The University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU), led by Chancellor Melinda dela Peña Bandalaria, joined this year’s MoodleMoot Philippines at the University of the Philippines Diliman Asian Center on 8-10 May 2019.
Along with Dr. Bandalaria were Asst. Prof. Myra Almodiel, UPOU Faculty of Information and Communication Studies (FICS) Faculty Member and Assistant to the Chancellor; Dr. Ria Mae Borromeo, FICS Faculty Member and Director of the Information and Communication Technology Development Office (ICTDO); Asst. Prof. Roel Cantada, UPOU Faculty of Education (FEd) Faculty Member; Ms. Keats Grecian Mampusti, Research Assistant; and Mr. Louis Samuel Dizon, UPOU Programmer.
Dr. Bandalaria served as one of the Keynote Speakers and delivered her talk, “ODeL as Framework for Lifelong Learning and Sustainable Development.” She discussed how lifelong learning is a critical component in achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). She said, “I always look at education to be at the center of each of these sustainable development goals. If we are to attain these sustainable development goals, then education has to be a component of all these… But if education is not open, then there is no way our learners will be able to participate in and contribute to the achievement of these goals.”
Dr. Bandalaria further explained the importance of making education available and open to people all around the world, so that they may be able to contribute to the achievement of SDGs in their own way. She believes that one of the ways to do this is by adopting the online education philosophy which removes the barriers to learning such as distance, and even cost as many online education institutions offer their courses for free.
In the breakout session, aProf. Cantada shared his expertise in the field of online education and how it integrates with learning management systems such as Moodle. His talk was titled, “Moodle as a Virtual Studio for Learning How to Gamify Courses in a Distance Education Instructional Design Class.”
Before the conference ended, Dr. Bandalaria had the chance to speak with Dr. Martin Dougiamas, developer and founder of Moodle, in a live interview titled “Moodlers, Martin and Mel!”. This session also became an avenue for participants to engage in an open forum with Dr. Dougiamas and learn more about his insights and visions for the future of online education and Moodle.
MoodleMoot is a conference held in different countries to empower educators to improve the world by collaborating and sharing best practices of the open source learning platform, Moodle. In the Philippines, the conference is organized by Nephila Web Technology Inc., an IT Consultant Firm which aims to provide Information and Communications Technology Solutions through the use of Open Source Technology (OST). (KGMampusti)
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