About 28 participants in the first Massive Open Online Course held at the American Studies Resource Center at Silliman University graduated and received their certificates from representatives of the U.S. Embassy Manila that sponsored the course.
The graduates are students and faculty members of Silliman and St. Paul University-Dumaguete, and personnel from the Philippine Coast Guard, the Department of Education, and the Department of Environment & Natural Resources.
They finished the free online course, “Reclaiming Broken Places: Introduction to Civic Ecology,” in which they did readings and participated in class sessions with American and Filipino professors and other learners around the world, through the internet.
The six-week online interactive course was administered by Cornell University through edX, a non-profit platform for online courses invented by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The first MOOC in Silliman taught the participants the principles of civic ecology and how it enabled those with limited resources to restore nature and revitalize neighborhoods marked by disaster, poverty, environmental degradation.
At the graduation ceremony, the U.S. Embassy Manila was represented by Princess Grace Wooden, deputy director of the Thomas Jefferson Information Center, who handed the certificates to the graduates and encouraged them to attend more MOOC sessions.
Wooden was assisted by Ameer Phillips, an intern at the Public Affairs Section of the U.S. Embassy. (Celia E. Acedo/SU Research & Environment News Service)
