(Business Mirror)

Living in isolation, the values of honesty, respect for others and for nature remain intact among the Ivatans of Batanes. On a visit in this province, one must not miss to drop by Honesty Café, which has no storekeeper manning the shop and relies on the honesty of the customers in paying for the items bought.

Walking around the capital town of Basco, children pay their respects to elders, even to strangers, with the traditional pagmano, or taking the elder’s hand on the youngster’s forehead. Visitors are often surprised with the greeting of smile from biking or walking residents.

Bicycles are usually parked with no padlocks outside houses or on the corners of farms and roads. Houses usually do not have locks and visitors are free to enter anytime.

On peak season, small resorts and guesthouses are fully booked. Only two buildings are always almost deserted—the police headquarters with empty detention cells and hospitals with not much patients.

“The most boring professions in Batanes are being a policeman and a nurse because there are not much crime incidents and [people hardly become] sick in this time-warped province,” said former Gov. Telesforo Castillejos, now the director of the Batanes Cultural Travel Agency (BCTA).

The Ivatans have also managed to sustain traditional farming using partitions or hedgerows and fishing practices that have spared their land from hazardous chemicals and their seas from dynamite fishing.

WELL-PRESERVED and rich cultural traditions and historical landmarks that make Batanes a well-endeared place resulted in the province’s inscription in 2005 as a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco).

In 2007 a Unesco representative visited Batanes to document the historical sites and preservation efforts on cultural practices. The Unesco representative was astonished to see an entire well-preserved land, and recommended the inscription of Batanes for World Heritage Site for cultural landscape and seascape.

One of the rich historical landmarks noted in the inscription is the traditional stone house of Ivatans made of limestones. For many centuries, these stone houses served as refuge for Ivatan families who have weathered the country’s harsh weather conditions being located in a typhoon belt.

BUT despite its isolation from the main island of Luzon, Batanes has not been spared from rapid urbanization, and the iconic stone house of the Ivatans are now being transformed into modern houses.

In the last five years, several stone houses on the main Batan Island and on Sabtang Island have been transformed into modern houses.

Castillejos said although there are local laws encouraging Ivatans to restore the heritage stone houses through real estate-tax relaxations and fund assistance for restoration, many Ivatans, especially those who have relatives working abroad, resort to remodel their houses into modern types.

He said the cost of GI sheets is a lot lower than the cogon materials used for roofing of stone houses. Also, limestone materials are now scarce and the modern cement could not be mixed with the limestone used in building stone houses.

“The stone houses are very much part of the rich cultural heritage of Batanes, but we cannot stop the Ivatans who want to have modern houses,” said Castillejos.

Sustainable materials from the sea

These stone houses do not only symbolize the rich cultural and historical past of Batanes, but the materials used in building them are made of sustainable materials as they are sourced from the sea.

The stone houses are also resilient against heat from the sun, cold winds and even rains, and have been protecting the Ivatans from the harsh weather conditions.

Efforts to preserve and restore these heritage stone houses are crucial to the inscription of Batanes as a World Heritage Site for cultural seascape and landscape, said Castillejos.

He said the first document for Batanes inscription was reviewed in 2005 and returned to the provincial government for further documentation.

He said cultural and historical sites, such as the stone houses, Idjangs (fortress) and boat markers in burial sites, as well as hedgerows, must be restored and preserved in order for the province to qualify for the Unesco inscription.

During his term, Castillejos formed a team, led by Prof. Robert Bastillo, who used to be a lecturer of the Asian Institute of Management, that would further research and document the cultural and heritage sites in Batanes.

He lamented that the project was stopped by his successor, making Batanes’s bid for Unesco inscription on hold.Business

Need to preserve and restore

THE primary benefit of the Unesco inscription is the much-needed funding and policy guidance from world experts on how to preserve and restore the province’s rich historical and cultural sites that are now threatened by rapid modernization.

“Our bid for World Heritage Site inscription is motivated by our desire to be protected,” said Castillejos. “In other tourism destinations, they rush to change what they have, but in Batanes, we just want to preserve what we have.”

Batanes is part of the country’s rich treasure and covered by the National Integrated Protected Areas System Act of 1992. Part of the country’s 112 protected areas is the Batanes protected seascapes and landscapes. The protected areas are identified portions of land/or water owing to their unique physical and biological significance, managed to enhance biological diversity and protected against destructive human exploration.

The designation of protected areas is part of the global commitments signed by the Philippines, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, Ramsar Convention, World Heritage Convention, Convention on Migratory Species and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Agreement on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.

Castillejos said the Nipas should be adopted as local laws through implementing rules and regulations.

Stone houses to make tourists aware of Batanes heritage

THE BCTA has a tie-up with the Skyjet airline, a British-made aircraft that launched chartered flights from Manila on April 8.

Skyjet Chief Executive Officer Dr. Josel Mendoza said he is encouraging the owners of stone houses to develop their properties as bed and breakfast facilities to augment the increasing number of tourists in Batanes.

He said the stone houses badly needed restoration but the Ivatans do not have enough funds for it. Through the BCTA, the Ivatans will retain ownership of the stone houses but will share the operations of bed-and-breakfast facilities with the BCTA.

The launch of Skyjet, which offers lower airfares, enables the Ivatans to return home to rediscover their roots after long years of being away.

The population of Batanes of 16,000 has not changed in the last five years because most of those who graduate from high school migrate to Manila for their college education and eventually seek jobs.

Mendoza noticed that most of the passengers of Skyjet in the last two months are returning Ivatans.

“We hope to get the support for the project to restore the stone houses and use them as bed-and-breakfast facilities to be able to increase the awareness of tourists on the rich historical and cultural past of the province,” he said.

The Ivatan’s bid for Batanes to be inscribed as Unesco World Heritage Site for Cultural Landscape and Seascape requires full efforts of the local government to adopt laws to preserve and restore what has remained in the country’s time-warped province.

But at the moment, concerned Ivatans continue to struggle to restore what has been left of their rich province and identity.

“We are now at the crossroads of development. We need to balance our programs and preserve our culture and the environment,” said Castillejos.

(source: Business Mirror)

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(ph.news.yahoo.com)

The New Generations 2012 results were obtained from face-to-face, in-home interviews with 1,000 randomly selected kids from Metro Manila, Cebu, and Davao conducted between February 25 and March 26, 2012.

(source: GMA News)

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(storephilippines.net)

Computer security firm Sophos reported the new fraud messages are sent to mobile phones as a text message, but contain a link to a survey scam.

In a blog post, it said the SMS message seemingly comes from Apple Inc., and claims the recipient has won a prize in a contest.

“Congratulations, Your entry into our contest last month made you a WINNER! Goto to claim your prize! You have 24 hours to claim,” it quoted the text message as saying.

But clicking on the link will take the user not to Apple’s website at apple.com, but to a website called textwon.cominstead.

Sophos said Textwon’s WHOIS information showed it was a new domain registered only last May 4.

“The actual contact information for who registered the domain is hidden behind by a domain privacy service, but the A-Record IP address of the domain is linked with others that are known to have hosted malware, scams, adware and fake anti-virus in the past,” it said.

“In short, this is clearly a link that should be avoided,” it added.

Moreover, it said those who clicked on the link may be redirected to a number of different websites depending on where in the world they are based, including the perennial “Win a free iPad by filling in this survey” scams.

“Frequently, such scams will dupe you into believing you have won a prize, and ask you to enter your cellphone number. If you’re not careful and don’t read the small print, you will find that you have accidentally authorized a premium rate service to sign you up as a subscriber – adding dollars each week to your phone bill,” it said.

“Always take care about clicking on links sent to you out of the blue, even if they arrive on your mobile phone,” it added

(source: GMA News)

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Inventor Anthony Mutua, 24, has been showing off his recharging sneaker at the first-ever Kenyan Science Technology and Innovation Week, held in Nairobi. It’s another way of using your body’s own energy to fuel electronics.

(Cnet.com)

The shoe apparently has a very thin “crystal chip,” perhaps a piezoelectric device, that generates power when the sole bends. It can charge phones via a long cable to a pocket while the user walks, or store power for later charging.

“This charger works using pressure, as you walk you generate pressure that in turn generates energy, once you have arrived where you were going you can now sit down and charge your mobile phone,” Mutua told CNC World.

The technology apparently works with any shoe except bathroom slippers, and can be transferred to another once a shoe gets worn out.

It can also power several phones at the same time. Good news for those who like to tote more than one handset.

The project was apparently sponsored to the tune of some $6,000 by Kenya’s National Council of Science and Technology (NCST). It has been patented and the device could enter mass production soon.

It could sell for the equivalent of $46, which would include a 2.5-year warranty.

Isn’t that just about the time a pair of new shoes will last?

(source: Cnet.com)

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(Yahoo)

Tune up your a/c

If you have central air, hire a licensed HVAC contractor to do a preseason check ($85 and up). He’ll do routine maintenance that can prevent costly problems later. Every two or three years, have the ducts checked: Proper sealing and insulation can cut energy use by 20%. Clean the filter monthly, and replace it at least every three months (about $15). For a room air conditioner, remove any winter cover you have on the condenser unit, hose down the coils and clear the area for full air flow; clean or replace the filter monthly.
Discover 15 clever ways to use everyday items.

Set your thermostat

Installing a programmable thermostat ($50 and up) can pay you back in energy savings the first year. Hire a professional installer if you aren’t a DIYer or if your system is more than 10 years old. For the most savings (about $180 a year), the EPA suggests setting the thermostat to 85°F when you’re out, 78°F when you’re home and 82°F while you sleep. You can adjust the numbers a bit, but if there’s more than 10 degrees between the highest and lowest settings, you won’t save any money.

Stop heating up the kitchen

Using your oven is the most energy-intensive way to cook a meal-and it pours heat into the kitchen as well. Instead, consider the microwave, toaster oven or slow cooker. A microwave, for example, uses 80% less energy than an oven and doesn’t heat the kitchen at all. If you do bake, use the oven light to check on your food; opening the door can lower the oven temperature by 25 degrees.
Organize your kitchen with this easy plan.

Put a ceiling fan to work

An EnergyStar-qualified fan costs a few cents per hour to operate but makes the air feel 6 to 8 degrees cooler on your skin, so you can set your air conditioner higher; for every 2 degrees you turn it up, you’ll save $40 over the season. Set the fan’s blades to run counterclockwise to push air down toward you (reverse them in winter to send warm air near the ceiling into the room). Run the fan only when you’re there to enjoy it: It cools you, not the room.

Block incoming rays

For $20 and up per window, solar film can keep up to 70% of the sun’s heat (and 99% of UV rays) out of the house without blocking the light. New technology means it’s not the shiny stuff you may remember, and you can remove it come fall if you like. Focus on the windows that get the most sun, like those that face south. You’ll save up to 30% on cooling costs-and keep your furniture from fading! Another option: Use insulating curtains or blinds, and close them during the day. For long-term savings, plant deciduous trees near south-facing windows. They will block the summer sun but let the rays in when the leaves are gone.

(source: Yahoo News)

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(Business mirror)

This year that time is reversed: 80 percent of her class time is spent moving from student to student; about one-fifth continues to be a standard lecture format. The rest of the direct-instruction materials she wants students to see, she assigns to watch or read at home.

“To me, this makes more sense,” Crosby said.

When it comes to challenging traditional ideas about how schools should operate, this 2-year-old charter school in Waukesha is building a reputation with a curriculum that focuses on science, technology, engineering and math, and where student schedules can change every day.

Students choose when they want to eat and when they want to work during a 60-minute lunch, and can randomly be found working in groups behind the reception desk. Or in the teachers lounge.

It may sound like too much freedom for middle-schoolers, but not to Principal Ryan Krohn.

“If we want kids to act like adults and be responsible and come up with ideas and manage their time,” he said, “why do we continue to tell them exactly what to do and expect them to do it in the same way and at the same time as everyone else?”

Krohn is part of a growing network of educators in Wisconsin calling for learning environments that are less lecture-driven and more collaborative. They want children to think better for themselves. They believe teachers must use technology in more sophisticated ways to advance learning. They believe the immediate payoff is more engagement. The long-term goal: higher achievement.

Dramatic spending cuts, calls from taxpayers for greater efficiency and rapidly evolving technology are propelling such ideas forward and causing more people to question the seemingly immutable norms of traditional schooling:

Why are classes still largely structured around lecturing, when research shows learners often retain information better through writing about it or explaining it, with feedback?

Why do schools largely group children by similar age instead of similar ability?

Why is memorization and fact-regurgitation so heavily valued when school leaders and employers say they want greater problem-solving and critical thinking skills from graduates?

The Oconomowoc Area School District administration recently sent shock waves through the teaching field by proposing to cut staff and add more work to the remaining teachers—but with a $14,000-a-year bonus. More proposals like that are sure to come.

New technologies offer promising opportunities for schools to move away from the factory-style instruction model to one where learning plans are customized for each student—something already common in special education but largely absent from the mainstream.

Coined “personalized learning,” the approach is being tested with specific populations of students in many area schools and implemented with all students in places such as Waukesha’s STEM Academy.

In some schools, personalized learning aligns with a blended learning approach that mixes face-to-face teaching with online instruction.

In a time of reduced resources, advocates say blended learning could also allow teachers in some cases to handle larger class sizes, particularly if teachers combine their classes and/or receive support from lower-paid aides or even older students. What that could mean for quality of instruction long-term remains unknown.

The efforts in southeastern Wisconsin are being spearheaded largely by Cooperative Educational Services Agency (CESA) No. 1 in Pewaukee, one of many state-funded agencies around Wisconsin that support local school districts.

Jim Rickabaugh, the former superintendent of Whitefish Bay Schools, has launched The Institute at CESA 1, an initiative aimed at helping districts evangelize the concept of customized education through the use of technology and by teaching students to advocate for themselves, research effectively and take ownership of their own learning.

The movement has nationwide traction, and companies such as McGraw-Hill, the education services goliath, are offering sophisticated learning tools that teachers can incorporate to make instruction more customized.

These new models have generated excitement among early adopters, but they don’t have complete consensus.

“We’re trying to honor people’s need for this legacy model of education but also pursue this new educational model, and it’s caused tension,” said Theresa Gennerman, principal of Kettle Moraine Middle School. “We’ve got this perfect storm: the political climate, declining enrollment, less money for schools, and the kids, who are all asking for it. But we’re also trying to exist in this old model. Many parents still want to see ‘Kettle Moraine High School’ on their child’s diploma.”

So the district this year created two new charter schools within Kettle Moraine High School: one focused on global issues, the other on the arts. The charter-school students may still take classes in the “legacy” school— KMHS proper—but spend much of their time working independently or in groups on projects in their core subjects through the charter school.

When it comes to the effectiveness of online instruction, most research on computer-based learning vs. traditional instruction has been conducted at the university level, not in K-12 education, said Gary Miron, an expert in education technology research at Western Michigan University.

Teachers who already use more technology in their teaching—such as the suite of free Google applications or ALEKS, a popular online math program produced by McGraw-Hill—find value in the tools. But little independent academic research is available to judge the quality of one program over another.

What is clear, at least to Miron, is that research suggests well-executed project-based learning builds higher-level thinking skills in students, and that an engaging teacher—technology or no technology—is essential.

Rickabaugh is guided by the belief that the current system of schooling is not set up to educate kids at high levels; it’s set up to teach to the middle and to reward those who memorize and recall facts well. The system is not good at accommodating those who don’t learn well in the traditional fashion, and those are often the students who disengage, fall behind and cost more money to remediate.

As technology matures and educators become more skilled at applying it, Rickabaugh believes that personalizing education will become the new standard. Not as a boutique charter-school program. Not as a route for the gifted and talented. But as the new normal.

“We need to make a fundamental shift to customized learning plans for each student, which are attached to world-class standards and which move at a pace that challenge but don’t discourage them,” Rickabaugh said. “We have technologies available to us now that allows this to happen.”

At STEM Academy, Krohn spent a year studying how to challenge the traditional ideas people had about how children need to be taught.

He questioned everything from class design to curriculum. Why do students have to do everything at the same time—from calisthenics in gym to eating lunch together? What if all the teachers in a grade level collaborated on their curriculum? What if students didn’t have set schedules every day? What would bringing career professionals into the building, on a near-daily basis, do for students? Why do students need to be in a classroom to work? Could they be more productive if they worked elsewhere in the school?

Krohn developed a vision, which was supported by the district and a charter school planning grant from the state. One thing was immediately clear: His kids would need online access all the time. The school is wireless. Every student is issued a laptop, their assignments and work accessible on the Internet.

Teachers meet as a grade-level team to design projects with an overarching theme, with applicable content areas for each subject. Art and business teachers also align their curricula with core classes.

As an example, the sixth grade started a baseball unit with a field trip to Miller Park. When they got back, a multiweek study of baseball across subject lines ensued, including business-class projects on marketing baseball, a science project on the force in a swing and math practice that related to calculating surface area, volume and statistics.

Students spend much more of the day working in groups to find the answers to questions and explaining concepts to their friends, while teachers provide one-on-one or group support.

Krohn also thought he could redesign lunchtime to be more effective and engaging for students.

While many schools offer a scant 20 minutes, the middle-schoolers have a full hour to eat when they want and do work for the other part of the time. Teachers split the hour: Half eat first and offer assistance to students or an extracurricular activity the second part of the period; the other half eat second.

Since the opening of the school, Krohn has paid close attention to STEM Academy students’ scores on an assessment known as the Measures of Academic Progress, which is taken three times during the school year. So far, students appear to be advancing in ways that are similar or better than what would be expected in a traditional public school.

And that’s with the school still working out a number of bugs.

“To go from teachers thinking that we needed to check kids in and out of lunch and assign them seats in the lunchroom to kids being able to monitor themselves and advocate for themselves as learners, that’s a big—and we think, valuable—shift,” Krohn said.

Charter schools such as Waukesha STEM Academy are set up to be innovative and to experiment with curriculum, but the personalized-learning concept has been adopted with positive feedback at a variety of other traditional suburban school districts.

Milwaukee Public Schools, Racine and Kenosha are also teaming up to share best practices on incorporating personalized learning into their programs.

A growing number of area school districts are modifying math instruction through the use of an online math program known as ALEKS, a product of McGraw-Hill. The program allows students to move at their own pace through subjects such as algebra, geometry and trigonometry, which is coupled with varying degrees of teacher intervention. Through their dashboard, teachers can see where children are advancing, getting stuck or trying multiple times to do a problem and failing.

In Pewaukee’s Asa Clark Middle School, a double-sized room serves as the math lab for up to 40 or 50 students per period.

At least two teachers, a paraprofessional and a high school helper work the room with one-on-one support or small group lessons. The atmosphere is louder than a usual class _ while a teacher is doing a small-group lesson in one corner, students elsewhere in the class may question each other about problems or talk to another teacher individually.

Math teacher Tiffany Grandlich holds regular conferences with students—the length and frequency determined by how well that student is progressing—to establish goals.

“The key is having it personalized to each child,” she explained. “Some students say, ‘I’m good, I can check in with you again in three weeks,’ while other kids have to check in with me every day. I’m seeing kids who hated math now say they don’t mind it.”

Grandlich was also surprised to see the span of ability of her students, who traditionally would have been able to work up only through honors algebra in a traditional class.

Now she has some students who have moved ahead to Algebra II, or advanced algebra in high school. Some kids enter her class at a fourth-grade level and need lots of personal attention. Grandlich spends extra time with these students to help them advance as much as possible.

Across the hallway from the math lab, another Asa Clark experiment is challenging the traditional school model.

The program, called Academy 21, allows participating seventh- and eighth-graders to study English, science, social studies and math through independent projects while overseen by two full-time advisers. The lab space is set up like a professional office for kids, complete with small cubicles that students decorate with photos and calendars.

Instead of going to traditional classes, students work with advisers to design their own projects that meet state curriculum standards. Students do six hours of Academy every two days, including utilizing the math lab for help if they need it, and they rejoin their peers for traditional classes such as physical education and Spanish.

Students have project management schedules—deadlines to hit, a learning log and a digital portfolio of work to accomplish. All of it is spelled out in Google documents shared between the Academy 21 advisers and students.

One of those advisers, Scott Roehl, used to teach five conventional science classes each day. Now his days are spent conferencing with students and teaching them one-on-one when they hit a concept for which they need direct instruction.

“So much of this is about rethinking education and our educational philosophy,” Roehl said.

“This works for students who want to take ownership of their learning. They create a task analysis and outline what skills they need to accomplish _ it mirrors what the private sector has been asking us to do for years.”

Roehl and others acknowledge that this style of learning is not for everyone. Some students cannot handle the independence and need to be pushed along with higher levels of direct instruction. But for those who don’t, many possibilities suddenly emerge.

On one recent afternoon, seventh-graders Kiley Fetherston, Kendall Schoenike and Sydney Wagner sat around a table in the Academy 21 room. Fetherston was working on a project about nuclear energy. Schoenike was determined to organize a field trip to the zoo, and was researching how to assemble a project that would hit the required curriculum standards in science and English.

“You have to assign yourself homework,” she said. “We have deadlines and we have to estimate how much time we think everything will take.”

They all agreed: This is something new, and yes, their parents were initially perplexed by the lack of familiar worksheets and traditional homework. And by how they earned their grade: through credits given by their advisers based on time on task and product completed.

Many of the personalized learning projects in area schools have hinged on connecting students with laptops so they can be plugged in anytime, anywhere.

But the changing role of the teacher has also been emphasized at Cudahy High School.

“Technology itself isn’t the magic bullet,” said Greg Molzahn, Cudahy High’s English and technology teacher. “But it allows me to get more one-on-one time with kids.”

Molzahn uses a vast array of Web tools available for free through Google to round out his AP literature and language classes. Students share documents online, and Molzahn writes assessment questions right onto a Web portal.

Cudahy High School math teacher Bill Kujawa has also modified his curriculum to reflect technology and adopt a personalized schedule that fits his and his students’ lives. He gives students online video tutorials to watch for math, then follows up with them in an online space to discuss. The ability to do that from a remote location allows Kujawa the freedom to teach at school from 7 a.m. to noon every day, then spend noon to 3 p.m. at home with his young children.

He’s often back online, teaching and working with students in the evening between 8 and 10 p.m. _ the time when many students are doing homework and have the most questions.

Cudahy Superintendent Jim Heiden said the modifications they’ve made to allow more flexibility in courses for students have required some investment in new technology.

But Heiden believes the district can’t afford not to teach in ways that are more flexible and more customized for teachers and students.

“We’re a business, and if we want to be vibrant 15 years from now, we need to figure out what to do to attract kids to learning and to challenge them,” Heiden said.
In Photo: Jake Hausen, 11, in his 6th grade business class at Waukesha STEM Academy, in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Hausen and his classmates were working on an exploration exercise related to baseball marketing for class. Students also visited Miller Park stadium for the class assignment as well.

(source: Business Mirror)

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This is another MAGANDANG IDEYA focusing on Green Living, Sustainability, Waste Management, Natural Health, New Technology and Renewable Energy. For more GOOD IDEAS tune in to TALAKAYAN at KALUSUGANin partnership with The Big NM – Network Management for Filipinos, The Best Philippine Attractions andBansang Pilipinas.

(senate.gov.ph)

Flora Mae D. Respicio, principal engineer of M’lang/Malasila River Irrigation Systems (MLARIS), said controlled irrigation, a practical technique on saving irrigation water without decreasing yield, enabled farmers to share water supply with rice tillers owning farms in downstream.

In controlled irrigation, observation wells are used to monitor the status of water to help farmers determine the appropriate amount of water and timing of irrigation.

Synchronous planting within one month is recommended to avoid the overlapping occurrence of pests and diseases.

“We used to implement three to four days irrigation interval but it caused conflicts among farmers because the water supply only reaches the mid-streams resulting in late planting or no planting in downstream. From this schedule, we shifted to seven days irrigation interval,” she said during a field day recently conducted by the PhilRice station based in Midsayap, North Cotabato.

Respicio said Lidanama Irrigators’ Association members initially had apprehensions following the new schedule as they are used to seeing their fields immersed in water.

“Through controlled irrigation, farmers are confident that nothing will happen to their rice plants after seven days of no water release. Now, the 1,660 hectares of Lidanama Irrigators’ Association were planted synchronously based on 2012 dry season cropping calendar,” she said.

About 175 rice farmers in the seven irrigators’ association covered by MLARIS had adopted controlled irrigation. With its adoption, Respicio said the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) in Region 12 would form core trainers who would implement the technology on a wider scale.

Philippines’ Irrigated Rice Research Consortium Country Outreach Program funds the project in collaboration with PhilRice and NIA.

DA-PhilRice is a government-owned and-controlled corporation that aims to develop high-yielding, cost-reducing, and environment-friendly technologies so farmers can produce enough rice for all Filipinos.

(source: Phil Star)

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This is another MAGANDANG IDEYA focusing on Green Living, Sustainability, Waste Management, Natural Health, New Technology and Renewable Energy. For more GOOD IDEAS tune in to TALAKAYAN at KALUSUGANin partnership with The Big NM – Network Management for Filipinos, The Best Philippine Attractions andBansang Pilipinas.

(owwa.gov.ph)

In a news release, OWWA also said that this is a good opportunity for OFWs and their dependents for family bonding, and to acquire new skills through IT courses being offered by the agency.

Further, the new skills may also be used in setting up a business.

OWWA members or families are eligible to enroll in any of the courses being offered. These include basic training on Computer Fundamentals such as Word, Excel, Powerpoint; while Advance Training is composed of Digital Media Arts-Photoshop, Movie Maker, and Web Design, and introduction to online business ventures.

Classes will be held at the 5th Floor, OWWA Center in Pasay City and BFO DevCen in Intramuros, Manila.

Schedule of Classes

April 30 – May 4, 2012 Digital Media Arts

May 4, 2012 Learn and Earn Using Technology

May 07 – May 11, 2012 Computer Fundamentals, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Internet Fundamentals

May 11, 2012 Learn and Earn Using Technology

May 14 – May 18, 2012 Digital Media Arts

May 18, 2012 Learn and Earn Using Technology

May 21 – May 25, 2012 Computer Fundamentals, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Internet Fundamental

May 25, 2012 Learn and Earn Using Technology

May 28 – June 01, 2012 Digital Media Arts

June 01, 2012 Learn and Earn Using Technology

(source: PIA)

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This is another MAGANDANG IDEYA focusing on Green Living, Sustainability, Waste Management, Natural Health, New Technology and Renewable Energy. For more GOOD IDEAS tune in to TALAKAYAN at KALUSUGANin partnership with The Big NM – Network Management for Filipinos, The Best Philippine Attractions andBansang Pilipinas.