PCs, Internet Access and Academic Achievement . . . A Bleak Philippine Picture

“Even if we gave every high school student in the Philippines a PC, that would not necessarily result in higher academic test scores”, so says my teacher friend and GILAS skeptic.  “You still have to reform the basic educational system.”  I can’t argue with that.  He’s right.  But I would say that it’s hard to dispute that students in countries that have higher PC penetration in their schools have an advantage over our kids.  So we are actually doubly disadvantaged.  Our basic educational system sucks and our educational technology and tools suck even more.  We have to address both problems at the same time.

Just click on the chart above which shows PCs per 100 people vs. average math scores of grade 8 students in a sample of Asian countries.  The picture is pretty clear.  The Philippines scores dead last in math scores and next to last in PC penetration.

Then my friend says, “Internet access won’t improve their academic scores.  They’ll just play computer games!” Sorry.  It ain’t true.  I’m sure the kids in Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan spend a lot of time on computer games.  But they consistently rank at the top in Math.  In fact, they beat high school kids in the USA handily, which pisses US education officials no end.  The chart below shows the extent of Internet access in the same sample of Asian countries vs. Math scores.  Same bleak picture. Ever wonder which countries’ high school kids are doing worse than ours in Math?  Answer: Botswana, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Ghana.  Even kids in war-torn Palestine and Lebanon are doing better than ours! And yes, in spite of the war, they have better Internet access and more PC penetration than the Philippines.   Then again, Lebanon’s Internet infrastructure probably took a beating from Israel this year. Maybe our kids can beat them in the next survey . . .  ;)

GILAS At Drexel Univ. – FIND Conference

Thanks to Jesse Go, one of our volunteers, GILAS had a booth at the national conference of the Filipino Inter-Collegiate Network Dialogue (FIND), the largest Fil-Am student organization in North America.  We were able to pitch GILAS to the 700+ student delegates in attendance, which was held this year at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA.  They came from a lot of schools including Rutgers, Penn, Virginia Commonwealth, West Point, Annapolis, NYU, Drexel, Boston College, etc. 

The booth was manned by me, Francis Martinez of NASA, Carlos Belen, and the whole family of Joel Belen, including his wife Gina and his 3 kids, the youngest still in her baby stroller!  We had great fun and got about 150 students to sign up for more info or volunteer for GILAS.  We’re really excited about turning the kids on to GILAS.  If we want the word on GILAS to really spread like wildfire, this is one group we have to use!

More GILAS / New York Marathon

Nel sent these great pictures of the New York marathon.   Everyone who’s run it tells me about the incredible rush they get on the Verazzano Bridge,  running with thousands of others from all over the world.  Note the GILAS patch on Nel’s shirt.   And take a look at the shot of the Verazzano packed with runners.  Nel reminded me that there are 360 days before the next year’s marathon . Gotta get into training soon . . . 

Filipino Develops Sub-$100 PC! Can GILAS Use It?

Right after I made my last post on using Puppy Linux on older PCs, I came across this very recent article in the Philippine Inquirer about a Filipino who developed his own sub-$100 PC!  The guy’s name is Rufino Mananghaya, and he is president of the Philippine e-learning Society.  Just goes to show – you don’t need the multi-billion dollar endowments that the research labs at MIT, Harvard, Stanford, etc. are accustomed to – in order to produce an innovative hi-tech product.  In this case, all it needed was plain old Filipino ingenuity.  This cheap PC runs Puppy Linux and is the size of a ream of bond paper.   And – “this PC is not encased in solid metal; it is fixed in a 50-peso transparent plastic briefcase that can be bought in school supply shops”.  Read all about it here.

What does this have to do with GILAS?  Well, as you know, the average cost of a GILAS PC installation of 10 PCs is $4,000 or about $400 per PC.  Maybe we can use Mananghaya’s sub-$100 PC for secondary installations (maybe for freshmen high school or even grade school kids?).  We could also install Puppy Linux in some older machines which you can buy for way under $100.   Or we can just get GILAS supporters to donate their older PCs.  I’ve got a couple myself. 

Here’s an idea . . . GILAS volunteers could “get rid” of their old PCs and have them shipped to high schools in the Philippines via Send Company, one of our corporate supporters.  Let’s say you spend $60-$80 to have your PC shipped in their balikbayan box.  That’s still a lot cheaper than buying a new one.  My brother in Davao says he wants a PC; maybe I’ll send him my Pentium II.  He’s an absolute technophobe but he can have his high school nephew install Puppy Linux.  Things are getting really interesting!

Donate Your 486 PC? Huh?

I meet a lot of interesting people and learn a lot when I pitch GILAS.  And things are getting really interesting.  See the screenshot above?  It kinda looks like Windows, but it ain’t.  It’s the desktop of Puppy Linux, an operating system that promises to breathe life into older PCs.  It’s free, it’s got apps like word processing, spreadsheets, a browser,  and it’s been getting rave reviews.  In fact, it was being considered as the operating system for the One Laptop Per Child project of MIT (check my earlier post on this).  So you should think twice before you throw your old 486 or Pentium 1 in the garbage.  (BTW – you can’t just throw older PCs in the trash in this country; you have to bring them to a recycling dump).

In theory, we could install Puppy Linux on those PCs headed for the trash heap (and there are a lot of them!) and multiply the number of  students with PC access dramatically, and quickly.  I’ve always wished that more students in a GILAS high school could have PC access, not just the seniors, which is the case at Kapitolyo HS in Pasig.  This might just be an option.  Maybe Microsoft wouldn’t be too happy if we pushed Linux   . . .

Nel Enriquez’s Marathon For GILAS

I posted Nel’s account of his marathon in its entirety below.  Really inspiring story!  I am super-psyched to run next year, hopefully with my sons.  BTW – take a look at the youtube video and you will empathize with Nel’s recounting of Mile 8, Mile 22 . . . Nel – congratulations, maraming salamat at mabuhay!  I will hopefully join you in next year’s Marathon.

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To my family, friends and relatives,

Once again, thank you for your whole hearted support sponsoring me to the 2006 ING New York City Marathon.  I raised a total of $2,260.  If you a have a couple of minutes, I’d like to proudly share with you this memorable lifetime experience.  

I arrived at the staging camp in Staten Island at 5:30 AM aboard one of the Midtown buses.  It was a long wait (4 and half hours) in the cold 35F degree temp. At 9:30, huge columns of people started walking from their designated staging lines towards the official starting line amid piles of sweat shirts, blankets, gloves, hats, pants strewn all over the roadway.   It was like a refugee march of 38,000 energized and excited citizens of the world.

The official starting line was at the foot of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge in Staten Island.  The cast of the Broadway hit “Jersey Boys” did an inspiring a capella of the Star Spangled Banner. We started the run with the blazing music, “New York, New York”.   What a way to start a marathon!  The blue corral headed towards the bridge upper deck while orange and green corals headed towards the lower deck.  I stopped a couple of times at the bridge to take a glimpse of the enormous exodus of jubilant people beh ind me, and to prove to myself whether this massive bridge actually bounces during a marathon.   It did!

At mile 8 in Brooklyn, the 3 corals converged like 3 giant marathons merging into an enormous column of people.  The cheering crowds of Brooklyn made me felt like my feet were not touching the ground.   They were very proud of their neighborhood, and many thanked the runners for visiting their community.

The drama and psychology of the NYC marathon was well staged at the infamous Queensboro Bridge (59th Street Bridge) at mile 15.  This bridge further tested our endurance and motivation, and sanity. After having just passed the half marathon mark, we now have to climb this old, long and steep infrastructure.   As I desperately grasped every last breath, I turned my head to my left to view the breathtaking mural-like panorama of the Manhattan skyline, taunting me and giving everybody a false sense of hope that we were near the finish line.   No we’re NOT!  Then, we entered a dark, cold and wet covered section of the bridge further testing one’s courage, will and determination.  When we reached the end of the bridge, we were rewarded with the cheer and screams of 7-throng of Manhattanites greeting our arrival.   Only, to be lured into the very long and never-ending uphill First Avenue.

The Bronx welcomed us after crossing the rugged and pot hole laden Willis Avenue bridge.  This is where most runners, myself included, hit their proverbial “brick wall”.   Do you stop, walk and quit, or continue with a silent cry of pain?

I started seeing the shadow of Central Park at mile 22.  One out-state runner went passed me yelling with frustration, “You can take your (expletive) park, I hate this Central Park!”   When I reached mile 25, I know that I can finish last 1.2 mile in just 8 minutes, just like I practiced it many times.  As I sprinted, I could feel a threatening cramp on my left calf.  I had to take it easy in order to secure an honorable finish.  I finished my first NYC marathon in 3 hours and 57 minutes.  Thank you very much for supporting me and the Ayala Foundation US A.  Your prayers and the thought of your support kept me going for the finish. 

Sincerely,
Nilo Enriquez
Official time 3:57:36

Can GILAS Use Those New Sub-$100 PCs?

Another techie friend reminded me about the sub-$100 PC (see picture to your right) of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organization.  “Didn’t you contact the folks at MIT about this?”, my friend asks.  Yes, I reply, but the minimum order quantity when I first contacted Nick Negroponte was 500,000 units.  I think it still is.  That’s still $50,000,000, almost 2x the entire cost of GILAS.  My super techie friend (he likes to assemble his own PCs , uses Linux and claims he does not use a single piece of commercial software, only open source and roll your own) also tells me that the cost for a typical GILAS install – $4,000 for 10 PCs, or about $400 each – seems a little high.  He says he can get a decent Dell Pentium 4 for $300.  And BTW, he boasts, – if he can just work out decent terms with his Taiwanese manufacturer, he can do better than Dell. 

OK, OK . . . point taken.  But let’s be real.  IBM, Intel, Microsoft are backing GILAS; their CEOs are on the Steering Committee.  They know about OLPC.  They know Quanta Computers, which will start shipping these sub-$100 PCs (now called “XO”) this year.  I would imagine they would not be too thrilled to see a lot of these little green machines (which use Linux and an AMD chip) all over the Philippines.  I think it puts GILAS in great position to negotiate even better prices for installs.  I should try to get an XO when I go to Manila this Christmas.  Maybe my techie friend can use his connections . . .

Yes – We Need PCs In School! Why Can’t You Get It?

I don’t want to beat the proverbial dead horse . . . but I got into another debate without another Fil-Am who said he did not think it was such a big problem that our high school kids don’t have enough PCs and aren’t connected to the Internet.

So here are a few more quotes from academic studies that can hopefully shut up your backward-thinking friends:

• ” . . . technology in the classroom directly contributes to student achievement, both by making students more effective in their learning and teachers more efficient in their teaching” (Besalel, 2004)
• “Attesell (2001) states that drill and practice software has been shown to improve reading, writing and math skills”
• “Evidence suggests that workers who use computers . . . tend to receive higher wages” (Autor, Katz & Krueger, 1998)
• “Those without technology skills will not have access to quality jobs, educational opportunities and information that will be necessary for full and knowledgeable participation in our democratic and political environment (Adams, 2001)
• “Rother (2004) in the Second Annual Teachers Talk Tech Survey found that 81% of teachers feel that using computers in the classroom enhances student academic performance and 62% indicated computer use increase standardized test performance. “

‘Nuff said . . .  let’s move on.

How I Got Involved With GILAS

About a year ago, I attended a dinner presentation for GILAS in New York.  One of the speakers (the guy on the left) was Dept of Education Secretary Butch Abad.  As most of you know, Butch is now ex-Secretary of Education, having resigned from GMA’s cabinet as one of the “Hyatt 10“.  (Vicky G didn’t stay too long either).  I recall how he gave me a pop quiz over dinner and asked me what percent of Philippine high school seniors passed their college entrance exams.  My first answer was 70%, and I thought I was being generous.  Well, if you’ve read the previous posts, you know that number is way, way off.  The correct answer is 2%.  I came across these other interesting factoids in one of the Powerpoint presentations Butch gave at a different venue:

• Only 0.002% of high school seniors passed their Filipino proficiency exams! (I’ll try to double check this stat, but I doubt that Butch made a mistake; you can check the presentation for yourself)
• Students from Northern Samar had among the highest scores in Math and English

I’m puzzled to say the least.  How do you explain how 6% of high school seniors passed their English proficiency tests and only 0.002% passed proficiency tests in their own native language??!!  Both statistics are abyssmal, but the Filipino proficiency score is shameful. And how about those students from Northern Samar?  Isn’t Samar one of the more economically depressed areas in the country?  Why do they score so well?  Maybe it’s in the water . . . I’ll ask Joseph Tieng, one of our volunteers from Samar.

Yes – We Need PCs in School! Get With The Program!

I still get into occasional debates with people who insist that you don’t really need computers to do well in school and that you just need to “fix the educational system”, whatever than means. Sorry – I just don’t buy that. Numerous studies have shown the benefits of computers in the classroom. The next time somebody gives you this argument, you can counter with some research facts like:

• “. . . an 8-year study of students . . . showed that students who regularly used computers increased their combined SAT performance by an average of 92 points”
• ” . . . when technology is a routine part of school experience, student attendance improves and dropout rates decline”
• ” . . . more students finish high school and many more consider attending college when they routinely learn and study with technology.”

I got this info from the Apple Classroom of Tomorrow study.  Yes – let’s fix the educational system, whatever that means and whatever it takes.  But let’s give our kids the same 21st Century tools to effectively learn and compete.