PRIDING itself as the only application in the Filipino language aligned with the kindergarten curriculum of the Department of Education (DepEd), the Batibot application widened its horizon as it entered the iOS platform on July 6.
“The way we’ve developed the Batibot app is to align it with the curriculum of the DepEd for early-childhood education. We’ve consciously aligned it with what the DepEd has defined to be the early-childhood curriculum program for the public-school system, actually not just for the public-school system, the whole system,” Smart Public Relations head Ramon Isberto said.
Initially launched on Android two years ago, the Batibot application has educational games which allows children to learn identify letters, numbers, shapes and colors, as well as matching, sorting and grouping.
“Especially now, kasi noong nagkaroon ng universal kindergarten program ang DepEd, ang mode of instruction kailangan mother tongue-based education and wala talagang masyadong content. So, we wanted na mother tongue,” Smart executive Stephanie Orlino said.
In 2012 DepEd introduced the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) which uses the Mother Tongue as a medium of instruction for basic education. The application was developed by OrangeFix in collaboration with Smart Communications and Community of Learners Foundation.
Orlino added the demands from iOS-user parents urged the team to create an application for the operating system.
“Meron mga nagtanong talaga sa amin na puwede ba magkaron din sa iOS. These are mostly children na lumaki na rin na English ang pagsasalita nila,” Orlino said.
Smart plans to bring the Batibot application to more places in the country through its other existing programs, namely the Smart TechnoCart and the School-in-a-Bag. The Smart TechnoCart project is a mobile digital laboratory to help kindergarten students develop their literacy. The 2×2 foot laboratory includes tablets, a laptop, a projector and a mobile Wi-fi.
The School-in-a-Bag is a backpack designed for remote areas without electricity. It contains a solar panel, a laptop, a mobile phone, a pocket Wi-fi, LED television, five tablets and learning modules directed for primary and secondary students.
So far, about 40 schools have received TechnoCarts and 18 schools got School-in-a-Bag, Smart said.
Smart is in the process of developing a Cebuano version of the Batibot application, Orlino added.