St. Paul College of Makati (SPCM)'s Transformative Partnerships
St. Paul College Makati (SPCM), a premiere Catholic institution in Makati and one of Genyo e-Learning’s pioneering schools, sets an inspiring example of how schools can adapt to unprecedented educational challenges through leadership and partnership. Mr. Raymond Samonte, the Assistant Academic Services Head of SPCM, shared how the collaboration between Diwa Learning Systems Inc (Diwa) through Genyo and SPCM has been instrumental in enabling the school and its stakeholders to navigate the evolving landscape of education. This partnership highlights the pivotal role of a dependable partner in fostering transformative learning experiences.
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Preparing for the unprecedented
Before the pandemic, Genyo e-Learning was able to provide different online learning experiences for our learners. By utilizing the Assignment, Quiz and Lesson Features, students and teachers were able to integrate online learning strategies even before distance learning became the norm. The school was able to experience asynchronous online sessions even before the pandemic came. Our curriculum program provided one Wednesday for independent learning and online asynchronous learning.
Genyo e-Learning has further helped our Paulinian students to quickly adapt to the ‘new normal’ because our lesson presentations and other learning materials have been available 24/7 to our learners since 2010. Students would still be able to access and catch up with their lessons, instructional materials, and assessments even if they missed it. Moreover, some of our student activities were also facilitated by Genyo e-Learning—this paved the way in making our online activities to be facilitated easier during the pandemic.
These online learning experiences are complemented by a good network infrastructure. Diwa has been very generous in helping our school put up an ICT infrastructure to be able to use Genyo e-Learning in different parts of the school. With a smooth ICT structure and network design, the online learning experiences made the school more confident to undergo online distance learning.
I must say that Genyo e-Learning has been instrumental in our shift towards online and blended learning. This platform has been vital in the transition and transformation of our curriculum, pedagogies, and assessments to be relevant in the 21st century.
A solid partnership through the years
Through the years, SPCM and Diwa through Genyo, have established a close partnership in implementing e-learning. What sets Genyo apart from other learning management systems (LMS) is its reliable technical and back-end support. Other platforms (yes, we had tried other LMS) often do not provide ample technical support as they do and would often leave the school to establish a network system on its own. But with Genyo, they provided support through orientations, teacher training, ICT infrastructure, and even choosing the best internet provider to implement e-learning the best way possible.
The support that Genyo e-Learning has been giving to our school extended even beyond what they were committed to. A notable support they gave us is that they helped make our school a Wi-Fi school and fixed our network structure. It did wonders to our implementation of e-learning, making sure that the platform is utilized by both students and teachers. With an established network structure, we had a smooth transition to online learning.
Moreover, the Learning Integration Specialist (LIS) assigned to us is efficient and can be easily reached. I am impressed how the Diwa Sales Manager and LIS find ways to regularly communicate with us even during the pandemic. They even ensure the school’s internet facility functions well daily. I am assured as an instructional leader that the teachers and students will get assistance with any difficulties in their access, navigation, and usage of the LMS. With Genyo e-learning, learning continues beyond the four corners of the classroom.
Ensuring safety and security in the cyberspace
Data privacy and security are essential in choosing an online platform. With the evolving digital environment in schools, instructional leaders must be careful in having student data online. Genyo’s track record has proven that it has protected our students’ personal and academic data. Its security and safety features also enabled the LMS to be a safe space and platform for all stakeholders.
Having its own DepEd-aligned content, activities, presentations, simulations, etc, enabled the learners to lessen the access to other browsers, which makes it safer for learners against pornography, data phishing, and cyberattacks.
I appreciate that student-to-student communication is only possible when the teacher allows or uses some Genyo e-Learning features to communicate and collaborate with one another. This ensures that teachers have accountability and supervision of what they are talking or discussing, thus creating a safer cyberspace for learning.
In more than 10 years of using Genyo, the school has not experienced a concern about our student data and privacy which connotes that the platform is doing an excellent job of keeping the client’s information and data intact.
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