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05/04/01 ICDE 2001 - Düsseldorf 1
Ethics in Distance Education and Open Learning
Special Presidential Session
with
Fredric Litto; Federico Mayor; Noah
Samara; Jan Visser; Lya Visser
ICDE 2001 - Düsseldorf 205/04/01
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Organizer: Learning Development Institute
Chair: Jan Visser
Panelists: Fredric Litto
Federico Mayor
Noah Samara (physically absent)
Lya Visser
Follow-up: [email protected]
Ethics in Distance Education and Open Learning
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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.
Noah Samara
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05/04/01 ICDE 2001 - Düsseldorf 4http://www.learndev.org
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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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05/04/01 ICDE 2001 - Düsseldorf 18
thank youFederico mayor
FREDRIC LITTO
LYA VISSER
NOAH SAMARA (IN ABSENTIA)
jvisser @ learndev.org
Jan visser
