Tainan established Taiwan’s first Digital Learning Promotion Office to carry out the central government’s Tablet Access For Every Student program. The city’s order of over 30,000 tablets for students has been fully delivered by the end of June and relevant teacher training was also launched by Tainan City Government. It is expected that by the time school starts in September, both hardware and software for the program will be ready. This will accelerate the process of transforming every classroom into a smart digital learning classroom.
Mayor Huang Wei-che thanked the Bureau of Education for planning out the training course for frontline teachers. He expressed that in order to optimize the benefits of using tablets in the classroom, teachers must also complete necessary training as soon as possible so that they can instruct the students on how to effectively use smart learning tools to improve self-directed learning performance.
Director-general Cheng Hsin-Hui of the Bureau of Education stated that starting from 2020, Tainan City has already begun to gradually roll out teacher training courses which cover technology-assisted self-directed learning concepts, teaching models, and digital learning resources and websites operation and applications. More than 60% of the teachers have finished the training course thus far.
According to Digital Learning Promotion Office Director Gao Zhi-Jian, the core idea of the Tablet Access For Every Student policy is to leverage technology to help students learn better. By focusing on the students, the intention is to encourage them to actively learn. Before class, students can use the learning platform to watch videos or complete assignments set by the teachers. During class, they can use tablets for cooperative learning. Short quizzes can be taken soon after class to assess how much the student has learned.