One of the major outputs that we have to produce is an online social marketing project. Fortunately, I’ve been a part of like-minded individuals who are interested to spread awareness and information on health issues.  Being a part of a TB campaign, I shared to them the need for TB information to reach more audiences, specifically on the topic of TB in Children as detecting and treating this disease is harder with children.

After several months of brainstorming, write-ups and designing, our online social marketing project, Project Blue Balloons, was born.

Tuberculosis is an infectious disease that is CURABLE. Still a lot of people have the misconception and people who carry the disease are still frowned upon.

How a person can contract or develop TB?
TB is passed on from one person to another. The bacteria is put on to the air when a person with tuberculosis disease of the lungs coughs or sneezes. People nearby breathe in the air and can become infected. Any one can contract the infection but do not feel sick at all and may develop TB sometime in the future.  Any one in our family, friends, co-workers, and people we meet everyday might be exposed to TB. Early detection and proper treatment is the cure and people who are already sick and symptomatic must seek help immediately.

This is a short video developed by a friend of my team mate for the project:

Help us spread the word on TB. TB is curable, and prevention is the key.

As for this blog, well what can I say? I’m not as motivated to write about what happens online with my classmates. Schedules and distance really come into play. We can’t seem to find a common time to discuss the project.

A solution would be for one of us to do a matrix of the concept paper and each one is assigned to fill-in the information. I hope I can do my portion tomorrow.

As for the other subject, I’m not as motivated to post at the discussion forums. I used to manage my posts, enabling me to comment early, but now that has taken a back seat as well. Now I’m not quite interested to post because I would sound like just anybody else. Oh well.

Another day in paradise awaits.

I’ve been diplomatic enough and tried hard not to ruffle feathers, but for the sake of my sanity I’d have to say my piece (or pieces) in this entry. These are my points:

1. Being an online stupident needs just as much attention as your regular job, or your regular task (a parent, an employee, a mortuarian, whatever). Enrolling in a university, online or otherwise, makes you responsible not only to your work or task, but also your studies. If you think  your work or your home tasks are more important than your schooling, I suggest you drop out now.

2. The fact that the professor gave ample warning that a deadline has been moved means you are given time to respond. It is not as if the professor has closed the forum without warning.  Why are you even complaining that he warned you?

3. A deadline is not equivalent to the only day (or hour) that you can submit your response. In fact there is a whole week (almost) to do that. What have you been doing the other days?  If you do not understand this question, please go back to my 1st point.

4. If the professor will take into consideration all the schedules of all his students, do you think a deadline or a schedule is even possible? And how in God’s green earth is the professor going to know everyone’s schedule? You know the schedule of the professor, he doesn’t know yours. Just put things into perspective. The professor is not omniscient, you know.

5. It’s his turf, he sets the rules. If you are unable to follow, go create your own open university.

6. Choose the battles you will win. He’s been doing this for years, and here you are complaining about a week’s worth of forum discussions. You think he hasn’t done this before and have not won the argument?

7. Finally, you are taking a graduate degree, if you want to be treated like graduate students, act like one.

It’s funny how some people feel that they’re better than others because they’ve already graduated from their masters. But they can’t be blamed. Some can be so dumb. Harsh, I know.

Clueless people think that just because the UPOU program is online they think they can get away with silly musings. They think that this is just one of those diploma mills in Recto.

Surprise, surprise. The work is just as hard and as taxing. I should know, I struggled during my first years finding my footing. I would cram the hell out of myself just to make it to the deadline. I can’t say that I finally got the hang of it, but I am not as harassed now. Online learning is difficult. It should be taken seriously.

Too seriously for some though, who are beginning to get on my nerve.

A team member has created a document for us to comment on and once we opened the file,  we are able to edit and comment online, with the corrections immediately saved via the auto-save feature.  Comment blurbs can be placed, much like Microsoft Word. But what impressed me is the online chat feature where we were freely discussing on the document while simultaneously seeing our team members edit the document in real time.  This happens while I am located here in Manila, the other in Quezon city and the third member in Butuan.  Years ago no one could even imagine this is possible. But with the advent of internet technologies, the boundaries of distance and even time are being broken.

The project is slowly taking shape and thanks to online technologies such google docs, we are able to immediately incorporate the changes and updates that we have discussed.  Pretty soon all of our educational resources will be online and in the cloud! Now, that’s the power of the internet being put to good use!

Most have been enjoying the the interactions that they are even convinced that the UPOU portal should shift from Moodle to Facebook.  Although this is still a far option for the university, Facebook is ever evolving and I have no doubt that it would soon be used as an educational tool and an educational portal, much like Moodle.

This can be an interesting problem/topic for a research eh?

I’ve begun printing the supplementary readings for my DEVC208 and one pdf file is already 80 pages. Talk about supplementary eh?

The group is finally complete, composing of individuals from different parts of the country (and the world!). I am glad we are in agreement that we will tackle health, particularly TB, as a term project. Three of us are already in the local health services sector either as communicators or support to the health system/projects. Two are abroad but that will not be a problem as the project will be online.

Technology is playing a big part now, unlike a couple of years ago. Internet is readily accessible, and we are using the ubiquitous Facebook as our main link. I have created a facebook group page for us five. Some resources are already being exchanged. We need to agree on a specific topic about TB soon.

My other subject is still a bit quiet.  The students seemed to have been scared of the introductions of our professor. I perfectly get where my prof is coming from, this is grad school after all.

The week has barely begun for the new semester, there’s a lot we need to do. Not to mention, we have our offline (read: work/family) lives to live!

The subject I’m enrolled in now requires us to keep journals of our activities. This blog may come in handy after all.

One year na lang friends, my journey as an online stupident will hopefully come to a glorious end!

But I am back. Sana lang mas ma-inspire na ako mag-aral. Sayang din naman ang tuition.

Sana rin ma update ko ng mas madalas ang blog na ito.

See you around classmate!

Heniwey, nag LOA kasi ako last sem. Wala kasing pang-enroll.  Hindi naman porke’t iskolar ako ng bayan eh mura ang tuition. Ang mahal kaya! Buti na nga lang hindi ako covered ng bagong increase. Kaya hayun patatlo-tatlong units lang ang ineenrol ko.  Kelan pa kaya ako matatapos nito?

Pero ngayon, enrolled na ulit ako. Video production kuning kuning. Paano kaya to wala naman akong video equipment, pwede kaya gamitin ang cellphone o digicam video? Pang youtube lang quality nun eh.

Eto namang Learning Center ko, hindi nilinaw na male-late na pala ako ng registration, nagbayad pa tuloy ako ng delivery fee ng materials eh pwede ko namang pick-apin yun sa learning center. Kelan kaya darating yun?

Sana lang madalas ko pang ma-update ang blog na ito. Let’s just wait and see!