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Browsing 06. Speeches & Presentations by Author "D'Antoni, Susan"
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PublicationeLearning and Free Open Source Software: the Key to Global Mass Higher Education?( 2006-01-04)As you can see, this paper is a product of collaboration between COL and UNESCO and each of the authors brings a different perspective to the subject of this address, which is eLearning and Free Open Source Software: The Key to Global Mass Higher Education? Our aim is to address a major challenge of the 21st century. Can we give billions of poor people access to post-secondary education? Can we connect technology to teaching and learning for their benefit? We shall explore eLearning in a global context through a wide-angle international lens. -
PublicationICTs in Education: Can Digital Dividend Replace Digital Divide?( 2005-09-01)WITFOR CONFERENCE Gaborone, Botswana 1 September 2005 ICTs in Education: Can Digital Dividend Replace Digital Divide? By: Sir John Daniel, Paul West (Commonwealth of Learning) Susan D'Antoni (UNESCO-IIEP) and Stamenka Uvalić-Trumbić (UNESCO) // The themes of this WITFOR [World Information Technology Forum] conference include Building the Infrastructure and Education and I shall concentrate on those two themes this morning. My title is ICTs in Education: Can Digital Dividend Replace Digital Divide. This session also highlights collaboration between international intergovernmental organisations. I am giving a practical example of such collaboration because I have prepared this keynote address with three co-authors. // First is Susan D'Antoni of UNESCO's International Institute for Educational Planning. Through the virtual forum that she has organised on virtual universities and similar events that she is planning for the future, Susan is helping to create a global community of practice in online learning. // Stamenka Uvaliæ-Trumbiæ, my former colleague at the UNESCO Secretariat in Paris, heads UNESCO's unit that deals with reform, innovation and quality assurance in higher education. Most recently she has guided the joint work of UNESCO and the OECD on the development of guidelines for the quality assurance of cross-border higher education. // The third co-author is Paul West, a South African colleague at the Commonwealth of Learning who guides our work in knowledge management. One of Paul's objectives is to help people in developing countries use online learning to expand the scope, scale and impact of education and training. For this reason he is particularly interested in discovering how the range of technologies that are used in developing countries can contribute to the learning experience. // The four of us are united by a common aim, which is to promote development through learning. Eradicating the grinding poverty that scars much of our contemporary world is not a simple phenomenon. In many places the notions of information or knowledge societies seem like mirages - or at best realities on the distant horizon. // Specifically we shall focus on online learning, or eLearning, which is currently a major manifestation of ICTs in education. We shall look at government interest in eLearning; barriers to eLearning that require a coordinated response; recommendations for coordination between partners; and what educational leaders can do to promote eLearning. // The fundamental question we shall try to answer appears in our title. Can digital dividend replace digital divide in the developing world? We shall focus particularly on post-secondary education: not because it is the most important level of education but because success there will spread through the education system. So how can we make eLearning a bridge across the digital divide?
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PublicationInternational Online Learning Delivery: Can Digital Dividend Replace Digital Divide?( 2005-06-28)International Online Learning Delivery: Can digital dividend replace digital divide? 28 June 2005, Calgary, Alberta, Canada By: Sir John Daniel, Paul West (Commonwealth of Learning), Susan D'Antoni (UNESCO-IIEP) and Stamenka Uvalić-Trumbić (UNESCO) // The theme of this conference is connecting technology with teaching and learning and its purpose is to identify and discuss policy issues and challenges as they relate to post-secondary eLearning. Our first aim is to flag the greatest of these challenges, which is to give billions of poor people access to post-secondary education. Can we connect technology to teaching and learning for their benefit? We shall explore eLearning in a global context through a wide-angle international lens, interpreting 'international' to mean the whole world; not only the rich countries of the OECD. // Second, we shall set the stage for the afternoon session by commenting on its four discussion topics. These are: 1) government interest in eLearning; 2) barriers to eLearning that require a coordinated response; 3) recommendations for coordination between partners; and, 4) our role, as educational leaders, in making this happen. // The larger question appears in our title. Can digital dividend replace digital divide in the developing world - at least in post-secondary education? How can we work in partnership to make eLearning a bridge across the digital divide?
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PublicationThe Long-Awaited Breakthrough?( 2005-07-26)MERLOT Annual Conference, The Long-Awaited Breakthrough? 26 July 2005, Nashville, TN, USA By: Sir John Daniel, Paul West (Commonwealth of Learning), Susan D'Antoni (UNESCO-IIEP) and Stamenka Uvalić-Trumbić (UNESCO) // I have entitled this keynote address The Long-Awaited Breakthrough because I believe that the combination of rapidly increasing connectivity across the world and the emergence of the concept of re-usable learning objects - specifically open educational resources - have tremendously hopeful implications for humankind.
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PublicationThe Role of eLearning in Building Knowledge Societies in Developing Countries( 2005-09-15)ASIAN ASSOCIATION OF OPEN UNIVERSITIES, Annual Conference 2005, Jakarta, Indonesia, 15 September 2005, Theme: Building Knowledge Society through Open and Distance Education, The Role of eLearning in Building Knowledge Societies in Developing Countries, written by: Sir John Daniel, Paul West (Commonwealth of Learning) Susan D'Antoni (UNESCO-IIEP) and Stamenka Uvalić-Trumbić (UNESCO), presented by Sir John Daniel // The four of us are united by a common aim, which is to promote development through learning. Eradicating the grinding poverty that scars much of our contemporary world is not a simple phenomenon. In many places the notion of a knowledge society seems like a mirage - or at best a reality on the distant horizon. // However, where people do aspire to join the knowledge society, education and training is the road they must take. We believe that eLearning, and in particular the sharing of re-usable learning objects, could help developing countries and their people leapfrog over some of the stages through which education has developed in industrialised countries. // We shall begin with the challenge of making higher education available to people everywhere. The open universities of Asia have done a tremendous job in helping their countries rise to this challenge and I congratulate you on your magnificent work. But remember, as we focus on higher education, that the challenges at other levels of education are even greater. There again, I congratulate the members of AAOU, perhaps particularly Allama Iqbal Open University and the Bangladesh Open University, for the very important work they are doing at the school level. // Second, we shall ask a crucial question for this conference. How important is eLearning in the toolkit of open and distance education? You all have established teaching and learning systems, which we call in our jargon multi-media distance learning systems. You cannot change your media mix overnight even if you wanted to. You have learned, as I have, that there is no one magic medium and that students like a mix of media. But you are all adding eLearning to your media mix. What are its special characteristics, its strengths and weaknesses? // Third, we shall examine the barriers to the development of eLearning and suggest how governments, institutions and individuals can combine forces to overcome them. // Fourth, we shall urge the open universities of Asia to be leaders in this endeavour and help to lead the world to a better future. You are all committed to development. Asia is becoming very rich in ICTs. At our meeting in China last year I was struck by the tremendous professional skill of our Chinese colleagues in using ICTs to support the AAOU conference and the development of China generally. Because of your working context, you in Asia are much better equipped than people in long-industrialised countries to help the developing world use eLearning effectively, efficiently and economically. // Joint creation of learning objects could forge links across the world because they call out for the pooling of expertise, notably between developing countries and their Diasporas around the globe.