One true test of a society is its power to inform and educate. Distance learning through satellite communications expands the impact of that power, and in order to succeed, a world wide satellite broadcasting system such as WORLDNET must communicate to its viewers information that is both new and relevant. Although WORLDNET does not use the virtual classroom to teach, it has established a virtual seminar. Some of the following WORLDNET programs that can be easily adapted to professional level distance learning include American Business English, Computer Literacy, American Business History, Law, Mathematics, Science and Health.
Another part of the WORLDNET Seminar focuses on a lively exchange of ideas among experts establishing the airwaves as a bridge to understanding and learning. We call this "interactive programming." In many industrial societies, vast resources are devoted to education. That capability can be put to great use in developing nations.
WORLDNET Television, at the United States Information Agency, has been in the business of international communications for ten years, and I can speak with authority on the potential of making university and professional training available globally. In the United States distance learning benefits those who are working, disabled, and for whom travel time is prohibitive. The United States benefitted enormously from the wholesale education of its people, and I believe that these initiatives for university-level distance learning will further advance the principle of global access to education. Universal access to education is key to participatory democracies. History will recognize the pioneers of distance education as the ones who turned that key to opening the door to democracy-building world wide.
Thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts with you. I look forward to hearing about your continued success in this exciting endeavor.
Charles W. Fox, Director
WORLDNET Television and Film Service
U.S. Information Agency
Transcript provided by
Michael Braxton, AF Coordinator
WORLDNET Television Film Service
601 D Street, N.W., #5010
Washington, D.C. 20547
MBraxton@usia.gov
Telephone: 202-501-7079, Fax: 202-208-7195
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URL: http://library.fortlewis.edu/~instruct/glosas/fox62.htm
March 1997
GLOSAS NEWS was orinally posted to the WWW at URL: http://library.fortlewis.edu/~instruct/glosas/cont.htm by Tina Evans Greenwood, Library Instruction Coordinator, Fort Lewis College, Durango, Colorado 81301, e-mail: greenwood_t@fortlewis.edu, and last updated May 7, 1999. By her permission the whole Website has been archived here at the University of Tennessee server directory of GLOSAS Chair Dr. Takeshi Utsumi from July 10, 2000 by Steve McCarty in Japan.