Another Side of My Work

Well finally this is my 4th day here in SEAMEO SEARCA Los Banos. Actually this is also my 3rd times being here. Once again another side of my works where i have to traveling for some days abroad. And this time I am here again to have collaboration with SEARCA in Planning, Designing and Developing their Online Course. This fully online course will be the first time for them, and the online course will be on Responding to Climate Risks in Agriculture and Natural Resource Management. This is a six weeks online course and it's addressed for any government planners and technical staff at the regional, national and local level, for researchers and practitioners from centers of excellence as well as for representative and staff of regional or national-governmental organizations.

Since the first day on the workshop here, I did so many things, start from recording the video lectures for this online course with the help of our technician of course, and until preparing the concept for the workshop next tomorrow morning. The situation here is so peace full where you still can find a lot of big trees and healthy  environment. Ii think it's really appropriate for anyone who need to refresh a while from the hectic life in a big city. Anyway basically I am enjoying the environment here including the guest house that they provide for me. But I still couldn't find a good and delicious foods till the 4th day I am staying here. I am so lucky that I still have the "PoP Mie"  my best devoted friend :)

These are the pictures of what I am doing since the first day of the workshop here:

1. 1st day: Start with the recording session of Dr. Rex Victor O. Cruz (Dean, UPLB College of Forestry and Natural Resources). His video lecture about Vulnerability Assesment: An Introduction, and the way he present his presentation was so wonderful, it's really look smart with a good intonation as well as a professional presenter. But it was took all day long to recorded this session.
2. 2nd day: Starting the morning session with delivering a session to knowing better the integration of Learning Management System in SEARCA's Online Course. In this session i explained them on how SEARCA's Online Course running well with a appropriated LMS. What the things that they have to consider as a host institution. Especially the roles of online facilitators which is the key for the success factor of an online course. In the afternoon session, we took a look back the materials that they had so far, and after that we designing things in a program mapping and thinking about the instructional design that we will applied on this course. My office mate Bu Dina helped me on this case, she is a good partner in delivering the sessions in this workshop. Most of the participants in this workshop are the online facilitator from the UPLB such as Dr. Florencia B. Pulhin, Dr. Jesusita O. Coladila, and Dr. Margaret M. Calderon and there is always Julienne V. Bariuan, The Training Specialist from SEARCA who always sit together with us in designing the course and based on our analysis that the approach for the online course is more like introductory survey course and theory/discussion course where as these tend to be large lecture course designed to expose participants to basic concepts, vocabulary, and foundational  ideas. In more advanced course, participants are expected to think critically about research and theory. Application is typically secondary to the discussion of the theory itself. In the other room, there was another session of recording the video lecture of Dr. Rodel Lasco (Phillipines Program Coordinator, World Agroforesty (ICRAF), and he was delivering the session about Climate Change Adaptation as a Framework for Risk Reduction in a Changing Climate. And this time the time wasn't as long as the previous one.
3. 3rd day: We split the session into two room, where the first one is for recording the video lecture in  Economic Valuation of Climate Riks in Agriculture and NRM delivering by Dr. Margareth M. Caldreon from Institute Renewable Natural Resources, CNFR. And for my self, I have to delivering the orientation for administrator and technical person from SEARCA in how to make a betterment of the online learning environment. In the afternoon, we take a tour for a whole components for online facilitator and so they can drive the online course well. I also introduce them how to create an online questionnaire for participants to evaluate the materials and a whole program in this course by using a free features like what Google provide for us in Google Docs. In addition, we also integrate this online questionnaire from the third party such as Google to our online course. In short, working with these peoples were so interesting and very professional ones. I like this kind of works, where we always doing a stepping in every move in designing the online course. It's not merely about technology, but far more is about how to integrate the technology it self in pedagogical aspect in an online course. This is a great experience working with these peoples.

Look at the watch and it's nearly 12 now..so let's have a sleep and continuing tomorrow....