14 June 2013
The Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), the country's prime agency for providing technical vocational education and training (TVET), recently worked with Google to increase collaboration and improve communication for all TESDA employees.
Technical vocational students, trainers and personnel will now have an access to a collaborative suite of free online apps through Google Apps for Education, also used by many educational institutions.
With Google Apps for Education, they will be able to send and receive e-mail with a @tesda.gov.ph domain name, store data and share documents with Drive, hold web-based video conferences with Google+ Hangouts and easily build websites with Sites.
"Technology is increasingly playing a starring role in schools and educational institutions in helping students learn. Our adoption of the Google Apps is a testament to this," Secretary Joel Villanueva, TESDA director general, said.
Janet Suzie Yoon, country lead for Google Apps Supporting Program, said she hopes the use of the apps would provide a new learning experience to both the students and educators, and help expand the reach of technical vocational education among Filipinos in the country and abroad.
"We are very excited to be working with TESDA on this groundbreaking project, and hope it will empower both your staff and agencies," Yoon said in a letter to Villanueva sent before the project's official launch.
According to plan, the project will first be implemented in the TESDA central office and will be expanded into the regional and provincial TESDA offices. It will also later on be used in TESDA Technology Institutes.
Between 50 to 80 TESDA information technology administrators and trainers from Metro Manila, Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao will undergo training and workshop on using the various Google Apps for later implementation.
"The hope is that as students leave the classroom, they take the technology with them, not just the enhanced skills, so that jobs would come easy," Villanueva said.
For the project, the following Google Apps would be made available:
Gmail - a Google-powered email
All TESDA employees and officials will have an email account that can be accessed using any device. The email user will each have 30GB of storage space shared between Gmail and Google Drive.
Google Drive
A free web-based office suite that allows users to create and collaborate on documents, spreadsheets, presentations, forms, and drawings in real-time as well as upload and share any file type.
Google Calendar
This will help TESDA easily coordinate work or class schedules, meetings and events online.
Google Hangout
It will provide a free web-based video conference with up to 10 simultaneous users, which can be increased to 15 under Google+ premium services. It may be used to set up meetings and may also be integrated to the TESDA Online Program to facilitate communication between the trainees and instructors.
Google Sites
This free website creation tool allows one to publish a website. It can be used by TESDA to create websites for its regional and provincial offices as well as its Technology Institutions. Students can also create their personal website using this where they can upload their curriculum vitae, projects, profile, thus building an online portfolio.
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