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.

OnSeptember 5th, 2019, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science andICT of the Republic of Korea jointly hosted the e-Learning Korea 2019 EdutechFair with the Korean Ministry of SMEs and Startups in C Hall of the COEXConvention Center in Seoul, Republic of Korea. ‘TheDigital Generation, Edutech for the Future of Education’ was the theme of thisyear’s Edutech Fair. During this event, KERIS also played an important role inpromoting its customized ICT-integrated education services which are providedunder the guidance of the Korean Ministry of Education, which includedimportant items such as supporting future classrooms, digital textbooks,Augmented Reality, and the Virtual Reality Experience Zone, in addition tocreative convergence classes at the Ministry of Education’s Future EducationCenter. Also, the fair included an Integrity Campaign which was launched withthe goal of spreading the culture of integrity in the private sector withpublic institutions connected to the Daegu Innovation Integrity Cluster.

KERIS and Inter-american Development Bank co-organizeda ICT-Competencies building training for teachers in Asuncion, Paraguay from July 2 to July 5. This training was held to train the trainers on the importance of computational thinking skill in the 21st century. 22 participants from the Ministry of Education of Paraguay and the OMAPA, a non-profit education organization participated in the training for three days. Through this training, the policies and best practices of the Software Education of Korea was shared. The participants are going to implementlocal trainings this year so 100 primary schools in Paraguaycan apply Coding education and Computational thinking program with the trained local teachers as a part of the Coding Education Capacity Building Project.

On Monday, June 10, 2019, KERIS signed an MOU with the Korea Press Foundation, the Community Media Foundation, the Korean National Commission for UNESCO, the National Association of Community Mediacenters, and the National Information Society Agency to promote media and information literacy for the public. The MOU includes: Co-hosting international conferences and promoting Korean Media and Information Literacy Week events; developing and supporting media and information literacy programs; and sharing human and logistic resources in an official capacity. With the MOU as a means of momentum, the six signatories, including KERIS, will establish a system of mutual cooperation to promote and spread media and information literacy.