Yahoo eyes site for teachers in RP

By Alexander Villafania - INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines -- As part of its expansion in the Philippines, online services company Yahoo! is looking to provide a site where teachers can find helpful tips to improve their profession and share data with other teachers, the Yahoo! Southeast Asia Communications manager said Wednesday.

The company has relaunched its Pinoy Connect! Portal (pinoyconnect.promos.yahoo.com) that aims to generate more user content as it showcases new online services, which will include a portal for schools for online learning such as a thesaurus, encyclopedia, and dictionary, according to Jason Coates.

The schools portal of the Pinoy Connect! includes information regarding Yahoo!'s partnership with the Ayala Foundation's Gearing Up Internet Literacy and ACcess at Schools (GiLAS), a social program that intends to connect 6,000 public high schools by 2010, said Coates.

But Coates said the main plan now would be to promote the Pinoy Connect to teachers in the Philippines and to get feedback as to how Yahoo! could provide additional services to them.

"Only after getting input can we determine what support we can give. That is why the feedback from people in the Philippines is so important to our business," Coates said.

Yahoo! has an education section for its main Asia portal. The portal covers a variety of education content, including locations of colleges and universities across Asia.

However, the Pinoy Connect! education site hopes to develop more local content for teachers as well as students, said Coates.