The ICT Literacy Portal www.ictliteracy.info has been hosting ICT literacy virtual conferences and meetings in collaboration with our partner Learning Times for the past two and a half years. Many of you and your organizations have participated. The response to this type of meeting/conference has been most positive, and the technology is neither complicated nor expensive to use. However, it takes time and patience for the "digital immigrants" to become comfortable in this virtual conferencing environment.
Many participants from developing countries regularly participate using even dial up access and basic technology. Most recently, we held a virtual conference over 3 days from Costa Rica for the EDC Power Users of ICT (in parallel with the physical conference) with registrants participating from around the world - including teams of kids from many countries who had no problem with the virtual venue! It enabled many more researchers and educators and students to participate in the conference proceedings - without costs for travel, hotel, etc. Also, we were able to get some great guest speakers who would have been otherwise unable to participate due to time and distance constraints. Learning Times and Kempster Group advocate using the tools of ICT to communicate the message, and invite you and your groups to join our ICT Literacy community site and feel free to use the ICT Meeting room for your discussions www.ictliteracy.info. Feel free to contact us if you want more information, or even would like us to set up a live demo or special topic meeting with you to help others understand and become familiar with the virtual conferencing capability. Regards, Brenda Brenda Kempster President KEMPSTER GROUP phone: 760 674-8919 California fax: 760 674- 8937 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.kempstergroup.com www.ictliteracy.info ----- Original Message ----- From: John Hibbs To: The Digital Divide Network discussiongroup Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2005 7:51 AM Subject: [DDN] Virtual conferences At 3:26 PM -0500 9/15/05, Taran Rampersad wrote: >John Hibbs wrote: >Why is an ICT conference not held virtually? Why do I have to travel > to Washington to participate? or listen? or view? What century do we > live in? 15 Sep 2005 15:26:11 -0500 Taran Rampersad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >So that's where I left my drum! :-) Maybe it's just not easy enough >for people to organize a conference virtually yet... or maybe they >don't know how easy it is? Subscribers to the leading listserv in the distance education world have heard me beat this drum for almost a decade. The largest, most prestigious (?) distance ed conferences have very little virtual component; yet the leaders talk the talk about the wonders of their deliveries. My wee voice has been a lonely one. Perhaps the DDN should take up one more cudgel -- that it should beat up on those who hold large physical conferences advocating ICT; but are unwilling to offer same virtually? If we at the "leading edge" don't walk the walk -- who will? -- John W. Hibbs http://www.bfranklin.edu/johnhibbs _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
