Online Training for faculty members of Bangladesh Open University (BOU) on Video Content Development

Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA) and Bangladesh Open University (BOU) jointly organized a virtual workshop to facilitate video content developments for Vocational Education and Training (VET) courses under a CEMCA-BOU joint project on VET through open and distance learning for impacting education and open schooling on 26 – 27 August 2020.

The training started with the opening remarks of Prof. Madhu Parhar, Director CEMCA who raised the following questions: “How can video contents be developed and implemented? What capacities are needed? What is the role of BOU educators in supporting VET? What are the psychomotor aspects of today’s workshop?” Supplement to this, Dr. Manas Ranjan Panigrahi said that participants would be learning the scripting and editing of their self-recorded videos for the BOU OER repository using the open-sourced software. In line with this, Dr. Mizanoor Rahman, VET Project Coordinator, said, “Through the current VET project, School of Education and Open School of the BOU already integrated 2 (two) courses for existing B.Ed. (Bachelor of Education) and HSC (Higher Secondary Certificate): Grade 11-12 curriculum respectively for impacting education and open schooling. VET modules are being written and expected to finish by November 2020. The VET will be implemented as OER-based eLearning programme where texts, videos and PPTs have been given equal importance.” Then, Dr. Nisha Singh, presented an overview of educational video, and lectures on technical aspects of video scripting, recording, and editing. Finally, participants uploaded self-made videos in the WhatsApp group consisting 60+ participants.

Dr. Manas highlighted that teaching through OER has been an effective means to overcome the digital divide as it is very cost-effective and provide VET to dropouts who do not have access to the Internet. CEMCA Director also spoke of the challenges and provided recommendations to improve the quality of education through OER and ensure the quality of educational video programmes on skilling people for impacting nation’s economy.

The event was concluded with the remarks of Prof. Sufia Begum, Dean, School of Education and Prof. Dr. Sabina Yeamin, Dean, Open, who praised the efforts made by Nisha Singh and CEMCA Director for organizing the workshop. Both of them expect quality videos from the participants. Then, Prof. Sufia said, “Developing educational programmes for OER as a means for learning in the COVID19 has been a must even after the crisis is over. In this way, CEMCA’s drive for this virtual event has been a milestone for the BOU.” In line with this, Prof. Sabina demanded refresher training for the same participants and in between all of them may be active through existing WhatsApp group.