Mediaboss Marketing

By: Matikas Santos INQUIRER.net

8:36 pm | Wednesday, March 14th, 2012

John Bessey, Microsoft Philippines Managing Director, and Esther Vibal, Chairperson of the Vibal Group of Companies, shake hands during the Annual Innovative Education Forum organized by Microsoft to seal the partnership between the two companies.

MANILA, Philippines Can you imagine a classroom without chalk and blackboard, manila paper, cartolinas, one-fourth sheets of paper, pencils, erasers, and attendance sheets?

The leading Philippine educational materials publisher Vibal Publishing House Inc. and international computer software company Microsoft have not only imagined it, they are working on making that a reality.

Vibal and Microsoft, in cooperation with the Department of Education (DepEd), have partnered to create a new kind of classroom set to enter the digital era.

They are making this possible through the introduction of e-textbooks that can be accessed by students on tablet computers.

Chris Datol, operations manager of Vibals subsidiary Vibe Technologies Inc., said during the Annual Microsoft Philippines Innovative Education Summit last March 2 that a child becomes smarter when he or she uses a digital device and consumes digital material.

He cited a study conducted by the United Nations who found that students exhibited better performance because of the highly visual and multimedia content that tablets can show to students.

E-textbooks will have multimedia features like educational videos, full-color pictures, instructional audio content, customizable text, interactive quizzes, online connectivity allowing external links to resource websites, study tips, and many more.

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When digital classrooms become reality