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Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 12:52:26 -0400 (EDT)
From: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access.digex.net>
To: tp roundtable - messages <roundtable@cni.org>
Subject: Responsive Proposal (fwd)
Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950901122911.12418A-100000@access4.digex.net>
Here is an issue shaping up of immiediate concern to educators but also
of vital concern to the future of the Internet.
Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access.digex.net>
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 1995 08:35:40 -1000
From: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access.digex.net>
To: Multiple recipients of list <ace-l@hawaii.edu>
Subject: Responsive Proposal
ACADEMY FOR GLOBAL COMMUNICATION AND EDUCATION (ACENET)
A Proposal for Collaborative Global-Local Learning
------------------------------------------------------
A Response for the Creation of a Desirable Future
By Vigdor Schreibman
To confront the problems of the world and search for ways to overcome them,
Majid Tehranian has proposed that educational institutions around the world
collaborate in globalizing and localizing the utilization of educational
resources. The evident intent is to take charge of the opportunities
presented by the advent of global information and communications systems, for
the good of mankind. Nevertheless, to keep this initiative simple, Majid
would define no governing purposes and values, no explicit set of problems to
be overcome, and no systemic strategies or methodologies by which competent
collaboration toward those ends may be realized, suggesting that these may
best be defined independently, at local levels of the proposed ACENET.
In the absence of explicit definition of the governing systems of action,
what is certain is that they will be governed by the implicit set of purposes
and values that now dominate the world order. This proposal is, therefore,
a prescription to take over the emerging opportunities that are inherent to
global communications and assure maintenance of the status quo in the
global structure of power. I rise to strongly oppose this proposal.
Any collaborative effort designed to foster genuine progress for humanity,
through utilization of the emerging information and telecommunications
infrastructures, should start with a sound methodology for the creation of
a desirable future [See e.g., Christakis, A New Policy Science Paradigm,
FUTURES (Dec. 1973): pp. 543; Ozbekhan, Toward a General Theory of
Planning, in PERSPECTIVES OF PLANNING (OEDC Report, Jantsch ed. 1968): pp.
47-155)]. This requires an assessment of the existing situation and a
vision of the future that the people desire to create, together with a
strategy that can most likely overcome the gap between where we are and
where we desire to be.
Rather than trying to solve the problems of the world without defining
them and without a clue as to the most effective strategy to follow, I
have recommend below that a modest undertaking be carefully considered by
the global educational community. This would involve the design of the
infrastructure that is emerging in the United States to assure that it
serves the paramount public goods that the market system disregards,
instead of serving primarily to maximize the profits of the
mega-corporations that Alvin Toffler has called "global gladiators," who
are now unilaterally driving the emerging systems.
Warm regards to all.
Vigdor Schreibman <fins@access.digex.net>
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[document 3 of 3]
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 1995 10:47:20 -1000
From: Majid Tehranian <majid@hawaii.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <ace-l@hawaii.edu>
Subject: proposal
dear acenet friends:
i'm grateful to vigdor for breaking the silence of august on acenet. his
idea is an excellent one, and here is my response to it.
when we started acenet, the main objective was to provide a global
classroom that could educate its members for global citizenship. this is
an urgent need in a world torn by parochial interests. but we also felt
that the feat could not be achieved except through collaborative
global-local collaboration. the following proposal has been already
submitted to the Dean of Social Science at the University of Hawaii. He
has welcomed it and intends to look into fund-raising possibilities for
the project. would you also consider it for your institution? if we
find a sufficient number of institutions willing and able to collaborate,
we will have opportunities for abled as well disabled people to reach out
to each other in learning about what plagues this world and how we can
approach some possible remedies.
ACADEMY FOR GLOBAL COMMUNICATION AND EDUCATION (ACENET)
A Proposal for Collaborative Global-Local Learning
Submitted by Majid Tehranian
University of Hawaii & Harvard University
With the introduction of INTERNET and the World Wide Web,
interactive global communication and education have become real
possibilities. Currently, INTERNET reaches over 100 countries and about
30 million users. By the year 2000, a network nation of over 100 million
users around the globe will be employing its resources for a variety of
purposes. The challenge will be how to employ these resources toward
education for global citizenship and local responsibility. This
proposal for the establishment of an Academy for Global Communication and
Education (ACENET) is aimed at such an enterprise.
Purpose. The objectives of ACENET are threefold:
1) To provide an exceptional educational opportunity for students
at all levels to pursue an intensive and in-depth course of study on a
particular global theme selected for each different academic year.
2) To globalize educational processes through a maximum use of
all available face-to-face and telecommunication channels to bring
students and teachers together from as many nodes, countries, and
perspectives as possible for collaboration in joint educational and
research enterprises, including telelectures, telecourses,
teleconferences, and tele-research.
3) To localize educational responsibility by mobilizing the
resources of each node in order to enrich the total intellectual and
material resources available to the global network.
Organization: ACENET will be a network organization. The network will
be kept simple and decentralized with a minimum of administrative
overhead. At each node, a director and a steering committee will
determine the educational policies and programs in consonance with the
local educational rules and regulations. The directors of the local
nodes will, in turn, form the steering committee of the global ACE
network responsible for the development of its global educational
policies and programs.
Curriculum: Each ACENET node will determine its own policies with
respect to the recruitment of its local faculty and students, the
courses offered within ACE's global framework, and the methods of course
evaluation and accreditation. Topics might include Human Rights,
Environment, Disarmament, World Ocean Resources, World Trade and
Development, Science and Technology Transfers, Global Communication,
Wisdom, Tolerance, Multiculturalism, Intellectual Property Rights,
Ethnonationalist Movements, and Women and Development. An
interdisciplinary program of course(s) will be offered around any of
these topics during the entire academic year. The year will culminate in
an international conference on the same topic at site(s) to be chosen by
the steering committee. Students and teachers of the host institution(s)
will be responsible for the organization of the conference.
Budget: Each ACENET node will be essentially self-supporting with its
own budget raised from intramural sources. However, to establish the
global network, to develop prototype curricula, to hold international and
regional conferences, and to disseminate the results would require
foundation, corporate, government, or membership support.
Status: Since June 1995, an ACENET listserv has been established at
the University of Hawaii, including over 100 members from a diversity of
institutions across the globe. The group is currently exploring the
possibilities for global-local learning collaboration via INTERNET and
the Web.
with best wishes and looking forward to your responses, majid
[document 2 of 3]
Date: Sun, 27 Aug 1995 08:10:43 -0400 (EDT)
From: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access1.digex.net>
To: ace-l@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu
Subject: Query
I recently published a 3500 word essay on the topic "Common Sense in
Cyberspace: A Cause for People Power." An individual responded by
suggesting that we begin to empower the people through a survey of their
recommendations with regard to the telecommunications infrastructure.
This individual is a permanently disabled former navy man, who lives with
his wife and children, in Arizona, and is interested in political
discussion. My response included a recommendation that we consider
development of a tutorial that would prepare participants with adequate
understanding of the existing situation and alternative possibilities.
I also suggested that ACE might have something to offer such an
undertaking. What do members of this list say?
[document 1 of 3]
Date: Sun, 27 Aug 1995 07:39:09 -0400 (EDT)
From: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access1.digex.net>
To: ZenWheels@aol.com
Subject: Re: People Power
On Sun, 27 Aug 1995 ZenWheels@aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 95-08-26 11:21:49 EDT, you write:
>
> >The only way to get real competition, which all Americans would applaud,
> >is by greatly enlarging the empowerment of the people to tell their
> >representatives in Washington, what they desire for the future. Until we
> >get that broad and sustained deployment of people power, things will likely
> >continue to go in the very opposite direction we would both like to see.
>
> We can take this idea and do something constructive.
>
> Start a survey. Ask everyone to name ONE thing that the telecommunications
> industry should be asked to do that would have the MOST effect on improving
> the lives of Joe Public. Compile the results and send an abstract to our
> fearless leaders in congress.
>
> Be glad to help with this any way I can.
Not a bad idea. Let's think it through together. Here are my first
impressions.
As you are aware the telecommunications infrastructure is a multilevel,
complex piece of machinery. We are unlikely to obtain the most meaningful
results by just dumping the ultimate raw question on the users. What is
necessary, in my view, is an understanding by the participants of the
existing situation and viable alternatives, before a competent choice of
preferred alternatives is possible. In addition, a description of the
existing situation and preferred alternatives should reflect all of the
important dimensions of the knowledge and perspectives that the problem
situation and alternatives arise from.
Perhaps, someone with distance learning capabilities could help create:
a) a tutorial that would satisfy the above; and b) a survey questionnaire.
There is one group that I know of on the Net that could possibly help in
that regard. They have a discussion list called the "Academy for Global
Communication and Education" (ACE-L). This is how they describe their
purpose:
The purpose of this listserv is to develop global classrooms and
to encourage collaborative global-local educational projects and
experiences. It may thus be considered as a mutual exploitation
society of kindred spirits to promote global learning. Members
of the list are at once teleprofessors and telestudents employing
the vast resources of the cyberspace for their joint educational
ventures. At the simplest level, this could mean giving a
telelecture in a colleague's virtual classroom. At a more complex
level, it could mean collaborative teaching/learning in a
telecourse designed together wholly or partially. At still higher
levels of ambition, it could involve a collaborative research
project, book, or any other creative work.
The most immediate need, I would think, involves broad bipartisan
sponsorship of the initiative. The important qualification of participants
should be their commitment to genuinely empower the people to become
disciplined masters of their own shared future.
Libraries and public interest groups I know, who could be expected to
commit themselves to such an exercise in people power with enlightened
good will, may be interested in signing on to such an undertaking. Your
thoughts?
Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access.digex.net>