Final report of Web-based Education Commission

<<December 30, 2000>>
Archived distributions can be retrieved by clicking on the top lines of our home page at <http://www.friends-partners.org/GLOSAS/>.

Steve McCarty <steve@kagawa-jc.ac.jp>

David S. Byer <david_byer@ed.gov>

Irene K. Spero <irene_spero@ed.gov>

Dr. Marco Antonio R. Dias <mardias@club-internet.fr>

P. Tapio Varis, Ph.D, Professor <tapio.varis@uta.fi>

Dr Mir Asghar Husain <ma.husain@unesco.org>

Mr. Riaz Hamidullah <rhamidullah@yahoo.com>

Atsuko Toyama <toyama@nmwa.go.jp>

Yuki Ota <otay@nmwa.go.jp>

Dear Steve:
===========

(1) Many thanks for your msg (ATTACHMENT I) about the final report of the
Web-Based Education Commission.

Dear E-Colleagues:
==================

Previous list distributions on this are;

1. Web-Based Education Commission final report on 12/19 - December 14, 2000

2. Final report of the Web-based Education Commission - December 6, 2000

3. Additional material for our E-Testimony to Congress - September 24, 2000

4. E-Testimony for US Congress on GUS, GBI and GSTF projects - September 19, 2000

5. Proposal of E-Testimony for Web-Based Education Commission - September 16, 2000

All of the above can be retrieved at:

http://www.friends-partners.org/~utsumi/gu-l/mid-2000/index.html

Dear David and Irene:
=====================

(2) I downloaded its PDF file and read it through with great interest.

You have done very good job -- it is simply superb!! My sincere congratulations to you!!

Dear E-Colleagues:
==================

(3) Although, as Steve says, this is for US domestic, I strongly suggest
that you read it through. This can be a good reference material to
those people in developing countries.

(4) Also, as ATTACHMENT II says, this affirms and encourages what we have
been doing for the past decades. It says;

(a) E-learning is to be the centerpiece of the US federal education
policy -- this should also be in every other countries in the 21st century.

(b) THINK BIG -- as Marco said to Tapio and me when we visited him at
UNESCO in January of 1999.

(c) It sees the future of broadband wirelss Internet, especially for
the last-mile" linkage in rural/remote areas, as we have been advocating this.

(d) It commends the community approach with collaboration and
partnerships to share the costs, and hence the need for the
national mobilization to promote e-learning.

(e) It proposes a similar idea as our Global Service Trust Fund (GSTF)
project for sustainable development, including content development
and teacher training, etc. (This report calls it Learning
Technology Trust Fund.") This is also to be achieved by
aggregating market force to reduce the costs of telecom, hardware, software, and so on.

(f) Global demand for higher education is forecast to reach 160 million students in 2025.

(g) The global market for e-learning is estimated at $300 billion and
is expected to grow to $365 billion by 2003.

(h) We also learned that the most important ingredient is not money.
It is the presence of a local hero or heroes with the vision,
courage, and stamina to challenge the status quo. "Absent this
ingredient, more money will be of little benefit."

Dear Asghar:
============

(5) Our Global University System (GUS) project is to help our colleagues in
developing countries accelerating their attaining similar status as the US as soon as possible.

I would like to discuss about it with you and your colleagues at the
UNESCO/Paris on 1/12th, especially our projects in the Philippines,
Manaus/Amazon/Brazil, Ukraine, etc. (ATTACHMENT III).

BTW, I am meeting with the UN Ambassador from Bangladesh on 1/1st
and a colleague from Nigeria on 1/4th. I will report you about their projects as well.

Dear Ms. Toyama and Ohta:
=========================

(6) Many thanks for your msg informing me about the URL to obtain a report
made by the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI)
(in Japanese), which, I presume, is the policy setting along the
Information Technology (IT) Revolution movement of Prime Minister Mori's cabinet.

Dear Japanese E-Colleagues:
===========================

This report can be obtained at the MITI's web site
<http://www.miti.go.jp/>. It is dated on August of this year, and
can be found in the section of soliciting opinions for policies.

(7) I found that some of their issues, e.g., copyright, intellectual
property, consumer protection, etc., are quite same as the ones
discussed in the final report of the US Web-based Education Commission.

(8) This report admits that;

(a) Japan is now way behind on the use of Internet -- even behind of
Hong Kong and Singapore.

(b) Japan needs to make "creative destruction" of
"conventional/traditional" structures which is to be replaced with
new cyberspace society structure.

This relates to paradigm shift of Japanese culture which has
been urged by many westerners for many years. If Japan can
accomplish the promotion of Internet use appropriately,
Japan will be saved from free falling of its economy, as this report wishes.

Shintaro Ishihara, the governor of Tokyo, now advocates this
anti-foreign." BTW, he once wrote a book with Mr. Morita
of SONY saying that, when there would be a war between the
US and Japan, Japan would win the war. This is because the
US cannot send their missiles to Japan since Japan would
have stopped exporting computer chips for the missiles. I
simply appalled with his ignorance since the basic design of
most of major technologies of Japanese industries are
imported from the US, as I made many of their importation
from the US to Japan, including important software
engineering tool which was purchased by the main research
center of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) as one of
their first three procurements from overseas almost two decades ago.

(9) I would like to suggest that you recommend the Japanese Ministry of
Education (your former office) to do the similar work as the US
Web-based Education Commission has done.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Best, Tak
****************************************
ATTACHMENT I

Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 14:16:46 +0900
To: utsumi@columbia.edu
From: Steve McCarty <steve@kagawa-jc.ac.jp>
Subject: Web-based Education Commission's Report Released

Dr. Utsumi,
The US Web-based Education Commission has released its final report:
"The Power of the Internet for Learning: Moving from Promise to Practice"

> the most comprehensive congressional analysis to date on e-learning at the
> K-12, higher education, and corporate training levels.

At the Website below you can view the 12/19/00 press conference
with Real Player and view the report either by downloading it in pdf
format for Adobe's Acrobat Reader or as simple text files on the Web.
The latter are difficult to read, so I suggest copying and pasting each
section temporarily into a word-processing program and formatting it
as you prefer.

Although applicable mostly to the U.S., I do recommend reading the
report. While access was recognized as most basic, their first
conclusion was to expand broadband Internet for education. They
also identified English as a Second Language as an area needing
more work on the Web. Professional development of educators
was also recognized as the key to applying technology to education.
That certainly affirms the mission of our volunteer organizations.

See: http://interact.hpcnet.org/webcommission/index.htm

Collegially,
Steve
****************************************
ATTACHMENT II

Excerpt from
The New York Times
<http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/20/technology/20EDUCATION.html>

December 20, 2000

Commission Sets Plan for Improving Educational Technology

By REBECCA S. WEINER

[P]olicymakers and educators must work to increase access
to high-speed networks, improve teacher training, lift
regulatory barriers and determine which
education-technology methods work best, a congressional
commission charged with examining the issue said on Tuesday.

"Technology offers tremendous potential for improving the
delivery of education," said Web-based Education
Commission Chairman Sen. Bob Kerrey, Democrat of Nebraska.
"But we also heard there are still significant barriers to
learning in a Web environment."

The commission issued seven recommendations in its
165-page report, capping a yearlong process of examining
how the Internet could be better used in educational
settings. Those recommendations in many ways echo what
education-technology experts have been saying for years.

"This is not us coming and trying to impose solutions,"
Kerrey said. "This is answering a call for help. We expect
schools to prepare students for the technology savvy
workforce our economy demands."

Rep. Johnny Isakson, Republican of Georgia, said he plans
to work with Democrats in Congress to introduce bipartisan
legislation to address the commission's recommendations.
Isakson, the vice-chairman of the commission, said he
would take the lead in pursuing the commssion's goals
since Kerrey is retiring from the Senate.

Those goals revolve around the seven recommendations made
in the commission's report: Increased access to broadband,
or high-speed Internet connections; more intensive
technology teacher training; research into the best uses
of technology in education; development of quality
content; protection for online learners; increased funding
and removal of outdated regulations.

While the commission's report may echo some educators'
urgings, it is understandably finding less support among
those critical of the use of technology in education. One
such group, the Maryland-based Alliance for Childhood,
questioned the commission's conclusions that more funding
is needed to expand the Internet's use in schools.

The group issued a report earlier this year - "Fool's
Gold: A Critical Look at Computers in Childhood" - in
which they called for a moratorium on expanding the use of
computers in elementary schools until more research is
conducted into the effects of computer-based-learning on
young children. The American Academy of Pediatrics and
Learning in the Real World, another group skeptical of
technology in schools, also recently announced plans to
fund research into how computers impact the development of
young children.

"How many other educational needs will we have to strip
from children to pay for this," said Colleen Cordes,
co-editor of Alliance's report. Responding to a question
from Cordes about the wisdom of expanding the reach of
technology in education, Kerrey claimed the small amount
dedicated to funding technology for schools amounts to a
virtual moratorium.

"Take the most technology-rich school district in America
and compare it to any corporation," he said. "We
effectively have a moratorium."

Any arbitrary moratorium would also be unfair to
low-income students, said commission member Rep. Chaka
Fattah, Democrat of Pennsylvania.

"We've known for a long time the advantages of
technology," Fattah said. "In low-income communities,
technology can make up some of the gaps. We should not
close our eyes to what we already know."

The Department of Education's top technology policymaker agreed.

"It isn't that technology is the silver bullet, it's the
way in which we choose to use it," said Linda Roberts,
director of the department's Office of Educational Technology.

Isakson said there are steps lawmakers could take
immediately to ease the use of technology in schools which
would require no additional funding.

"There are many regulatory barriers that were not intended
to be barriers that are now obstacles to learning on the Web," Isakson said.

The regulatory hurdles to online learning include a
federal "seat-time" requirement, under which hight school
students must spend a specific amount of time in a
classroom environment in order to receive federal aid for
college. The Education Department has currently waived the
requirements for 15 distance learning programs and is
considering adding another 35 as part of a demonstration
project Congress approved as part of a 1998 amendment to
the Higher Education Act.

Former Rep. Patricia Schroeder, Democrat of Colorado, who
is now CEO of the Association of American Publishers, said
the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act has created
barriers for software publishers looking to create
individualized products for students. She suggested that
an educational exemption be created. Schroeder also said
current copyright laws - written well before the advent of
the Internet - inhibit the creation of new education content.

From: "Husain, Mir Asghar" <Ma.Husain@unesco.org>
To: "'utsumi@friends-partners.org'" <utsumi@friends-partners.org>
Cc: "Draxler, Alexandra" <a.draxler@unesco.org>, "Rose, John" <j.rose@unesco.org>,
"Seddoh Komlavi, Francisco" <K.Seddoh@unesco.org>,
=?iso-8859-1?Q?=22Wachholz=2C_C=E9dric=22?= <C.Wachholz@unesco.org>,
"Wiesner, Hillary" <H.Wiesner@unesco.org>
Subject: RE: Inquiry to visit UNESCO/Paris on 1/12th (Friday)
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 18:43:56 +0100

Dear Tak,
Thank you for below e-mail.
RE: (2) - I will indeed be interested in meeting with you in Paris
to hear about your ongoing projects. I suggest that we get together in my
office (UNESCO Fontenoy, office NO. 3.081) on Friday 12 January 2000, from
2:00 to 3:00 p.m. I should like to take this opportunity to invite my
colleagues Ms Draxler, Mr Rose, Mr Seddoh, Mr Wachholz and Ms Wiesner to join us.
I look forward to meeting with you soon.
Happy New Year and best regards,
Asghar
****************************************
List of Distribution

Steve McCarty
Professor, Kagawa Junior College
President, World Association for Online Education (WAOE)
3717-33 Nii, Kokubunji, Kagawa 769-0101, JAPAN
+81-877-49-8041 (office, direct line), Fax: +81-877-49-5252
steve@kagawa-jc.ac.jp, steve_mc@kagawa-jc.ac.jp
mccarty@mail.goo.ne.jp -- web mail
WAOE: http://www.waoe.org
Website Map: http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve/
Japanese home page: http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve_mc/
English home page: http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve_mc/presence.html
Online publications (an Asian Studies WWW Virtual Library 4-star site):
In Japanese: http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve_mc/jpublist.html
In English: http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve_mc/epublist.html
http://www.asiasource.org/experts/ax_mp_03.cfm?expertid=1944
Fundamental Projects of Dr. Takeshi Utsumi [Japanese-English]:
http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve_mc/asia-pacific/projects-ej.html
http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve_mc/asia-pacific/projects-j.html (Japanese)
Global University System Asia-Pacific Framework:
http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve_mc/asia-pacific/index.html
Global University System Mid-2000 Correspondence:
http://www.friends-partners.org/~utsumi/gu-l/mid-2000/index.html

David S. Byer
Executive Director
Web-based Education Commission
U.S. Department of Education
1990 K Street, NW
Washington, DC 20006-8533
USA
Tel: (202) 502-7561
Fax: (202) 502-7873
david_byer@ed.gov
http://interact.hpcnet.org/webcommission/index.htm

Irene K. Spero
Director, External Relations
Web-based Education Commission
6th Floor
1990 K Street, NW
Washington, DC 20006
(202) 219 7058
(202) 502 7675 (fax)
irene_spero@ed.gov
http://www.webcommission.org
http://interact.hpcnet.org/webcommission/index.htm

Dr. Marco Antonio R. Dias
Vice President, Global University System
Consultant of United Nations University
Former Director, Division of Higher Education of UNESCO
36, Rue Ernest Renan
92.190 Meudon
FRANCE
Tel: +33-1-45 34 3509
+33-1-45-68-3009 (UNU office in Paris)
Fax: +33-1-45 34 3509
mardias@club-internet.fr
marcoantoniodias@yahoo.com
m.dias@unesco.org

P. Tapio Varis, Ph.D, Professor
Acting President, Global University System
Chairman, GLOSAS/Finland
Professor and Chair
Media Culture and Communication Education
Hypermedia laboratory
University of Tampere
P.O.Box 607
FIN-33101 Tampere
FINLAND
Tel: +358-3-215 6110
Tel: +358-3-614-5247--office in Hameenlinna
Tel: +358-3-215 6243--mass media lab in Tampere
GSM: +358-50-567-9833
Fax: +358-3-215 7503
tapio.varis@uta.fi
http://www.uta.fi/~titava

Dr Mir Asghar Husain
Director
Director, Division of Educational Policies and Strategies
UNESCO
ma.husain@unesco.org

Mr. Riaz Hamidullah
Permanent Mission of Bangladesh to UN
821 UN Plaza 8th floor
New York, NY
1-212-867-3434, 3435, 3436, 3437
rhamidullah@yahoo.com

Atsuko Toyama
Director General
The National Museum Of Western Art
7-7, Ueno-Koen
Taito-Ku, Tokyo
110-0007 Japan
Tel: 03-3828-5133
Fax: 03-3828-5135
toyama@nmwa.go.jp

Yuki Ota
otay@nmwa.go.jp
**********************************************************************
* Takeshi Utsumi, Ph.D., P.E., Chairman, GLOSAS/USA *
* (GLObal Systems Analysis and Simulation Association in the U.S.A.) *
* Laureate of Lord Perry Award for Excellence in Distance Education *
* Founder of CAADE *
* (Consortium for Affordable and Accessible Distance Education) *
* President Emeritus and V.P. for Technology and Coordination of *
* Global University System (GUS) *
* 43-23 Colden Street, Flushing, NY 11355-3998, U.S.A. *
* Tel: 718-939-0928; Fax: 718-939-0656 (day time only--prefer email) *
* Email: utsumi@columbia.edu; Tax Exempt ID: 11-2999676 *
* http://www.friends-partners.org/GLOSAS/ *
**********************************************************************

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