06. Speeches & Presentations
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Browsing 06. Speeches & Presentations by Subject "Collaboration"
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PublicationCollaborate, Complement and Connect( 2019-01-24)Presented by Dr Venkataraman Balaji, Vice-President, Commonwealth of Learning, at the Education Ministers Action Group (EMAG), London, UK, 24 January 2019. -
PublicationCollaboration for the Common Good( 2011-10-31)Launch of the UNESCO ICT Competency Framework for Teachers (ICT CFT) (Partnership: UNESCO/COL Joint Work Plan), UNESCO 36th General Conference, UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, France, Monday 31 October 2011, Collaboration for the Common Good, Sir John Daniel, President & Chief Executive Officer Commonwealth of Learning (COL) // Having served as UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Education from 2001 to 2004 it is a pleasure to experience once again the excitement of a General Conference and to celebrate with you UNESCO’s achievements in integrating ICTs in Education. // Today we launch the ICT Competency Framework for Teachers. My colleagues have already put this important development in context and described to you the considerable success of the partnership that has emerged for the purpose. // The Commonwealth of Learning is delighted to be part of this enterprise. In the next few minutes I simply want to situate our involvement in the ICT Competency Framework for Teachers programme in the wider context of COL’s ongoing collaboration with UNESCO.
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PublicationCollaborative Leadership and Irrational Exuberance( 2011-02)Hamdan Bin Mohammed eUniversity – Annual Congress 2011, Theme: Being at the Leading Edge – How to give the Quest for Excellence a New Meaning, Virtual Executives Club Dinner, Theme: “Collaborative Leadership”, the Recovery Act and Beyond, Collaborative Leadership and Irrational Exuberance, Sir John Daniel Commonwealth of Learning // It is a pleasure to be in Dubai and I thank you for the honour of addressing your Virtual Executives Club. Your theme is Collaborative Leadership: the Recovery Act and Beyond and I have entitled my contribution Collaborative Leadership and Irrational Exuberance. // As your first speaker this evening after the Chancellor’s gracious welcome it may be useful if I define some terms and sound some warnings. You are experienced executives and know that writing about management and leadership is full of fads and fashions – some of them signifying nothing. Collaborative leadership is a trendy term, but what is it? To those whose image is the leader as hero, it sounds like a contradiction, what we call an oxymoron, when two opposites are juxtaposed. // After exploring collective leadership I shall talk about the dangers of groupthink and irrational exuberance. You know all about groupthink and irrational exuberance in the business sector here so I shall take a different example. You are the Virtual Executives Club, so I shall recall irrational exuberance in the virtual world, the online world which is the home of our host tonight, the Hamdan bin Mohammed eUniversity. // That will lead me to reflect on strategic planning. I will suggest what makes a good plan and how collaborative leadership helps to create one. I shall use universities as my example, but what I have to say will be relevant to your own attempts at collaborative leadership.
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PublicationDistance Education And The New Technologies( 1996-08-25)I have this challenge to describe to you in ten minutes the world of distance education - an educational sector that is probably the fastest growing in the world, has some 867 institutions, uses, both experimentally or developmentally, every known communication technology and reaches out to about 10 million off-campus learners in their homes, work places, clubs and regular classrooms. The past and present successes of distance education itself are good reasons for a longer discussion but the future direction of the practice and its enormous potential to educate the world would warrant at some point, a more in-depth consideration by this audience because in one way or another, distance educators are going to be working with broadcasters even more intensely than they have ever done before. In the ten minutes I have, let me make 9 points - six on the application of the technology to education and three on its implications to the practice.
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PublicationAn Education Forum at CHOGM 2018?( 2016-10-20)Presented by Professor Asha Kanwar, President and CEO, Commonwealth of Learning, on 20 October 2016 at the Education Forum Consultation meeting that was held to discuss the feasibility of an education forum at CHOGM 2018.
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PublicationExpanding Tertiary Education in Small States in an Economic Crisis: the Role of Collaboration( 2009-07-05)WORLD CONFERENCE ON HIGHER EDUCATION UNESCO July 5-8, 2009, Theme: Internationalisation, Regionalisation and Globalisation, Session: Globalisation and Higher Education in Small States: Opportunities and Threats, Sir John Daniel, Commonwealth of Learning // Small states face unique challenges in the era of globalisation. In higher education they have always been internationally oriented, because many of their citizens have traditionally gone for higher education overseas, often with state support. As progressively larger proportions of their young people seek higher education at a time when foreign exchange is in short supply because of deteriorations in terms of trade, this practice is unsustainable. Small states are now trying to provide more extensive higher education at home, which is a challenge when the population base is small. The first part of the paper explores the challenge of creating a university institution in a small state, looking particularly at those with populations of around 100,000. // Since small states make up two-thirds of the Commonwealth’s 53-nation membership they are a priority in its programmes. In 2000 the Minister of Education of these 32 small states asked for the assistance of the Commonwealth of Learning in setting up a Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth (VUSSC). This is not a new tertiary institution but a collaborative network through which countries and institutions work together to develop skills-related courses in eLearning formats – for use both in classrooms and by distance learning – and to build capacity in ICT skills for online collaboration. The VUSSC is the focus of the second part of the paper. // Nine years on the VUSSC is developing well, with strong ownership by the states themselves. Although the member states belong to four regions (Africa, Caribbean, Indian Ocean, Pacific) the VUSSC is global in nature. To facilitate international usage of the courses it has been successful in developing a Transnational Qualifications Framework managed by the states. The presentation highlights the lessons for internationalisation, regionalisation and globalisation from the VUSSC initiative.
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PublicationLaw, Language and Learning: The Common Wealth of the Commonwealth( 2005-03-14)Law, Language and Learning: The Common Wealth of the Commonwealth, Gala Reception Museum of Anthropology, UBC, Commonwealth Day - 14 March 2005, by: Sir John Daniel President & CEO, Commonwealth of Learning // It is my challenge and my privilege to work for the advancement of education in the Commonwealth as President of the Commonwealth of Learning. I begin with a few words about this unique organisation; one of Vancouver's best kept secrets. // First, the Commonwealth of Learning is the only intergovernmental organisation ever created in Canada. The Commonwealth Heads of Government set it up at their 1987 meeting held here in Vancouver. Canada won the subsequent competition to host COL and decided to locate it in Vancouver, so here we are. // Second, our location is unique amongst Commonwealth organisations. The two other intergovernmental agencies, the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Commonwealth Foundation, are both located in the UK, as are nearly all the pan-Commonwealth non-governmental organisations. Being located here in Canada gives us a different perspective on the Commonwealth, which is healthy. // Third, COL is the only international, intergovernmental organisation of any kind that focuses exclusively on helping countries to use technology to increase the scope and scale of education and training. Technology has already revolutionised many areas of life and our job is extend that revolution to learning.
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PublicationLearning to Live Together: Can Technology Help?( 2017-09-14)Presented via Skype by Professor Asha Kanwar, President & CEO, Commonwealth of Learning, at the The 9th Olympiad of the Mind, 14 September 2017, Chania, Crete, Greece. Co-written with Dr. K. Balasubramanian, Vice President and Alexis Carr, Research Coordinator, COL.
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PublicationMega-Schools and Technology: Lifelong Learning Systems for the 21st Century( 2009-10-16)International Forum on Open and Distance Education (30th anniversary celebration of the CCRTVU) Beijing, China 16/17 October 2009, Theme: Challenges and Opportunities for ODL in Lifelong Learning in a Global Financial and Economic Crisis, Sub-theme: Institutional Efficiency: New mission, value, strategies and policies, Keynote address: Mega-Schools and Technology: Lifelong Learning Systems for the 21st Century by Sir John Daniel and Ms. Frances Ferreira, Commonwealth of Learning // It is a pleasure to join you all in congratulating the CCRTVU on reaching the milestone of its 30th anniversary. This is a huge achievement and when I think of the tens of millions of people who have been empowered by higher education and training as a result of your work it puts our modest efforts in the rest of the world somewhat in the shade. // But having said that I am delighted that you have chosen to follow frequent practice elsewhere and refer to CCRTVU as the Open University of China. The first good reason for doing that is that tying the name of any educational institution to the teaching medium that it uses means that you will one day be overtaken by the onward march of technology. That applies just as much to terms like ‘virtual university’, ‘online university’ and ‘eUniversity’ as it does to names referring to television and radio.
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PublicationOpen and Distance Education in the Global Environment( 2005-11-19)Collaboration in the Time of Competition, Presented at: International Conference on Open and Distance Education International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) Theme: Open & Distance Education in the Global Environment: Opportunities for Collaboration, New Delhi, India, 19-23 November 2005, written by: Sir John Daniel, Asha Kanwar (Commonwealth of Learning), Stamenka Uvalić-Trumbić and Zeynep Varoglu (UNESCO) presented by Sir John Daniel // Our title is Collaboration in the Time of Competition. This paraphrases the title of a novel by the Columbian Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera3. In that remarkable book he juxtaposes love, the most sublime human emotion, with cholera, a dreaded and often mortal disease. Without aspiring to Marquez' literary brilliance we shall juxtapose the seemingly contradictory concepts of collaboration and competition. Is harnessing them together a paradox or a possibility? Is it rhetoric or reality? // Marquez draws parallels between the symptoms of love and those of cholera. At the end of the novel a quarantine of cholera makes eternal love possible. Less ambitiously, we shall try to demonstrate the symbiosis between collaboration and competition. We shall examine their roles in the recent history of distance education and look at collaboration today. A variety of successful international examples shows that collaboration is an essential underpinning to the healthy competition that can bring learning opportunities to millions. We shall end with comments on what makes collaboration successful. // From national to international: the evolving scope of distance education
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PublicationOpen Schooling: the International Perspective & Possibilities of Collaboration( 2009-10-13)National Institute for Open Schooling, Delhi, 13 October 2009, by Sir John Daniel and Ms. Frances Ferreira, Commonwealth of Learning // It is a pleasure to be here at NIOS for the first time and to congratulate your new Chair, Dr Jena, on his appointment. With the help of my co-author Frances Ferreira I am going to address the challenges and opportunities for ODL in secondary education. // The title you have given us is Open Schooling: The International Perspective & Possibilities of Collaboration. We shall argue that expanding secondary education is – or soon will be – the key priority for many developing countries. We shall also note that in a time of economic difficulty countries need to strive for greater efficiency and observe that in many countries secondary education is not at all efficient. This will lead us to propose the expansion of open schooling. // But we are not simply proposing the creation and expansion of open schools as a separate and distinct element within national school systems. We believe that open schools should be seen as catalysts for integrating all elements of schooling into an educational ecosystem fit for the 21st century.
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PublicationPartnership or Paternalism( 1996-08-13)There are many things about OUR century that we can be proud of. Colonialism is by and large gone and most countries are now independent; more and more people want to participate in making their communities work and the voice of and for human freedom is finding a hearing across the world; there are signs of perhaps global peace and security; human development generally seems to be on a fast course with the developing countries on a much faster pace than, say, that of industrialised countries in the last century, and the ingenuity of humans has led to many technological advancements in space, medicine, agriculture, information and communication. While we can and should commend ourselves on this progress, there is still a long list of deprivations, for example, the disparity between the rich and poor nations in terms of food, health care and social security is still large and increasing; there are now more conflicts within nations than between nations, and the social and political fabrics of many countries are beginning to disintegrate; the environment is largely endangered and our biodiversity at risk of massive erosion. It is still a world of great inequality.
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PublicationServing Together( 2022-03-08)“Serving Together” presented by Professor Asha Kanwar, COL President & CEO at the Opening Session of the 38th Commonwealth Diplomat’s Induction Programme, London, United Kingdom, 8 March 2022.
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PublicationWhy and How Ontario Colleges and Universities could/should Collaborate with Developing Countries in the Area of Online Learning( 2011-12-15)Presentation for ContactNorth/ContactNord, Ontario, Why and How Ontario Colleges and Universities could/should Collaborate with Developing Countries in the Area of Online Learning, 15 December 2011, Sir John Daniel, Commonwealth of Learning // I strongly encourage Ontario’s postsecondary institutions for collaborate with developing countries in online learning. It may well be that Ontario has more to learn from developing countries than the other way around.