Comval celebrates “1st Comval Coconut Summit”

Compostela Valley Province--- a total of 300 Coconut Farmers and stakeholders attended the “1^st Comval Coconut Summit” held at the Provincial Capitol of Compostela Valley on Novemeber 27, 2019.

Targets of the newly commenced Coconut Summit is to “REVIVE, VALUE ADDING and R&D Market!” for the Coco industry. It also serve as the convergence of the different National Government Agencies such as the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA), Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Department of Science and Technology (DOST), Compostela Valley State College (CVSC) and the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) to pool their resources in order to revive the industry.

One of the main highlights of the summit was to directly link the  Coconut Farmers to different investors giving them a good pricing opportunity. Three big markets attended the summit that day; Franklin Bayer, First in Commodities Marketing, Inc. (FIC) and Legaspi Oil in Maco.

According to the OIC -PCA Administrator Ruel Rosales, the government is currently working to address the concerns of Coconut Farmers through the different Component Ventures namely; Coco Hybridization, Farm Venture, Agri-Biotech Venture, Bio Fuel Venture and the Food and Non-food Ventures as part of the “New Thinking in Coconut Industry” in the Philippines.

The DOST thru its R & D Program offers to add value to local products and processes thru Science and Technology interventions such us product quality improvement, SET-UP program (acquisition of equipment for processing), cost minimization, and other operation-related activities.

Land Bank of the Philippines also presented its Coconut Production and Processing Financing Program that offers a loan even to small farmers (below 5 hectares) for coconut planting and development projects.

The event was also attended by the MinDA new Chairman Manny Piñol who supported the event and made it sure in supporting the Coconut Framers thru market-linkaging.

“Coconut Farmers should be involved in added-value production, dapat matudloan sila ug  buhat ug virgin coconut oil ug uban pang value added products.” And aside from that, Minda, since we are involve in marketing promotions, nagapangita pud mi ug merkado for our matured and young coconut, but at the same time makatabang sa atuang advocacy nga madala sa barangay level ang processing facilities para makabuhat ang mga farmers ug produkto nga high-value,” the MinDa chief said. (Jasteen P. Abella, ID COMVAL)

A total of 300 Coconut Farmers and stakeholders attended the “1st Comval Coconut Summit” held at the Provincial Capitol of Compostela Valley on November 27, 2019. (Photo by: M. Lasaca, PS Comval)

Gov. Uy delivers Local State of the Children’s Report

Compostela Valley Province---“We made significant progress in promoting the core rights of our children- the right to survival and development, the right to protection and the right to participation. Our aspiration is simple to have a gold life for all most especially to every child in the province,” this was part of the message of Governor Jayvee Tyron L. Uy as he deliver his Local State of the Children’s Report (LSOCR) at the Arresgado Auditorium, Tagum City, Davao del Norte on November 26, 2019.

The activity is in line with the “27^th National Children’s Month Celebration” with the theme: “KARAPATANG PAMBATA: Patuloy na Pahalagahan at Gampanan Tungo sa Magandang Kinabukasan.”

Attending the program were the Provincial Officials, Municipal Mayors together with their child development workers of the eleven municipalities, municipal social welfare and development officers (MSWDO), child development learners, parents of the learners, sulong dunong beneficiaries and from the Provincial Social Welfare and Development Office (PSWDO).

Governor Uy reported that there are 503 functional development centers in the province, nearly half of which are accredited by Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). This means that they have passed standards set by the national government. These centers are functional due to hard-work of the 505 child development workers; 51 percent of which are accredited by DSWD and the centers cater to nearly 18,000 learners all around the province.

The governor also expressed his gratitude that he was given the opportunity to deliver his State of the Children's Report in front of the children, parents and child development workers. “We shared the milestones we achieved recently- lowest child malnutrition incidence in Davao Region, Seal of Child Friendly Governance, schools built in a matter of days etc.”

“Daghang salamat sa atong mga social workers, atong mga municipal local social welfare officers, mga day-care workers, atong mga ginikanan ug sa PSWDO sa tanan nilang ginabuhat aron tagaan ug maayong kaugmaon ang atong kabatan-onan,” the governor said.

Meanwhile, right after the LSOCR they immediately proceed to the part two of the program the "Provincial Bulilit Festival" which is showing and competing the different talents of every learners for the 11 municipalities such us the Song Solo, Tula, Folk Dance, and a fun games for Bulilit Goes to Child Development Center and Shoe lacing.

The event was spearheaded by the PSWDO headed by Ms. Josephine Frasco - PSWDO Officer in collaboration with the provincial government of ComVal together with the DSWD. (Rey Antibo, ID Comval)

Being old fashioned?

My column in Mindanao Daily, Businessweek Mindanao and Cagayan de Oro Times

OPINION

By KLAUS DORING

 November 29, 2019

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MOST students take a laptop or smart phone with them to lectures. My students too. Although, these units are not allowed most of the time during my classes. I think, there are times when they might be better off taking a pad and pen? And honestly, more and more do so.

Writer Claudia Hammond (I don't know her age, but I think age matters if we come to today's topic) says, " These days many people can type faster than they can write by hand, particularly if they’ve grown up using laptops. This is a hugely useful skill of course and allows you to take copious notes, quickly and easily, which must surely be a good thing, right?"

Maybe not. In an experiment, run by Pam Mueller at Princeton University published in 2014,  students were given Ted talks to watch and were told to take notes.

Half were given laptops and half took notes with a pen and paper. You might expect little difference in the notes, since students are so used to using a keyboard these days. In fact, there was. The students using a keyboard were more likely to type the lecturers’ words verbatim, while the students writing more slowly by hand had no choice but to engage with the information in order to allow them to summarize. Afterwards the students were given some tricky intelligence tests to distract them, and were then quizzed on the content of the lecture.

Verbatim note-taking involves a shallower form of cognitive processing. You can even do it without thinking about the content at all should you choose to. But when using a pen and paper you process the information more deeply because you can’t possibly write it all down. The other advantage of using a pen and paper is that you can move around the page very quickly, circling, underlining or adding extra information in the margins.  

When it comes to set and note new appointments or different scheduled work to do, and very import deadlines to be remembered, laptops are convenient, but turn out to be not the best option some of the time. My offices are full of note pads. ... Yes, I might be old fashioned... .

Following Claudia Hammond, who says: surely in the long run if your notes are more complete,  help, when it comes to revision?  Maybe not. When the students were allowed to revise from their notes before being tested a week later, the pen-and-paper group still did better. The reason is that cognitively processing material more deeply while you listen, helps you both to understand it and to remember it later on. Even if you never refer back to your notes again, the process of creating them can be useful. The exception is with learning simple facts. Then taking notes on a laptop can work just fine.

The advantage of not having to take notes is that you can focus your full attention on what’s you’re being told without worrying about writing it down. A more passive way still of keeping track of information from lectures is to record them so you can listen again or re-watch them later. But is there a risk that because you know everything is there for when you need it, you might not concentrate properly? Or does it free you up to concentrate fully on what’s happening because you’re not distracted by trying to take notes?

Within psychology when a task like this is outsourced to technology, it’s known as cognitive off-loading. But does it help?

If you want to remember your notes, research suggests you should be reaching for a pen. That's why, most of my students are asking for a minute to re-write such things, I pinned before at the white board.

On the other hand the advantage of not having to take notes is that you can focus your full attention on what’s you’re being told without worrying about writing it down, because they can always listen again later. But the benefit of taking notes is that it forces you to process the information and think about it in order to work out the best way of summarizing it.  

But there was one surprise here. When the students knew they could see the video later if they wanted to, they actually took more notes and drew more diagrams, which was something of a mystery.

Of course, if you can type fast and you want a transcription, then a laptop is ideal, but if your aim is to understand the material better and not just to create a record of the material, then take notes by hand.

And the other lesson from all of this, of course, is to make your notes concise.