Global Filipino Teachers program to promote ICT in schools expanded

MANILA, Philippines - In an effort to provide public secondary schools nationwide with better equipped teachers starting this school year, leading telecommunications company Globe Telecom’s prepaid business held a four-day training program that empowers mentors to impart their 21st century teaching skills to their peers.

Called the Global Filipino Teacher (GFT) lead program, the train-the-trainers workshop was participated in by 30 of the most outstanding teachers from different provinces who already completed the five-day intensive GFT program covering relevant usage of information and communications technology (ICT) tools and who have a clear understanding of internet for education, mastery of word processing applications for good classroom management, and problem-based learning (PBL) approaches.

“What sets this workshop apart is its objective of creating teacher trainers out of the participants. They are considered the new breed of teachers who are able to coach their colleagues on ICT applications, PBL approaches, tele-collaboration and educational technology anytime, anywhere. in essence, we’re creating more GFTs around the country to benefit more students, with the end goal of building an ICT-empowered public school system,” said Issa Cabreira, vice president for Globe Prepaid Business.

The GFT lead program is part of Globe Prepaid’s commitment to improve the quality of education in public schools in order to help Filipinos live better lives. This falls under the key pillar of nation-building for Globe Telecom’s Project Wonderful.

One of the first tasks of the 30 lead coaches is to each train five teachers in their district this school year which should result in 150 new GFTs. Among the notable participants was Shateen Serana of Bunguiao National High School In Zamboanga City who was an awardee of the Microsoft Innovative Teachers Leadership Award in 2013 which brought her to New Zealand and Prague. She won the award for her work in integrating technology in classroom lessons which she learned from the GFT program.

“It started when i joined the Global Filipino Teachers program. I saw the importance of the program and how it transformed me. From a timid, shy and ordinary teacher, I can now say I am a more competent, confident and skilled in terms of integrating technology and enhancing the 21 century learning skills of my students which I hope I can also impart to my fellow teachers,” Serana said.

Another participant, Ernani Fernandez, a business technology teacher in Palo National High School said: “I am excited to be part of the GFT lead program and to share what we learned in GFT with other teachers. The number one benefit of this is we are updated on the latest trends and technologies and how we can use them in teaching, allowing us to be on the same level as those in other countries.” Fernandez also made it to the international Microsoft Expert Educators program after presenting a project based on what he learned from the GFT program.

Globe Telecom has been implementing the GFT program since 2009 in collaboration with the Coalition for Better Education and the Department of Education. From the leaders’ strand, and along with teacher evaluations, Globe expects to produce more than 250 GFT graduates by the end of 2014 alone, on top of the 262 graduates produced during the four-year existence of the program.