MANILA – About 93 percent of public schools nationwide already have devices that will be used in the online learning modality for the school year 2020-2021, an education official reported Monday.
"There are 1,042,575 devices in 43,948 public schools all over the country. These are computers, laptops, tablets that can be used by learners. Additionally, we'll deliver 211,344 devices before the end of December 2020," said Department of Education (DepEd) Information and Communications Technology Service Director Abram Abanil in a virtual press briefing.
Apart from the devices, DepEd also provided a learning management system (LMS) where teachers can create online classes and schedule online activities and collaborative tasks which can be monitored.
"For example, they can assign students to read an article or watch a video lecture, and through the learning management system, they'll know if the students have completed or not the tasks assigned by the teachers. The teachers can also create online quizzes and formative assessment," Abanil said.
He added that the LMS can be accessed through a browser or a mobile application and it is zero-rated with the telecommunications companies so that learners need not pay for data to access it with their smartphones.
On August 31, the DepEd will issue all the official email accounts of all high school students.
Meanwhile, the official email accounts of all elementary school students will be issued on September 15.
"These email accounts will be used by the students in accessing the LMS to ensure the security of our learners," Abanil said.
The DepEd has also trained 385,471 teachers on ICT-based teaching through online training from April to June.
"We are now in the process of developing an orientation for our learners and parents using the television so they can learn how to use the LMS," Abanil added. (PNA)
