DICT to help teachers improve tech skills under new class setup
TO HELP teachers conduct lessons in a digital classroom set-up, the Department of Information and Communications Technology Visayas Cluster (DICT-VC) 2 has pushed for more webinar and teleconference activities.
“The Department of Education has a project on computerization program and a learning management system. We also planned for a digital classroom supposedly which will have a television for learning and tablets for the students,” DICT-VC 2 director Leo Cipriano Urbiztondo Jr. said.
Early this month, the Department of Education (DepEd) announced that school year 2020 to 2021 will open on Aug. 24, 2020. The DepEd said classes may be conducted physically or virtually depending on the state of the coronavirus by then.
But President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday, May 25, announced that there will be no conduct of physical classes as long as the vaccine for Covid-19 is not yet available.
Because of issues on social distancing and exposure to the coronavirus once students go back to schools, Urbiztondo said they have shifted their assistance through connectivity and a designated digital teachers’ booth through the agency’s Tech4Ed Centers.
The DICT said it directed its Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Literacy and Competency Development Bureau, Cybersecurity Bureau and Regional Offices to formulate and facilitate the conduct of webinars aimed at capacitating and upskilling the ICT competencies of teachers, administrators, educators, and students in different public and private educational institutions and state universities and colleges. Through webinars, teachers will be immersed into online trainings to further capacitate them especially in a new normal classroom setup.
These capacity building activities will also assist them in the preparation for the potential use of available ICT enabled education services, such as online learning management systems, video conferencing platforms and online educational resources. It will also raise awareness on safe cybersecurity and privacy practices.
The Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases adopted the Basic Education Learning Continuity Plan of the DepEd, directing schools to decide on the specific learning delivery modalities, such as blended and online learning delivery modes to contain the spread of Covid-19.
“ICT has become crucial for retaining a sense of continuity for our society, especially in the education sector. DICT is here to help upskill the ICT capacity of our teachers in order for them to utilize the full potential of ICT in providing quality education to their students given the disruptions in holding face-to-face classes,” DICT Secretary Gregorio Honasan II said. (JOB)