Vibal Publishing House helps bridge the digital divide

MANILA, Philippines - Given the reality that children born in the 21st century are defaulted on the digital age, Vibal Publishing House Inc. (VPHI) is doing its share to bridge the digital divide between the digital citizens of today and those born in the 20th century, including teachers and parents, the so-called “digital migrants.”

Using a VPHI-developed learning management software, these different users can now adapt to the new technology and attempt to talk the same language in teaching and learning under a digital environment.

VPHI partnered with Procter & Gamble (P&G), which launched its eStudyante program two years ago that aims to donate and distribute one million laptops and other electronic learning devices to public elementary and high schools, especially in far-flung areas, until its 100th anniversary celebration in 2035, or at the rate of 43,000 laptops and tablets a year.

Just recently, P&G, VPHI and Samsung distributed on trial basis around 150 tablets that run on the Vibal learning software to the Oranbo Public Elementary School in Pasig, where P&G also tied up with Robinsons Corp. to help finance the program so more schools in the country can benefit from it.

Under the program, P&G provides the financial muscle while Samsung is the device provider and Vibal as content provider through its “Vibe” reader, Vibal’s locally developed learning solution that can be accessed by both teacher and students. It uses interactive video and audio tools for the child to learn beyond the printed page, and a software that can conduct online quizzes and instant corrections/grading by the teacher and then given to students for immediate feedback.

VPHI executive director Gaspar Vibal said, “We will be showing the software to the Philippine Normal University (PNU) on the third week of May or maybe after the elections. It is not just a static container for putting content but it also checks and learns whether the person reading it was able to absorb the material or not. This will be piloted this coming school year but basically the software contains just data.”

He explained the stages of the software’s evolution: from pre alpha to alpha then beta, followed by beta for private release and beta for public release and then rollout of version 1. The software will be upgraded when the teachers and users send their recommendations.

“We actually showed the alpha version in May last year during the annual conference of ICT supervisors nationwide where we also showed the ‘Be Smart’ classroom. The beauty of this technology is that it has frequent ‘iteration’ or repetitive processes within the program and capable of working in whatever operating system or device — Android, Windows 7 or 8, the iPhone or iPad,” he said.

Vibal said 8,000 children in both public and private schools currently have the Vibal software. La Salle Greenhills began using it in September 2007 initially for the honors class in every grade level. But when parents of other students learned about it, they demanded that the same module be given to their children as well. At present, of the 4,800 students, 4,000 children now use the tablet.

However, Vibal said a study should be commissioned to determine whether these devices and the software in them would make the children more intelligent and smarter.

“I don’t know if it makes them smarter but I know that it makes children more aggressive in looking for knowledge, which is common all over the world,” he added.

Teachers, he said, won’t be outdated since they need to guide the students on which chapters and books to look at so they really have to learn the technology.

“PNU is essentially the country’s main source of teachers so we help them equip two classrooms where student-teachers create the courses and deploy them through the tablet for testing and we roll this out through the annual ICT workshop and then we and the retailer choose which course to adopt,” he said.

As a publisher, Vibal also mentioned that the company has a new line of books for the “K to 12” program to help make the country’s educational system more competitive.