Premiere Episode of UPOU OPEN Talk delves into Openness in Education

The University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU) premiered OPEN Talk, its newest online magazine program, on the 3rd of March 2021 via FB Live and UPOU Networks. 

Dr. Melinda dela Peña Bandalaria, UPOU Chancellor, shared that the intent of OPEN Talk is to create a safe and peaceful environment and provide a platform to discuss and express opinions about various topics that aren’t necessarily limited to  Open Education.

(From Top Left) Dr. Grace Javier Alfonso, Former Chancellor of UPOU and Executive Director of TVUP; Dr. Diego Silang Maranan, Program Chair of the UPOU Bachelor of Arts in Multimedia Studies; and Mr. Rafael Cada, Programme Officer I (Policy & Development), SEAMEO Secretariat.

For its maiden episode,  UPOU brought together Dr. Grace Javier Alfonso, Professor Emeritus and former Chancellor of UPOU, and Executive Director of TV UP; and Dr. Ethel Agnes Valenzuela, Director, Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Secretariat (SEAMEO Secretariat) to  share the latest developments in terms of open education worldwide and discuss “Creating a Culture of Openness in Education.”

Dr. Alfonso gave an overview of what Open Education is. She shared how it came to be, how it fits into the current  “tech-savvy” culture, how that very context allowed Filipinos  to adopt this style of education in the Philippines, and how the  needs shifted from merely digital literacy to critical digital literacy. Dr. Valenzuela, on the other hand, brought how SEAMEO’s initiatives have helped the  neighboring Southeast Asian countries adopt Open Education as well as their main challenges like the language barrier and the lack of sufficient electronic resources. 

The event was moderated by Dr. J. Aleta R. Villanueva, Assistant Professor of UPOU’s Faculty of Education (FEd) and Dr. Diego Maranan, Assistant Professor of UPOU’s Faculty of Information and Communication Studies (FICS). Mr. Raphael Orenday Cada, Programme Officer I (Policy & Development), SEAMEO Secretariat, joined the team during the open forum.

OpenTalk is UPOU’s new magazine program launched in March 2021 that 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. 

This premiere episode is part of UPOU’s efforts to take part in this year’s Open Education Week. For more information, and to watch this specific episode as well as its following episodes, you can visit the UPOU Networks site at https://networks.upou.edu.ph/.

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Written by Keizer Philip B. Ancajas

Edited by Joane V. Serrano and Anna Canas-Llamas