Prof. Patricia B. Arinto talks about the Potential Contribution of Open Educational Resources to e-Learning and Distance Education in the Smart Global Development ConferenceProf. Patricia B. Arinto, Dean of the UP Open University Faculty of Education (FEd), was a keynote speaker at the 3rd e-Learning and Distance Education Conference (ELDEC 2016) in Lahore, Pakistan and an invited session co-presenter at the Smart Global Development Conference in Ottawa, Canada in March and April, respectively.
Dean Arinto's keynote address at ELDEC 2016, which was organized by the Virtual University of Pakistan and held on 14-15 March 2016, was on "The Potential Contribution of Open Educational Resources to e-Learning and Distance Education." She gave an overview of the multi-country Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) project funded by the International Research Centre of Canada (IDRC), and discussed OER in the context of various e-learning and distance education models and frameworks. Noting that over the last two decades there has been a change in emphasis from content to connection to community in e-learning and distance education, she proposed a research agenda around OER in/and e-learning and distance education as follows: "In what ways and under what circumstances does use of OER make e-learning and distance education more open, more effective, and more flexible?"
At the Smart Global Development Conference organized by IDRC, the Aga Kahn Foundation Canada, and Academics without Borders on 13-14 April 2016, Dean Arinto spoke about OER and massive open online courses (MOOCs) as strategies for improving the accessibility and quality of higher education in developing countries. Highlighting open learning as a philosophy of and an approach to education, Dean Arinto cited examples from the work of the UP Open University in the session on "Teaching and Pedagogy: Educating Future Leaders and Change Agents to Drive Social Innovation and Economic Growth." The Smart Global Development Conference brought together more than a hundred senior Canadian and global policymakers, academic leaders, members of the diplomatic community, and development practitioners to explore the role of higher education in advancing the sustainable development goals (SDGs) comprising the United Nations-led 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Dean Arinto holds a Doctor in Education degree from the Institute of Education, University of London. She also has an MA in Comparative Literature from the University of the Philippines Diliman, a Postgraduate Certificate in Technology-based Distributed Learning from the University of British Columbia, and a BA in Communication Arts (magna cum laude) from the UP Visayas – Tacloban College. Her expertise includes distance education, learning design, and teacher professional development in technology-supported learning. Her recent involvements include being deputy principal investigator of IDRC's ROER4D project, which covers 26 countries in South and Southeast Asia, South America, and Sub-Saharan Africa, and serving as project leader and principal investigator of an Australian Government-funded study on the use of tablet computers in public secondary schools in the Philippines in 2012-2014 and a USAID-funded study on the state of information and communications technology (ICT) in Philippine basic education in 2012. (Anna Cañas-Llamas)
