El fuego: A teachware of fire safety awareness and prevention

• Main Authors: Cristobal, Kurt, Ramos, Brian Christopher, Tañedo, Miguel, Encarnacion, Alain L.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2016
• Subjects: Fire prevention—Computer-assisted instruction; Computer Sciences
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/12965
• Institution: De La Salle University

As the Republic Act 1945 or the 􀍞Amendment Fire Code of 2008􀍟 requires, the Bureau of Fire Protection conducts seminars and drills to raise awareness and to help prevent fire-related accidents in the Philippines. To conduct the seminar, the use of slideshow presentations is very limiting because the slides are non-interactive, and the presentation is quite linear. As such, it can be difficult to simulate and represent specific scenarios and processes. Thus, there was a need to develop a teaching solution that would be more interactive and adjustable. The proponents decided to develop a teachware to be used by the instructors of the fire-safety seminar that would solve issues for instructors, issues such as non-interactiveness and linearity. The teachware uses two instructional theories, the Cause and Effect and the Cognitive Flexibility Theory. For example, residential building fire scenarios cannot be constructed physically; thus, some lessons in the teachware contain a scenario-based design that show a cause and effect event. As per the Cognitive Flexibility Theory, emphasis is placed upon the presentation of information from multiple perspectives and use of many case studies that present diverse examples. These were adapted to address the problem issues encountered by the instructors who conduct the seminar using more traditional means, such as slideshow presentations. The main topics in the teachware are understanding fire, preventive measures through good housekeeping, fire precautions, and emergency plans. The Bureau of Fire Protection designed the content and organized by the proponents to maximize the teachware, applying the instructional theories. The teachware incorporated videos, animation, images, text, and interactive activities.