Department of Education (DepEd) Secretary Leonor Briones says DepEd's 2019 Cyber Expo is about providing teachers will the skills and tools to facilate the learning process of 21st century students.
MANILA -- Some 4,080 students and teachers from 16 school divisions in the National Capital Region attended on Tuesday the opening of the Department of Education's (DepEd) Cyber Expo 2019 in Pasay City.
The expo is a three-day education and technology event which aims to recognize the achievement of learners in the various technology fields; to demonstrate the latest methods and approaches in education and technology; and to discuss the technological innovations and strategies that help improve the teaching-learning process.
In her speech, Education Secretary Leonor Briones said the event is aligned with DepEd's promotion and implementation of the information, media and technology skills which forms part of the K to 12 curriculum.
"There three ways by which information and communications technology (ICT) can support our curriculum. First, is the delivery of ICT subjects designed to build up the competencies of our children. Second, major area will focus on the ICT-assisted teaching and third, it will address the IT-assisted learning," she added.
Briones said Deped has been delivering computer laboratories that would allow teachers to teach computer classes in Grades 4 to 6, basic programming in Grade 7, multimedia skills in Grades 8-10, and vocational courses such as computer servicing and call center services in ICT for Grades 11 and 12 students.
"Under this program, DepEd will install a digital board or television in each classroom and provide all teachers with laptops that contain e-Learning resources that they can use for their classes. Starting this year, all our devices will be preloaded with Open Education Resources," she said.
Made to be accessible online and offline, Briones said the learning resources (LR) include around 7,842 learning materials from the DepEd LR Portal; 1,566 materials from Commission on Higher Education; 7,000 videos and 20,000 interactive exercises from Khan Academy; and 5.8 million articles from Wikipedia Offline.
"All these will be mapped to the curriculum so that teachers will be guided on which resource are ideal for teaching a particular subject and competency. Teachers will no longer need to use manila paper to prepare visual aids when they have access to e-Learning resources that they can project in their classes," she said.
Briones added DepEd will also release a Learning Management System that will contain an item bank to measure all the competencies in the curriculum.
The system will be used to randomly create standardized questionnaires for the National Achievement Test (NAT), quizzes and periodical tests. It will also recommend e-Learning resources for learners who are weak in certain competencies.
"Finally, DepEd will be using ICT to improve administration and governance. The Department is already in the process of implementing an integrated DepEd Enterprise Resource Planning System to automate financial management and provide real-time data that will allow us to manage education resources efficiently," she said.
In addition to the students and teachers, local and international delegates attended the expo which will end on Thursday.
Speakers from various corporations like Oracle, Microsoft, Converge, LinkedIn also discussed relevant topics which include the fourth industrial revolution, technopreneurship, digital education and excellence, robotics and learning through augmented reality. (PNA)
