IN CONVERSATION: Pres Ramos Talks about “COLLABoratory”, Showcase in Infocomm Asia 2023 Thailand

“How are we going to teach the students of today?” 

The path of today radically changed the path of yesterday. The world has to be reimagined due to the economic and physical setbacks COVID-19 brought to the different sectors including education. In the process, we realized that the university experience as the sole source of impactful knowledge is over. The quest for knowledge is not limited anymore within the four walls of the classroom. In involving the community, the world has become the biggest bank of information and platform of skills development.

As part of the University of Makati’s journey towards mastering these new teaching and learning fundamentals and architecture of engagement, our recently proclaimed 10th president of the university, Dr. Elyxzur Ramos joined the leading academics and technology pioneers in the Infocomm Asia 2023.

Infocomm Asia 2023, held at Queen Sirikit National Convention Center, Bangkok, Thailand last May 24-26, was organized to provide unique opportunities to connect with global experts and experience the latest audio-visual technologies breaking the conventional concepts of learning and collaborations.

In reaching their vision of building school and community relationships, Dr. Ramos, with professors from Nanyang Technology University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and University of Malaya, was invited to be a panelist to represent the Philippines and share the work-around of the framework our country’s education sector is utilizing especially on academia, government and industry collaboration.

“We should create a holistic learning space for students through collaborative efforts of parents, teachers, the church, environment, [and] governments that integrate traditional and technologically innovative educational tools and strategies. May it be online, in-person, hybrid, synchronous, or the like that likewise adapt to the changing world involving educational landscapes in order to develop human-kind students who are to become our new generation of teachers,…” Dr. Ramos mentioned as his summary of his learning from the summit.

The multicultural education and involvement of the different social spheres have been old adages in the Sociocultural Learning Theory of Lev Vygotsky and Ecological System Theory of Urie Bronfenbrenner utilized to teach the students of every generation. However, the commitment of the president to obtain exposure and apply the learned high-impact transformations in the university is an unmatched leverage. He plans for everyone to take a bite from the newly-acquired knowledge from the Infocomm Asia 2023.

“One of the big takeaways there, of course aside from the summit, we were fortunate enough to go around and take a look at the different technological innovations and advancement especially in audio-visual technology which can actually be used inside the classroom. Redefining how [the] classroom will actually look in the future. And on one of the panelists there was talking about their experience of actually designing really a common work space, common study space for teachers, students, and employees in a learning environment. Interestingly, they call it ‘Imaginarium’. And then, when I was sharing this to some of the officials of the university yesterday, and.. Dr. Jay Bergania immediately caught the attention, you know… of the name  Imaginarium, and he already gave actually a name that we can actually create also for the university. ”

“He wants to call it ‘COLLABoratory’, [a] place where you know… every member of the UMak family can actually go in, collaborate, share ideas, and actually work on projects, not only for the benefit of our institution. Something that can actually have impact in the environment or society as a whole, and maybe even the country as a whole. So, this is something that you know, challenges each and everyone of us  to not just think outside the box but reimagining what if there is no box?”

“How are we going to actually evolve? How are we  going to adapt? What kinds of ideas can we bring in? Hopefully, this idea, that suggestion creating a COLLABoratory is something that we might also think about as an institution, as a university. And hopefully, more employees in the university especially your team at [the] CIC (Center for Integrated Communications) can also be involved, can also experience this. In fact, the organizers of Infocomm already signified their intention to invite again the University of Makati and maybe in the next Infocomm, we’ll be sending our officers… other officers in the university,”

President’s explanation on how he, with the management committee, will cultivate social presence and relationships with the world to provide effective learning engagements for students of today and tomorrow.

WATCH: FULL VIDEO INTERVIEW OF PRESIDENT RAMOS

Photos Contributed by Office of the President. Written by A. Miranda; Post-prod: A. Andrade; Website Posting: JR Grate – Center for Integrated Communications