The current issue on COVID-19 pandemic put the world on pause, but this pause gave the DepEd Officials to reflect on troubling matters. The debate over whether the learners are remained quarantined during their studying became an issue and argument. They tried to encourage everyone to view the positive side as a unique time to focus on distance learning due to the magnitude of the current issue. Although COVID-19 is new and unpredictable disease to everyone, education should not be compromised and must continue to deliver even during pandemic time.
One of the solutions they would like to utilize is the proper use of technology. Admittedly, technological change is scary, but all schools must adapt it for the continuity of learning. All teachers are now moving out of the traditional learning environment and moving forward into the digital age. Technology use in various distance learning can vary greatly from school to home in the new normal. Education technology has changed what we can deliver, how we can assess, and how we might connect learners to each other, to instructors, and to content. Part of providing our students with the best possible education is preparing them for the workforce and the world they will enter after their lessons.
In our case, this means we must give them the ability to learn both independently and collaboratively. It means turning our focus away from the traditional model we may be more comfortable with to more real-world contexts, like project-based learning – during distance education. And it means teaching them to utilize the technology that exists today so that they will be able to comfortably incorporate it in their careers. For most of us, this means we are going to be learning right alongside our students (or in some cases, allowing out students to teach us!). It might not be in our comfort zone, but once we recognize that our students are going to need these skills in order to be successful it becomes obvious that we really can’t afford to not prepare them properly.
Schools with high technology use are doing steps to encourage their teachers to use technology — for instruction, for distance learning and task management. Higher program standards, more funding, and online support systems are improving teacher readiness to use technology, Education initiatives among schools such as increasing access through distance learning, enabling a network for students, training teachers, broadening the availability of quality education materials, and enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of educational administration and policy. New technologies can help improve the quality administrative activities and process including human resource management, student registration and monitoring of student enrolment and achievement.
By: Erlinda P. Alvarez|Teacher II|Puting Buhangin Elementary School|Orion, Bataan
