CONTACT: TAKESHI UTSUMI Chairman, GLOSAS/USA 718-939-0928
Demonstration of a "Global Lecture Hall" (GLH) Panel Discussion Theme: "Global Education in the 21st Century: Design and Delivery" at The Annual International Conference of International Council for Educational Media (ICEM) University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida, USA October 12 and 13, 1992
ICEM Conference Organizer: Dr. Richard Cornell, Education Room 310, Office of the Dean, Educational Services Department, College of Education, University of Central Florida, P. O. Box 25000, Orlando, FL 32816 U.S.A. Tel: +001-407-823-2053; Fax: +001-407-823-5135; : Internet: dcornell@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu
Videoconference Coordinator: Dr. Takeshi Utsumi, President, Global University in the U.S.A., GLOSAS/USA, 43-23 Colden Street, Flushing, NY 11355-3998 U.S.A. Tel: +001-718-939-0928; Internet: utsumi@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu
I. OBJECTIVES The objective of this videoconference with "Multipoint-to-Multipoint Multimedia Interactive Teleconferencing Technology" is to present ongoing programs, discuss the tools and mechanisms in use, and discover any technical, regulatory, economic, and marketing hindrances to the creation of a Global University. At the same time we hope to promote the awareness of the possibilities of international electronic exchange of education services with the use of inexpensive telecommunications media.
The GLH events will be held at the occasion of the ICEM Symposium on "Design and Delivery of a 21st Century Technology Base for Today's Learners: International Implications." The choice of the theme reflects the concern with the disparity between the advanced technologies being used by developed nations and the very basic ones needed by the lesser developed.
III. BACKGROUND Improving and expanding education are essential ingredients of any national development policy. Countries look to the future's well educated generations as the best way to improve their overall social and economic standing. National educational programs mainly rely on conventional or formal educational methods, the sort of methods based for the most part on the traditional classroom contact. However, conventional methods of education are expensive, and may not be suitable for segments of the population, particularly in the Third World countries that have no easy access to conventional schools or which must combine studies and work. For these reasons, distance education is a rapidly expanding field nowadays.
Distance education has been perceived as a powerful means to utilize telecommunication technology for the dissemination of teaching experiences and ideas, information, production of two-way exchanges between the emitter and the receiver, bridging time and space limitations.
Human society now faces urgent problems which require a global restructuring of education at all levels to cope with the planetary issues. Problems of education have reached a global scale. Pressures to consider education on a very large scale, including several countries and regions, come indeed from the nature of economical and social life itself today. Technologies accelerate the process of globalization of knowledge. Following the general trend of globalization of problems and experiences, education has to see all the world as its natural context. An enlarged view of education requires cooperation. There no longer are boundaries in the culture of humanity. The use of technologies for education has to take these new characteristics into account in order to favor and promote global education.
We all know that technological advances have made global communication an everyday fact of life: but the lives of so many millions of people, particularly in disadvantaged countries, are still untouched by the great educational possibilities that have already been opened up for relatively few. We are at the threshold of a new age in education and communication but the use of the new tools is so far reserved mainly for the privileged few and is scarcely discussed as a matter of public policy. GLOSAS attempts to provide cooperative, experiential learning opportunities on the widest possible scale and for the purpose of fostering peace and sustainable development.
Global education via satellite and other telecommunication media is the way towards the 21st century Age of Knowledge, laying a social infrastructure for global citizenship of the global village. Extending communications through a global network and sharing ideas and educational opportunities with other locations is of paramount interest. The exchange of knowledge among countries can make major contributions to world peace, helping to ease frictions, promoting joint research and development, and mutual exchange and understanding. Developments in global electronic education can transform education at all levels around the world, and can enrich and transform human society.
The time is ripe for global education. Technology is now available. What we need now are people who are eager to face the challenges of our time and to forge ahead toward the 21st century education.
IV. ABOUT ICEM AND GLOSAS/USA
A. International Council of Educational Media (ICEM) ICEM was created in 1950 and is a non-profit, non-governmental organization which has consultative Status A with UNESCO through the International Council for Film and Television. Its objective is, among others, to provide a channel for the international exchange of information, experience and material in the field of education technology including the new information technologies with particular reference to pre-school, primary, secondary education, to technical and vocational, industrial and commercial training, and to teacher and continuing education.
There are presently over thirty nations who belong to ICEM. Each participating nation is represented in ICEM through a designated member. In most instances, this individual is affiliated with their nation's Ministry of Education and is responsible for educational technology programs within their country.
The United States of America has neither a "Ministry of Education" nor does it any longer participate in UNESCO activities. Therefore, the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) nominates an individual who represents the United States' interests within ICEM. The U.S. member to ICEM is Dr. Richard Cornell.
B. GLOSAS/USA GLOSAS/USA is a publicly supported, non-profit, tax exempt, non- governmental educational service organization with the goal of assisting and enhancing the quality and availability of international educational exchange through the use of computer, telecommunication and information technologies. Its membership is international and open to all.
GLOSAS is joining efforts with many counterparts around the world to create a worldwide educational network, the Global (electronic) University (GU) consortium so that we can meet the challenges of global issues. GU can facilitate existing distance education enterprises by developing a cooperative and worldwide infrastructure and by bringing the powers and resources of telecommunications to ordinary citizens around the world. The quality of education for those unable to attend conventional universities in disadvantaged countries will be greatly increased.
Over the past two decades, GLOSAS played a major role in making possible the U.S. data communication networks extend to other countries, particularly to Japan. GLOSAS also helped deregulate Japanese telecommunication policies for the use of computer mediated communication, which led to the demonopolization of Japanese telecommunication industry. Many other countries have followed suit. GLOSAS has also conducted many "Global Lecture Hall" (GLH) videoconferences which used several inexpensive media in parallel to facilitate interactions amongst participants in the disadvantaged countries. The demonstrations encompassed more than two dozen universities linked together, from the East Coast of the North America to Japan, the Republic of Korea, Saipan and Guam, from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Caracas, Venezuela, and to Brisbane, Australia, and to Western and Eastern Europe, and Mediterranean countries.
These demonstrations have helped GLOSAS discover and compensate for the technical, regulatory, economic and marketing impediments to the creation of a Global (electronic) University. Considerable interest in these Global Lecture Halls has been expressed from various organizations around the Pacific Rim, Latin America, and Europe and associates are working on the establishment of Global Pacific University (GPU), Global Latin American University (GLAU) and Global European University (GEU).
V. PROCEDURES (1) The demonstration will include an uplinking to domestic and international satellites, combined with audio and slow-scan (or freeze frame) TV conferencing, digital optical fiber networks, global computer conferencing as well as facsimile use for interactive question-and- answer exchanges.
(2) If you have a satellite downlink facility and our satellite foot- prints cover your area, you can receive our satellite signal. We will have privilege of using GSTAR-1 and several SATCOMs for the U.S. domestic coverage; ANIK-E for Canadian and Alaskan coverage; COLUMBIASAT and INTELSAT for Northern and Southern Pacific; MORELOS and PANAMSAT for Central and South America and the Caribbean; COLUMBIASAT, OLYMPUS, and PANAMSAT for Western, Northern, Eastern Europe, the Baltics and the Commonwealth of Independent States; INTELSAT for Arabic and South Africa, etc. Total about a dozen of them will ensure the coverage from Far Eastern Asia to Moscow, and from Fairbanks, Alaska to Argentina and Australia and New Zealand. (INTELSAT and PANAMSAT are now under negotiation.)
(3) Some participants, such as in Denmark and Mexico, will distribute our signal through their local terrestrial TV broadcasting or cable TV networks, in such a way that their students and children can watch our events at their home.
(4) We will have a privilege of using Cameo Personal Video System of Compression Labs, Inc. (CLI). This system sends video via ISDN network onto ordinary computer screen of Macintosh IIci (up). CLI's affiliates in France, Germany, Sweden have already installed the system. An arrangement is now underway so that anyone who are interested in can go their office to send their video to the studio at UCF, which will then be broadcast worldwide via satellites. This system has a possibility for individuals to receive distance education at their home, instead of at satellite downlinking site.
(5) When native language (say, Japanese) is used for a question, the ICEM member of the country (Japan) will translate it into English which will then be broadcast via satellite, thus encouraging the use of native language yet making the proceedings comprehensible to all. There will also be sign-language interpreter for physically impaired persons.
(6) Attached below is the current list of prospective participants. Those people who are interested in viewing our demonstration are encouraged to join with them. Please contact Takeshi Utsumi for their name and phone number. Some locations are with limited capacity, so first comer first served.
(7) Those wishing to participate should fill the enclosed application form and send them back to Takeshi Utsumi, copy to Richard Cornell at the earliest possible convenience -- preferably via email or facsimile. We will provide those people who replied with participation fee, with technical specifications of the satellite(s) from which to receive our demonstration signal. Overseas participants are urged to contact us at their earliest possible convenience due to the conference date.
(8) Please disseminate this information widely in your country and region to solicit participation of educational, industrial, research and governmental organizations.
VI. COSTS Other than participation fee, all participants have to be responsible for the costs of (1) down/uplinking from/to satellites; (2) telephone call to the University of Central Florida for Q&A; and (3) sending fax to the University of Central Florida for backstage coordination.
VII. NOTE (1) Please inquire Richard Cornell about interesting programs of ICEM International Symposium: "Design and Delivery of a 21st Century Technology Base for Today's Learners: INTERNATIONAL IMPLICATIONS" to be held in the morning and afternoon of October 12th and in the afternoon of 13th at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, FL, USA.
(2) A satellite over Europe, OLYMPUS, has been provided by Telespazio with the arrangement made by WAUSE in cooperation with GLOSAS/USA. There will be General Assembly of WAUSE in Bari, Italy, from October 12, 1992. Please inquire additional information to Takeshi Utsumi for the address of Professor Mario De Blasi, President of the WAUSE.
(3) If funding will succeed, GLOSAS/USA's next videoconference will be among the International University of Japan, Dartmouth College, and Johns Hopkins University on "U.S.-Japan Perceptions on Conflict Resolution and Crisis Management for Global Environment and Sustainable Development," -- probably in spring of 1993.
(4) After successful conduct of these videoconferences, we plan next to test/demonstrate the use of digital video compression technology, as the steps towards our establishing a Global (electronic) University. Negotiations are underway for another GLH using this technology, this time during the Teleteaching '93 conference in Norway. If all goes well, the new technology would reduce costs of transmission by an order of magnitude. Please stand by for further developments. And many other to come.
(6) For the sake of gaining experience for those future events, we would strongly suggest that you participate in our GLH in October.
(7) "Global Lecture Hall" (GLH) and "Global University" are trade marks of GLOSAS/USA.
Earl Fogel
-------------------------------------------------------------------
fogel@sask.usask.ca Computing Services, Room 56 Physics
Phone: (306) 966-4861 University of Saskatchewan
Fax: (306) 966-4938 Saskatoon, Sask. CANADA, S7N 0W0
(END)
| Previous Menu | Home Page | What's New | Search | Country Specific |