Transcript Organizational Overview

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Ethics in Distance Education
and Open Learning
Special Presidential Session
with
Fredric Litto; Federico Mayor; Noah
Samara; Jan Visser; Lya Visser
05/04/01
ICDE 2001 - Düsseldorf
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Ethics in Distance Education
and Open Learning
Organizer:
Learning Development Institute
Chair:
Jan Visser
Panelists:
Fredric Litto
Federico Mayor
Noah Samara (physically absent)
Lya Visser
Follow-up: [email protected]
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I strongly regret that I am not able to join you this morning in Dusseldorf.
A matter of paramount importance to WorldSpace Corporation requires
my immediate and direct attention. Please know, if there were any way I
could be with you, I would make it happen.
In a conference impressive for its scope and depth, Jan Visser had
assembled a panel of unique importance. For months, I have been
anticipating the opportunity to take part in Jan's panel on Ethics in
Distance Education. In particular, I had been looking forward to raising
the ethical concept of providing "the greatest good to the greatest
number of people." This idea is at the core of our work at WorldSpace.
Although I cannot be with you, I hope the concept of providing education
to the greatest possible population - and doing so in a way that provides
practical and economic access - will be one of the subjects the panel
considers.
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Noah Samara 3
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A search of the literature and WWW
reveals little explicit concern with
ethical questions among community
of DE & OL professionals
Our aim: Correct this situation.
Put ethics on the agenda of the DE &
OL professional community
Initiate debate (not only in this session)
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Ethics is something very practical
“The discipline concerned with what is
morally good and bad, right and wrong.”
(Encyclopaedia Britannica)
Relates directly to decision-making, but
at a more comprehensive level than that
of many of our other considerations.
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Ethics in context of human learning
Two levels of definition:
Narrow definition: Change in human
performance capability.
Broad definition: Unending dialogue of
human beings with themselves, with
their fellow human beings, and with their
environment at large, allowing them to
participate constructively in processes
of ongoing change.
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Decision-making, i.e. ethical
considerations, at different levels
This panel:
Learning process level
Institutional level
Level of global policies and issues
Global infrastructure level
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Procedures
Introductory brief statements by
panelists.
Dialogue, involving the panelists as
much as the audience.
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Lya Visser
• Program Professor in the Instructional
Technology and Distance Education
programs of Nova Southeastern
University, Florida, USA
• Researcher in the area of Motivational
Communication in Distance Education
Support
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Fredric Litto
• President of the Brazilian Association of
Distance Education
• Scientific Coordinator of the School of
the Future, University of Sao Paulo,
Brazil
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Federico Mayor
• President of the Foundation for a Culture
of Peace
• Professor at the Center for Molecular
Biology at the Autonomous University of
Madrid, Spain
• Past Director-General (1987-1999) of the
United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
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Key phrases for discussion
• Communication infrastructure must seek to create “greatest
good to greatest number.”
• (Un)ethical behavior diffuses among people and organizations.
• Learning throughout life for all is ethical priority.
• Distance education more than a product.
• Increasing focus on technology may decrease attention to ethical
concerns.
• Issues of planetary scope require global learning communities
that build global vision. Distance education can facilitate such
communities.
• Distance education requires equivalent of ‘Dublin Core.’
• Those who facilitate other people’s learning must be driven by
ethical concerns.
• Ethics implies memory; the capacity to compare; to think
critically, create and anticipate. The good of the Internet should
be available to all. Its use must build these faculties.
• For centuries we have been living in a culture of imposition and
force, and people have paid the price of war and violence. Let's
now evolve towards a culture of peace, tolerance, dialogue and
understanding.
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thank you
Federico mayor
FREDRIC LITTO
LYA VISSER
NOAH SAMARA (IN ABSENTIA)
Jan visser
05/04/01
jvisser @ learndev.org
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