24th ICDE World  Conference took place in   Bali , Indonesia , during 2-6 Oct- 2011. This was its location

A beautiful place.

The conference's has run very well, in the expected way, as usual.And the academic ans social activities were well organized and planned with dedication by the part of the local University of Indonesia: a real magnificence!

 The theme was “Expanding Horizons : New Approaches to Open and Distance Learning“. It have emphasized the Open educational resources in the  Open and distance virtual learning (ODL), mediated by ICT : that means and to underline, another new step in the development of these educational programs.

 Its meaning is linked to widening educational opportunities, managing ODL for global networking training programs, by public and private ownership in all over world wide projects.

 In this way, this topics  has had special mention in the different spaces for discussions, during the conference: the OER inclusion and its promotion to articulate them in formal and non-formal distance programs , as part of the paradigm of widening democratization and equity processes,  which  should characterize every educational effort, in order to achieve  the knowledge society of the XXI century.

Nevertheless, the challenge continues yet. It is necessary to face and to understand that virtual education won’t  show  its quality, in homogeneous level, yet, besides the high wideness of  participants/students, which attend the programs. More than that, taking into account the main issues at university education , which have to be rebuilt or re constructed, if we are interested in virtual programs and,  no more classrooms  to outfit.

The main moments of the Conference were: the opening keynote presentations  by the Indonesian Minister of Education, MuhammadNuh,  joined by Senior Policy Advisor at the USA Department of Education, Hal Plotkin ,  focusing the ODL programs and Human Capacity Building .

The importance of Open and Distance Learning in a changing world was focused deeply at  the second day of the Conference with the keynote speaker Lawrence Lessig,  founder of Creative Commons, an initiative to provide certificates for the licensing of scientific and educational materials. In this presentation, he emphasized the injustices of commercial scientific publishing which restricts access to knowledge to the most privileged.  Other moments and discussions in  the conference, by outstanding  presenters showed that the main challenge is not only to be aware about the multiple implications that  virtual learning means, but mainly the social and educational impacts of the incorporation of  OER.  The keynote presentations ( as Rory McGreal of Athabasca University , Canada , and  Gráinne Conole from the University of Leicester, UK ), and  the panels discussions, with diverse perspectives (from China , Latin America, South Africa , etc), focused on the topic of the Open Educational Resources (OER) and again, and their impacts.

The point was the focus, - among many-,  about how to manage OER in a world where a critical socio-economic fragmentation continues, with a high no access to ICT and Internet in many, many places all over the world , yet. It  is the big issue to take into  account to materialized social changes and  shifts to transform economic policies, cultural paradigms and mentalities. According to that , it is necessary to be aware that knowledge is not only  the basic power in our informational times and ,  intervenes in the training for increasing economic productivity and so on, but centrally , to remember that knowledge , is public and belong to everyone.  Maybe while the learning materials will be more and more freely available, it is easy to see that the predominance of English language creates barriers, too ( though Google translate is widely used).

Many and very interesting exchanges , concerning to the inclusion and use of open content and resources, have taken place to deepen open learning possibilities , depending of each virtual program context, scenarios and actors. The openness characteristic beyond the need to adjust the proposal,  also show that it could allow to instructional designers, students and professors/tutors, more freedom to adapt and flex the course content and the educational activities , related to contextual needs and competences demands .

 In this way, at the Parallel sessions the main issues , evidenced the interest  to keep open and distance virtual program relevant, up to date, and according to the state, national and global trends and standards, established in order to assurance their quality by evaluating each component of the virtual learning proposal, and not only the learning-teaching results . This evaluation have to harmonizes different perspectives, such as: tech-platforms/communication, pedagogical, management, cultural, ethical, economical, etc, in order to overcome reduced interpretations, and to acknowledge that they are not easy to design and achieve: virtual open learning is a very complex activity and need serious commitments .

For the first time in the ICDE International Conference , by the generosity and contribution of many member institutions , it has began theFellowship Programme. This has permitted that 16 delegates, among them, me-, from countries with developing economies, have received sponsorship, and supports, in order  to present important ideas from different nations which need ODL to improve its education, and to train designers, evaluators, researches in this area, etc

Although this Program have to be improved in several aspects  , without doubts was very important for everybody , ICDE and participants-, and it is remarkable to suggest   its continuity in next International Conferences, if the aim is to democratized voices and concepts coming from emergent countries. 

The organization of two dinners, lunches and coffee breaks, and the complementary one-day tour as well, for all the participants permitted to  build very important informal  moments for interesting  exchanges of experiences and projects, and more than that, to strengthen global communication and developing friendship among  university academics , researches and practitioners of the ODL field, in lovely places of Bali.

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