The Kurit-Lagting, a collective artistic collaboration of Bicolano artists from Sorsogon, Albay, Catanduanes, Masbate and Camarines provinces with art advocacies on human rights and the environment held a multimedia production webinar for teachers in Prieto Diaz, Sorsogon.
In partnership with Good Neighbors International Philippines (GNIP) Prieto Diaz CDP, an international, child-focused, humanitarian, and development NGO, the webinar talked about creating lessons and materials for online learning using different mobile and desktop applications such as Canva, Power Director and Screen Recorder & Video Recorder.
“We know the challenges that teachers and students encounter everyday, especially those who are only able to access the online learning environment in real-time. However, we believe this webinar is a good start for teachers to have basic knowledge in multimedia production to make their lessons interesting and engaging,” quipped Gerald Jintalan, one of the speakers in the webinar and a member of Kurit-Lagting.
“The applications that we introduced to the teachers can be accessed using their mobile phones and laptops so there’s this flexibility and user-friendly interface in terms of producing contents with minimum level of computer knowledge. Teachers can also download the templates and work on the materials offline,” said Sarah Sedico and Liana Golimlim, Kurit-Lagting interns and facilitators of the webinar.
The art group said that aside from the technical limitations, the lack of physical presence to create a supportive environment in the Virtual Classroom puts the burden on students, teachers, and parents. While an online method of education can be a highly effective alternative medium of education during this pandemic, it is an inappropriate learning environment for more dependent learners.
“We can only do so much in providing training for our teachers and students but we need active actions and support from the national government and LGUs, especially that multimedia production is highly technical and it is one of the most important sources of learning. It is also important to recognize that some subjects should not be taught online because the electronic medium does not permit the best method of instruction,” stressed Geri Matthew Carretero, Kurit-Lagting’s co-founder.
“This is just one of the solutions that online teaching can utilize in producing learning materials. It may not be technologically possible to simulate a physical learning experience, at least we can create visual communication that Contents must also be carefully considered and balanced in order to take full advantage of the strengths of this format,” added Ronel Obar, GNIP Education and Child Protection Staff, Prieto Diaz CDP.
