A few weeks ago, as we were conceptualizing HEdCen.com as a site that everyone in HEdCen could enjoy, we stumbled upon An Inconvenient Truth.

We’re all responsible for global warming.

We’re kidding…actually, no, not really. If you’ve already seen Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary, you might have this terrible urge (as I do) to atone for some sins of omission, such as not planting trees.(Planting trees is one of the ways to help stop global warming.) If you’re feeling especially guilty about this (as I do), the school’s Art Teacher, Ms. Jeanne Tan, will be more than happy to help us make amends. She’s got Brazilian Fire Tree seedlings you and I can have for free (but only until supplies last). Those trees are lovely, like Teacher Jeanne’s paintings. Which the site hopes to feature one day. The paintings I mean. Which, unlike the trees, we can’t get for free. (Sigh.)

We Googled the tree and discovered that it’s a native from Brazil to southern Mexico where it’s called Bacarubu or Guapuruvu (scientific name Schizolobium parahyba), while its other common names include Brazilian Fern Tree, Golden Tower, and Yellow Jacaranda. (To Google is to use the internet’s most popular search engine by the same name to look up anything you’re interested in by using key searchwords, e.g., Brazilian fire tree or global warming). We’re providing a hyperlink below that gives some facts and pics of this wonderful shade tree. There are online stores that sell the plant for as high as $38.00 (excluding shipping and handling costs of $7.00-$10.00), but we can get it from T. Jeanne for free! Imagine that, each of us would save as much as $48.00 which at the current exchange rate of P48.75 to $1.00 would be, let me see, umm … you do the math. (Better yet, take Kumon.) So, what are we waiting for? Go get them plants.

(Note to Self: Better check with T. Jeanne if she still wants to give them out gratis. Maybe she might want to dole out her paintings for free instead? Nice try dummkopf. Everyone knows you can’t plant them paintings. On the other hand, you can paint them plants.)

But we digress. (It’s fun to do from time to time.)

Our problem was we didn’t know how many of us in the HEdCen community had regular internet access. Sir Henry said it seemed like a lot of parents and students did, if not at home, then through internet cafés, but he wasn’t sure. We were hoping the site would attract not just a few casual visits but frequent active use by most everyone. But how could that possibly happen if a significant number of HEdCen people still didn’t have internet access?

Then it dawned on us. “In crisis, opportunity,” as the Chinese saying goes. HEdCen.com itself could serve as an incentive, or even better, as the catalyst, the tipping point, to get the “un-connected” members of the HEdCen community online.

So here we are to convince the “un-connected” (should they, by a bizarre combination of circumstances, accidentally happen to dial an internet connection number, launch a browser, stumble upon this site and read this) to:

Invest In The Future. Get Connected.

As our Webmissy says:

If, however, you’re strangers with the internet (i.e., you don’t have internet connectivity at home), there might be some added expense. But try to look at it this way: instead of treating it as an expense, why not consider it as an investment? We’re already investing a lot in our children’s education, so why not give them the extra edge to make them even more competitive? Computers and the internet are the future. Virtual offices are becoming common. Why not allow them the chance to explore this new medium?

Getting online is no longer as expensive as it once was. You don’t even need to have your own PC or landline, as internet cafés can be found in nearly every corner of the metro. For those with the hardware and a landline, prepaid cards abound for as low as P100.00 a card, at around P0.50/minute rates, or about 3 hours of internet time. Postpaid rates for residential users have gone down in recent years. Some ISPs (Internet Service Providers) offer 20-hour internet time dial-up subscriptions for as low as P250 a month and unlimited dial-up subscriptions at P399 a month, while the big telecom companies have broadband or DSL monthly service packages at P900 or so. More and more public places like coffeeshops have Wi-Fi zones (Wireless Fidelity, i.e., no cables are necessary for connecting to the internet, as long as your laptop has a wireless card thingy), some of which are even free of charge (genuinely so, or only if you at least get the cheapest but still overpriced cup of the house java).

In this “connection,” we are pleased to announce that the school will soon have some designated Wi-Fi areas, genuinely free of charge, natch! The school might open one for parents too, maybe a cozy café nook where we can order a reasonably priced cup of The Little Farm House Java to go with cookies and other scrumptious goodies like what Teacher Ana used to bake (back when she still didn’t have major distractions like that hunk of an English teacher). We’d really like it if she could whip up a batch for us every so often but right now, she’s got something more exquisite gradually taking shape in her oven, ‘di ba, soon-to-be-Lola Emma?

Anyway, for whatever it’s worth, we were thinking maybe we can call HEdCen’s coffee-internet-cookie corner - drum roll please…… “Java-i-Ana’s” (which rhymes with Havaianas)! Wajjathink, T. Ana? Catchy, ‘no?

We digressed again. (Kasi nga, fun siya eh!)

Back to the topic at hand. Assuming most of us have internet connectivity, how do we draw in as many people as possible to the site? And keep them coming back?

The answer was both a cinch and a challenge. Copy what the school has done for all of us. Make the site as progressive and intimate a community as the HEdCen nestled in the hills of Taytay. In the somewhat daunting expanse of cyberspace, we can create Our Third Home.

For parents, the benefits are invaluable. This is another way to increase our contact and communicate with our kids, the teachers and the school. Whether we’re at home or away at work, the fact is we are physically separated from our children the majority of the waking hours of the day. We’re the ones with the least face-to-face time with them on weekdays, and we try to compensate in some manner (e.g., phone calls, going out on weekends, and so on). Pretty soon, with HEdCen.com, we can add e-mailing, IM (Instant Messenger) and blogging to boost opportunities for interacting with them. So let’s get into the Web and for the newbs (short for newbies, or newcomers to cyberspace) among us, we can start learning how to insert those amusing emoticons Webmissy has at Blogging 101.

There’s more. Since we’ll be exploring the internet quite often, one goal of HEdcen.com is to make responsible Netizens of us all. For this purpose, we’ve chosen The Core Rules of Netiquette (as excerpted from the book Netiquette by Virginia Shea) as a quick reference guide to what we can and can’t do online. Not exactly the Ten Commandments nor the school Manual, but good rules to “virtually” live by nonetheless. It’s amazing, really, that there are people who do care and strive to make online existence a humanizing experience. Exactly what HEdCen in its bricks-and-mortar form endeavors for our children’s education in the real world.

Come 24 March 2007, at the school’s culminating activity, we’ll officially launch the website. We’ll have a live demo of the site to be projected on a screen and take you on a brief guided tour of Our Third Home. To help us find ways to make HEdCen.com more inviting, we’ll survey parents and ask them questions like:

1. Do you have internet access at home?
2. Do you have internet access at your place of work? If you do, are you allowed to use it for personal matters, i.e., non-work related surfing and e-mail?
3. Do you have an e-mail address?
4. Would you like your own username@HEdCen.com e-mail address?
5. Would you like to have your name, profession/occupation/business, work address and contact details posted on the site?
6. Would you like to write and contribute articles to the site?

If you like, you can download the HEdCen.com Parent’s Survey Form and HEdCen.com Parent’s Data Sheet, print them out, fill them up, and bring them with you on Saturday. The download links are at the lower right portion of the Home Page on the Downloadables sidebar.

Our HEdCen.com is a work in progress, and so is this post. Ordinarily, I don’t care to have what I’m writing read by others before they’re completed (I’m rather obsessive-compulsive in editing my documents). I’m making an exception in this case for a couple of reasons: 1) Though I write a lot in my line of work (mostly boring legal stuff), blogging presents an entirely new form for me, so I have to practice using the WordpressMU platform our Webmissy has so graciously installed for us (so far, it’s living up to the hype of being nearly idiot-proof, except that I still have to decipher what some of those tags above the writing box are for); and 2) Uhmm, … I forget what the second reason was. As I said, work in progress … (now, how do I insert that smiley emoticon here…dang, newb rin nga pala ako! Still have a lot to learn…don’t we all? )

RELATED OR REFERENCE LINKS:

An Inconvenient Truth: What You Can Do To Help Stop Global Warming
Teacher Jeanne’s artworks
Brazilian Fern Tree or Yellow Jacaranda

Posted in: Better Earth, Internet 101, HEdCen.com launch | Comments(1) | March 2007