From: sackman@sendit.NoDak.edu ((Gleason Sackmann))
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.edtech
Subject: Bangkock Project--Opening conferencing (fwd)
Date: 15 Oct 92 17:34:24 GMT
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Approved-By:  "EDTECH Moderator" <21765EDT@MSU.BITNET>

BANGKOK PROJECT:

Forwarded message:
From: RD_MASON@VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK
Subject:  Opening the discussion about conferencing

Hello and welcome to this conference about conferencing. . .

The amount of literature on conferencing and email has grown exponentially
since I was writing my PhD a few years ago.  However, almost all of it
concerns uses and research from North America and Britain.  Rosalie Wells, in
her recent Research Monograph, lists a number of educational conferencing
applications originating from or involving developing countries - Project
Orillas, Star Schools Project, University of the Virgin Islands, AUSEAnet,
CRAT/ARCT in Senegal, SDN in Korea, and Sulawesi Regional Development Project.

I thought it would be a very useful resource to collectively prepare as
complete a list as possible of conferencing/email applications.  What I am
hoping for is a description of these and other known examples with a contact
name and email address so that anyone who wants further details can follow it
up privately.

In addition to a fairly simple listing of applications, there are many issues
we can discuss involving the use of this technology in less developed
countries.

For example:

 - Are the problems and issues roughly the same in these applications as those
described extensively in the literature?
   (The following are some of the most common: problems of access to equipment,
learning to use communications and conferencing software, encouraging students
to be active participants in discussions, handling overload).

 - What effect do cultural differences have on conferencing behaviour either
amongst those in non-Western cultures and between Western and non-Western
cultures?

 - Is electronic networking an appropriate educational medium for developing
countries?

Obviously there is a grey area in defining 'developing countries'.  And even
within so-called developed countries there are areas as poor, as remote and as
disadvantaged as in developing countries.  I know, for instance, of a
conferencing application for poor Hispanics in New York City, another for very
remote students in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.  Let us not get
embroiled in arguments over what fits into the category and what doesn't - a
working distinction might be:
any use of conferencing or email which has all or a significant proportion
of its students NOT in mainstream educational institutions in  relatively
well-off locations.

I have no expertise in this aspect of electronic communication.  What I have is
an interest in investigating how universal a medium this is.  I hope we can
examine some of the issues together.

Robin Mason

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