International Open Education Experts to Speak at 30th AAOU Conference - University of the Philippines Open University

The AAOU keynote speakers are International scholars in educational technology and open educationInternational scholars in educational technology and open education Dr. Laura Czerniwiecz and Dr. Qiong Wang will be the keynote speakers at the 30^th annual conference of the Asian Association of Open Universities (AAOU) to be held on 26-29 October 2016 in Manila, Philippines.
Dr. Czerniewicz is the director of the University of Cape Town's (UCT) Center for Innovation in Learning and Teaching and a well known scholar of technologically-mediated teaching and learning and the changing higher education environment. In 2005, as the first director of UCT's Center for Education Technology (CET) she helped to institute the university's first educational technology policy. Subse-quently, as head of OpenUCT in 2010 she initiated the open scholarship agenda, which includes the UCT Open Access policy and repository. Dr. Czerniewicz is involved in regional and international policy work and a member of the advisory boards of international educational and technology publications.
Dr. Wang, the director of Peking University's (PKU) X-Learning Center and one of the key experts behind PKU's first series of massive open online courses (MOOCs), heads the top MOOC research group in China. She has led numerous in-service teacher training programs on ICT integration for the Chinese Ministry of Education, including teacher professional development projects in partnership with Microsoft, Dell, and Apple. Dr. Wang's research focuses on teaching and learning in online environments, applying ICT to improve the quality of higher education, as well as MOOC pedagogy and learning communities.
The 2016 AAOU conference, which will be held at the Crowne Plaza Manila Galleria, is being hosted in the Philippines for the second time since 2000. The three-day conference will bring together open and distance learning advocates, academics, policymakers, practitioners, and scholars in Asia in a discussion of global trends in open and distance e-learning (ODeL). (Paula Grace Muyco)

UP Open University (UPOU)

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The 7th AAWS Congress opened with compelling plenary sessions that framed key conversations on empowerment, inclusion, and women’s scholarship.Plenary 1, “Revisioning Gender/Women’s Studies in the Post-Pandemic World: Work for Empowerment,” was delivered by Assoc. Prof. Finaflor F. Taylan, Dean of UPOU FMDS and President of AAWS. Dr. Taylan discussed how crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic deepened gender inequalities—particularly in sectors with high female participation—and intensified unpaid care work. She emphasized the need to integrate crisis-related realities, including gendered vulnerabilities, labor shifts, and digital divides, into Gender/Women’s Studies teaching and research, and called for stronger advocacy toward gender-responsive recovery and structural transformation. The session concluded with an engaging Q&A moderated by Asst. Prof. Lorena Jean Saludadez.The second plenary, “Emerging Issues in Diversity, Multiculturalism, and Democracy in Asia: The Role of Advocates,” was presented by Dr. Aileen Park, Associate Professor at Philippine Normal University Mindanao and AAWS Council Member. Drawing from migration-related experiences in the United States, Korea, and Australia, Dr. Park explored discriminatory practices and highlighted the importance of a multivoiced academic mindset rooted in cultural sensitivity, self-awareness, and social responsibility. The session was moderated by Asst. Prof. Maria Lourdes Jarabe, Director of UPOU’s Office of Gender Concerns.Several Parallel Presentation Sessions were also held in the afternoon, featuring research topics on Evolution of Women and Gender Studies Across Asia; Gender, Social Inclusion and Women Empowerment in ASEAN; Women’s Struggles and Democracy in Asia; Gender and Development: ASEAN’s Performance on the SDGs; Gender, Social Inclusion and Women Empowerment in ASEAN; and it also included a Colloquium where UPOU undergraduate and graduate students present their research studies.#AAWSCongress2025 #EmpowerSustainDemocratize #AsianWomenInFocus #SDG5GenderEquality #UPOU ... See MoreSee Less

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