Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 16:14:42 -0500
From: Jose Brenes <jbrenes@cariari.ucr.ac.cr>
To: utsumi@www.friends-partners.org, jbrenes@cariari.ucr.ac.cr
Subject: CEntral America Present

Dear Tak

It has taken me a while to write to you after TAMPERE conference. I wanted to have something meaninful to say.

Let me first thank you for letting me share such a educating experience as EGEDL 99 Conference was. No doubt, one thing is to read what those people write, and quite another was to spent time together and find out about ourselves. Make this thankful message to Tapio Varis and his wife, for his intersting insights into Costa Rican life now and then.

Have no regrets of having spent two months salary of my own to be up there. Learn quite a bit by being with all of you, and that includes, of course, you and your wonderful wife.

EGEDL 99, for me, meant a starting point for some of my projects that for quite sometime have tried to start, but lacked the professional know how, and the backing I have received since then.

Let me start by thanking you for letting me the floor and present the idea of a science and technology Central American university, which may be the project for Central America that will come out from EGEDL 99. Un undeserved honor which I will try to make a reality, at least partially.

Thanks also to John Hibbs for guiving me insides as to what electronic distance education is in reality, and about what the american enterprise world really looks like. He continues helping by inviting me to be part of Columbus Day.

Roger Boston was also instrumental, by his sharing the template, which is now being used down (up?) here. He was instrumental in getting two friends (Colette and myself) back in touch, and start what I expect to be a very productive cooperation. September 7 (next week that is) we may start a whole semester of sweat and tears, but also joys of working together toward a common goal.

Di Martino played a very important role by being a bridge between ILO and UCR, and likely found some of the needed hardware support to continue moving ahead.

These are but a few of the names I could list in this message to show you that, for me, it was not a waste of time to visit TAMPERE

With respect to work being done, let me give you the following news:

a) Have doewloaded Boston's template, and almost all of the extra software required to make it run. After doing this, I talked for quite a while with the nurse group, now increased in number and quality, and are
in the process of finding computers to make use of it. For the time being my personal computer will be the only hardware we will have at hand.

Already found a small office to place it, so that the rest of the team may have access to it, and start producing some Power Point material, to be eventually used in a distance trainning course we are preparing.

b) Colette has invited us to be one of the 25 sites in her experiment. Thanks Colette for such an honor. Although we only have a week to prepare, we will be there. That will be a glorious ocassion to get experience with Roger's template and gauge its impact on 5 people that will cramm around my computer. Will try to get a picture of them. Political Science Department Director is now trying to chose the people, and find extra support for this adventure. Will see if a 486 available could be used as a back up.

c)A colleague of mine, who by himself thought of producing web pages to teach physics, is now fighting for his turn to use the PC to start producing. No doubt knowing he is not alone and that he is using a web page proved by experience, has put more energy and interest in his baby idea.

d) Columbus Day will be a test for all, for we plan to be awake for about 12 hours, at least. We will tell you more about it afterwards.

e) As for the Central American project, I am working on it, and will soon send it to you. Have found out that some of the info it was based on has changed a bit, and some adjustments have to be made. Will send you an electronic draft in a few days, for you to comment on.

One of such changes regards the role Nicraguan and Panama network may play in it. I have laerned that although before both systems were part of Costa Rican network, now they are independent, and they uplink independently from us. I am already invited next November to a Central American meeting to discuss uses of Web pages in distance teaching.,

Also would like to inform you that today a new parabolic anthena, totally built in Costa Rica is being set up at Universidad de Costa Rica, for downlink purposes only. Uplink continues to be a monopoly. Downlink capacity will start with 1 MEGA, and total installed capacity can reach up to 10 MEGA. Internet 2 may be naerer than expected. Our uplink is at this moment 512 Kbps, at Universidad de Costa Rica

As you can see things are moving.

Last but not least: our main stumbling block at this moment is lack of hardware. Should you know of any address we can write to in order to negotiate some computers for our project I would be delighted to write to those people and see what we can agree upon.

Well Tak, we met at last, and hopefully start a new stage of cooperation wityhin CAADE and Global University.

Best regards from all of us in Costa Rica

Jose Brenes Andre

Back to

[ Top of this page | GLOSAS home page | List of Activities ]