MC Director talks about increasing accessibility and inclusivity of educational materials

University of the Philippines Open University Multimedia Center (UPOU-MC) Director Luisa A. Gelisan served as a resource person for a class under the Master of Science Education Program of the College of Education. The talk was done in Mindanao State University – Iligan Institute of Technology (MSU-IIT), Iligan City on 6 April 2019.

The talk is about “Enhancing Accessibility and Inclusivity of Learning Materials,” wherein Ms. Gelisan also discussed about the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) which is “Ensuring Inclusive and Quality Education for All.” Quoting from the documents of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, “inclusive quality education is both a goal and a means to realize all other sustainable goals.” She also explained about the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) which is “based on scientific insights into how human learns.” Adopting the principles of UDL shall help improve and optimize teaching and learning for all types of learners.

Dir. Gelisan underscored the following points that can enhance accessibility and inclusivity of learning materials: (1) development and sharing of Open Educational Resources (OERs), which are online teaching and learning resources available for free; (2) development of OERs in multimedia formats — video, audio file or podcast, and print versions; including provision of subtitles or closed-captioning in video materials; (3) promotion of gender sensitivity; respect of culture and indigenous beliefs/practices; and respect towards other people’s challenges/disabilities; (4) creation of color-blind accessible figures/texts; and (5) creation of assistive technology-compatible content.

Aside from OERs created by UPOU, Ms. Gelisan also presented to the students of MSU-IIT the UPOU MODEL, an online site where learners can enroll for free in various massive open online courses (MOOCs) developed by UPOU. (ACLlamas)