Taipei Travel

With class cancelled since May 18 due to COVID-19, the Department of Education (DOE) reported that the usage of Taipei’s online learning platform has seen a significant growth.

As of June 7, a total of 171,349 students from Taipei’s elementary, middle, and high schools (both public and private) have participated in online classes. They account for 97.89% of the student population in Taipei. Likewise, there are 18,750 faculty and staff from local schools accessing the platform – roughly 99.12% of local teachers.
 
According to online surveys conducted by the agency during this period, the implementation of online teaching by elementary school teachers reached 98.84%, as well as 99.26% for middle school teachers and 99.40% for high school teachers. An average of 28 class sessions are held online weekly for teachers from elementary school through high school, with the entire faculty at 126 elementary schools, 67 middle schools, and 57 high schools/vocational schools implementing online teaching.

The survey also indicated that a majority of teachers take part in real-time online teaching (90.27% of elementary school teachers, 95.35% of middle school teachers, and 95.17% of high school teachers) through platforms such as OnO Learning Platform, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Youtube, and Cisco Webex. There are also teachers who encourage students to take advantage of online prerecorded learning resources during their free time. For performance assessment, teachers are able to conduct exam over platforms such as OnO Learning Platform, Kahoot, and other options.

The agency also reported that a high percentage of local students take part in classes online – 99.87% of third through sixth grade students, 97.04% of middle school students, and 96.75% of high school students. Between May 18 and June 7, CooC Cloud recorded a total of 15.38 million accesses, while OnO Learning Platform reported 14.40 million accesses.

There are also reports of rare cases where students fail to take part in real-time online learning due to reasons such as irregular daily routines at home, low interest in learning, helping out at home, or taking care of younger siblings. DOE encourages teachers to take attendance online so the learning rights of students are protected. They should also contact students via phone to check on their progress. Students who miss classes online should record the sessions and go over materials on their own time and utilize other learning resources on CooC Cloud to keep up.

For graduating students, many schools have decided to move their graduation ceremonies online. Over 80% of local schools have plans to conduct the event via streaming platforms such as OnO Learning Platform, Youtube, and Facebook. Other schools also adopt methods such as prerecorded videos to deliver the well-wishes of teachers and staff to the graduating classes.