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BANGKOK PROJECT:
From bancmc-m@acs.ucalgary.ca Wed Oct 14 09:44:48 1992
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 8:39:01 MDT
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 studentsto 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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