The Korea Education and Research Information Service (KERIS) said on March 23 that it held an award ceremony for the design competition for Sejong Smart City for middle and high school students. In the contest, a total of 204 ideas, including 44 received from overseas, were submitted, of which 18 (including 1 grand prize, 2 first prize, 5 second prize, and 10 participation awards) were selected. The grand prize went to "Street School," which linked the school with the open urban space while one of the first prizes was granted to "Infinite Cloud School," which envisaged a school space combining physical and digital elements together seamlessly. The award ceremony was held partially offline with a minimum number of awardees participating in efforts to keep the COVID-19 virus at bay. The ceremony can be viewed online on smartcity-school.com. The source of news 한국교육학술정보원, 세종 스마트시티 국가시범도시 중·고등학교 아이디어 설계 공모 시상식 (경상매일신문)

1 JULY, 2020 - On behalf of the South Korean education sector, KERIS shared Korea's experiences and insights on the recent school semester that was conducted online due to the COVID-19. The discussion took place as part of the "8th Special Webinar on COVID-19 for Policy and Technology Sharing" held on 1 July, 2020. Hosted by the Ministry of Science and ICT and organized by Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and National Research Foundation of Korea(NRF), the webinar focused on the theme of "Korea's Science, ICT and Education Policies Practices." In this context, KERIS participated on behalf of the education sector, sharing Korea's online experiences of the last 4 months. Dr Jinsook Kim, Director of the Education Service Division, shared the overall progress of Korea's response towards the unprecedentedschool closures and learning interruption. In particular, Dr Kim shared the overall development process of the public learning portals operated by KERIS. Furthermore, she explained Korea's systematic preparation in four aspects - establishment of infrastructure, development of content, distribution of digital devices and Internet, and implementation of teacher capacity-building trainings. The four aspects, according to Dr Kim, have beenfulfilled by an intimate collaboration between Ministeries andprofessional orgnizations. For example,the Ministry of Science and ICT's "Zero-rating policy (exemption of data consumption)" for students accessing public educational resources was an essential support policy which successfully brought all learners to thevirtual classroom. In addition, Dr Kim suggested the need to regard distance education, not as a temporary substitute to primary and secondary leraning, but as an alternative to achieving future education. To this aim, she pointed three essential pillars of Korea's distance education - basic infrastructure for improved accessibility, enhanced digital lliteracies for all, and the "education for all" philosophy aimed at bridging thepotential gapamong the various stakeholders in the learning community (students, teachers,staff,parents, etc.) Meanwhile, the 8th webinar shared experiences and insights in the area of science and ICT (Director Chungwon Lee, Ministry of Science and ICT), analysis and therapy development of COVID-19 (Director Dave Lee, Seegene Institute of Future Technologies and Mr Wangshick Ryu, CEO of Institut Pasteur Korea Professor of Yonsei University).

27 APRIL 2020 - Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education Yoo Eun-hae paid a visit to the KERIS headquarters to review the current status and progress of the online learning offered to address the school closure and online beginning of the new school year (a new academic school year in Korea begins in March) resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. During the visit, KERIS and Minister Yoodiscussed the current and prospective response measures in unexpeceted technical problemsin e-Hakseupteo, a nationwide Open Education Resource (OER) portal for elementary and middle schools. Furthermore, KERIS and Minister Yoo discussed various ways to contribute to the development of Korea's distance educationin the post-crisis era. Minister Yoo thanked each and everystaff struggling to build a stable and seamless distance learning environment, adding “Since the epidemic of COVID-19 has not come to end, we need to be vigilant to operate the stable supporting service for distance education.”Meanwhile, KERIS President Dr Hae-ja Parkexpressed the orgnization's committment toensure a smoothonlinelearning experience,adding "KERIS willstrive to play a leading role in disseminating K-EDU, the Korean edutech experience.”

10 FEBRUARY, 2020 - KERIS hosted the 4th Forum to Invigorate EdTech at Seoul, Republic of KOREA. Serving as a platform for discussion, the forum was made up of a working group of 20 experts - including KERIS staff and professionals coming from the academia, different associations, international companies, small/medium companies and EdTech startups. As seen from the background of participants, the main purpose of the forum was toaggregate insights for the establishment of a EdTech development strategy reflecting the demands, needs and insights coming from a wide spectrum of field experts across Korea. The KERIS EdTech Forum is an initiative that is part of the organization's strategic tasks in fostering a RD environment powered by empirically proven new technologies with a stronger emphasis on enterprise participation, and strengthening the foundations to support and invigorate the Korean EdTech sector.

30 January, 2020 - KERIS hosted the 2019 Performanmce Briefing of Digital Textbook use across Korea - including schools designated as pilot schools or innovative schools, as well as class research groups. Around 250 participants and spectators gathered at the briefing - which included individuals from pilot schools, innovative schools, teachers, education officers, and the general public. Thorughout the briefing, KERIS exhibited various case studies on the actual use of Digital Textbooks and shared a wide spectrum of insights and ideas on applying them in the classroom. Furthermore, this briefing served as a platform for sharing best cases from innovative schools, in addition to exhibitions from winners of a nationwide UCC (User-created content) contest held recently. Digital Textbook is a national initiative led by the Korean Ministry of Education, developed and operated by KERIS, and functions as an interactive digital learning resource. Digital Textbook is currently applied in selected subjects (Science, Social Studies, English) across selected grade levels (grades 4-6 elementary school, grade 7 middle school).

On November12th, 2018, KERIS held the closing ceremony for the 2019ICT-Capacity Building Programme for Innovative Teachers in Daegu. During 9 daysof the training, 20 teachers from Africa and Asia countries had valuable timewhile participating in various activities and training sessions to gain thebasic knowledge of educational software usage as well as hands-on experiencerequired to effectively apply technology in their classes.

KERIS organized the opening ceremony for the 2019ICT-Capacity Building Programme for Innovative Teachers in Daegu, Korea onNovember 4th. This training program will be conducted for 9 days(from Nov. 4th to Nov. 12th) with 20 teachers andofficers from the ministries of education of the 12 partner countries. Mainpurpose of this program includes providing lectures and activities on ICT-basedinstructional design, practice on ICT application and utilization, and fieldtrips to e-Schools and partner organizations.

The Ministry of Education of Republic of Korea andKERIS jointly held the ‘2019 ICT-Capacity Building Program for Innovative Teachers’ inBEHS (2) Dagonin Yangon, Myanmar from October 7th throughOctober 11th, 2019. During the training, 40 ICT(Media)teachers, each representing one of the 40 townships of the Yangon region, were awarded certificates of course completion at the conclusion of the week-long capacity building program. This program, which is an integral part of the'ICT-integrated Pilot Classroom Project',was implemented and led by KERIS in partnership with the Ministry of Education of Myanmar and the Yangon RegionEducation Office, and was aimed at equipping teachers with ICT-integrated pedagogical skills required in 21st Century teaching and learning practices. Through the course of this capacity building program, the participants learned how to use a plethora of innovative learning technologies such as AR/VR applications, coding education with robots in addition to the application of educational software tools, unplugged activities, etc.