, 18 December 2004 in Asia Pacific College. We spent a whole morning listening to some people and I took notes of some the things that really struck me.

The first one was Emmanuel Lallana. I really like what he said about fostering an atmosphere of learning and innovation. That it would be great to have a culture of leanring and innovation. He also mentioned the use of information and communications technology in learning. I totally agree with him on this. After all, there are various learning resources available on the internet and there are various ways of teaching people these days. We could have discussion lists, blogs that give the URLs of nice sites where we could gather information, etc. We should maximize the technology as a tool. Sometimes there are people who get bored with the traditional methods. I actually like the traditional methods, lectures and all that but I think that there are some people who don't feel comfortable with it or those methods don't really help them maybe because they have a different way of remembering things or maybe they're the ones who are very visual and need a lot of multimedia stuff. Or maybe they prefer the anonymity (sort of) on the mailing lists and so they end up discussing more things that way. Also, interaction with others online could be a learning experience for people. In my case, it is. As I am getting familiar with my operating system (Mandrake Linux 10 - Yes, I am such a newbie, as some people would guess) I have subscribed to the PLUG newbie mailing list and am a member of the Mandrake users' board. I also blog about what I am doing so that I get input from other people. I learn this way. And although I am quite shy, more often than not, I sometimes end up asking the questions I have been afraid to ask because I know that there are people who have gone through the same troubles/experiences. I had to admit to them that I feel really dumb sometimes but it is part of the learning process, I guess. At least I know that I do not know much and I could admit it is something I want to cross. Anyhow, maybe there are a lot of people who think this way. *shrugs*

Lallana also mentioned something about teachers. Yes, teachers. I know some teachers who are not very comfortable using computers. They are usually the ones who are older than I am, the ones who have not really grown up with computers in their homes. I also know librarians who are like that. The thing is that the government does make sure that public high schools have computers but not sufficient training is given to the teachers. That is sad, if you think about it. Sad because they are the ones teaching the students. What could they impart to the students? Not much, if that is the case. The training for teachers must begin before they teach the students so that the students will know more than just typing on the keyboard and saving their documents. I had a computer since first year high school because I had a computer science class wherein we were taught DOS basics, WordStar 4 and an introduction to BASIC. My mom who has been employed sometime like 5 years ago by a congressman to be his secretary of sorts started getting tutorials from me and my sister regarding using Windows 98 and the Microsoft Office Suite. It was difficult to tutor her sometimes but right now I guess I could say that it paid off because she has gotten comfortable enough with the computer to not call us on our mobile phones whenever something happens to her computer and the documents and worksheets that she is working on. Some older teachers may have that kind of a problem retaining the information but it is very essential that they do know the basics and a bit more. After all, we don't want students to just know how to type, right?

Another thing Chairman Lallana pointed out is the need for the development of content and applications that would be used in the educational system. An example of such a thing is "The Last Resort" a game of sorts which would challenge the students to build a resort which is eco-friendly and profitable. The people responsible for this endeavor consulted the people on an island here in the Philippines for the details like flora, fauna, etc. The details had to be there at the same time there is an element of fun and learning. I guess that this generation of students really likes games because I see them in the net cafes everytime I go online to talk to some friends or read some news, etc. Students spend hours and hours in net cafes. I have spoken with various proprietors of net cafes in the area where I live and they tell me that sometimes they close at 2am, or even later than that, to the point that they closed at 6am and yet they had to open at 7 or 8am. Students have to be excited about learning, not bored to death. I am a learner and I would like to share that kind of passion. I want to find out ways of doing so.

There is also the challenge of teaching people in a "generic way" meaning people will be taught word processing, making presentations, etc. versus "Word", "PowerPoint", etc. The concepts must be ingrained in them so that no matter what application is there, they could easily adapt to it and use it as a tool. It would also tend to veer them away from focusing too much on the software they use and let them really learn the concepts that go beyond the application they use. Be it proprietary or open source software, they will survive. In my experience, I have depended on Microsoft apps because I only really used Linux in August of this year. I have tried FreeBSD, KDE and the office suite that came along with it for a time (back in college, I was testing it in the computer lab so as to check whether it is user-friendly enough). It wasn't so easy for me because I looked for familiar buttons and icons but because I think that I wasn't that dependent on M$ apps, I was able to get through with the testing of the apps of the FreeBSD system without much trouble. If only everyone would have that kind of an attitude towards apps, maybe more people would give Open Source Software a chance. People are generally really too stubborn to change.

With regards to developing open source software, one of the challenges would be the standards. How do we define the standard? Who would define it? I have not given it much thought yet. But maybe other PLUGgers have something to say about it.

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I forgot her name but I think that the lady from mod.net.ph said this:
"The ceiling of one programmer is his ego."
Unforgettable, truly unforgettable.

posted by eClair @ 05:21