AgriNet

Provincial agriculturists get a taste of mobile learning

Alexander Villafania
INQ7.net

FIFTY-EIGHT agriculture extension workers from Davao, about half of them unfamiliar with computers, had their first taste of computer use, and in a high-tech bus at that.

In one of the Mobile IT Classroom (MITC) buses owned by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), the Department of Agriculture (DA) recently provided two days of basic computer training to agriculture extension workers in the Davao region.

The training program just concluded covered region 11 and was a joint effort of the University of Southern Mindanao and the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist of Davao, the Department of Agriculture DA, Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) and the Open Academy of the Philippine Agriculture (OPAPA) Project.

It was the first time the group had tapped the MITC buses. The program's success in Davao could pave the way for more OPAPA training activities using the DOST's IT Buses.

The DOST maintains 6 MITC buses spread throughout the country. These buses were originally used as mobile training facilities for elementary and high school institutions in remote locations. Though the buses do not have Internet connections and use older generation (Intel Pentium III class) laptops, they have been used by nearly 300,000 students nationwide.

In the Davao OPAPA program, however, the organizers were able to connect the 17 laptops to the Internet by having it sit close to an Internet café with a wireless DSL connection, allowing the 58 trainees to see for the first time the websites involved in the agriculture training program.

The training consisted of basic computer operation, creating and saving documents, and surfing the websites of the OPAPA (www.openacademy.ph) and Rice Knowledge Bank ( www.knowledgebank.irri.org).

Among the trainees were Rodrigo Hermosura and Donatila Blanco, agricultural extension workers from Davao who have never used computers in their lives. The training provided them with new methods of learning to add to their field of expertise in agriculture.

The OPAPA and its partner institutions received 168 million pesos to train over 1,000 agricultural extension workers towards improving the country's agricultural industry.

Department of Agriculture

Department of Science and Technology