The digital resume is still missing

As part of its blended learning plan for this year, the Ministry of Education has not designed an integrated e-learning system that includes learning management systems and asynchronous cooperative learning with feedback, electronic monitoring and evaluation. The ministry has decided that distance learning space in public schools will not exceed 20 percent of the teacher’s weekly time, during which the teacher and student use “Microsoft Teams” (a tool for simultaneous face-to-face learning at a distance ) or the WhatsApp application or any other application, in addition to paper activities and electronic assignments. Observation. In contrast, 80 percent of teachers’ time is devoted to classroom attendance, while schools have one week of attendance and one week of distance education.

The central digital educational content is still lacking, although the Educational Center for Research and Development has finally begun to collect existing digital resources (illustrations such as dictionaries, photos, videos, power point, infographics) on global platforms (medium in which the educational resources) open and freely accessible in Arabic. And French and English in all the subjects, and trying to connect them in a network with the curricula, that is, adequate resources are being selected in the contents and goals, and not in the production of resources that are educationally related to form part of the curriculum.

The e-learning expert Milad Al-Sebali, who suspended his advisory work in the educational center, “the lack of response from the ministry to the integrated plan that we have implemented in the e-learning center,” said, clarified that what is happening in most schools is “distance education and not electronic education, since it is not needed. Given the 25 years of development that has occurred in this type of education, the teacher still transfers knowledge to the student in a direction, as if you were in a traditional class, and you commit to the number of lessons you teach in attendance, while there are different patterns of interaction with students, either in synchronous e-learning (direct interaction between teacher and student ) first, synchronous.
In Al-Sebali’s view, there is a need to redesign the educational process, so that activities taught in the classroom and activities at home are disintegrated, based on techniques and methods, and some time is spent on the explanation and most of the discussion between the teacher and the student, and the e-learning or blended learning is not an exact copy of the education Assistance, especially in terms of liberation of the idea of ​​the authority or technology of the teacher, and provide the student with creative thinking and critical thinking skills.
Al-Sebali considered that it is not allowed to hold the teacher responsible for the preparation of the digital educational content only, but that there must be a central content prepared by the educational center, since neither the teacher nor the school nor even the school assembly can assume this task .
Noting that fairness among students is critical to providing infrastructure such as electricity and the Internet, he called for flexible, non-superficial legislation for e-learning that allows for creativity and development and provides a mechanism for ongoing curriculum development. .
While some Lebanese companies concerned about digital resources and electronic devices entered the line of “business” and attacked the ministry for rejecting the tender that cost millions of dollars, Guidance and Guidance Director Hilda Khoury denied that any of the “Companies connected to distance learning have made a free offer and have not accepted it.” ». He explained that many obstacles prevented the transition to full remote education, “as Lebanon has not received any laptop from any donor country or international organization, since schools closed at the end of February, although we show willingness to reduce the number in half, and so far we have not obtained only positive promises in this area. There are 8 thousand computers obtained by the Ministry of Education more than two years ago and they are in warehouses for not acquiring licenses. UNICEF has finally granted licenses and they will be distributed to public school classrooms, in addition to the need for an additional 800 computers that we have obtained preliminary approval from UNESCO. .
In another context, El-Khoury pointed out that the Ministry of Communications “informed us that technically the white list cannot be applied to all users, including teachers and students, so the educational hours are not included in the invoice, but we contacted with the Ogero administration and we promised to strengthen the speed and capacity of each user, and to install an Internet network. In some of the public schools that did not have Internet.
Regarding the conflicts in the tasks between the ministry and the educational center, especially regarding the training of teachers in distance education, El-Khoury denied that there is an intersection in the powers, “the ministry is in charge of managing learning, not the content, ensuring digital educational resources and the training of teachers, which is the total responsibility of the educational center ”. “The ministry deals solely with administration, and the class platform does not contain any educational content, but relates to administrative work in the directorates of the ministry and educational regions, including the counting of hours of teachers and the like”, explained. He indicated that the company provided the platform for free for two years for formal education and one year for private education. At this time, the ministry, according to El-Khoury, can quietly launch a book of conditions in this area.

The Ministry of Education has not received a laptop from donors

The center’s tasks are separate from the ministry, according to George Nohra, director of the Education Center assigned to it. The axes on which the center works are to ensure digital resources so that teachers can use them in the learning process, train teachers in the use of the platform and resources, and carry out educational research, since a study is currently being prepared. evaluation research of previous experience in distance education.
According to Nahra, what the school has done recently is to develop an application for the official e-book crdp e-books that will be continuously improved to prepare it to be an interactive book. The center also produced educational orientation videos for teachers on how to use the app and how to narrow down the curricula in terms of the standards followed. Currently, digital resources are being interconnected with the curriculum from first to sixth to place them on the DLI educational platform, which allows access to free websites for a limited period, pending the creation of a “factory” to produce digital resources .
The center has a training plan for teachers in 6 topics that will be implemented starting this week and will affect distance learning asynchronously, how to navigate safely and effectively through different topics, training on the DLI platform, complete training In Microsoft Teams, how to design remote e-lessons with educational resources. In addition to training on curriculum reduction and execution of psychosocial support activities.

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