Connecting High School Students to Teaching and Learning amid COVID Pandemic

PH Domain Foundation

5 additional computers added to the computer lab
Pro Account subscription to: Librarika.com, Canva.com
2 Zoom accounts used for online meetings, special classes, seminars, and weekly student activities
13 of 15 students sponsored by DotAsia to provide cellphone gadgets for online learning
13 teachers given internet allowance for their home internet covering 10-13 months

US$7,995

2021-2022

Digital Inclusion
Open Knowledge
Internet Community in General
Education Advancement

The SCP project report is available in the www.eskwela.asia. A presentation on the project outcomes in video form shall also be presented in the Facebook group page of CPF parents of school year 2021-2022.

Sponsor Member Information
Organization Name:
PHP Domain Foundation
ccTLD:
The Phillippines
Grant Recipient Information
NOTE: This SCP Report is intended to be completed by the Grant Recipient to report on the outcomes and social impact of the funded project.
Project Name:
Connecting High School Students to Teaching and Learning amid COVID Pandemic
Website:
Please provide a brief description of the organization / initiative:

The Center for Positive Futures High School of Banaba is in Brgy. Banaba, San Mateo, Rizal. It is a school for economically disadvantaged school children which has been in existence since the academic year 2014-2015. It is committed to citizenship-building, community building, and values formation. It has been involved with the Generation Global, an inter-school program to build dialogue and dialogue skills among students from over 30 countries since 2012. It is also a work immersion partner of the PH Domain Foundation for its IT students.

With the pandemic and based on government guidelines, the school has been providing education to students through Microsoft Teams (for those with better connectivity and gadgets) and through Messenger (for those with limited access to internet data and/or those without proper gadgets to support the Teams video and educational platform.

This project, Connecting High School Students to Teaching and Learning amid COVID Pandemic seeks to assist the students, teachers, and the school’s capacity to respond to the challenges brought about the pandemic as well as to develop long-term sustainability in developing its online educational platform even if students can already meet face-to-face. It was developed into a full-blown project after the initial support of PH Domain Foundation of two cellphones given to two needy students to support their online learning in the school year 2020-2021. The assistance given to needy students in the form of gadgets for learning allowed these students to, in turn, help other family members and/or members of the community as they paid-forward or showed kindnesses as a way to thank the people who supported them and showed kindness to them during the pandemic by giving them access to the learning tool (cellphones).

Community Project Information:
Name / Title of Project
Connecting High School Students to Teaching and Learning amid COVID Pandemic
.ASIA domain name(s) used for the Project:
eskwela.asia
Nature of Project (mark with “x”):
X
Digital Inclusion
X
Open Knowldege
X
Internet Community in General
X
Education Advancement
 Research & Development
Other: (Please Specify):
Scholarship
 Disaster Relief & Rebuild
Beneficiaries: The beneficiaries of this project are the Center for Positive Future, Inc. – Banaba, San Mateo, Rizal, the students, and the teachers. The school developed its technological capability through resources for hardware and software. The students who did not have their own gadgets were able to participate in the online classes and were able to research and do their tasks online. The teachers were able to support their home internet expenses at a time when they needed to work-at-home because of the pandemic.
SCP Report: Achievement of Project Objectives
Please describe if and how the proposed Objectives of Project were achieved or not, and what the learnings may be:

Specific Objective 1. To upgrade the technical capabilities of the school to provide for effective and efficient teaching and learning processes during this time of pandemic but which is also needed strategically by the school.

Achievement and learning: Through this project, the school was able to add five (5) computers for use by the teachers during online learning and for the computer laboratory. These computers improved the technical capabilities of the school in delivering the teaching and learning process. This upgrade is relevant not only during the pandemic but will be used by the students and teachers as the next school year will be partially held face-to-face. PH Domain Foundation, through dotAsia, provided the school with technical consultancy and services in evaluating and designing the computer laboratory. In addition, the school was also able to subscribe to two Zoom accounts for online meetings, classes, and activities, one of which was equipped with large meeting capabilities for school general assemblies. The Zoom accounts complemented the school’s free Microsoft 365 for Education account. The school was also able to subscribe to a design app, Canva.com, which helped teachers in making their education and information materials like posters and learning presentations and modules. Finally, the school was able to subscribe to a Pro Account in Librarika.com to increase the number of book titles that can be stored in said online Integrated Library System that functions as an online library catalogue. The school has been using a free account which can store 2000 book titles and through the project, the school was able to purchase a Basic Pro account that can store 10,000 book titles. It is important to be prepared to address the technological and resource needs of the students, teachers, and the school as learning modalities changed during the pandemic.

Specific Objective 2. To ensure that students who have no gadgets (around 10-15 students out of a total of 350 students) or who borrow a gadget from a parent or sibling during the latter’s free time shall be given access to a gadget in this time wherein the school is required to provide distance learning since schools are not allowed to offer face-to-face learning because of the pandemic.

Achievement and learning: A total of thirteen (13) students were provided with cellphone gadgets from the project while PH Domain Foundation also gave two (2) gadgets for students in need. The PH Domain Foundation donation was given before the project’s schedule of implementation. The gadgets helped the students who did not have gadgets or who shared a gadget with a parent or sibling attend online classes, participate in the online learning management system of the school and for research work. This help extended to students allowed them to extend their own help to others in a pay-it-forward or show-kindness activity, even in a small way because of the mobility limitations of the pandemic.

Specific Objective 3. To provide an allowance to teachers for home internet use.
Achievement and learning: Thirteen (13) teachers were given internet allowance for 10-13 months as part of the project. This helped the teachers cover their internet needs for online learning as well as helped the school during the pandemic as the fund for teachers’ internet allowance was supported by dotAsia for the school year. Teachers are the frontliners in the teaching-learning process and thus, their needs have to be addressed, as much as possible.

 

Please highlight the overall achievements of the project:

The project, “Connecting High School Students to Teaching and Learning amid COVID Pandemic”, allowed the school, teachers, and students to engage in the teaching and learning processes effectively and efficiently in this time of general community economic dislocation due to the pandemic that affected families and the school.

This project was able to help the school, teachers, and students in coping with the teaching and learning challenges during the pandemic. It was able to support the technical requirements for online learning, specifically in the form of computers and meeting platform, design and library software applications, internet allowance of teachers for home internet to support work-from-home teaching arrangements, and cellphone gadgets for the students with no gadgets for online learning.

The project concept and accomplishments are shared to the public through the website www.eskwela.asia. The website is hosted and technically supported by dotPH as part of the donation of PH Domain Foundation.

Social Impact Assessment (SIA) of SCP:
Measures of Project (please provide results according to the proposed measures of success for the project):

The measures as indicated in the proposal and outcome are discussed below:

1. Measure: The school shall have sufficient bandwidth to serve students even during face-to-face classes.

Outcome: Face-to-face classes did not open in the past school year, SY 2021-2022, in the Philippines although there was a pilot implementation of face-to-face classes among select public and very few private schools. As such, the existing internet bandwidth of the school had been sufficient for use by teachers and the administrative staff. As such, there was no need to upgrade the current internet speed, which was at 30 mbps download/upload.

2. The school shall have two (2) additional computers with specifications needed for use in online learning or face-to-face learning given the programs and apps necessary.

Outcome: A total of five (5) additional computers were purchased for the computer laboratory because the budget for upgrade in internet was used for the purchase of more computers. Instead of two (2) additional computers, five (5) computers were added to the computer laboratory. These computers were used by teachers during online classes and will be used by students in the coming school year in the computer laboratory, as there will already be face-to-face classes.

3. The school shall be able to subscribe to an online library storage, an online library resource, one or two interactive assessment applications, and one science experiment website.

Outcome: The school was able to purchase a Pro Account to the online Library Integrated Management System from Librarika.com that can accommodate 10,000 book titles. For the past years, the school simply used the free account of Librarika.com that can list only 2000 book titles and was not sufficient to meet the catalogue of books of its physical library. It was also able to subscribe to a Canva.com Pro Account to support the design needs of teachers for educational and informational materials. As to the assessment app, the school decided that the Microsoft 365 for Education app, which it sourced for free from Microsoft was sufficient for its student assessment needs, particularly Microsoft Teams, so there was no need to purchase another assessment app. Also, with regard to the science experiment website, the science teachers were not able to identify an appropriate science experiment website for the particular curricular needs of the students and they recommended accessing free science websites instead of subscribing to a science experiment website.

4. The school shall maintain at least two Zoom accounts for use when external resource persons are needed for classes or faculty meetings or for webinars.

Outcome: The school was able to subscribe to two Zoom accounts, one of which was equipped with large meeting facility. These were used for online meetings, special classes, seminars, and weekly student activities. They were used side-by-side with Microsoft Teams video conference platform, which served as the platform for classes while Zoom was used when more classes were involved in the activity like the weekly Flag Ceremony and weekly student community activities.

5. All students of CPF High School of Banaba shall have access to gadgets for their online learning through the pay-it-forward scheme.

Outcome: Fifteen (15) students were identified as badly needing cellphone gadgets for online learning. Of these, thirteen (13) gadgets were provided by dotAsia while two (2) gadgets were provided by PH Domain Foundation.

6. Teachers shall be given an internet allowance for this school year.
Outcome: Thirteen (13) teachers were given internet allowance for their home internet to cope with the work-at-home arrangement for a period of 10-13 months.

Please describe and substantiate the social impact of the SCP on the particular stakeholders and in different dimensions:
Individual Oranizational Economic
Impact on primary beneficiaries of the project, and the interaction between primary, secondary and other beneficiaries. Enhancement of grant recipient organizational capacity. Economic impact to beneficiaries.

The primary beneficiaries of the project are the students, mainly, and secondarily, the teachers. Regarding the students, there are two kinds of beneficiaries. First, those who received gadgets. They were able to participate in the online classes. 7 of out 15 of the students completed the school year with honors, 6 of the 15 passed, while 2 of the 15 are still completing due to financial and psycho-emotional problems. These students helped other students through a pay-it-forward or sharing kindness activities, developing their compassion, gratitude, and communication and other skills. Second, the whole student body who was able to participate more actively in the teaching-learning process, especially during school-wide activities because of the technology provided. This opened opportunities for greater interaction between teachers and students, given the limitations and difficulty of online learning. The secondary beneficiaries are the teachers because the monthly internet allowance gave financial capacity to afford wifi/mobile internet connections to support the work-from-home teaching arrangement, as the educational modality in the Philippines in the past school year was online or printed modular (in the case of CPF, it was only online – either through Teams or Messenger (for those with internet challenge).

 Plus, they could share the idea of various issues between multistakeholders which help them widen the radius of thoughts.

The school as an organization benefited a lot from the project because the technological, technical, and financial support of the program – Zoom apps, especially the large meeting facility, the poster and presentation app, Canva, increased capacity for an online library management system, additional computers for use by teachers and eventually by students, and teachers’ allowance. The school needed all these technological, technical, and financial support especially during the pandemic period because both the families who were the school stakeholders and the school were affected by the economic dislocation of the general community. The project provided resources from dotAsia and PH Domain Foundation at a time when these were needed badly.

The project allowed parents, teachers, and the school to use the limited economic resources available during the COVID19 pandemic for other necessary provisions (at home in the case of students and parents and in school) as the project was able to ease the financial costs needed for online teaching and learning.

On a more strategic perspective, the project created opportunities for students to learn, which will serve their future economic advancement.

Please report on the outcomes of project with respect to the mission and vision of DotAsia as included in the project proposal.
Dot.Asia seeks to “embody the successful, cooperative atmosphere established within the Pan-Asia and Asia-Pacific Internet community to accelerate the overall growth of the region” through a regional Internet namespace, reinvest in socio-technological initiatives, and world-class and technically advanced non-profit. This project, Connecting High School Students to Teaching and Learning amid COVID Pandemic as implemented by Center for Positive Future, Inc. – Banaba and sponsored by PH Domain Foundation, showed the spirit of the vision and mission of DotAsia. It shows how Asians support other Asians (DotAsia to Center to Positive Future, Inc. school). It shows how Filipinos support each other (PH Domain Foundation to the school; the school to teachers and students; the students to other community members). It embodies the spirit of helping each other towards success and growth, individually, as an organization, as a community of teachers and learners, and as a regional community. This project, being available online through the website, www.eskwela.asia , will be able to project the dynamic of the Asian namespace, and will convey the cooperative atmosphere of its players. The direct and indirect project beneficiaries will also be able to identify DotAsia as a partner in developing resilience during a much-needed moment in their personal and community lives.
Describe the coordination with and how DotAsia can further follow up with the Grant Recipient on future collaborations:
PH Domain Foundation sponsored the project of the Center for Positive Future, Inc. – Banaba (CPF Banaba) to DotAsia Sponsor Community Project. Both DotAsia and PD Domain Foundation made the project possible. dotPh guided CPF in the project identification, conceptualization, and implementation stages. DotAsia, through June Lau, guided the school in the application, approval, and reportorial processes. She ably and promptly responded to different queries and concerns during the project incubation and implementation stages. She endorsed the school to the NetMission program for youth as a possible network partner. CPF exchanged emails with Jenna Fung of NetMission and CPF Banaba propagated the information on the Asia Pacific Youth IGF 2021 Virtual Camp to its rooster of alumni who fall under the category of participants. Future collaborations with DotAsia can include participation in or study of global community programs supported by DotAsia like NetMission or other such events that the school can monitor through the DotAsia News page.
Promotion & Dissemination of Outcomes
List and provide information on how the SCP was promoted to beneficiaries (attach additional materials as necessary):
The project and partnership with DotAsia and PH Domain Foundation were discussed to parents during the annual parents’ orientation at the start of the school year and during the quarterly meetings with the Family Council. The project was also featured in a video of the school programs which was shown to its students, parents and to other high school students in nearby high schools. It was also uploaded in the school’s Facebook page. DotAsia together with PH Domain Foundation were cited as external stakeholders in schoolyear-end post in the school’s Facebook page. The project is also projected in the website, www.eskwela.asia.
List and provide information on how the .ASIA domain(s) were featured (attach additional materials as necessary):
The Eswela.Asia domain name was used in creating a website that cites this project as part of a bigger program of building a society that takes care of children’s right to education. Eskwela is a Filipino term for school. Society is seen as a school wherein responsibilities for each other and the environment are weaved. Further, the DotAsia domain is being used in an email system to communicate with stakeholders. The website hosting and email system are donated by PH Domain Foundation as part of its project counterpart.
Please explain and quantify the reach and/or coverage of the SCP as a result of the promotional efforts:
The SCP was able to reach students and parents of the school through orientation and organizational meetings as well as to the students’ families and friends through social media. The eskwela.asia has been launched publicly in September 2021 but in the duration of the project year, the contents were still being developed. It was only toward the project end that the content on the project has been uploaded in a more satisfactory manner and thus, the website will be promoted more aggressively henceforth.
Please explain how the outcomes of the SCP were disseminated (e.g. reports distributed, press reports, etc.):
The SCP project report is available in the www.eskwela.asia. A presentation on the project outcomes in video form shall also be presented in the Facebook group page of CPF parents of school year 2021-2022.