ICDE Toluca, Mexico 2007

General details of the conference:  

International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) Conference

 Conference sub-title:

“The Metamorphosis of Distance Education for the third Millennium. Institutions, Programs, Technologies and Roles… the same thing”

Date and location: 

Toluca, Mexico, from the 2^nd to the 5^th of October 2007

 Conference website: 

http://www.tecdigital.net/UV/icde/main.php?lang=es

 Presentation:  

Paper presented on the 4^th of October, Thursday, from 16:15-16:35, by Andreia Santos on behalf of the OpenLearn Research Team

 Paper title and file:  

Open Educational Resources: New Directions for Technology-Enhanced Distance Education in the Third Millennium

 

Authors: Andreia Inamorato dos Santos, Patrick McAndrew and Steve Godwin

 Power point presentation:    ICDE Mexico 2007  General conference comments 

The conference was hosted at the Instituto Tecnológico de Monterey, campus Toluca, Mexico. Most of the participants came from Latin American countries, such as Argentina, Venezuela, Cuba, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile and Peru. Most presentations were based on e-learning experiences by members of the institutions represented at the conference. Very few presentations focused on disseminating research work.

 

An interesting aspect of this conference is that the focus given on the presentations (of the ones I attended, including general sessions) were almost always on how to increase students’ participation in distance learning, how to overcome the technological barriers (ex. lack of computer literacy, access to equipment, etc) and how to implement distance education in an HE institution. These are issues which are very characteristic of developing countries and demonstrate that the needs of these countries in terms of e-learning and access are different from European countries.

 

Although there was a presentation about open software, given by an American colleague, nothing else has been mentioned in terms of open educational resources, apart from our presentation. In personal communication with Cathy Casserley from the Hewlett Foundation during the OCWC meeting in Utah, Cathy emphasised the importance of OERs reaching up for Latin America.

 Final comment This conference had a very broad and general theme, so it was interesting to see the various perspectives of distance education in the third millennium in Latin America, and how they considerably differ from the European agenda. All papers are available on the conference website

Advertisement