UPOU joins Open Education Week 2021 and launches OpenTalk

Open Education Week is celebrated every March of each year. The University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU) is one with the world in celebrating this event as part of its  advocacy for open education.

This 2021, it will be held on 1 to 5 March 2021 and UPOU has lined up activities in celebration of Open Education Week 2021.

First on the list is OpenTalk, a new magazine program that will be launched on 3 March 2021. Open Talk is a one-hour public service program to be broadcasted real-time over the UPOU Networks website and UPOU Networks Facebook page. This magazine program will feature various topics and current concerns of members of the community such as education, health, business and commerce, among others. These general topics were identified from the evaluations of webinars done by the UPOU in 2020. OpenTalk targets the general public and aims to create clarifications on the featured topics, change the attitude of the target audience towards the topics, and inspire the audience to improve their practices towards or against the topics featured. 

The maiden episode will feature Dr. Grace Javier Alfonso, UPOU Professor Emeritus and Executive Director of TVUP; and Dr. Ethel Agnes P. Valenzuela, Director of the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Secretariat (SEAMEO Secretariat). The maiden topic is about Creating a Culture of Openness in Education, to be aired live on 3 March 2021, 6PM-7PM via the UPOU Networks and UPOU Facebook Page. 

Other entries that UPOU submitted in celebration of the OE Week 2021 is the promotion of the availability of its Open Educational Resources (OER) available on the UPOU Networks. UPOU Networks is UPOU’s repository of OERs which were developed over the years, and which aims to make knowledge accessible to everyone for free. Within UPOU Networks is a section for published education materials with creative commons (CC) license, specifically, CC BY NC ND.  All the resources under the UPOU Commons are accessible and usable for free, can be used, copied,  and shared with anyone provided that appropriate credit is given to the original owner. One cannot use those for commercial or profit purposes.

Open Education Week is organized by the Open Education Global (OEG), a global, members-based, non-profit organization supporting the development and use of open education around the world.

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Written by Anna Cañas-Llamas

Edited by Joane V. Serrano

Graphics by UPOU Multimedia Center