The Digital School is a programme of the Portuguese Education Ministry that aims to do much more than provide computers and the internet. As the project’s website states, “We want all pupils, teachers and schools to be able to collaborate, teach and learn in a digital environment.”
The programme is based on key initiatives, namely: 1. Making equipment and internet connections available to pupils, teachers and schools; 2. Training and empowering teachers to go digital; 3. Providing digital collaboration platforms and access to digital teaching resources for pupils and teachers; 4. Establishing an action plan for digital development in each school.
As there are some known limitations on the delivery of devices, given the rules applicable to each type/phase and ASE bracket, there are huge constraints in terms of repairs, in addition to the expiry of warranties on many machines, as well as the blocking of access via the hotspots made available to students. On 16 February, a national meeting was held with DGEstE, but the issues associated with maintenance/end of warranty and access to the internet network still remain unanswered.
Nevertheless, the school is already moving forward with streamlining some basic procedures in line with the possibilities of the Digital School rules, in order to reduce the number of computers awaiting intervention, having acquired various materials and adjusted internal procedures for dealing with situations. In addition to the creation of a platform for registering and processing occurrences, with the history of the equipment and automatic communications with the students’ teachers, during the Carnival break, an update on the state of the equipment was promoted, with the registration of anomalies that do not limit its use (e.g. hard keys, audio output not working); dozens of missing screws were also applied, chargers replaced, backpacks repaired… which made it possible to deliver around 30 more pieces of equipment to the students. We would like to highlight the collaboration of IT technician António Cunha, as well as the technical and operational assistants, in a process that, given the volume of data/equipment involved, is not easy to manage, and during the Christmas break, an adjustment was made to the support storerooms.
This process will end by the end of February, with new assignments, reinforcement the requests for intervention with devices under warranty or waiting at school for decisions.Those situations resulting from misuse/irreparable damage will also be charged to the EE, under the legal terms of the loan, with the aim of reducing the number of outstanding repairs by 15 March, which was over 80 at the beginning of February.
Alongside all this, there has been constant concern about the fixed items of equipment in classrooms/services, the maintenance of which is carried out by the ICT teachers working at the main school, using the system for reporting problems, via the tickets on the school’s website. The headteachers have worked together to keep a record of abnormal situations with the students’ equipment, since regular use of digital equipment is promoted, as this is the only way to gradually familiarise students with and prepare them for the Final and Benchmarking Tests.
In addition, in the 1st cycle, the conditions for internet access will be reinforced, with the City Council approving the suggested intervention by the School Group, and the purchase of new equipment to replug the Wifi signal in all the classrooms has already been awarded, and it is expected that by the end of the 2nd term all the classrooms will have efficient internet network coverage. This work will be carried out by the school’s IT technician, António Cunha, so that all classrooms will have a network capable of allowing consistent use of IT equipment, considering that, since last year, all classrooms have multimedia projectors, one of the axes of the Digital School.
Of course, we don’t have perfect settings and there are always aspects that can be improved, so we would like to thank all the students/Guardians,Parents, Teachers and staff for their collaboration, in the certainty that the use of digital devices requires extra care, not only in terms of transporting/keeping the equipment, but also in its regular use.