OPINION
7
September 2020 - January 2021 | Vol. XXVIII Issue No. 1
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t has been 4 months since the academic year 2020-2021 began with the innovation of online learning, and yet we are still facing a lot of adjustments to comply with our rights to quality education– gadgets to use, internet source, home-learning area, and a lot of financial matters. But we are not considering one matter here – the best app to use in our e-learning. Zoom and Google Meet are the common apps used in video conferencing in our university’s Flex and RAD Learning. We know that in a certain class, about 50/50 students are in the division when it comes to who depends on WiFi and who depends on Data loads. PHINMA University of Pangasinan (UPang) provided a Smart 5 GB Ready Sim to their students – a sim card loaded PHP 300 for a subscription to GIGASTUDY 299 for 4 GB daily amount of data for 30 days and an additional load of PHP 150 for LEARN 150 subscription, providing you 10 GB for Office 365 and Google Suite for 30 days. Considering what apps are mostly used in video conferences: Zoom consumes 810 MB, which is 2.4 GB per hour, and Meet consumes 1.4 vGB per hour. Think of how many hours you spend in your classes as a student or as a teacher. It is indeed impractical. Denberg Mejia, a 3rd Year Political Science Student, explains that online classes were easy until activities pile up. He also struggles a lot with his internet connection due to the weak signal in their area. Data-dependent users cannot rely 100% on the provided sim card loads because setting will be another issue of internet connectivity. Whatever data amount provided in the load subscription, area
It’s APP to you and location is still an issue hard to resolve. fers will never be perfect and suitable to Also, aside from this common issue of poor us users, but we have a lot of options that internet connection, not all students afford the are not being discovered when it comes new normal of learning. Mylene C. Empuerto, to the best apps to be used that are daa College Instructor at PHINMA-UPang, says ta-friendly, and also privately secured. either the internet connection or being a work Going back to what the school proing student is the main obstacle to why the stuvides, Microsoft Teams is the perfectly practidents are not able to pass their SAS and outputs cal app to be used for it only consumes 225 MB on time and comply with online classes. It is a – 450 MB per hour, no time pressure, no data problematic world of 2020 has given us since scarcity. MS Teams is part of Office 365 which the beginning of this year. So many problems, is common in the corporate world and is popb u t ular to also busis o nessData offers will never be perfect and suitable to us users, many es, but but we have a lot of options that are not being discovpracthat’s tical not it. ered when it comes to the best apps to be used that are soluM S data-friendly, and also privately secured. tions. Teams Data c a n o f also
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istress amidst this Coronavirus pandemic has increased nationwide alongside the increase of positive cases per day. Just last May 29, recorded the most number of new cases a day totaling 1,040. However, as we welcome the month of June, the government announces the lifting up of Extended Community Quarantine (ECQ) to General Community Quarantine (GCQ) wherein rules and restrictions are lighter even though our country has not yet undergone mass testing. Without mass testing, the Coronavirus pandemic will keep spreading, and lifting ECQ to GCQ will not help. Sure, this is applied to places where the risk and cases of the virus are low, but still, there are cases. Coronavirus spreads much faster than we think and even if we think that the virus in a certain place is contained, we are not 100% sure. Mass testing has helped many countries like South Korea, Vietnam, China, Germany, United Kingdom, Iceland, and Italy in containing the virus. These countries that test thousands of people per day have slowed the outbreak and now they’re almost back to normal. Why almost? For exam-
If not now, then when? ple, South Korea can freely roam around their streets, shoot variety shows and even dramas but with cau-
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If you think that Philippines can survive without mass testing, you better think twice.
tion for their hygiene such as wearing masks and sanitization, and application of social distancing. However, our Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque stated that the Philippine government cannot
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conduct mass testing like these countries that caused an uproar among the citizens. He said that they will leave
it to private businesses to foot the bill if they want to check their asymptomatic workers and they will only target one to two percent of the population for COVID-19 testing, or 10 percent in the case of the
be used in the school’s video conferencing, calling, content collaboration with the power of Microsoft 365 applications. It also ensures safety and security for you need to use your school’s provided e-mail accounts so rest assured that there will be no to minimal encounters of online hi-jacking. What to do is comply with your adviser to provide the following steps in activating your UPang Gmail account and let’s go from Meet to Teams! Ms. Empuerto also considered using Canvas Meeting, an app that allows students to access their courses and groups, but she doesn’t know how to operate it yet. Guess what? Canvas app is suitable not only for students and teachers but also available for parents’ monitoring of their child’s access. Yes, we are already at a college-level, you might probably think that it’s too dramatic to have your parents monitor your progress in school, but isn’t better to let them have an assurance that you are safe, and learning in school? Online education with the best online apps is the new definition of quality education. Options are everywhere in the online world. The 4 GB daily data provided in our load subscriptions are perfect for the new options we have when it comes to video conferencing, and security is ensured when it comes to accesses provided for teachers and parents’ supervision of their student’s school progress. Be open to something new, and never say yes because it’s the common opinion of the majority. Quality education is now in the hands of us – the younger generation with the oldest exposure to the internet. It is all APP to you if we demand a larger expense or a practical device to use.
epicenters of an outbreak such as Metro Manila. If this is the case, UPang’s opening of classes later in August is still risky. Even considering the sanitization and new school system considering social distancing, the spread of the virus among students is possible. How? Students of UPang don’t just reside around Pangasinan, some students are from La Union, Baguio, Ilocos, Nueva Ecija, and Tarlac. Without Mass Testing, we’ll not know if they are a carrier of the virus considering that it can be asymptomatic. Students now are seeking online or faceto-face enrollment for the academic year 20202021 1st semester and with the usual number of students at the start of classes ranging within thousands, social distancing will surely be defied. GCQ may help increase our economic growth due to the opening of businesses and stores but lack of preparedness among citizens and the irresponsibility of some people may lead to more risk. If you think that the Philippines can survive without mass testing, you better think twice.
