UPOU Leads in ODeL Efforts
There’s a very significant growth point in the field of education, worldwide. It is particularly of relevance to the educational concerns of the Philippines. This is the area of open and distance electronic learning (ODeL). While there exists an academic journal on the subject, the Open, Distance and e-Learning Journal, jointly published by the UK Open University of England and Routledge, an international publisher of academic books and journals, (signifying that there’s a continuously growing body of knowledge on the subject), there has not been an international conference undertaken to focus on ODeL.
Enter the UP Open University.
The International Conference on Open and Distance e-Learning (ICODeL), the first one on ODeL, shall be held in the Philippines on 23-24 February 2012, at the Century Park Hotel in Manila, and shall be jointly sponsored by the UPOU, UPOU Foundation, Inc., and the Philippine Society for Distance Learning, Inc. (PSDL). Some 300 local and international delegates are expected to attend.
Two pre-conference sessions shall be undertaken on 22 February. The first session shall be facilitated by Dr. Terry Anderson of Athabasca University (Canada) and shall deal with open and distance e-learning research (frameworks, methods, and strategies). The second session deals with technologies for open and distance e-learning, and shall be facilitated by Dr. Curtis Bonk of Indiana University (USA).
Open and distance learning are no longer new to Filipinos. Similarly, e-Learning has become familiar strategy among Filipino educators and young Filipino learners as it is being employed as a delivery mechanism for educational materials that are part of the traditional or conventional education approach. This means some of the lessons taught in the conventional mode are delivered online or made accessible through electronic means. The fact is, e-learning can be part of either distance or conventional instruction, both of which can be open in terms of access characteristics.
In the field of educational services, open access, for the most part, means minimal barriers to admission to curricular programs and other educational services. For example, what would be good examples of barriers to admission to the curriculum? Well, entrance examinations, high rates of fees, unnecessary additional fees or requirements not needed in mastering educational content according to the curriculum, and a host of other things.
Those interested in more information about this international conference in February may visit the website of the conference: http://icodel.upou.edu.ph.
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Chawe Seeds in Itbayat, Batanes Have Great Potential as Cooking Fuel
There’s an exotic fruit whose seeds have potential as cooking fuel material. This is the fruit of a hardwood species scientifically known as Ponetia pinnata. This wild species grows in the pacific area. In fact, it is also called Fijian longans. This is a popular tropical fruit that Ivatans (people of Batanes) love to eat. Many trees of fruiting age are found in Panyesanan, the farm resort in Bgy. Rizal, Lipa City, owned by retired UPLB-CHE Dean Flor Librero This tree is called chaye by the Ivatans (but specifically the island residents of Itbayat, Batanes call it chawe).
The fruit’s flesh is edible and the large seed has potential as cooking fuel. Yesterday, Dr. Ernie Lozada, former UPLB vice chancellor for planning and development and retired professor of agricultural process engineering at UPLB, successfully demonstrated that chawe seeds provide sustained cooking flame that’s very important in cooking. Burning chawe seeds don’t smell and don’t produce too much smoke.
Dr. Lozada said, “I’m excited about this because it burns more uniformly compared to other fuels like fuel wood, charcoal, or coconut shell.” These chawe seeds have great potentials as cooking fuel for the people of Itbayat, Batanes.
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