It’s APP to you

It’s APP to you

Trixie Ann C. Bautista

it 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 and location is still an issue hard to resolve. Also, aside from this common issue of poor internet connection, not all students afford the new normal of learning. Mylene C. Empuerto, a College Instructor at PHINMA-UPang, says either the internet connection or being a working student is the main obstacle to why the students are not able to pass their SAS and outputs on time and comply with online classes. It is a problematic world of 2020 has given us since the beginning of this year. So many problems, but also so many practical solutions.

Data offers will never be perfect and suitable to us users, but we have a lot of options that are not being discovered when it comes to the best apps to be used that are data-friendly, and also privately secured.

Going back to what the school provides, Microsoft Teams is the perfectly practical app to be used for it only consumes 225 MB – 450 MB per hour, no time pressure, no data scarcity. MS Teams is part of Office 365 which is common in the corporate world and is popular with businesses, but that’s not it. MS Teams can also 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.