FAQs



What is E-turo?

E-turo, a play on the words 'electronic' and 'turo' (meaning teach) is a network of free and open educational resources. Filipino teachers and learners can share and customize E-turo content for their own use. E-turo covers basic education, alternative education, and continuing education.

We are focusing initially on developing an online repository for basic education in the areas of Mathematics, Science, English, Filipino and Social Studies. We want E-turo to attract everyone from educators, students and parents, to publishers, programmers, instructional designers, authors and public officials throughout the Philippines to contribute or freely access quality learning materials.

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What sort of resources does E-turo contain?

E-turo has three levels of content: (1) curricula and learning strategies; (2) lesson plans; (3) enrichment exercises. Users of E-turo can mix and match content according to their needs.

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Why was E-turo started?

According to the 2006 World Report, the population of the Philippines has been doubled to 91 million over the past 50 years by the highest birth rate in Asia. About 30 million of the population are below the age of 15. There are roughly 1 million preschool children (age 0-4); 13 million children in primary school (age 5-11); and 7 million children in secondary school.

The rapidly growing population of the Philippines means that there has to be drastic solutions on how to propagate education just as rapidly. Philippine education is marked by a scarcity of educational materials. Despite its best efforts, the government is unable to cope with the demands of students. Vibal Foundation aims to propagate abundance both of instructional media and technology, with the help of partners and volunteers, through E-turo.org.

E-turo will make learning possible for anyone, anywhere. This will drive personal growth and give opportunity to those who wouldn't otherwise have it. Perhaps, this exposure to education will even reveal the children who could solve some of our biggest problems of tomorrow.

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Can you explain what open education means?

The best place to start is by defining the concept of open source technology. Open source refers to a method that opens up access to source materials or codes. It is created by a development community rather than a single vendor and typically programmed by volunteers from many groups. The code of open source software is free and available to anyone who would like to use it or modify it for his or her own purposes.

By using the open source process for education, we are empowering educators and learners to become an active community in the creation of learning materials.

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What is the difference between being 'open' and being 'free'?

Openness doesn't just mean 'you can read it on the Web for free.' Openness depends on responsiveness and the potential for modifying content based on contributions from others. When people from all walks of life are allowed to continually improve, personalize, update, and otherwise add value to content, creative ideas are shared for the benefit of all.

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Why use the Internet to disseminate education?

The Internet offers the possibility of offering educational resources across huge distances at relatively low cost, and of offering learning tools that Filipinos can use at their own pace, to learn a new job skill, or a new language, or to satisfy their curiosity.

Traditional educational publishing is very limited because it has to apply to the mass market at a very cheap price. Schools get limited to the short head of knowledge because curricula, standards, textbooks and class time can only deal with the main part of subjects. When open educational resources online are where a learner engages knowlege, she is not stuck in the short head of a subject. In a world of multiplying knowledge and complexity, opening educational resources will make it possible for future generations to learn more than the short head, following their curiosity into the long tail of learning.

Teachers who normally don't publish or control curriculum will be given a platform to showcase how they teach. The teacher and the learner are both empowered to shape educational strategies and methods. E-turo allows Filipinos to unleash their creativity in education.

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The Philippines has a low Internet penetration rate. How can E-turo reach teachers and students who are not online?

Lack of connectivity and computers are economic barriers to use, re-use, and content creation. In many places in the world, not just the Philippines, high connectivity costs exclude participation of many. Open content can, and should be, made available through alternative delivery mechanisms to the web, such as CD-ROMs or delivery to cell phones, which are often cheaper and more ubiquitous.

E-turo hopes to partner with organizations which develop portable tools and technologies to make educational materials accessible to communities

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How is E-turo different from other e-learning sites?

E-turo is different in three ways: (1) We focus on a complete curricula solution, not just a textbook or lesson plans, but a comprehensive course of instruction and assessment. E-turo.org will include easy-to-use tools for creating learning packets out of content assets available on the site. (2) E-turo content is localized for Filipino teachers and learners and in line with standard curricula in the Philippines. (3) E-turo will include materials for alternative and continuing education

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Is E-turo ready to use now?

E-turo.org is live. However, user registration will not be available until the beta version premieres in August 2008. E-turo.org is working with partners to contribute a diverse collection of learning materials to the repository. We are adding templates to enable users to easily contribute content and courses. With E-turo tools, they will also have the capability to collaborate and to communicate online.

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How can I contribute to or edit materials available at E-turo?

There are a variety of ways to contribute resources at www.e-turo.org. You can use our unique online tools to share resources you've found with others. On a larger scale, you can write a textbook or build a curriculum.

Starting early next year, our unique textbook wiki will enable groups of volunteers to take a curriculum framework and use the tools to create and edit a book map, or sections and pages of an instructional textbook.

We are also developing a learning management system powered by Moodle which will enable users to run virtual classrooms.

The E-turo interface gives users the ability to select individual lesson plans, course syllabi, learning activities, scope and sequence hierarchies, and other educational elements found at www.e-turo.org to build a complete, fully-integrated curriculum.

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Who evaluates materials on E-turo?

E-turo is led by a seasoned team of experts in the education and technology arenas. Their experience as teachers, authors and technologists has given them the hands-on understanding of what it takes to make quality and easy-to-use learning materials.

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Why is E-turo.org licensed under Creative Commons?

Creative Commons provides free tools that let educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your copyright terms from "All Rights Reserved" to "Some Rights Reserved." Creative Commons licenses have been ported locally in order to be compatible with Philippine law by Atty. Jaime Soriano and Atty. Verne Guerrero of Arellano Law School.

E-turo is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0. Users are free to copy, distribute, share, and modify E-turo content as long as they attribute the source and do not profit commercially from downloaded materials.

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Can you tell me more about E-turo's editorial board?

E-turo's editorial board includes:

Gaspar Vibal, Executive Director. Vibal has numerous years of experience as a multimedia publisher and product designer. He has worked in international publishing companies focused on technology and education. He is the founder of Filipiniana.net (a digital library), WikiPilipinas.org (an encyclopedia), ThePOC.net (a recommendation filter) and E-turo.org, the Philippine education portal. He is determined to assemble and share with the nation and the world the four biggest repositories of knowledge on Philippine education, heritage and culture.

Jose Lloyd Espiritu, Ph. D. Academic Consultant. Espiritu is an associate professor and the former Dean of the College of Computer Studies at De La Salle University (DLSU-Manila). Dr. Espiritu has been an educator for 25 years, an international lecturer and a consultant on the use of Information Technologies (IT) in education and business. He obtained his doctorate in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from the University of Ghent, Belgium in 1994. He worked as senior research associate at Babbage Institute for Knowledge and Information Technology and is responsible for the Instructional Systems Technology of DLSU.

Grace Estela Mateo, Ph. D. Academic Consultant. Mateo has excellent credentials as assistant professor of history and head of the Area Studies Program of the Department of Social Sciences at the University of the Philippines (UP)-Manila. She is also a curriculum consultant and a member of the Teacher Education Council of the Department of Education (DepEd). An author of social studies textbooks, she earned a doctorate from the University of Hawaii, and a master's degree from the Northern Illinois University.

Ian Garces, Ph. D. Academic Consultant. Garces graduated with a degree in BS Mathematics from Mindanao State University and completed his postgraduate studies at the Ateneo de Manila University. He teaches at the graduate program of the Department of Mathematics in the Ateneo where he is Associate Professor. Garces has written and edited several textbooks on Mathematics for grade school and high school students along with teaching strategies and lesson plans for teachers.

Paquito Badayos, Ph. D. Academic Consultant. Paquito Badayos is a Full Professor at the Philippine Normal University where he conducts courses on Filipino Language Teaching. Badayos is an experienced educator and has an extensive body of work on learning materials. He earned his master's degree in education from Philippine Normal University and completed his doctorate at the University of Santo Tomas.

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How can I use E-turo materials?

Anyone with access to the Internet can use the material found on E-turo to teach themselves or others. Whether it's algebra, reading, or physics, they will be able to access the material online, print it, and/or save it to a CD.

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What is the relationship of Vibal Foundation to Vibal Publishing?

Vibal Foundation is the corporate social responsibility arm of Vibal Publishing. The Foundation is dedicated to helping groups and individuals in the Philippines foster lasting improvement in the human condition. Through the support it provides, the Foundation fosters the development of knowledge, nurtures individual creativity, empowers communities, and gives information to the public, primarily through support for digital media.

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Why should I get involved?

Because helping others to learn is simply the right thing to do. With your valuable input, we can help foster the exchange of ideas, whether among students and parents, or publishers and educators, all in an interactive community that makes it fun and rewarding to make a difference.

Your assistance can come in many important forms. E-turo is a platform which is open to everyone. We need your help to make it grow for the benefit of Filipino teachers and learners. Donate your resources. Actively participate in the community. Use the materials available. Provide us with feedback. And most importantly, spread the word.

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