A multi-institution linkage between two academic Philippine institutions and the European Union deployed MOOCs to provide technology-driven health care assistance to underserved rural communities in Pangasinan. The team from UP and IPC-AdMU created Alice as the animated avatar that walks participants to guidelines and instructions for rural health workers (RHWs) to assist residents of various barangays within Pangasinan. Alice is presented as a medical social worker in three modules developed for RHWs; Alice is dressed in white, speaks both English and Filipino (Tagalog) and provides information coming from national and provincial health institutions. 

This presentation investigates and analyzes the creation of a site-situated Alice as a MOOC animation targeted for rural health work, the politics of language that shaped participation dynamics among RHWs, and unpacking institutional and pedagogic dilemmas in presenting Alice as an Everywoman in different social contexts. Although MOOCs are seen as enablers to higher education, some critiques leveled against MOOCs parallel the perpetuation of unequal access to technology and higher education, and more importantly, that designs of course contents are Western-centric that displace marginal and localized knowledge. In the 3 modules developed, Alice speaks in English and Filipino, secondary characters were introduced to give fuller representation of the rural situation, and community-derived images were used to animate the presentation in each module. 

This presentation calls for self-reflexivity and critical assessments of a created ‘character’ in online platforms and how she engages with the health mediators (RHWs) and the communities being served and assisted. It is premised on the idealization of a digital mediator and how Alice navigates the terrain of culture, decolonization and effective health care.