A GLOSAS meeting was held January 3 and 4, 1996 at the University City Science Center (UCSC) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. The international group of attendees and presenters included members from Russia, Portugal, France, Canada, the U.S. and Brazil.
Using various virtual conferencing software packages and other technologies, a global group of presenters shared information on the application of technology to distance education. Meeting attendees were provided with overviews of:
Dr. Takeshi Utsumi and Mrs. Hisae Utsumi were kindly invited to give a talk and a demonstration at the sixth Simposio Brazileiro de Informatica na Educacao held by the Sociedade Brasileira de Computacao (SBC) and the Universidade Federal de Santa Cataria (UFSC) in Florianopolis, Brazil from November 22 to 24, 1995. While in Brazil, Dr. Utsumi also had the opportunity to visit with educators interested in future Brazilian distance education projects, some of whom are currently involved in using educational technology.
Dr. Utsumi gave a one hour talk and a one and a half hour demonstration on November 24. In his talk, Dr. Utsumi outlined the goals and projects of GLOSAS and GLOSAS related organizations -- the Global (Electronic) University (GU) and the Consortium for Affordable and Accessible Distance Education (CAADE). Past Global Lecture Hall activities were also highlighted, and an announcement was made about the upcoming GLH to be held in Budapest, Hungary in August 1996.
Dr. Utsumi's session included demonstrations of ShareVision via POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) and CU-SeeMe as well as viewings of video tape clips of the KarlNet demonstration from the GLH in October 1995 and of the ShareView (a predecessor of ShareVision), MBONE (Multicast backBONE), "Friends and Partners"/WWW and CU-SeeMe demonsrations from the GLH held in July 1994. Peter Knight also gave a presentation about the World Bank's InfoDev program.
Because of POTS line noise, the ShareVision demonstration failed; however, a simulation of ShareVision was still possible. This was the first time a GLOSAS related demonstration with ShareVision via POTS had failed. The experience highlights the need for a portable dish antenna via INMARSAT (satellite) to circumvent such difficulties in less developed countries where there are no adequate analog telephone networks.
Because the telecommunications line between UFSC and Sao Paulo supports only 64 Kbps, the CU-SeeMe connection with the College of Staten Island could not be established; but a point-to-point demonstration between the conference room and a nearby workshop room was possible.
While in Brazil, Dr. Utsumi visited Servico Nacional de Aprendizagem Industrial (SENAI), a nonprofit industrial training organization supported by numerous industries in Brazil. He invited them to demonstrate Share- Vision via INMARSAT with UNESCO's Paris office during the August 1996 GLH. He also suggested that they might use KarlNet's 2 Mbps (or 20 Mbps, if necessary) wireless telecommunication technology to connect with UFSC (which is in line of sight).
Dr. Utsumi also had the opportunity to meet with representatives of EXTRA Graph (now TerrAvista Computer Arts -- see above). This group is developing supplemental materials, including educational software, in various disciplines to help high school students prepare for college entrance exams. Dr. Utsumi invited the group to demonstrate one of their projects (a three dimensional animation of electrons spinning around molecules in association/dissociation) during the GLH in August 1996.
Based on his experience in Brazil, Dr. Utsumi promotes the idea of making Florianopolis a model city in Latin America for wireless telecommunication based distance education. The 19.2 to 56 Kbps wireless radio technology demonstrated by Barry McLarnon in Ottawa, Canada (see above) could be used for this purpose. Once this telecommunications infrastructure was in place, CU-SeeMe could be accomplished locally; and FORUM computer mediated multimedia conferencing system could be utilized along with World Wide Web (WWW) links.
The next Global Lecture Hall (GLH)(TM) multipoint-to-multipoint multimedia interactive videoconference: "Spreading Spirit of Global Understanding to Every Corner of the World" will be held in Budapest, Hungary in August 1996. The last GLH (which was viewed form Japan to Finland) was held in October 1995 in San Jose, Costa Rica.
The Hungarian Fulbright Association and the Hungarian Fulbright Commission will hold an international conference ("The Spirit of Global Understanding") on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Fulbright exchange program and the 1100th anniversary of the Nation of Hungary in Budapest, Hungary August 14 to 18, 1996. In cooperation with the U.S. Fulbright Association Task Force on East Central Europe and the Former Soviet Union, GLOSAS/USA will assist Hungarian colleagues in organizing a large scale GLH, which will focus on electronic distance education used for environment protection and telemedicine. Proposed panelists include former President Jimmy Carter and former Surgeon General Dr. Everett Koop. The GLH will reach Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Rim countries, Latin America, Europe, Scandinavia, the Baltics, the former Soviet Union and Africa.
This Association conference will gather Fulbrighters from around the world, particularly from European countries. The GLH will demonstrate the possibility of electronic networking, not only among themselves, but also among institutions of higher education in Hungary and around the world for the promotion of collaborative research and development. This event will also initiate the formation of a Global University/Hungary consortium for electronic distance education course exchange with other countries. Inexpensive delivery systems demonstrated during the GLH, like ShareVision and BeingThere via ordinary telephone lines and/or via Internet, will then be applied to reaching underserved students in rural and remote areas of the U.S. and around the world.
Expected Outcomes:
Telecommunication technologies used in GLH demonstrations to date include satellites, CU-SeeMe, MBONE, other Internet based desktop conferencing packages and telephone based conferencing (from slow scan TV to fully integrated color, motion, audio and whiteboard packages) with an INTELSAT space segment complement. Recent configurations combining some of these media seemed impossibly complicated on paper but proved workable in practice.
Every GLH is an experiment in previously unexplored combinations of technologies. The objective is threefold:
These demonstrations have helped build a network of leaders in the global electronic distance education movement. Watch for more information in future issues of GLOSAS News.
For further information regarding GLOSAS activities, contact:
Takeshi Utsumi, Ph.D.
Laureate of Lord Perry Award for Excellence in Distance Education
Founder of CAAE (Consortium for Affordable and Accessible Distance
Education)
President, Global University in the U.S.A. (GU/USA),
A Divisional Activity of GLOSAS/USA,
(GLObal Systems Analysis and Simulation Association in the U.S.A.)
43-23 Colden Street, Flushing, NY 11355-3998, U.S.A.
Tel: 718-939-0928
Fax: 718-939-0656 (day time only--prefer email)
INTERNET: utsumi@columbia.edu
Tax Exempt ID: 11-2999676
Return to GLOSAS News Contents for this issue.
URL: http://library.fortlewis.edu/~instruct/glosas/recent61.htm
March, 1996
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.