The Minister of Education, Culture and Sports, Rosa Ana Rodríguez, underlined the important effort that the government of Castilla-La Mancha has made for the digitization of education “and which results both in the continuous transformation of conventional classrooms into interactive digital classrooms as in improving the digital skills of our students and teachers ”. In this regard, he also stressed that the government is working so that, by mid-2023, in Castilla-La Mancha, all classrooms are digital interactive.
Rodríguez spoke thus during his speech at the event, chaired by the regional executive chef, Emiliano García-Page, signing the memorandum of intent between the Community Council and the company Smart Technologies for the creation of a technological center applied to education of international reference, which will work in coordination with the Regional Center for Digital Innovation of Castilla-La Mancha, located in Talavera de la Reina.
Besides the president and the adviser, the adviser of the Treasury, Juan Alfonso Ruiz-Molina; the vice president of the international sales growth region, Rubén Cammaerts; the mayor of Talavera de la Reina, Tita García; the director general of digital administration, Juan Ángel Morejudo; as well as other representatives of Smart.
The advisor indicated that schools and institutes in the Autonomous Community will be equipped with more than 16,500 interactive digital panels and as many laptops. “This will allow each of the classrooms in Castilla-La Mancha to have this technology,” he said. The Minister of Education also indicated that “all these devices should be ready by mid-2023”.
In addition, he added, so that the installation and management of these technologies do not pose a problem and can be used to full capacity in the shortest possible time, specific training will be provided on their use and use. .
Thus, with the aim of improving the digital competence of pupils and teachers, “we are going to develop a program which will pursue two directions. On the one hand, that of supporting and training schools to develop a Digital Center Plan and, on the other hand, that of ensuring that 80 percent of teachers in Castilla-La Mancha acquire an intermediate level of competence. digital education, that is to say, a B1 certification level in the 2023 curriculum ”.
On the other hand, Rodríguez valued public-private collaboration, such as the one that will be launched with the company Smart Technologies, in order to continue to deepen the contribution of technology to education.
Collaboration protocol
The protocol that was signed today establishes that the Center for Applied Technology in Education will have, among its main objectives, those of experimenting and testing new hardware and software products that Smart Technologies is developing for their subsequent worldwide distribution, as well as how to have a workspace from which to carry out training activities for teaching staff.
This center can also be visited in person both by students and teachers of educational centers and by members of organizations related to the education sector. In this document, too, the use of educational technology used by teachers and students will be analyzed.
Smart Technologies is a Canadian company based in Calgary, Canada and 100% owned by the Foxconn Company. Founded in 1987, Smart is known as the developer of “SMART Board” branded interactive whiteboards, which are widely used in education and business.
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