XiJEN College

Building Careers, Building a Nation!

Xijen College of Mountain Province, Inc. is a private tertiary school based in MountainProvince, Cordillera Administrative Region, Philippines. The school offers short term courses  from Information Technology to Household Services and up to four year degree courses. Starting in 1992 as Xijen Institute of Technology, the school has moved on to be the alternative center of learning in Mountain Province. The school pioneered IT literacy in this part of the world. Students, office workers benefited a lot from the training programs that the school provided. “Computer to the Barrios” was also a pioneering initiative of the school. This was about the setting up of computer labs in barrion high schools- long before the government and NGOs came up with their own computer literacy programs. When the Internet was at its infancy stage in the country, Xijen was the first to avail of a satellite serviced Internet access. This helped narrow the digital divide in the province. Read the rest of this entry →

Tech Talk
Joel T. Fagsao

Why did they not think of that?  I was lining up at the ATM booth and observed as the security guard assisted an elderly woman verify if the money booth has something for her.  Grandma cannot read and write and so she puts her full trust in letting the guard enter the PIN number and do the verification.  I do not have any doubts on the trustworthiness of the guard as I have seen our senior citizens being assisted by the guards so many times already.  The thing is, the guard could concentrate more on his primary duty-that of securing the bank if only all bank clients are able to transact alone without assistance.  Alas technology makes it more difficult for the non techie to navigate complicated (to them) transactions that requires at least basic literacy skills.  In India however, it is technology that adjusts to the limitations of their citizens.  In some places in India, ATMs have been designed to accept bio metric scans as a replacement of the PIN.  Instead of entering an ATM card and the PIN number-a press of the thumb on the ATM’s screen (touch screen) is all that is needed to authenticate the transaction.  Then the whole week’s wages is spewed by the machine.  Now why didn’t GSIS, Mega Link’s bright boys do that in the first place? That would have been service placed several notches higher.   Read the rest of this entry →

Tech Talk
Joel T. Fagsao

Yes, indeed it is quite an amusing title for a tech column.  “Remember the Milk” is a popular idiom in the Western world.  It is simply about finding a means not to forget to buy milk despite having it on your grocery list.  Today, “Remember the Milk” is now a name adapted for a service on the Internet that promises to manage your day to day activities.  Found at http://www.rememberthemilk.com, the online service lets you enter activities, work and other items you would not want to miss doing on a particular day.  Read the rest of this entry →

There’s a famed bar in Manila named “The Library” established in the 80’s but I would prefer to reminisce on the library of my childhood.  I am referring to the Provincial Library in Bontoc- a place to spend time and feed your mind.  The American designed building using similar materials the Provincial Capitol was built on- was an ideal place to read and get lost in another world.  The library, a single wooden, stone and cement structure was under the canopy of ornamental “Fire Trees” and the “Ipil” tree with its signature yellow flowers.  The red roof –the same color of paint on the roof of the Provincial Capitol identifies that it is a government building.  Read the rest of this entry →

By Maura Galasa-Mangay-at

The Xijen College Tech-Voc Department will open the Hairdressing NC II training program within the school year 2010-2011.  The school will partner with Herman Malafu, owner of Erica’s Beauty Parlor.  Malafu has been in the hairdressing business for twenty (20) years.  Malafu will share his extensive experience in hairdressing to prospective students who plan a career in the beauty business.

The opening of a Hairdressing Course will provide opportunities for young people who cannot afford a college degree.  Malafu stressed that learning hairdressing skills provides self-employment opportunities.  With this developments, Malafu will head the training program together with other hairdressers who have committed to be in the trainer’s pool.

Xijen College will provide the facilities needed for the training.

Tech Talk
Joel T. Fagsao

Microsoft has upped the ante and remains the office suite queen as it released this month the latest version of its software called Office 2010. Sorry folks, your Office version 2007 has suddenly become history. Similar to car manufacturers who signal the arrival of their latest model based on a particular year, the same is true with software manufacturers. We can just call this, part of a business strategy. There is this pressure of continous improvement over an earlier model because without it, a software company can become a has been in a matter of time. When we talk of an office suite, the key word here is suite. In a hotel, when you stay in a suite, expect complete amenities. The same is true with an office suite that is actually a set of computer applications from word processing, spreadsheets to database and more. Read the rest of this entry →

Tech Talk
Joel T. Fagsao

WordPress is another application that will surely excite those who want to set up a website without necessarily writing code.  I will try to make things in this column as simple as possible for those who do not have a hint of what I am writing about, those who know to use a computer and those who just play Solitaire on the computer.  Writing about information technology is quite a challenge since everyone is not in the same level of understanding when it comes to this topic.  Well, I will just have to try and write about computers and related applications and developments in technologies –since this is the direction we are heading.  Who would have thought that in last month’s election we made history by participating in computerized elections?  Who would have thought that from now on, our retirees must know how to use the ATM machine-to get their pension instead of a check arriving in one’s mail box?  Of course the mobile phone-your new status symbol is proof that most of us have embraced information technology. Read the rest of this entry →

buddy press website

Xijen College of Mountain Province has setup  ”Buddy Press” on the college’s official website (www.xijen.com).  BuddyPress is a social network application that can be embedded in a website.  School sites tend to be sources of information on courses offered, school activitities and final grades.   School sites tend to be straightforward and offer less interactivity.  BuddyPress will try to change this.  As mentioned in its website, www.buddypress.org : 

“BuddyPress is built to bring people together. It works well to enable people with similar interests to connect and communicate. Some of the fantastic uses might be:

• A campus wide social network for your university, school or college.
• An internal communication tool for your company.”

With this in mind, students of Xijen College who are familiar with Facebook can find a new social network service to explore-right on the college’s website.  The school administration will encourage teachers to use Buddy Press as an extension of their classes.  In Buddy Press, groups can be formed where discussions and working on projects, assignments can be done.   The application will also hope to encourage a more comprehensive interaction between groups or students and teachers.  Several support application have been integrated in Buddy Press and this includes a “like” button similar to Facebook’s, a photo album generator, documents/file sharing and more.

In the pages of BuddyPress.org, the site describes how New York Universityuses the application:

“The Academic Commons of The City University of New York is designed to support faculty initiatives and build community through the use of technology in teaching and learning.  The free exchange of knowledge among colleagues across the university is central to better educating the student body and expanding professional development opportunities for faculty research and teaching.

The site is found at http://commons.gc.cuny.edu/.”

Remember our training on leadership and team building skills?  Remember the paper bridge, the egg case and other activities?  Find your picture here.

Joel T. Fagsao

There are still a few things we could still squeeze out from what think we already know.  This still holds true for computer applications.  Information technology really continues to evolve.

Alas for those of us who think that the computer training we took about five years ago is okay and believe that there is nothing more to learn are in for a big surpise.  Many things have happened and improved over time.  For a word processing application I started with DOS based Professional Write and also Word Star.  For spreadsheets application Lotus 123 was quite fast.  Then Bill Gate’s company Microsoft started Windows Operating System (Windows 3.1) coupled with a suite of applications from Microsoft Word to Powerpoint.  We had Word 97 then and I have not yet gotten over MS Office 2007, Microsoft is releasing this week MS Office 2010. Read the rest of this entry →