At the closing conference of the project „Open Education in Moldova: here and now” which took place on the 1st of July 2016, the Educational Center PRO DIDACTICA presented the results from a unique contest for the Moldovan educational context, developed over the last school year quarter and evaluated by an independent jury of experts. The competition period was from March to May 2016, the target group being the pupils, students, teachers, researchers interested in developing and applying OER (open educational resources) in the educational process in educational institutions from the Republic of Moldova.

Among the evaluation criteria of the materials presented at the Contest there were: the scientific and methodical teaching correctness, transdisciplinarity, utility, originality, ways of presenting the information, interactivity, creativity, bibliography and webography relevance. These criterias were initially proposed by the project team, but were presented, explained to the experts, were discussed, some were modified at their suggestion in order to ensure maximum objectivity in the evaluation process. In the evaluation process, they took into account this principle: „ If an OER is proposed by more authors, both will get a certificate of appropiate level, and the award will be divided by the number of authors.”

At this Contest participated more than 40 teachers from general schools and from vocational school with works: educational projects, presentations, blogs, etc. Based on the type of the institution, participants were from 25 lyceums, 10 secondary schools, 3 vocational schools, 1 institute of sciences of education and 1 college. We can conclude that in this competition, the teachers from lyceums and secondary schools were the most active. It would be good to promote the development and the use of OER more, among teachers from vocational schools and colleges.

The records of the subjects presented at the Contest were: Romanian Language and Literature – 8, English language – 6, Chemistry – 6, Informatics – 5, History – 5, Geography – 2, and Biology, Educational class, Subjects-profiles, Physics, French language, Russian language, Mathematics – by 1. The active participation of teachers from the humanist cycle shows us that the use of computers at work became usual.

The geography of the contest has the following numerical references: Chisinau – 9, Faleşti – 6, Balţi – 4, Cimişlia, Orhei, Glodeni by 2, Donduseni – 3, Cahul, Călărași, Căușeni, Criuleni, Drochia, Edineț, Hîncești, Nisporeni, Rîșcani, Soroca, Tighina, Vulcănești by 1.

The winners of the contest and respectively the finalists who participated at the closure conference were:

1st PLACE:

• Conac Corina and Onuţu Lucia, Lyceum „Vasile Coroban”, Glodeni: CHEMISTRY – ROMANIAN LANGUAGE (interdisciplinary project);
• Godoroja Rita, Lyceum „Modern Languages and Management”, Chişinău and Gandrabura Aliona, Lyceum „M. Sadoveanu”, Călăraşi:  CHEMISTRY  (Efficient presentation models for teaching – learning Chemistry in 7th grade. 1 Module. Chemistry – the science of substances. Basic Chemistry.)

2nd PLACE:

• Julea Gheorghe, Lyceum “Mihai Eminescu”, Căuşeni: BIOLOGY  (Digital coverage in teaching  (movie presentations, teaching projects, blogs)
• Guţuleac Dumitru, Petrunea Secondary School, Glodeni: PHYSICS (Set of interactive presentations for Physics (optics, electricity, etc.).

3rd PLACE:

• Rusu Artur, Petruşeni Secondary School, Rîşcani: INFORMATICS (Educational website for optional informatics courses)
• Guţu Victor, Lyceum Gordineşti, Edineţ: HISTORY (The Culture of West and Central Europe from XI – XV century).

MENTIONS:

• Grădinari Oxana, Volontir Olesea,  Cojocaru Elena – PS nr. 4, Bălţi: MATHEMATICS  (Interactive presentations – texts, audio, video)
• Muşenco Angela – Lyceum „Ion Creangă”, Soroca: HISTORY (Interactive PPT– the Hammurabi Code)
• State Livia – Lyceum „M. Eminescu”, Chişinău: ROMANIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE (teaching blog ”In the world of books”, which contains more sections dedicated to various classes and it aims to help students to find their own learning pace)
• Man Eugenia – Lyceum Măgdăceşti, Criuleni: ENGLISH LANGUAGE (Blogging – a complementary tool in the teaching-learning-evaluation process).

Some teachers, whose score was very close to a mention, who participated at the Conference and received book donations: Condrea Raisa from the Lyceum „Alexandru cel Bun”  from Tighina: ROMANIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE (Digital presentations and projects for teaching); Railean Diana: ENGLISH LANGUAGE  (Teaching presentations – English language grammar); Nastas Rodica: HISTORY (teaching presentations – „The History and population of South America”) , Gorgan Diana:  EDUCATIONAL CLASS (Teaching presentations  – „Problems related to behaviour”, „Chisinau Biography”)

The finalists shared, according to their position, a sum of  750$, each of them receiving an impressive donation of books, edited by PRO DIDACTICA in the last couple of years, the promotional poster „ The didactic profession matters here and now in Moldova. Opt for it.” And the DVD with the educational movie, created by OWH Studio „ The wreath of hopes”.

Among the conceptual ideas, promoted by those who spoke at the Conference, including the ones from the OER authors, who will contribute to the sustainability of the project, we mention:

1. Awarding free license for all the winning works and placement on the www.red.md//prodidactica website and continued maintenance and completion of the site launched;
2. To promote the concept of OER – we need to continue the project which involves the development of trainings for teachers, managers, specialists from DGEYS, ME – ways of composition and proper use of OER in the educational process from RM;
3. Also, it is productive the authors colective idea, including those from different school subjects used for the making of OER;
4. Teaching digital coverage with OER  (systematically: of the module, semester, subject, etc.) will be promoted;
5. Continuing international cooperation in promoting OER, including international experience, and of course, including OER resources in romanian and english language, and maybe russian language, is still a priority for the future; we can still learn from USA, Poland and Romanian experience.