PASIG CITY – The Department of Education (DepEd) said that DepEd Commons, the agency’s Open Educational Resources (OER) platform has now served more than 9.6 million users from its challenging beginning last year.
The DepEd Commons is in support of the learning and teaching process amidst the pandemic.
“The start was not that easy. There was lack of much-needed support and the training of teachers in the use of Open Educational Resources, which is the heart of the DepEd Commons,” DepEd Undersecretary for Administration and DepEd Commons’ main proponent Alain Del Pascua said while reflecting on the journey of the platform.
The DepEd also took pride in the platform “becoming fourth in the overall trending Google searches and ranked number 1 in the most searched topic under the education category in the Philippines in 2020.”
Though the agency noted that DepEd Commons is “not yet set up for large-scale implementation,” the platform was officially announced live on March 17, 2020, in support of the implementation of the Basic Education Learning Continuity Plan (BE-LCP).
“But through the Bayanihan spirit of everyone involved in the DepEd Commons, we have now reached over 9.6 million plus unique users who are diverse coming not only from public schools but also from the Alternative Learning System (ALS), Special Education (SpEd) and from private schools,” Usec. Pascua added.
The DepEd is now eyeing to expand the features of DepEd Commons, including certification of teachers, legal vetting, curation, and rating of content.
“DepEd Commons will continue to be relevant as another phase in the pandemic with vaccinations come in, as well as the talks of the resumptions of face-to-face classes in the future,” Pascua said.
“One thing’s for sure, DepEd Commons will continue to move forward and will evolve to cater to the needs of the Filipino learners in times of pandemic, natural calamities, or even social unrest,” Usec. Pascua further emphasized.
The DepEd Commons (commons.deped.gov.ph) can be accessed free of data charge in cooperation with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), Smart, and Globe.
