The College of ICT Extension Project under the Department of Information Technology, iTeach, conducted a Training-Workshop on Digitalization of Assessments using ICT Tools and Applications today, April 22, 2022. This was attended by 30 participants from the DepEd - Schools Division of Guimaras. ICT coordinators from the different elementary and high schools across the 5 municipalities of Guimaras were capacitated in converting and conducting digitized assessments online. The Education Program Supervisors, Ma'am Minda Soldevilla (Science); Ma'am Portia Galan (English); and Ma'am Rosemarie Aclan (Math) were also in attendance and also facilitated the activities.

The program began with opening remarks from Dr. Rowena Carillo, Chief Education Supervisor of DepEd - Schools Division of Guimaras . Adopting ICT tools and applications, according to Dr. Carillo, has become more important and schools should be more adaptive with the directive and guidance of the Department of Education. Aligning technology adoption with delivering instruction and conducting assessments will hopefully contribute to the betterment of the performance of learners as assessed by the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

This was positively echoed by Dr. Ma. Beth S. Concepcion, Dean of the College of ICT, in her message. Dr. Concepcion also underscored how the college through its expertise is an essential agent helping the DepEd - Schools Division of Guimaras in keeping abreast with the changes with technologies and answering to the challenges posed by the pandemic.

Sir Shem Durst Elijah B. Sandig served as the Resource Person and facilitator of the training-workshop. Sir Shem started with levelling expectations with the participants and asked for their challenges and struggles in teaching. The various perspectives of learners, teachers, and administrators were shared and helped clear gaps.

Tools for converting paper-based exams and creating test banks for a more effective management of assessments were introduced to the participants. Sample questions for Math, Science, and English stored in word documents were utilized for the training-workshop.

Furthermore, importing the supported formats to an online Learning Management System (LMS) was demonstrated in preparation for actual conduct of assessments. This was levelled along with possible alternatives for offline automated checking and implementation of local instance of an LMS.