Regional Director for Education says TOPA programme will be extended in 2018/2019 school year
The TOPA programme - Bring Your Own Device will be extended in the 2018-2019 school year, covering eight schools on the islands of S. Miguel, Terceira and Faial, stated the Regional Director for Education.
Speaking at the end of the 2nd Regional Meeting of Technologies of Education, held in the town of Vila de São Sebastião, José Freire added that the Canto da Maia Basic Education School (S. Miguel) and Vitorino Nemésio Secondary School (Terceira) will join Roberto Ivens and Laranjeiras Schools (S. Miguel), Francisco Ferreira Drummond and Biscoitos Schools (Terceira) and Manuel de Arriaga School (Faial), which were already part of the TOPA programme in the previous school year.
Based on the BOYD (Bring Your Own Device) principle, the TOPA programme aims to promote and encourage the use of mobile devices within the classroom as useful tools in the teaching-learning process.
As for information technologies, the Regional Director for Education also stated that the Government will reinforce support and training teams of the learning, robotics and programming laboratories in the school year that begins on September 14.
José Freire also confirmed that REDA (Open Digital Educational Resources) Platform, developed through the Regional Secretariat for Education and Culture, will be strengthened to become a national platform.
These programmes and projects fall within the strategy implemented by the Regional Secretariat for Education and Culture, which has assigned a very important role to Information and Communication Technologies in basic education and secondary school curricula. The main goal is to endow Azorean students with skills in the digital areas, which has been achieved through programmes such as TOPA, REDA, Anima 3D, Programming and Robotics (e.bot) and other developed at national level in partnership with the Directorate-General of Education.